Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1884 — An Egyptian Battalion 1,400 B. C. [ARTICLE]

An Egyptian Battalion 1,400 B. C.

The formation of the battalion for combat was as follows: The 100 captains formed the front rank of the battalion, and each captain had his 100 men in the file behind him, a corporal at the head of each nine men. The chief of each 1,000 men was in front of the center of his two companies, while the colonel commanding the grand battalion was in front of its center. The leaders were not mounted on horseback, but were mounted in two wheeled chariots drawn usually by two horses. In the chariots were carried a supply of javelins and arrows for the use of the chief, who usually had in the chariot with him a soldier, who held a buckler to cover him from the arrows of the enemy, while he dealt about him with his bow and spear. In the early days, and down to the time of Sesostris, the officers and non-commissioned officers carried bucklers and swords, while the private soldiers of infantry carried each a buckler and a battle-ax. Sometimes the battle-ax was accompanied by and sometimes replaced by a spear. It is easy to see that Moses drew from the military of Egypt that which he adopted for the Israelites, and later on the Greeks their formations. Both these nations took their first lessons in civilization and organization from Egypt. In the earliest monuments and records of the Egyptian army there is no sign of the existence of the horse as a military animal, while in the monuments of the eighteenth dynasty, the war-horse is everywhere indicated. It is probable that the warhorse was first introduced by the shepherd kings, who came in from Syria about 4,100 years ago. It is certain that the horse formed an important agent in the military establishment of Egypt, under the legitimate kings of the country, 1,700 years before the Christian era, and the lack of monuments erected during the 500 years of struggle between the shepherd kings and the Thebans explains easily the lack of record on the subject. Sesostris had at one time 20,000 war-chariots in line drawn by horses.