Do you know how the stirrup was used on battlefields?

When someone talks about technology solutions, we soon think of the popularization of the internet or smartphones, but in the 13th century the big difference was something much simpler.

Just as military formations revolutionized the battles of antiquity, the inclusion of the stirrup on horse saddles allowed the Mongols to face empires that had dominated Europe for centuries.

Archaeological records show that the object had been used by the Mongols since the 10th century, always made of metal. In addition, they had a unique ability when in combat on the horse, and this was the great differential in their achievements.

Victory in the "retreat"

When we think of a battle in antiquity, we imagine both sides fighting in a field. When one of them realizes that he is at a great disadvantage, he issues the alert, and they all retreat, fleeing for cover. For it was just then that the Mongol tactic came into play.

Using the stirrups as consistent support, they gained sufficient mobility over the horse to shoot arrows in any direction, including backward, and European armies were unprepared to deal with this reaction.

In this way they kept their distance from the soldiers on the ground, who went after them as they pretended to retreat and ended up becoming easy targets for mounted archers.

Marco Polo witnessed the Mongol warriors in action, writing that the knights "never allowed a regular battle to take place but kept riding across the field and striking the enemy with arrows."

Coupled with cover archers and mounted cavalry, the mounted archers, under Genghis Khan's command, made great territorial advances, coming close to Vienna in a few decades, all thanks to a simple horse saddle apparatus.

Had it not been for a series of events that caused the Mongols to return to wage war on China, they could have changed the course of Western history. The Chinese Wall itself is proof of how feared they were, as it received extensive additions after Chinese generals learned of the stirrup and its use.

Much like all technology, the stirrup was a big difference at the time, as did the military formations, but it took its time and became obsolete. With the invention of devices that can be remotely controlled, wars have increasingly resembled a video game, and small details that made all the difference in the past are now mere curiosities.

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