Ramesses II - Part 3 - Battle of Kadesh
Hey Guys, Josh from the Ancient History Guy here, and today we are slowly making our way across Cannan with the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II, to take back the city of Kadesh, and defeat the egyptian rival, The Hittites in one climatic battle!
As we said last time, Ramesses had split his army into four divisions, each named after one of the gods, with ramesses himself commanding the amun division. It was near the orontes river, that the egyptian army captured two men, both claiming to be deserters from the Hittite Army. Under heavy interrogation the two men maintained that the hittite army was nowhere near kadesh. Ramesses happy with this news, marched the amun division towards Kadesh, leaving the other divisions behind.
Ramesses had around 20,000 men and 2,000 chariots when he reached Kadesh in 1274 B.C. The pharaoh set up camp and awaited for the other divisions to catch up, happy in the knowledge that he could just walk into the city and claim it as his own.
The Re division was the closest to the pharaoh, and had begun a force march in order to catch up with the amun division. Suddenly around 3,000 hittites chariots appeared from behind a hill, and attacked the vanguard. The deserters had in fact been loyal soldiers to the Hittite kings Muwatallis and had mislead the Egyptian pharaoh into an ambush. The Re Division sprinted away from the skirmish, hoping to make it into Ramesses camp in time to warn the Pharaoh, with the Hittites in hot pursuit.
Ramesses rushed out of his tent. Calmly and quickly he began to organise a counter attack, using his lighter chariots to good use. The Hittites, anticipating an easy victory, entered into the egyptian camp and began to loot it, as anything egyptian was extremely valuable. Ramesses decided now was the time to counter attack, and wheeled his chariots around to attack the looting hittites. At that exact moment, the elite egyptian division that had been marching along the coast arrived, and joined the charge. The Heavy and lumburson hittite chariots began to get stuck in the egyptian camp, having little to no room to maneuver. The egyptian composite bow began to make short work of the now traffic jammed enemy, with the infantry finishing off any survivors.
Meanwhile a majority of Muwatallis infantry were stationary, a long way off from the battle. As the day came to an end, there was no clear winner, the Hittites had lost a great deal of their chariots, and Muwatallis himself had lost his brother in the fighting, whilst the egyptians were sufficient to say, startled by the sudden battle. Ramesses decided to retreat the following day, leaving Kadesh still in the hands of the Hittites. 15 years later, the Hittites and the egyptians signed the first recorded non aggression pact in history. This made the Battle of Kadesh, the one battle where both kings met and fought, one of the most important battles in ancient history.
So there you go, i’ve been Josh from the Ancient History Guy, hope you have a good day and i’ll see you later!
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Seti-I
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ramses-II-king-of-Egypt#toc6063
https://www.ancient.eu/Kadesh/
https://www.ancient.eu/hittite/
https://www.ancient.eu/ajax/ajax_print_visual_timeline.php?tag=Ramesses_II&width=950&height=600
https://www.ancient.eu/Ramesses_II/
https://discoveringegypt.com/ancient-egyptian-kings-queens/rameses-ii/
http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/battle-kadesh.html
http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/ramseskadeshcampaign.htm
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Muwatallis
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Kadesh
http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/ramseskadeshcampaign.htm