I have read about and studied "War Elephant" history quite extensively over the years. Having dealt with elephants, the concept of looking across a field at 100's of them dressed in armor had to be the most frightening thing for your enemy. I just can't wrap my brain around the skill and courage it must have taken to ride one into battle, and keep control of them when the "shit hit's the fan", no matter how much I read and study on the subject. The fact that they predominantly used males is ever more mystifying. For me it is almost a made up history lesson, and if not for the armor we can see today in museums, I would not believe it was possible long ago. Truly unbelievable.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Stratford Armories
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
I seem to remember hearing that they were also fed some sort of hallucinagenic plant to make them more aggressive before battle. If that's true, I wonder if they were really under that much control, or were they just stampeded through enemy lines.
I agree, today it appears an extreme task, to control an elephant in war and battle. Theres may one point that tends to be forgotten though; that thousand of elephants were wild-caught, where a selection could be made to sort out the best behaving specimens. Some kings could have 600 or more elephants, and with such a number, its easy to see upto what enourmus numbers of manpower, that was in charge of the elephants.
I we would capture 1000 elephants next year, and have 3000 trainers/keepers at disposal, I guess it would be possible to come out with at least 50 perfect elephants.
I have read that they were fed tainted wine, in addition to hallucinogens to make them more aggressive. Doesn't seem like something you would need to encourage from a male elephant though. I have come to the conclusion after all I have read that, stampeding wildly through both friend and foe, as their secondary purpose. Their main purpose was strictly intimidation and demoralization. Many, many soldiers looking across at 100 elephants refused to fight. The ones who did fight saw the futility in it, and realized that it made more sense to capture them and use them for reverse psychology, scaring the snot out of their enemy. No way could you expect anything but havoc(even with folks trying to convince us of their great powers of reason,) even with a blade on the end of the hook, in which to "dispatch" them, when they went south. The psychology also worked when rulers acquired large elephant stables and used them to parade through the streets, giving the "ignorant" the impression that the ruler had great power over all things. Something I fear that carried over into the 1900's into the mid 90's with the Carson and Barnes herd of 50. It used to be an indicator of a circus's greatness by the number of elephant they had. Then the "ignorant" got "smart" and the sad state of "stock piling" elephants ended.
Wade
Post a Comment