Camels

[fsn]

Jesus' colonial camelry has raised a question in what passes for my brain. When did man start using camels in warfare?

I don't recall any at Kadesh, but seem to recall them being in the Persian army of the Salamis campaign. So sometime between those dates someone looked at this ugly thing and said "Techno, get out of the way of that camel."

But when? Anyone know, or am I going to lose a weekend in research?

[Ithoriel]

First recorded use is by the Arabs at the Battle of Qarqar (853BC) but camels seem to have been initially domesticated sometime between 3000BC and 2500BC. It seems, to me, likely that unrecorded instances of their use as military baggage and riding animals occurred considerably earlier than the 9th century BC.

[d_Guy]

Since WWI? 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_(cigarette)

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

The Parthians used them to bring up more arrows at Carrea, and the Early Persians had Midianite ? skirmishers with 2 bowmen on a camel - 400 to 300 BCE ?

[fsn]

Since WWI?  :-

Thank you for your contribution. Other threads are available.      

First recorded use is by the Arabs at the Battle of Qarqar (853BC) but camels seem to have been initially domesticated sometime between 3000BC and 2500BC. It seems, to me, likely that unrecorded instances of their use as military baggage and riding animals occurred considerably earlier than the 9th century BC.

I fail to see that they wouldn't have tried it sometime between Ramses and Hadadezer.

[Raider4]

Jesus' colonial camelry . . .

Eee, the start of your post confused the heck out of me. Don't remember these from Sunday school!

[Shedman]

Eee, the start of your post confused the heck out of me. Don't remember these from Sunday school!

In all seriousness though I do get the hump about camels in warfare.

In a recent thread on a site that begins with TM and ends in P a couple of posters gave YouTube kinks to the films Lawrence of Arabia  and March or Die as evidence that camels were used in combat

alan

[d_Guy]

Thank you for your contribution.

You are most welcome! 

[fsn]

In all seriousness though I do get the hump about camels in warfare.

Really? You're going with "in all seriousness", and then a throw in hump pun? 

In a recent thread on a site that begins with TM and ends in P a couple of posters gave YouTube kinks to the films Lawrence of Arabia  and March or Die as evidence that camels were used in combat

*sound of FSN screeching to a halt* Wait. Weren't they? I know they were used as transport. I think of the Camel Corps using them more as a mobile sanger than a charger, but haven't they been used as a basis for camel-archers? What about the smell doing it in for horses?

Please tell me more. My entire knowledge of camelry is based on the "WRG Armies of the Greek and Persoian Wars" ... one picture.

 

[Ithoriel]

Camel troops seem to have used missiles most often but some used swords and spears.

There were even barded camel troops in the early Sassanid armies.

Assyrian Queen Semiramis sought (800's BCE) to conquer India and created dummy elephants (a man and a camel in an elephant suit) to counter the Indian ones.

The stench of the camels scared off the Indian cavalry but enraged the Indian elephants who tore the dummies to shreds. Semiramis fled back to Assyria with the remnants of her army.

Zamburaks were used by the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires - they are basically a swivel gun (light cannon/ very heavy musket) mounted on a camel. From the mid 1800's gatling guns were sometimes used!

[Shedman]

@fsn

You've set me off now

I'm basing my assumptions on the French in Algeria & the British in the Sudan in the mid/late 19th Century

The Imperial Camel Corps in the Sudan never ever charged the enemy which considering the gung-ho nature of British cavalry tells me that camels weren't very good at charging around the battle field

Having looked at several hundred paintings from the French Orientalists school who would certainly have depicted camel-mounted warriors hurling themselves against squares there are none.

Apart from paintings of of pack camels there are only 2 "action" paintings of camels - one is The Lion Hunt by Horace Vernet who did loads of Conquest of Algeria battle scenes depicting hordes of horsemen but not a single camel, and one of a princess being escorted by a band of warriors. The princess is on a camel but the warriors are all on horse back

Colonel Callwell's Small Wars Their Principles and Practice has a a couple of chapters on camels which are worth reading. His view is that camels are excellent at strategic movement  and seizing terrain on a battlefield but otherwise useless

I know next to nothing about camels in ancient / medieval warfare but to my mind apart from skirmishing / patrolling / smelling offensive / moving across sand then they weren't much of use in a battle.

The Osprey images of cataphract camels charging Roman Legionaries is laughable  in my opinion

That's my view but I am happy to be proved wrong

Alan

[JeffNNN]

Having just finished Gleichen's book on the Camel Corps I have the same view as Shedman. Even in the units formed from cavalry seemed to use them purely as transport. Certainly by the reconquest of the Sudan period the cavalry as mounted infantry approach was quite common across the cavalry arm, though not fully accepted.

[fsn]

Interesting stuff.

Shedman - sorry for setting you off, but it is, for me, rather enlightening.

[d_Guy]

Other than the movies already cited (which covers the sum total of my camel "knowledge") they are often shown among opposition forces when wargaming the Tangier experiment (1660's - 1680's). I haven't found any mention in the sources I've looked at so far - just Berber horses (but would love to add them).

Apparently the U.S Cavalry experimented with them in the Southwest in the late 1900s but I know nothing else.
(The advert jingle for the cigarettes was apparently "The camels are coming" - according to Wikipedia - a catchy tune that Is now caught in my head).

[FierceKitty]

The Assyrian reliefs of Midianites on camels are well known. Centuries before the Persian invasion of Europe.

Whether they fought while mounted is debated at times, though later camelry certainly used long swords that can only have been meant for stabbing an enemy at a lower level.