Employing war elephants

[kistlerj]

I am glad you enjoyed the book. Thanks much for the good review.

[antiochus]

John,

Could I please have the full details of your book "War Elephants." I need publisher plus ISBN. I have convinced Melbourne University to order a copy. Hope it is still in hardback.

Regards

[philsidnell]

I see an old post where a member was puzzled by the problem with the elephants at the Rhone, when Hannibal tried to get them across.

After studying all the accounts and theories, the solution to my mind is quite simple, regarding the history of those particular elephants....

In essence then the elephants of Hannibal were not practiced swimmers. ....

John K

John, thanks for taking the trouble to answer something which had been bothering me for some time, though you've now rendered a footnote in my Warhorse obsolete just as the paperback comes out! You've also pretty much stymied my plan to commission something on war elephants too; wish I had got to you first. I too will be ordering a copy fo your book.
Thanks

Phil

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

.......you've now rendered a footnote in my Warhorse obsolete just as the paperback comes out! .........
Thanks

Phil

And I've got the hardback...... :roll:

[kistlerj]

The hardback info:
Publisher: Praeger Publishers (November 30, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0275987612

The new paperback info
Publisher: Bison Books (October 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 080326004

The hardback is $45 new the paperback about $20. (at Amazon.com), but you can often find used copies on www.abe.com for less. I am glad a paperback came out since the hardcover is rather expensive. I also like the cover art better!

John,

Could I please have the full details of your book "War Elephants." I need publisher plus ISBN. I have convinced Melbourne University to order a copy. Hope it is still in hardback.

Regards

[kistlerj]

Warhorse should be very interesting too. I love the scene in The Return of the King when the Riders of Rohan attack the Oliphaunts, but I also cringe a little realizing there is no way on earth you could get horses to charge those monstrosities, even of the earthly variety (not 40 feet tall).

There is still room for another war elephants book, but it will probably need to be by an Asian scholar who can read Asian languages and thus describe their eastern history. I could only use english translations, only a small fraction of the available materials, surely there is a ton of interesting stuff in India and China history.

I see an old post where a member was puzzled by the problem with the elephants at the Rhone, when Hannibal tried to get them across.

After studying all the accounts and theories, the solution to my mind is quite simple, regarding the history of those particular elephants....

In essence then the elephants of Hannibal were not practiced swimmers. ....

John K

John, thanks for taking the trouble to answer something which had been bothering me for some time, though you've now rendered a footnote in my Warhorse obsolete just as the paperback comes out! You've also pretty much stymied my plan to commission something on war elephants too; wish I had got to you first. I too will be ordering a copy fo your book.
Thanks

Phil

[Sean Manning]

Warhorse should be very interesting too. I love the scene in The Return of the King when the Riders of Rohan attack the Oliphaunts, but I also cringe a little realizing there is no way on earth you could get horses to charge those monstrosities, even of the earthly variety (not 40 feet tall).

I was comforted by the fact that Tolkein, as an Oxford scholar, had read his Greek and Roman sources and had the Riders harry the oliphaunts with missiles from a distance. He got it right, even if Peter Jackson didn't.

[PMBardunias]

In essence then the elephants of Hannibal were not practiced swimmers. However, when they charged off the rafts half way across, they did discover that they could swim very easily, as they are amazingly buoyant.

What about the water temperature? I may be wrong, but I assume the Rhone is cold. Elephants are very sensitive for such large animals and may simply have refused to enter the water. As you say, once in they swam fine.

Unfortunately, the mahouts (riders) pretty much all drowned, so it was a disaster for the elephant corps, and Hannibal had to find new riders.

I have always wondered what percentage of mahouts and elephant breakers (its a nasty process, almost torture) were ethnic Indians in hellenistic armies. Any idea?

[kistlerj]

What about the water temperature? I may be wrong, but I assume the Rhone is cold. Elephants are very sensitive for such large animals and may simply have refused to enter the water. As you say, once in they swam fine.

Yes the water was likely rather cold, but not yet icy, as the snows were not yet falling in the Alps which feed the Rhone. That could be one reason they didn't get it, but they also have poor eyesight and likely could not see the other side, making them even less likely to want to go in.

I have always wondered what percentage of mahouts and elephant breakers (its a nasty process, almost torture) were ethnic Indians in hellenistic armies. Any idea?[/quote]

In most cases the mahouts work with the elephant breakers (good cop bad cop scenario) so the elephant comes to like him, as he feeds and tends its wounds during the breaking process. This may not have been the case in Hannibal's army however, because the beasts were captured in north Africa and had to be trained before putting them on ships for Hispania. I doubt there were any elephant breakers among the army, since baby elephants born in Hispania would not require the same kind of breaking as wild captured adults require. They get used to humans from birth and cooperate more easily, especially since the mother is there to help train it as well.

[antiochus]

Thank you for the information John. Two copies to be ordered. One for me the other for the university.

[Eleatic Guest]

Glover, R. F. (1944). The Elephant in Ancient War. The Classical Journal, 39(5), 257-269.

Glover, R. F. (1948). The Tactical Handling of the Elephant. Greece & Rome, 14, 1-11.

Gowers, W. (1947). The African Elephant in Warfare. African Affairs, 46, 42-49.

Meurig Davies, E. L. B. (1951). Elephant Tactics: Amm. Marc. 25. 1. 14; Sil. 9. 581-3; Lucr. 2. 537-9. The Classical Quarterly, 1, 153-155.

Moore, J. (1986). Elephants in War. Canadian Veterinary Journal, 27, 312-313.

Rance, P. (2003). Elephants in Warfare in Late Antiquity. Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 43(3-4), 355-384.

"War Elephant" (2006) by J.M.Kistler, ed. Praeger Publisher

S. O'Bryhim, "Hannibal's elephants and the crossing of the Rhone", Class. Q. 41 (1991), pp. 121-125.

Ancient historiography invariably viewed the African war elephants as inferior in size and strength to the Indian, which is curious given that the African bush elephant is visibly stronger and bigger than its Indian counterpart. Therefore, many modern authors assume that the Ptolemies and Carthaginians must have used the smaller African forest elephant, a sub species, for war purposes. Is this now a generally accepted hypothesis, or are there still dissenting opinions on the exact nature of ancient war elephants in the Mediterranean?

[kistlerj]

Thanks for that nice little bibliography, I see two references I have never read (I thought I had them all!).

I cannot say there is a consensus just because a lot of people offer their opinions without really studying the issue. Many modern historians look down on ancient historians as silly and just quoting rumors and making up stuff. So many scholars still think the ancients were wrong in saying that Asian elephants were larger and better than Africans. But those sources are also unfamiliar with the modern re-discovery of the African Forest elephant species.

The problem is that the Romans annihilated the Forest elephants from Africa during the ivory lust of the first and second centuries AD, when Carthage and Egypt were little more than staging grounds for ivory hunts. It is also quite clear not just from the literature but from art works and sculpture that the African elephants were not huge in size compared to their riders, but in fact were just somewhat larger than big horses.

So I would say that modern scholars who are now re familiarized with the existence of a north african elephant species of smaller size would agree that the ancients are correct, regarding size.

Regarding quality is a different matter. The ancients believed the african elephants to be inferior in a qualititative way just because of one or two ancient historical battles, in which the africans lost. From then on the "common wisdom" was that africans were worse. But the one major battle with Asian elephants (by Antiochus the Great) versus Africans (vs one of the Ptolemies of Egypt) is a tough battle to make such judgments.

The Ptolemies were new to elephants, so their riders were likely inexperienced and their mounts only trained in mediocre fashion. The Asians had real India mahouts and previous experience. So throwing in a bunch of rookie elephants with rookie riders into battle was hardly fair for assessing the usefulness of the whole species. Further, Antiochus had a numeric advantage also, thus no one should be surprised that his elephants won their battle. Yet Antiochus lost the battle in spite of the elephant victory.

The Ptolemies pretty much gave up on war elephants after that, so just the Romans used them in Spain and Greece afterwards. They had very good results, but never faced Asian elephants in battle (they avoided placing their africans against Antiochus' Asians and just used archers and infantry instead).

So I would say there is no real proof that Asians are better, since the one good case is inconclusive at best. But the size is certainly settled, in my opinion.

John Kistler

[PMBardunias]

How much do we know of the provenance of the Indian elephants that were used as well? There are some truly huge Indian elephants from the west of Nepal. A subspecies was described (google "Raja Gaj") that stands 11.5 feet at the shoulder and weighed over 7 tons. Loxodont is very leggy, so this would be much stockier than a 12 foot African bull.

[kistlerj]

That is a very good question regarding a possible subspecies of Asian elephants that are much larger than the modern beasts of Asia.

Fact is, all we know about ancient Asian elephant fighters is what the ancient historians (mainly Greek and Roman) tell us. They had very little familiarity with India or Asia in general. The western powers got Asian elephants in two ways, by conquest and by purchase. Alexander captured around 200 Asian elephants from southern Pakistan and northern India. Then Seleucus basically traded Pakistan for 500 elephants from Chandragupta Maurya. After that, it was a mere trickle of beasts purchased from Indian kings.

In order to answer that question we will need an Indian scholar to search through India's ancient records to see if there is detailed information on exactly where the beasts were captured and if their size was greater.

Considering that 2000 years of microevolution have gone on in the Asian elephant population since ancient elephant warfare, I would think that significant changes may have occured in their biology. For instance, I read recently that Asian elephant males are becoming more frequently makhnas, tuskless, perhaps because males with great tusks are poached and thus no longer contribute to the gene pool. So tuskless males now have an evolutionary advantage. The modern lack of habitat may also cause modern elephants to become smaller, since they have more difficulty finding food and must travel greater distances to acquire it. So being huge is no longer any advantage at all to the species.

In ancient times, India's rulers set aside huge tracts of land like national parks for the purpose of keeping their war elephants fat and fed. So it is quite possible that the elephants were larger and healthier before the modern era.

John Kistler

[philsidnell]

That is a very good question regarding a possible subspecies of Asian elephants that are much larger than the modern beasts of Asia.

In order to answer that question we will need an Indian scholar to search through India's ancient records to see if there is detailed information on exactly where the beasts were captured and if their size was greater.

John Kistler

I got two books for Christmas - one was War Elephants by a certain Mr Kistler and the other was The Art of War in Ancient India by P C Chakravarti. The latter was originally published in 1941 and appears to draw heavily on Indian literature, so when I get round to reading that I will let you know if there are any clues in there.

I haven't found time to have more than a quick flick through of either yet, but from that I expect both to prove good value for money.

Phil