#though an arquebusier would also be fire

[crusaderiguess]

What is something you've always wanted to do?

I’d love to visit so many places, but if I leave travel out the answer is to have/do a full 16th century infantryman cosplay.

[howtofightwrite]

Recently saw a post about streltsy. Was wondering on the upsides and downsides of using long guns and what is essentially a two handed axe at once.

Would you toss the gun to the side when the enemy got to close Or just hold it in one hand and use the axe one handed?

I can’t imagine it was terribly effective since we didn’t see copycat designs and formations all over the place…

So, an important piece of context, I'm not exceptionally familiar with the streltsy in particular. The streltsy were an early Russian gunpowder unit from around the 1550s until the 1700s. The name itself translates (basically) to “rifleman.” These were soldiers armed with arquebuses. Technically, the organization itself had both infantry and mounted units.

An important detail, that's not a two-handed axe, it's a bardache. These were a shorter polearm designed to function as a stabilizer for a handgun or arquebus. (Keep in mind, in this case, the “handgun,” refers to a longarm.) I'm not sure how many nations used this specific combination, but Russian and Polish forces both fielded units armed with arquebuses and bardaches. (I think the Austrians did as well, but I'm not certain of that.)

The general combination of melee and gunpowder was very prominent at this point in history, so in the contemporary context, the streltsy weren't that unusual.

Starting in the mid-fifteenth century, European militaries fielded “pike and shot” units and formations. The firearms of the time were single shot and required considerable time to reload. The were also not particularly accurate (by modern standards), and not particularly powerful. This created a situation where handgunners would be vulnerable while reloading. A number of units (including the streltsy) practiced various forms of volley fire, where one group of gunners would fire, and then fall back and reload while another line would step forward, and fire, before repeating the processes. However, even under the best circumstances, units of handgunners were vulnerable to melee infantry, and didn't have the firepower necessary to keep enemy soldiers from wandering over and poking them full of holes. The implementation of pike and shot was specifically intended to provide a counter to this. Instead of a unit of handgunners (or arquebusiers), pike and shot formations would include a mix of handgunners and pike infantry. If the enemy attempted to engaged the handgunners in melee, the pike infantry would move in and intercept those attackers. (Specifically, pike and shot units were often arranged with the pike wielders in the center of the column, flanked by wings of handgunners. Alternately, the pike infantry may be located directly behind the firing line, and able to move forward to counter any advancing infantry who reached the handgunners.) The exact mix of pike and gunpowder varied wildly over the centuries. But, the basic concept of a mixed melee and gunpowder unit wasn't that strange historically. As firearms became more powerful, and with the development of the bayonet, pike and shot units became historical footnotes.

The most unusual element with the streltsy was simply that they had both a melee weapon and firearm. Normally in a pike and shot formation, a soldier would be equipped with one or the other.

If attacked in melee, I suspect the proper response would have been to sling or stow the arquebus and then fight using the bardache. Though, some streltsy carried sabres, which would have been another defensive option. Also (somewhat unsurprisingly) some streltsy units included actual pike infantry. So, there were conventional pike and shot streltsy units.

Ultimately, for the time, the combination of a melee weapon and firearm was not particularly strange, and the specific combination of an arquebus and bardache wasn't random. Those were weapons that worked well together.

-Starke

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[militant-holy-knight]

Christian Solidarity: The Abyssinian-Adal War

That time when Portuguese Roman Catholics and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians fought against the Ottoman Empire and their Somali allies

During the Age of Discoveries, Portuguese sailors made several voyages into the East and gained contact with several peoples. One of them was the Abyssinian Empire (modern day Ethiopia) which was beset for more than a decade by their arch-enemies, the Adal Sultanate of Somalia. They intervened on the side of the Abyssinians not only because they were Christians (even if Oriental Orthodox), but because the Adals were aided by the Ottomans, who were the Portuguese’ arch enemies in the Indian Ocean.

Originally known in ancient times as the Kingdom of Aksum, Ethiopia was the second nation to adopt Christianity right after Armenia and before the Roman Empire itself. Legends claim that the Ark of the Covenant is guarded in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. They were an valuable Roman ally against the Yemenites, Arab tribes and the Sassanid Persians. That changed after the rise of Islam and the Rashidun Caliphate’s conquered the region that is today’s modern-day Sudan, cutting off the Ethiopians from the rest of Christendom.

Centuries have passed and power between different Islamic powers changed between the Rashidun, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mamluks and etc., with the surrounding modern-day regions of Sudan and Somalia being Islamicized while Ethiopians were completely isolated and trying to preserve their cultural heritage. In 1240, they were ruled by the Solomonic dynasty, a noble house that claimed directed descent from the House of King David, whom Christ Himself descended to, and whose rulers belonged to the Abyssinian people. As such, Ethiopia was also alternatively known as the Abyssinian Empire.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Iberian kingdoms of Portugal and Spain finished the Reconquista - the period where their own land was under Islamic occupation - began voyages around the globe in order to reach East and get around the Ottoman Empire, which held a monopoly of trade over the precious Asian goods. Materialistic riches weren’t the only reason: the search for a mythical figure known as Prester John, a Christian king who ruled over a rich empire surrounded in a sea of pagans who was believed to be in either India or Africa. While the exact origin of it’s legend is unclear, it first emerged around the time of the Mongol invasions while the Crusades were still ongoing. At one point Genghis Khan (who was a Tengriist, not a Christian) was believed to be Prester John for having defeated the Kwarazmian Empire (modern-day Iran) and later his grandson Hulagu when he crushed Baghdad and ended the Islamic Golden Age.

The search for Prester John was of great importance because it was believed he could help the Christians in a future Crusade, and at the time, the Ottoman Empire was waging a jihad to invade Europe and had already conquered the whole Balkans and southern Ukraine. The Portuguese were already making several expeditions around the globe and managed to gain contact with Ethiopia which was considered a possible candidate for Prester John’s kingdom due to a delegation of Ethiopians ambassadors making themselves known to Europeans in 1306, though contact with them was sporadic at best. In 1520, they established relations with Emperor David II, whom they referred to as Prester John (or Presto João in Portuguese).

Ethiopia’s neighboring state, the Adal Sultanate, was in state of anarchy until it came under the control of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (”al-Ghazi” meaning the Conqueror), an Somali imam and warlord who would begin a whole new jihad with the Battle of Shimbra Kure in 1529. The victory came at a heavy cost but it solidified the Adal forces’ morale, providing proof that they could stand up to the sizable Ethiopian army. The tide of the war turned to Ahmad’s favor when the Ottomans provided him with cannon fire which terrified the Ethiopians and made them disperse in the Battle of Antukyah. For the next 13 years, the Adal jihad wrought terror on the Ethiopian highlands, with churches being desecrated and turned into mosques, cities plundered, non-Muslims oppressed, women and children taken as slaves and the emperors incapable of halting them. At the same time, the Portuguese were waging war with the Ottomans over sea hegemony and upon hearing the cries of help for his allies, they arrived in 1543 to help them.

The Portuguese commander Cristovão da Gama arrived one year after David II had died and his son Gelawdewos (Claudius) was the new Emperor. Gama’s forces were well equipped with a thousand arquebuses, an equal number of pikes and several bombards, and in the Battle of Bacente, they dealt the first serious victory against Ahmad’s 1000 jihadists with only 400 men and losing only 8 men. A mosque in the hill which used to be a church before being occupied by Ahmad’s men was re-consecrated as a church and a mass was held on the next day to Virgin Mary where both Portuguese Roman Catholics and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians prayed together.

The events at Bacente alerted Ahmad that a hostile army had entered the area, and he marched north to confront it, meeting Gama at Jarte. The imam made the first contact, sending a messenger to Gama to demand that the Portuguese force either leave Ethiopia, join the imam, or be destroyed. On the imam’s orders, the messenger produced the gift of a monk’s habit, an expensive insult to Gama. Gama responded with his own messenger, who delivered “a few lines in Arabic”, stating that he had come to Ethiopia “by order of the great Lion of the Sea” and on the “following day he [Ahmad] would see what the Portuguese were worth”, and delivered Gama’s own insulting gift: a pair of “small tweezers for the eyebrows, and a very large mirror – making him out [to be] a woman.”

Cristovão was proven right and the next two battles he dealt even more crushing defeats to Ahmad, who was sent with his tails between the legs and the population beginning to revolt against him. Now with the tide turned to his advantage, he pursued the imam to the south to confront him at Wofla. However, when he found him, Ahmad had many times the troops waiting for Cristovão as well as many more muskets which were provided by the Arabs and the Ottomans. Despite their bravery, the Portuguese were defeated and Cristovão da Gama was taken captive and brought to the imam’s tent. Ahmad was impressed with the Portuguese commander and tortured him in an attempt to convert Gama to Islam, probably to crush the Ethiopian’s resolve in making their ally renounce Christ and embrace Muhammad. But as an devout Catholic and a descendant of the brave Crusaders of the Reconquista that fought to drive out the Moors out of his land, he would not do it. And so Ahmad beheaded him like so many Christian victims of Islam before and after him.

While Gama’s death was a huge blow to his allies, the Ottomans were displeased with Ahmad’s decision since they were hoping to keep him hostage to be used to their advantage against the Portuguese in their greater war. When all seemed lost, Emperor Gelawdewos had joined the survivors, and seeing the number of men who flocked to the Emperor’s standard “we went to the Prester”, and “begged him to help us avenge the death of Dom Cristovão”, Gelawdewos agreed to march against the imam using the weapons they found stashed in their camp at the Hill of the Jews.

The Ethiopians and Portuguese faced the Adal and their Ottoman allies at the Battle of Wayna Daga where victory seemed lost with the Gelawdewos’ 9,000 troops against Ahmad’s 15,000. However, Ahmad was recognized by the Portuguese arquebusiers, who directed their combined firepower at him, and one of them shot the imam in the chest with a fatal shot. Even though numerical advantage was on their side, the imam’s followers immediately fled the battlefield when hearing about his death, since they followed a leader, not a cause and pragmatically looked to their own well-being - quite the contrast of the loyalty Cristovão inspired in his own men who were willing to fight to their deaths to avenge him. The moment the Somalis left their camp, the victorious Ethiopian army poured in, slaughtering everyone they encountered except for women and children. Among the women were numerous Christian captives, some found sisters, others daughters, others their wives, and it was for them no small delight to see them delivered from captivity.

Wayna Daga marked the end of the war as a stalemate between Ethiopia and Somalia (whose rivalry is traced from this crusade/jihad). Other problems would soon plague them like the Oromo migrations, but the Adal would not represent a serious treat to the Ethiopians again. Nevertheless, the war left an indelible mark in their history as the historian Paul B. Henze notes:

In Ethiopia the damage which Ahmad Gragn did has never been forgotten. Every Christian highlander still hears tales of Gragn in his childhood. Haile Selassie referred to him in his memoirs, "I have often had villagers in northern Ethiopia point out sites of towns, forts, churches and monasteries destroyed by Gragn as if these catastrophes had occurred only yesterday.

Nevertheless, it was thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of men like David and Cristovão that the local practices were preserved, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church still remains today.

Sources:

Between Islam and Christendom: travellers, facts, and legends in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1441–1543.