War elephant
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Charging elephants caused terror and panic, and their thick hides made them difficult to injure or kill. |
War elephants were important, although not widespread,
weapons in ancient
military history. Their main use was in
charges, to trample the enemy and/or break their ranks, they were also used by the
Diadochi to protect against cavalry attack. War
elephants could be either male or female animals. Male elephants are larger but their aggression and restlessness (especially when in
musth) was not always welcome.
Elephant taming (not full
domestication, they were still captured in the wild) began in the
Indus Valley civilization around 4,000 years ago. The first species to be tamed was thus the
Asian elephant, for agricultural ends. The first military application of elephants dates from around 1100 BC in
northern India, which is mentioned in several
Vedic Sanskrit hymns from this era. However,
Shang China may have primitively used elephants for military purposes as early as c.2500BC.
From
India, war elephants were taken to the
Persian Empire where they were used in several campaigns. The
battle of Gaugamela (
October 1, 331 BC), fought against
Alexander the Great was probably among the first confrontations of Europeans with war elephants. The fifteen animals, placed at the centre of the Persian line, made such an impression on the Macedonian troops that Alexander felt the need to sacrifice to the god of fear in the night before the battle. Gaugamela was Alexander's greatest success, but the enemy elephants made enough of an impact on him that following his conquest of Persia, Alexander recognised the use of the animals and incorporated a number of them into his own army. Five years later, in the
battle of the Hydaspes River against
Porus, although without his own, Alexander already knew how to deal with elephants. Porus, who ruled in
Punjab, Pakistan, employed 200 war elephants in this battle, which presented a challenge to Alexander, though he defeated Porus. At this time, the
Magadha Empire further east in
eastern India and
Bengal, had 6000 war elephants, while
Chandragupta Maurya a short time later had 9000 war elephants. These numbers of war elephants were many times larger than the numbers employed by the Persians and Greeks, which was discouraging for Alexander's men and stayed further progress into India.
[The Life of Alexander the Great by Plutarch, 75 AD.]The successful military use of elephants spread across the world. The successors to Alexander's empire, the
Diadochi, used hundreds of Indian elephants in their wars. The
Egyptians and the Carthaginians began taming African elephants for the same purpose, as did the
Numidians and the
Kushites. The animal used was the
Forest elephant, specifically, the North African relict population which eventually became extinct from overexploitation. This particular breed was smaller than the Asian elephants used by the
Seleucids, and were quite often too scared to engage them in combat. The African savannah elephant, larger than the African forest elephant or the Asian elephant, proved difficult to tame for war purposes and was not used as extensively. Elephants used by the
Egyptians at the
battle of Raphia in 217 BC were smaller than their Asian counterparts, but that did not guarantee victory for
Antiochus III the Great of Syria.
Sri Lankan history records elephants were used as mounts for kings leading their men in the battle field. The elephant
Kandula was King
Dutugamunu's mount (200 BC) and "Maha Pabbata" the mount of King Elahara during their historic encounter in the battlefield.
Pliny the Elder (45 AD) one of the great Roman historians, in Book 6 of his 37 volume history, states that Megastenes had recorded the opinion of one Onesicritus that the
Sri Lankan elephants are larger, fiercer and better for war than others. For this reason and the proximity of elephants close to sea ports inter alia made
Sri Lanka's elephants a lucrative trading commodity. Even in peacetime,
death by elephant was reserved for traitors and other offenders against the state and royalty.
In the next centuries, further use of war elephants in Europe was mainly against the
Roman Republic. From the
battle of Heraclea (280 BC in the
Pyrrhic War) to the famous march across the
Alps by
Hannibal during the
Second Punic war, elephants terrified the
Roman legions. Like Alexander, the Romans found a way to cope with the dangerous elephant charges. In Hannibal's last battle (
Zama, 202 BC), his elephant charge was ineffective because the Roman
maniples simply made way for them to pass. More than a century later, in the
battle of Thapsus (
February 6 46 BC),
Julius Caesar armed his
fifth legion (
Alaudae) with axes and commanded his legionaries to strike at the elephant's legs. The legion withstood the charge and the elephant became its symbol. Thapsus was the last significant use of elephants in the West.
A reportedly effective anti-elephant weapon was the
pig.
Pliny the Elder reported that "elephants are scared by the smallest squeal of a pig" (VIII, 1.27). A siege of
Megara was reportedly broken when the Megarians poured
oil on a herd of pigs, set them alight, and drove them towards the enemy's massed war elephants. The elephants bolted in terror from the flaming squealing pigs.
The
Parthian dynasty of Persia occasionally used war elephants in their battles against Roman empire, but they were of substantial importance in the army of the subsequent
Sassanid dynasty. The Sassanids used these giant beasts in many of their campaigns against their western enemies. One of the most memorable ones was
Battle of Vartanantz in which Sassanid elephants caused much fear and crushed Armenian rebels. Another example is the
Battle of al-Qādisiyyah in which elephants were used in numbers in the
Sassanid army.
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A Romanesque painting of a war elephant. Spain, 11th century. |
In the
Middle Ages, elephants were seldom used in Europe.
Charlemagne took his elephant,
Abul-Abbas, when he went to fight the Danes in 804, and the
Crusades gave
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor the opportunity to capture an elephant in the
Holy Land, later used in the capture of
Cremona in 1214.
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The Khmer army waged war with elephants against the Cham in the 12th century. |
It was the use of elephants, again by an Indian
Sultanate, that almost put an end to
Timur's conquests. In 1398 Timur's army faced more than one hundred Indian elephants in battle and almost lost by pure fear of his troops. Historical accounts say that the Turks won due to an ingenious strategy: Timur set flaming straw on the back of his
camels before the charge. The smoke made the camels run forward and scared the elephants, who crushed their own troops in an attempt to retreat. Another account of the campaign (that of
Ahmed ibn Arabshah) reports that Timur used oversized
caltrops to halt the elephant charge. Later, the Turkish leader used the animals against the
Ottoman Empire.
It is recorded that King Rajasinghe the First, when he laid siege to the Portuguese fort at
Colombo,
Sri Lanka in 1558, had an elephant phalanx of 2,200 (Peris 1913). The officer-in-charge of the Royal stables was called the "Gaja Nayake Nilame". His off-sider was the "Kuruve Lekham" who controlled the Kuruwe or elephant men. The training of war elephants was the duty of the Kuruwe clan who came under their own Muhandiram.
With the advent of
gunpowder warfare in the late 15th century, war elephants became obsolete for charging because they could be easily knocked down by a cannon shot.
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Added Armor Protection made Elephants virtually invincible to the arrows fired by enemy archers. This allowed them to charge into enemy lines easily and to protect Infantry behind the Elephants. This is an Indian Elephant Armor |
There were plenty of military purposes for which elephants could be used. As enormous animals, they could carry heavy cargoes and provided a useful means of transport before mechanized vehicles would render them practically obsolete in that respect. In battle, war elephants were usually deployed in the centre of the line, where they could be useful to prevent a charge or start one of their own.
An elephant charge can reach about 30
km/h (20
mi/h), and unlike horse
cavalry, could not be easily stopped by an
infantry line setting spears. Its power was based on pure force: crashing into an enemy line, trampling and swinging its tusks. Those men who were not crushed were at least knocked aside or forced back. Moreover, the terror elephants could inspire against an enemy not used to fighting them (even the very disciplined
Romans) could cause them to break and run just on the charge's momentum alone. Horse cavalry were not safe either, because
horses unaccustomed to the smell of elephants panic easily. The elephants' thick hide made them extremely difficult to kill or neutralize in any way, and their sheer height and mass offered considerable protection for their riders. Besides charging, the Elephants maintained a vital role in providing a stable and a safe platform for archers to fire arrows in the middle of the battlefield, from where more targets could be seen and engaged. The Elephant Mahouts, and riders in the elephant carriages carried bows and arrows to attack on coming cavalry and infantry and also carried long spears for close quarters combat. The archery evolved into more advanced weapons, and several
Khmer and
Indian kings have utilized giant crossbow platforms (similar to the
Ballista) to fire long armor piercing shafts to kill other enemy War Elephants and chariots/cavalry. The late 1500s also saw the use of
culverin on elephants, but the onset of gunpowder made the large and relatively slow War Elephants obsolete.
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A Chess piece showing the King Piece. Notice there are not one, but two culverins on the back of this mighty war Elephant. |
However, they also had a tendency to panic themselves: after sustaining moderate wounds or when their driver was killed, they would run amok, indiscriminately causing casualties as they sought escape. Their panicked retreat could inflict heavy losses on either side. Experienced Roman infantry often tried to sever their trunks, causing an instant panic, and hopefully causing the elephant to flee back into its own lines. Fast skirmishers armed with javelins were also used to drive them away, as javelins and similar weapons could madden an elephant. The cavalry sport of
tent pegging grew out of training regimens for horse mounted cavaliers to incapacitate or turn back war elephants.
Sri Lankan history records that heavy iron chains with steel balls at the end were tied to the trunks of
elephants which they were trained to swirl and whirl menacingly with great agility. This was a very efficient way to keep advancing troops at bay. A few elephants charging with swirling iron balls at the end of a chain and the potential consternation caused in the ranks of the enemy is better imagined than described.
In the
Punic wars, a war elephant was heavily
armoured and carried on his back a tower, called a
howdah, with a crew of three men:
archers and/or men armed with
sarissas (a six metre long
pike). Forest war elephants, much smaller than their African or Asian relatives, were not strong enough to support a tower and carried only two or three men. There was also the driver, called a
mahout and usually
Numidian, who was responsible for controlling the animal. The
mahout also carried a
chisel-blade and a hammer to cut through the spinal cord and kill the animal if the elephant went berserk. Elephants have been compared to
Second World War tanks, but their tactical uses differ too much for the comparison to hold.
Jayantha Jayawardhene in his "Elephant in
Sri Lanka" (1994) gives the view that elephants were unreliable in battle except to intimidate the enemy. He says, "they have been found to be skittish and easily alarmed by unfamiliar sounds and for this reason they were found prone to break ranks and flee."
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The Elephant's thick hides and additional armor protection made elephants extremely hard to kill or injure. An Indian War elephant from the movie Alexander is shown above. |
Some notable battles involving war elephants include:
*331 BC,
Battle of Gaugamela*326 BC,
Battle of the Hydaspes River*317 BC,
Battle of Paraitacene*316 BC,
Battle of Gabiene*312 BC,
Battle of Gaza *301 BC,
Battle of Ipsus*280 BC,
Battle of Heraclea*279 BC,
Battle of Asculum*275 BC,
Battle of Beneventum*262 BC,
Siege of Agrigentum*255 BC,
Battle of Tunis*252 BC,
Siege of Panoramus*238 BC,
Battle of Utica*238 BC,
Battle of "The Saw"*239 BC,
Battle of the Bagradas River*219 BC-218 BC,
Siege of Saguntum*218 BC, Crossing of the Alps and the
Battle of Trebia*217 BC,
Battle of Raphia*207 BC,
Battle Of Metaurus*202 BC,
Battle of Zama*190 BC,
Battle of Magnesia*164 BC,
Battle of Beth-zur*153 BC, Roman siege of
Numantia (
Spain)
*149 BC-146 BC,
Siege of Carthage*108 BC,
Battle of Muthul*46 BC,
Battle of Thapsus*
451,
Battle of Vartanantz*
636,
Battle of al-Qādisiyyah*1214, capture of
Cremona by
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor*
1659,
Battle of Khajwa*
1556,
Second battle of Panipat*
1761,
Third battle of Panipat*
Rudyard Kipling's
The Jungle Book contains two stories in which war elephants appear, "Toomai of the Elephants" and "Her Majesty's Servants".
*
J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional war-beasts, the
Mûmakil or
Oliphaunt, are modelled after war elephants.
Age of Empires, a
real-time strategy computer game, features war elephants as a
mêlée unit or a ranged unit ("elephant archers").
Age of Empires II, the sequel of
Age of Empires, include war elephants (mêlée unit), but only in the Persian civilization.
Rome: Total War is a computer game that also features elephants as a mêlée and a ranged unit. The game's mechanics most realistically simulate the trampling momentum and morale-breaking effects of an elephant charge.
Civilization II includes war elephants as a unit any civilization can build. They are slightly stronger than early
horsemen and slightly weaker than
knights, which they upgrade to.
Civilization III is a computer game that includes war elephants as the unique unit of
India.
Civilization IV includes war elephants as a unit which can be built by any civilization with
ivory. They are especially effective against mounted units.
Age of Mythology features war elephants available to the Egyptian civilizations. They are a strong but slow cavalry unit effective against all units, with the exception of infantry and myth units.
Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots, a
real-time strategy computer game, features war elephants as a
mêlée unit or a ranged unit for
Persia and
India.
*War elephants are mentioned in and feature prominently in a key scene of
Oliver Stone's 2004 film
Alexander.
*
Tent pegging*
Crushing by elephant*
Sassanid army*
History of elephants in Europe*
List of historical elephants*
Military animals*
cavalry tactics*
Chinese chess - which includes the war elephant (象 xiàng) as one of the pieces; the chess
bishop was also originally an elephant, and the bishop is, in Russian, called an elephant.
*
Alexander the Great, by
Robin Lane Fox, Penguin (2004) ISBN 0141020768
*
History of Warfare, by
John Keegan, Pimlico (1993) ISBN 0679730826
*
The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146BC, by
Adrian Goldsworthy, Orion (2003) ISBN 0304366420
*
Military Use of Elephants in the Greek and Roman Period*
Elephants in Sri Lankan History and Culture*
The Battle of Khajwa
