Why did chariots disappear in northern europe, but remain as weapons of war in Britain and Anatolia?

[RedGuard]

Just wondering why chariots went out of style in most of the world around 260 BC, but remained being used by Eastern Kingdoms and in Britain up to the Roman invasion?

[Abdülmecid I]

Chariots lost their importance, when the humans eventually managed to ride horses, as cavalry was a much stabler and more flexible unit than chariots. Chariots remained only as a status symbol, used to underline the presence of the king in the army or to term the highest in the tax-paying hierarchy class of society (both examples belong to Achaemenid Persia). In the isolated British Isles, chariots continued to be used, due to the lack of any other better alternative, as the islanders lacked a larger and stronger horse breed, which could sustain the rider's weight. The Seleucids and Pontians copied the scythed chariots of Achaemenid Persia. Reaping the enemy's ranks with scythes attacked to the wheels was not, of course, the traditional role of the chariots. My guess is that the Persians found it particularly efficient, when fighting against irregular tribal armies, not organised enough to appropriately react against the oncoming chariots or regroup after their deadly pass. Then, the cavalry and infantry exploited the created gaps, by destroying any remaining resemblance of cohesion. On the other hand, when facing regular, disciplined troops, like the Macedonians and the Romans the chariots were easily repelled. Regarding their mentioning in Magnesia, I believe there is a strong suspicion that the account of the battle of Gaugamela was copied, only with the Macedonians being the losers this time. Still, in Asia Minor, there are many encounters where chariots participated in battles (Pharnabazus, Mithradates VI), so perhaps Polybius was honest. Not really sure about Appian though, his version of the battle of Raphia, where again, according to him, chariots were included in the Egyptian army is most probably fictional.

[Mangalore]

It wasn't so much to manage to ride but to breed horses to sufficient height to carry a person. Chariots were essentially used because the horse breeds were too small for one to carry a man but two or more could drag a cart. Overall you could hypothetically double the number of people on horseback and thus with high mobility. Horses are probably also better on more terrain than a chariot. They may not be as fast as on flat ground but chariots wouldn't be able to deploy at all in a lot of terrain.

I'm not sure the chariots of later ages are even a big thing in Eastern kingdoms. They seem a specialized weapon experimented with which to attempt to achieve a very specific task (aka break up a dense infantry line in the front). Arguably elephants were sometimes used for the same purpose, break up a defensive formation so your guys can get at the enemy. And the Ancient Middle East probably had the tallest breeds of horses in the world for a long while (given even stories that the Han went to Persia to procur Persian horses to start their own lineage of war horses). I guess them creating cataphracts first was heavily dependent on single horses capable to carry a fully armored guy plus horse armor into battle.

So basically after a certain point you have chariots where horse breeds are still too small to carry a man or you have experiments with chariots as specialized assault vehicles. And the guys experimenting with the specialized chariots are also the guys farthest along with a dedicated breed of war horses.

[Cyclops]

Quite right about the status symbol and the poverty of the insular herds. I've had a bit of a speculate about the force increment a chariot gives vs cavalry, as well as the greater versatility of the horseman over the charioteer.

The insular Kelts were at the arse end of Europe, and the changes to military tech probably developed differently than on the continent: in Britain they became "battle taxis". That said I wouldn't stress their separation too strongly, but they were not at the cutting edge like the Syrians or Hellenes.

I have read speculation that the use of chariots at Gaugemela was an anachronism (in that chariots had not been used much for a century or more) and an innovation (in that the scythed wheels were a new touch), but there are other instances of chariots being used by Persians eg Cunaxa, and the fact that Darius had 200 or so chariots on hand as well as drivers and trained horses suggests there was an existing tradition carried on by the Pontians etc.

Recall at the commencement WWI French infantry still wore red pants, there were sabre armed cavalry etc so anachronisms persist even in the most developed armies. When you add in the social status attached to the chariot (even the Romans and Hellenes still employed them for ritual occasions such as triumphs and races) and it is understandable that some elite social groups retained the chariot as a battle weapon. I guess it was still a rattling scary threat on the battlefield, still a defensible missile platform, a wooden tank of sorts for scary sudden strikes if the terrain was right.

[+Marius+]

To be fair, chariots were still probably useful up until that point, just as a troops of fully plated cavalry would be in the 16th/17th centuries, it is just that warfare passed beyond them and their high cost did not pan out their effectiveness on the field.

Heck, I would assume that even during the Napoleonic era, a soldier would really like being decked out in full plate, but the cost of it would not explain the dubious chance of it stopping a bullet from a reasonably long distance.

Chariot warfare is still somewhat of a mystery.

Perhaps it would even be easier to charge formed infantry with them, considering the noise the wheels would make, the drivers being safer on impact than riders of horses and the situations where more horses are pulling one chariot being less likely to sverve into the same direction?

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Real chariot warfare ceased to exist with the arrival of the scythes in the 7th century in the Near East. They succesfully dominated the conflicts between Assyrians and their enemies in that time. Herodot even tells us that they etablished a reign over Asia for three decades. Thats probably not entirely true, but they dominated the battlefield. A century later, the Persians as well dominated the Near East on horseback. Their Nisean horses were the first strong enough to later use catapract armour and its their breed the most modern horses are descented. If you look at europe or africa at the time you have a cavalry consisting of ponies Scythians used ponies too, but they were probably the first that could use effectivly the bow on horseback which takes a lot of training. Another point is that chariots where used in a time of skirmish battles. As pointed out already, they are perfect to disrupt light infantry. For example probably the biggest battle in the bronze age, the battle of Kadesh, was a huge skirmish rather than the lining up of battle formations.

[Cyclops]

...

Chariot warfare is still somewhat of a mystery.

Perhaps it would even be easier to charge formed infantry with them, considering the noise the wheels would make, the drivers being safer on impact than riders of horses and the situations where more horses are pulling one chariot being less likely to sverve into the same direction?

That's likely the theory behind the scythed chariot, and its easy to imagine infantry getting out of the way and maybe disordering their ranks and becoming exposed to a follow up charge or archery fire as a result. What you say about horse restriction is very interesting, I guess in a formed line they'd block the opposition chariots also.

I imagine in an environment where armour was a first less common (and we see a gradual increase in the amount of armour available across the classical period and I suppose from the bronze age (with a few obvious hiccups such as the Mycenaean heavy infantry armour)) the chariot archer would be in a position to perform an archery caracole, that is dash up to the body of enemy infantry, loose a few arrows and bugger out before the infantry can run up and poke them back with a stick.

Chariot vs chariot is almost certainly a missile duel too, its pretty hard to reach from one chariot to another effectively (except maybe with whips a la Ben Hur). I don't know of any lances being used on chariots, IIRC there's one archer, one driver and maybe a bodyguard type shield bearer or a second archer.

[+Marius+]

Julius Caesar, eyewitness report of British chariot warfare:

"Their mode of fighting with their chariots is this: firstly, they drive about in all directions and throw their weapons and generally break the ranks of the enemy with the very dread of their horses and the noise of their wheels; and when they have worked themselves in between the troops of horse, leap from their chariots and engage on foot. The charioteers in the meantime withdraw some little distance from the battle, and so place themselves with the chariots that, if their masters are overpowered by the number of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to their own troops. Thus they display in battle the speed of horse, [together with] the firmness of infantry; and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check their horses at full speed, and manage and turn them in an instant and run along the pole, and stand on the yoke, and thence betake themselves with the greatest celerity to their chariots again."

I find this fascinating, so the drivers first break enemy unit cohesion after which they deploy elite infantry at whatever location they see fit so they can duke it out, if that infantry starts losing, the drivers simply pick them up and retreat with them.

So, at least in Celtic warfare, the chariots were infantry deployment vehicles, something alike helicopters in Vietnam.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

It was the same on greece or at least at the end because thats how Homer is describing it in the Iliad. A similar form of chariot was used by the Hethites to transport their heavy infantry to battle. The Egyptian chariot was somewhat a lighter construction and was used for large scale skirmish, in order to run down enemies and harass them with arrows. As i wrote. In a time were every battle is a form of skirmish and without formations it is quite usefull. Just look at the composition of the Egyptian Army in the Armana letters. They basically have footarchers and chariots. That indicates their primary use. Of course every footsoldier was able to engage in close combat, but they don't need to engage in formation battle.

[sumskilz]

Just look at the composition of the Egyptian Army in the Armana letters. They basically have footarchers and chariots.

Your arguments may be accurate regardless of the fact, but you probably got this idea from a common translation of the Amarna letters that I think is unlikely to be correct.

The word piṭātu used to be commonly translated as "archers". It only appears in Late Bronze West Semitic languages. We know it's a type of soldiers both because of context and the fact that it has a troop type indicator. Despite no longer being a spoken language in Mesopotamia at the time, the Amarna letters are written in Old Babylonian with some local vocabulary here and there. The translation as "archers" is based on the assumption that the word is a loan word from Egyptian based on the Egyptian word pḏt which means "bow" or "archer" depending on the indicator. Most likely pḏt was pronounced "pejet". The only morpheme in the word piṭātu that is not grammatical is pi-. In the Amarna letters this morpheme is usually represented by its phonetic symbol, but other times by the Sumerogram KAŠ, which means "beer". In Old Babylonian the word pí'u means "beer jar" or refers to a specific measure of liquid. The -u is grammatical, so it is based off the same morpheme pi- as piṭātu is. Thus it seems much more likely that the term is based on the fact that regular troops were paid in beer and bread rather than it being awkwardly related to the Egyptian word pḏt. They may or may not have used bows as their primary weapon, but the word probably just indicates regular soldiers rather than archers.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Your arguments may be accurate regardless of the fact, but you probably got this idea from a common translation of the Amarna letters that I think is unlikely to be correct.

The word piṭātu used to be commonly translated as "archers". It only appears in Late Bronze West Semitic languages. We know it's a type of soldiers both because of context and the fact that it has a troop type indicator. Despite no longer being a spoken language in Mesopotamia at the time, the Amarna letters are written in Old Babylonian with some local vocabulary here and there. The translation as "archers" is based on the assumption that the word is a loan word from Egyptian based on the Egyptian word pḏt which means "bow" or "archer" depending on the indicator. Most likely pḏt was pronounced "pejet". The only morpheme in the word piṭātu that is not grammatical is pi-. In the Amarna letters this morpheme is usually represented by its phonetic symbol, but other times by the Sumerogram KAŠ, which means "beer". In Old Babylonian the word pí'u means "beer jar" or refers to a specific measure of liquid. The -u is grammatical, so it is based off the same morpheme pi- as piṭātu is. Thus it seems much more likely that the term is based on the fact that regular troops were paid in beer and bread rather than it being awkwardly related to the Egyptian word pḏt. They may or may not have used bows as their primary weapon, but the word probably just indicates regular soldiers rather than archers.

Thanks i didn't knew that. I had akkadian at University, but i never went through with actually using it But as you wrote, it might be correct that the primary weapon was still the Bow as other sources like images indicate to us.

[Cyclops]

Julius Caesar, eyewitness report of British chariot warfare:...

Thx, good to see the first hand accounts, that gels with your earlier point about harnessed horses being less likely to shy or baulk.

The 'battle taxi" seems to be the Insular adaption of the chariot, I don't think there's any mention of archery in the British chariot accounts and I wonder why? Maybe Britain was too damp for a strong local archery tradition at the time? Maybe the archery component never displaced the sword as the elite weapon of choice? Really not sure.

[Condottiere 40K]

Going by Homer and what I'll assume is a Celtic inclination towards dueling, the chariot would be both a prestigious vehicle, and a way to get out of Dodge fast.

[+Marius+]

Thx, good to see the first hand accounts, that gels with your earlier point about harnessed horses being less likely to shy or baulk.

Yes, but the Celts of Britain were the last to develop the chariot as a war tool.

How about the Middle Eastern ones;

"The scythes they carried reached out sideways from the axles and were also set under the chariot bodies, pointing towards the ground, so as to cut to pieces whatever they met; the intention, then, was that they should drive into the ranks of the Greeks and cut the troops to pieces." -- Xenophon, Anabasis 1.8.10

"When the Greeks saw him advancing upon them, they ran together to the number of about seven hundred; Pharnabazus, however, did not delay, but putting his chariots in front, and posting himself and the horsemen behind them, he gave orders to charge upon the Greeks. And when the chariots dashed into the close-gathered crowd and scattered it, the horsemen speedily struck down about a hundred men, while the rest fled for refuge." -- Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1.18-19

"Thereupon a severe and bloody struggle ensued. Nicomedes [III of Bithynia] prevailed and put the Mithridateans to flight until Archelaus, advancing from the right flank, fell upon the pursuers, who were compelled to turn their attention to him. He yielded little by little in order that the forces of Neoptolemus might have a chance to rally. When he judged that they had done so sufficiently, he advanced again. At the same time the scythe-bearing chariots made a charge on the Bithynians, cutting some of them in two, and tearing others to pieces. The army of Nicomedes was terrified at seeing men cut in halves and still breathing, or mangled in fragments and their parts hanging on the scythes. Overcome rather by the hideousness of the spectacle than by loss of the fight, fear took possession of their ranks. While they were thus thrown into confusion, Archelaus attacked them in front, and Neoptolemus and Arcathias, who had turned about, assailed them in the rear." (App., ​Mith. 18)

Seems like all that expensive metal on the scythes was mounted on those wheels for a reason.

[War lord]

Intimidation seems likely. The noise of the chariots, combined with prospect of being sliced apart by the blades, would have had a huge effect on enemy morale, thus breaking up the enemy formation. Note that in both accounts of the scythed chariots in battle, they're always followed up by more conventional forces to actually break the enemy.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

The problem with the Homeric description of Chariots as battle-taxis is that the Iliad was written centuries after the actual use of them in the Mycenaean Age. So the question is if they were in reality used differently than the Iliad is suggesting it. Than however the Hittites used their Chariots quite similar and different than the light chariots of the Egyptians.