- Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 -
After a break, I return to the unknown Tartary, described by Marco Polo and other authors. Unknown, because, as it turns out now, there seems to be information about her, and there seems to be a lot of it, but we - Russians, Soviet - for some reason did not know anything about her until recently. Those. I have not even heard such words - the bulk of the population, I think. Now we fill in the gaps in our knowledge. From currently available sources. The previous part ended with a description of the winter residence of the Tartar khan (or ham, or kama, as they were also called earlier). But what is a state without an army? Of course, there was also an army in Tartary, and it was very well organized.
Organization of the Tartar army
The Journey of Marco Polo, 1908
From the explanation to the text:
“A Toman” - isn't this a Cossack chieftain? It is also said that the practice of feeding on the blood of their horses in emergency cases was also inherent in the Scythians or Sarmatians. But the tartars are the Scythians and Sarmatians. This is repeatedly mentioned by Witsen in his book "Northern and Eastern Tartary":
Read more about this in the article “Who built the Gog and Magog dam? Part 3 "About the Tartar-Cossack hordes in the article" Who are the Kalmaks? " and in the article "Cossacks and the Cossack Horde". From the book by Mavro Orbini "Slavic Kingdom":
Two authors are named here, who say that the Tartars and Scythians are Slavs. In total, Orbini cites excerpts from books by more than 300 authors who call the Scythians, Sarmatians and Tartars Slavs. And were the soldiers of the Tartar army called Cossacks? Recently I discovered a mention of Cossacks and tartars from another author - a traveler and writer of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Jacques Chardin:
In the Russian-language translation of his books, the tartars are replaced by the Tatars, as in many other Russian-language translations. But it turned out that the Slavs-Scythians-Sarmatians-Tartars were also called Huns.
In an excerpt from Marco Polo's book describing the structure of the Tartar army, it is said that each warrior had at his disposal or in his possession about 20 or more horses. I think it is understandable why they lodged not in cities, but in their environs, "roaming", so to speak, in an open field:
It is clear what they ate on the campaigns themselves. In the book of Marco Polo it is also written that they took milk powder and cheese with them. But, what did their horses eat on the campaign? Marco Polo mentions this briefly when describing the clothing, equipment and disposition of the Tartar warriors:
Other authors also drew attention to the resilience of the Slavic soldiers to hardships. Here is an excerpt from Mavro Orbini's "Slavic Kingdom":
Ancient authors about the Slavs
In this passage, Mavro Orbini cites excerpts from three ancient authors telling about the Slavs:
1. Pomponius Mela - Roman geographer of the 1st century AD. This is how he represented the world:
The geography of the world as seen by Pomponius Mela.
Seres is, like, China, translated from Latin means "silk". But Pomponius Mela places peoples there: Gandars, Paryans (Paryans?), Bactras, Pharmacotrophs, Homars, Hoamans. Mosquitoes and Massagets probably belong to Scythia. Although there is no clear division between countries and peoples. The Iranian Encyclopedia suggests that the names of these peoples also refer to the Scythian tribes, but claims that they are mentioned only by Pomponius Mel and no one else.
2. Strabo - Greek geographer, 1st century BC, who wrote a geographical encyclopedia, consisting of 17 volumes.
Geography of Strabo, revised by Isaac de Casaubon, 1620
This is how Strabo imagined the world:
World map according to Strabo.
Even easier than Pomponius Mela. But the Caspian Sea, which has access to the Scythian or Arctic Ocean.
3. Alexander Gvagnini - Italian publisher and historian, 1538-1614. Compiled a book "Description of European Sarmatia" in Latin. Unfortunately, this book has not been translated into Russian. Book cover sheet:
On which it is written: "Sarmatiae Europeae descriptio: quae Regnum Poloniae, Lituaniam, Samogitiam, Russiam, Massouiam, Prussiam, Pomeraniam, Liuoniam, et Moschouiae, Tartariaeque partem complectitur." Which means: Sarmatie European part: Samogitia Lithuania), Russia, Massovia (Principality of Mazovia, part of Poland), Prussia (formerly occupied the territory of partly Germany, partly Poland and partly Russia - Kaliningrad region), Pomerania (now partly Germany, partly Poland), Livonia (the territory of modern Latvia and Estonia), and Muscovy, part of Tartary. It is interesting that in Latin the words Russiam and Prussiam differ in only one letter. And that Muscovy was part of Tartary, and Russia was not. And this is the beginning of the 17th century. Coincides with what Marco Polo described - 13th century,but does not coincide with the description of Nikolaas Witsen ("Northern and Eastern Tartary") - the end of the 17th century. But I have long had a suspicion that Marco Polo is not the 13th century, but about the 15th or even the 16th. But for now I will not confirm anything.
Clothes and weapons of Tartar warriors
I found an interesting description of the clothes of the Tartar warriors from Nikolaas Witsen ("Northern and Eastern Tartary"):
Witsen gives in his book a description of the Jesuit Martino Martini (who compiled an atlas of China and made many descriptions of those places):
Of course, it sounds amazing that they could make such complex and beautiful weapons and armor as described here, but they did not know how to shoe horses. Although, on the other hand, in a cavalry army, for example, of 100,000 soldiers, provided that each warrior has 18 horses and each horse has 4 legs, it turns out that such an army needs to have 7,200,000 horseshoes. With an average weight of a horseshoe of 0.5 kg (conditionally), 3,600,000 kg or 3,600 tons of iron are needed to make such a number of horseshoes. And this is only for one army of 100,000 soldiers. Most likely, this was the real reason that the horses were not shod, and not at all the ability to shoe horses. After all, even without horseshoes, each warrior had on himself and with him up to 15-20 kg of iron, it was still necessary to extract and process it a lot. The following is a description of the Jesuit Martini:
This is how it probably looked?
The rifle army of Ivan the Terrible.
Only the hairstyle is different - a long mustache and a shaved head with a bun of hair on the crown. Perhaps so?
Witsen mentions in his book that tartars also shaved their heads baldly.
Japanese men also owe their hairstyles to the tartars, according to the description of the Jesuit Martini:
But it doesn't seem quite similar:
Japanese samurai, 1868
About trumpeters and standard-bearers
Another Jesuit, Father Rougemont, about the Tartar warriors and in general about the Tartars:
You come across such descriptions that you don't know what about them and say, for example: “They also attack in disorder, at the sound of trumpets. They don't have trumpeters and drummers. From other sources, cited in Witsen's book, it turns out that they did have trumpeters, as well as drummers. Think about it: either the author did not understand what he was writing, or whoever missed the text of the rules? I do not know what the church banner of the 16th century Catholics looked like, but the Russian banner looked like this:
Prapor. Russia, XVI century.
It is interesting that it depicts a two-headed eagle, a lion and a dragon together, and even with a curved tail in three rings. And what would all this mean?
About preparation of dry food
Continuing the interrupted description of Marco Polo:
Explanations for this description, quoted from the book of the 18th century traveler John Bell:
The description of the preparation of dairy products by both Mark Polo and John Bell suggests that the Europeans did not use anything like this. What then, interestingly, did their armies eat on long campaigns? And not in the near. But in field conditions, even for one or two weeks, the soldiers need to be fed with something. And in this situation, the lighter and more satisfying the product is, the less space it will take in transportation, leaving more room for maneuverability. What in a war situation can become a matter of life and death in the truest sense of the word.
The author of the edition of the book about the journey, Marco Polo, often supplements the text of the book with descriptions taken from the book by John Bell. Which in itself, I think, is very interesting. At least by the fact that he, like Nikolaas Witsen and Marco Polo, described Tartary. John Bell (1691-1780), a Scotsman by birth, was a physician in the Russian service. As a full-time physician in the Russian embassies, he visited Persia (1715-1718), China (1719-1721) and Turkey (1737-1738), and, returning to his homeland, in 1763 published a two-volume description of his travels, Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia, in various parts of Asia :
The title page of the 1st volume.
About firearms and damask steel
This is how Adam Olearius describes the Tartar army (German traveler, geographer, orientalist, historian, mathematician and physicist, 1599-1671):
This means that the tartars used chemical weapons in the 17th century. But perhaps not only them? Although Olearius writes about this as a Tartar invention. Further from his description:
Here we are talking about the tartars living in Persia (the territory of modern Iran). At the time of Marco Polo, Persia and Muscovy, as well as India and China, were Tartar provinces. This is described in more detail in the 2nd part of the series of articles about the Unknown Tartary. At the time of Adam Olearius, Persia was already a kingdom. And Muscovy still remained a province, judging by the cover of his book "Campaigns and Travels of Ambassadors Sent by Frederick, Duke of Holstein, to the Grand Duke of Muscovy and King of Persia", published in 1669. in London:
The fact that the tartars did not use muskets and cannons not at all because they were so wild that they did not know how to use them, but for completely different reasons, writes Nikolaas Witsen, describing the Mugalsk tartars:
As I understand it, we are talking about damask steel. About bulat from the Russian-language Wikipedia:
So, according to the Russian version, they were familiar with damask steel in Russia, but for the first time they were able to make it only in 1828. About bulat from the English-speaking Wikipedia:
Which of these versions is true and which is not? From feelings of patriotism, I probably should have chosen the Russian-language version. But the English-language version seems to me more logical: damask was known in Russia (among nomadic peoples, it was not possible to ride a horse with an ordinary forged straight and heavy sword) back in the Middle Ages. Then the technology for its manufacture was lost (by the beginning of the 19th century - the final death of Tartary, like many other technologies, construction, for example), and then re-invented by a Russian engineer. In Europe, just as they did not know how to make it in the Middle Ages, they could not learn it later. And in Russia there is even a plant with a name corresponding to its application. Not because in Russia they were familiar with damask products made in other countries? By the way, the book quoted by the English-language Wikipedia,available only in the English edition:
Probably because even though its author is a Slav (Belarusian), he lives in America.
Author: i_mar_a