Hittite Army Composition Full Historical Analysis

Hello number ones, welcome back to my channel, this is the Metatron speaking and welcome to part two of this fantastic odyssey and if you don't know what I'm on about, yesterday I posted a video which was a response video to the channel Leonidas Sparta on the topic of cavalry usage during the Bronze Age. That would be part one, you'll find a link in the description. On that video, in order to establish the idea of historical Bronze Age cause of cavalry, specifically used tactically by the Trojans and the Hittites, I went into a deep dive into the historicity of both the conflict proper, the Trojan War, and the city of Troy. If you want to add the full context, do watch that video first. But today I'm gonna dive into all the rest of the research that deals specifically and in details with how the Hittite imperial army was organized. So without further ado, let's jump right into it. Having established the sort of very strong connection of vassalage and military cooperation that you had between the Hittite Empire and historical Troy, let's now discuss the organizational aspects of the military machine of the Hittites, and you will see that they did indeed, in this specific period, field cavalry. In its early iteration, the Hittite army was composed of the following type of forces, the permanent army, the reserve, conscripted troops, regional troops, and mercenaries, and finally allied troops. Let's now analyze the different corps, and the different arms, and the different sections of the army. We have charioteers, cavalry, infantry, archers, light infantry, and runners. For deeper context, let's also quantify the numbers when it comes to Hittite army. Normally the history of the Hittites is divided into three periods, the Old Kingdom from 1700 to 1500 BC, the Middle Kingdom from 1500 to 1350 BC, and the New Kingdom from 1300 BC to 1178 BC. Already during the Old Kingdom, the Hittites showed great initiative with assaults in Syria and Mesopotamia, causing for example the collapse of the Kingdom of Yamhad. But during the New Kingdom, the Hittites' radius of influence would increase exponentially, expanding over almost all of Western Anatolia. We could say that they were the direct antagonists of the Egyptians for control over the Levant. Now, when speaking about the army, the sources are not always easy to decipher, because we find them in multiple languages, and in fact a mixture, Hittite, Sumerian, and Akkadian, and this contributes to the composition of composite words, with a very broad semantic range. However, there are three terms that we find overwhelmingly in these documents, the words Erimesh, Karash, and Tuzi. Erimesh is a Sumerian term that can be translated as troops, although sometimes it also has the singular meaning of soldier. Erimesh usually indicates, in a general way, both infantry troops and charioteers, and cavalry troops. However, when we find it in contrast with another Sumerian term, Ansekuramesh, in that case Erimesh exclusively indicates infantry troops. So, on its own, it's a general umbrella term, including infantry, cavalry, and chariots. But if it's used in the same sentence or section with the term Ansekuramesh, which does mean horses, then it only means infantry. Karash is also a Sumerian term that finds its counterpart in the Akkadian Karashu, which means camp, and by extension army. In Hittite texts, the word Karash appears substantially as a synonym of Erimesh, which we said can mean troops, although sometimes it has a somewhat broader meaning, encompassing not only the troops, the fighting troops, but also the civilian personnel assigned to, for example, logistics that accompany them. Thus, it's the totality of the army. However, once again, when Karash is cited in contrast to Erimesh, it exclusively indicates the civilian component, precisely as opposed to actual combatants. Finally, the word Tuzi is a properly Hittite term that derives from the verb Tuzia, which means to camp. In Hittite texts, Tuzi seems to be substantially a synonym of Karash, so the army in its fullness. The interesting fact is that it seems that for the population of the ancient Near East, one of the characteristics and distinctive traits of the army was that of camping as setting up camp. Textual analysis also shows several terms that appear during the Middle Kingdom, which seems to indicate permanent troops. They were not discharged, but wintered in the capital of the empire, and were deployed in other localities and provinces during peacetimes, and dealt with actions of gendarmerie or military engineering and civil engineering. These did not constitute the totality of the Hittite army, but were a very well trained corps. It is incredible to note how socially evolved the empire must have been at the time. Elite chariot and palace guards are also mentioned among these professional soldiers. They also have another type of soldier, the maceman, literally. These, instead of being paid as salary, received a plot of land as compensation, and were part of their reserves that could be mobilized in case of necessity. In other words, they would be very similar to the American National Guard. In the ancient texts, we also find the expression erin This literally means support troops or help troops, and it indicates a levy of conscripts. These were citizens of the Hittite empire, farmers, shepherds, draftsmen, who, in case of need, were conscripted into troops that went to support the professional army. Exactly like the professional army, we know from sources that they went on to constitute both infantry units and mounted units, and to use the period word apiru, which derives from the Akkadian term that originally referred to farmers who had turned to nomadism and then to banditry and mercenary work, a sort of irregular militia, if you will, used by the Hittite army. In Hittite sources, we then have the term shardia, which indicates forces provided by allied kingdoms. Given, the war chariot, as indicated cleverly by both Leonidas Sparta and the professor, was central of Bronze Age army, and it was central of the army of the Hittites as well, and in the sources we find it indicated which means horse squad. The chariots were made of wood and leather, pulled by a pair of horses, and it initially had a crew of two individuals. The charioteer, who held the reins and who also carried a shield, and the second, the actual chariot warrior, who fought with bow and arrow. Both the crew and the horses were protected by armor, often scale. This to underline that, at least for the Hittite army, even though the idea of chariots used as a sort of taxi service within the battlefield may have happened, these were combatant units, 100%. Between 1295 and 1272 BC, we witness a sort of military reform. In fact, in the relief of Pharaoh Seti I, we note Hittite war chariots with a crew of two individuals, while in the relief of Ramses II, we see that the Hittite chariots now have three combatants on them. This third individual is often depicted with a pole weapon. The length has been calculated in a very theoretical and rough way using the depictions of the relief, and has been estimated from 180 to 250 cm. It is probable that there were also javelins to be thrown from the chariot, as well as a thrusting lance to keep the enemies at bay. Moreover, among the charioteers we also have a specific elite corps called the gold charioteers, who were probably the king's entourage on the battlefield. The term lupi thallui, which indicates in Neo-Assyrian the horseman, is present in Hittite documents. If cavalry was not completely foreign to the Anatolian and Near Eastern world, we must still consider that in the Bronze Age, as correctly explained, it must have had a minor role compared to that of war chariots, and it probably had to be a role relegated to light harassment troops rather than shock cavalry. But it is incorrect to exclude a priori the usage of mounted warriors in this period. That is because when we find the term sekur ramesh, horses or by extension troops that make usage of horses, most likely, in the majority of cases, the reference is indeed to charioteers. However, along with war chariots, infantry was the other predominant element of the Hittite army. Hittite infantry being equipped mainly with spear and shield, also with a secondary weapon, a mace, an axe or curved swords, sort of similar to the Egyptian kopesh. The lumesh gish ban, the archers, are mentioned only once in the Hittite force, in a passage that distinguishes them from the charioteers. These are units of foot archers, and they did exist too. During the New Kingdom, between 1321 and 1295 BC, the term erish mesh suti appears. This means troops that carry out lightning actions. These are mercenary units initially recruited in Syria, which would become the term to indicate, in a generalist manner, the light infantry forces, which operated in conjunction with light cavalry mounted troops, as evidenced in the documents. Mounted cavalry, not chariots. During the Old Kingdom, the infantry troops numbered several thousands, while the charioteers must have been between a few dozens and a few hundred. There is also a military rank that represents the superintendent of a thousand charioteers, still during the Old Kingdom, a position that came in pairs. 4,000 men, 2,000 chariots, this would be the totality of the Hittite army. During the Middle Kingdom, the empire was able to mobilize a contingent that became 10,000 infantry and hundreds of chariots, and in the Battle of Kadesh, 37,000 infantry and 3,500 war chariots were brought, a total of 47,500 men. That is because we have to remember that at this time already, the charioteers had three men per chariot. So, as we read the sources, it is evident that there is a distinction made both between chariots and cavalry mounted forces, and we know that these cavalry mounted forces were used tactically in conjunction with light infantry. Considering that we have all of these examples of how the Hittite army did field cavalry units specifically in this period, and how they were using them exactly against the same Mycenaeans that will attack the vassal city of Wilusa, aka Troy, I think it is very probable, considering that Troy was indeed a vassal of the Hittite empire, and that the Hittite army was subsequently sent to fight the Mycenaeans at Troy to kick them out after the taking of the city, I think it is very probable that the Trojans, being vassals of the Hittite empire, may have fielded their own cavalry troops against the Mycenaeans and their war chariots. Regardless, I hope that you found all this information interesting and pertinent, but most importantly, I do want to say thank you to both the professor and Leonidas Farta for inspiring the production of this video. Thank you very much all of you for watching, please do subscribe to Leonidas Farta, and thank you for watching, and I will see you tomorrow for my next daily upload. Goodbye! Thank you so much!