Identifier: historyofartofw00oman (find matches)
Title: A history of the art of war, the middle ages from the fourth to the fourteenth century
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Oman, Charles William Chadwick, Sir, 1860-1946
Subjects: Military art and science Military history, Medieval
Publisher: London : Methuen
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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y, it was obvious that a break in the continuous wallof infantry would occur. Into this opening Saladin would havethrown his reserves, and then have trusted to fighting the battleout with an enemy split into at least two fractions and probablymore. He had, as we shall see, v^holly underrated the prudenceand generalship of King Richard, and was preparing for himselfa bloody repulse. The Crusaders were well upon their v/ay when the Moslemssuddenly burst out from the woods. In front were swarms ofskirmishers both horse and foot—black Soudanese archers, wildBedouins, and the terrible Turkish horse-bowmen. Behind werevisible deep squadrons of supports—the Sultans mailed Mame-lukes and the contingents of all the princes and emirs of Egypt,Syria, and Mesopotamia. The whole space, two miles broad,between the road and the forest, was suddenly filled with theseimposing masses. All over the face of the land you could seethe well-ordered bands of the Turks, myriads of parti-coloured PLATE IX.
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1191J ARSOUF: SALADIN ATTACKS RICHARD 311 banners, marshalled in troops and squadrons ; of mailed menalone there appeared to be more than twenty thousand. Withunswerving course, swifter than eagles, they swept down uponour line of march. The air was turned black by the dust thattheir hoofs cast up. Before the face of each emir went hismusicians, making a horrid din with horns, trumpets, drum.s,cymbals, and all manner of brazen instruments, while the troopsbehind pressed on with howls and cries of war. For the Infidelsthink that the louder the noise, the bolder grows the spirit of thewarrior. So did the cursed Turks beset us before, behind, andon the flank, and they pressed in so close that for two milesaround there was not a spot of the bare earth visible; all wascovered by the thick array of the enemy. ^ While some of the Turks rode in between the head of thearmy and its goal at Arsouf, and others followed the rearguardalong the road, the majority closed in upon the left flank andpli

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