Human logic itself leads us to think that our species has been killing itself since it had the capacity to do so. As humanity’s inherent advancement continued its – sometimes slow – march, assassination techniques became more and more refined. While the Babylonians liked to whip lawbreakers with a shredded, sun-dried ox penis, the Assyrians had a fascination with razing cities and making their captives eat wool and drink water until they literally burst with swelling. .
But, if we add the most sophisticated development of writing to the unrefined human custom of killing, we obtain the first documented battle in history. To do this we must go back to 1457 BC during the New Kingdom of one of the most interesting civilizations in Ancient History: Egypt.
Egypt during the New Kingdom
The entrance of the Hyksos in the African continent
Egypt during the New Kingdom
The fertile lands of the Nile have been studied for centuries by European historians, therefore, although this ancient civilization continues to keep great unknowns, it is not difficult to have quality documentation today. The first source thanks to which we begin to learn more about this territory is Manetho, a Hellenized Egyptian who carried out a list of pharaohs and wrote a general history of the territory. Why am I telling this in an article about a battle? Basically because he was the first to group the different pharaohs into dynasties and consequently ordered Egyptian history, however, these dynasties did not follow a blood order, but rather changed their number when the continuity was altered by some important event. Currently, thanks to archaeological finds, Manetho is not the main source.
To understand the New Kingdom we have to go back to its origin, around 1800 BC with the fall of the Middle Kingdom. The XII dynasty, the last of this period, was unable to govern the vast territory under its command and also had to deal with a constant in Ancient History, demographic and migratory pressures on the borders. Countless empires fell due to this push in the early dawn of history.
On this occasion, it was peoples known as the “Hyksos” who entered the borders of the Lower Nile and imposed their leaders as kings over the nomarchs of the endemic nobility of the Great River. For centuries, they would impose their rule and establish a series of vassal states that had to pay taxes to maintain a certain autonomy.
However, one city remained somewhat independent and controlled its territory: Thebes. There, what is known as the XVI and later the XVII dynasty would carry out a liberation war that would expel the Hyksos and restore a unified Egypt under a single king: Ahmose, who would be the founder of the XVIII dynasty around the year 1550.
This dynasty would begin to spread throughout Asia and Africa, containing its historical enemies: the Nubians. The dynasty advanced and the internal balance of the country was strengthened with each reign, then we come to Thutmose I, whose daughter, Hatshepsut, was destined to reign but unfortunately for her, she would be forced to marry the future Tuthmosis II because of palace intrigues. Upon his early death Tutmosis III – our protagonist today – was named heir, but he was too young. so Hatshepsut took over the regency.
During the second year of regency, she decided to proclaim herself pharaoh and Tutmosis III, seeing herself as weak, had no choice but to accept the power of her stepmother who, by the way, was also her aunt. During his rule, one of the greatest periods of stability and wealth in Egypt is reached. She took on the attributes of a man, even wearing a false beard, and was anointed as pharaoh by the high priests. She later led a series of campaigns against the Nubians, who used to attack the borders to test the forces of the new pharaohs. He carried out several more campaigns in Nubia and also conquered Gaza. One of his generals is thought to have been Thutmose III himself.
Upon Hatshepsut’s death, Thutmose III came to power with a professional and veteran army prepared for his expansionist campaign. Regarding the previous pharaoh, it is believed that the new monarch carried out a Damnatio Memoriae, that is, erasing her face from all places and her presence from history as if she had never existed. However, a current current of Egyptologists defends that this was not the case, that the relations between the two were not as bad as they think and that the one who carried out this was the clergy of the god Osiris, an entity of the Egyptian pantheon that was ignored during his reign. and even she had herself sculpted as if she were such a deity.
Thutmose III wanted to emulate his grandfather, Tuthmosis I who had extended his borders to touch the Euphrates. But for this, he would have to face a coalition of cities and kingdoms that wanted to free themselves from his yoke: the Canaanites, the Mittani empire, Kadesh and Megiddo.
A brief aside: the Egyptian army
It cannot be said that Egypt was a purely expansionist state like others of its time. Rather, it based its defensive system on maintaining containment territories against the danger of other states, cities or tribes. This changes in the New Kingdom and some expansionist measures are taken that may have their explanation in the search for aggrandizement of the monarch.
This causes that, during the period before the treaty in this article, the armies were formed by peasants recruited by the nomarchs – the landed nobility – with a very low effectiveness and little preparation. The fact that up to this point Egypt had survived is that her enemies were also not exceptionally prepared for war. But the arrival of the Hyksos will teach this state a hard lesson, since they could be subdued by any army that showed a little order and tactics.
In the new empire this will change radically and perhaps this is another reason why Egypt becomes more belligerent and expansionist. A warrior class emerges willing to fight and live from it, the soldiers professionalize and gradually become a powerful class thanks to the huge benefits provided by looting.
War chariots also appear, but much lighter than those used by the Hittites or the Mesopotamians. With just two horses, they carried a “crew” of two, one driving and the other carrying a compound bow and spear for closer combat. We must not forget that warfare at this time owed much to the bow, as the armor of the time was easily pierceable. Very rarely did they have scale armor and a shield, what they used to wear were straps of leather tied around the chest. The lower part was not protected, since the car itself was armored. The perfection of the Egyptian combat system on the chariot was that they used it for distance fighting, other armies preferred to charge them with sharp blades on their wheels, which caused a real carnage.
There were also advances in the infantry, a sword known as “khopesh” began to be used, which we have seen countless times in movies and other visual resources. It had the ability to stab and cut, also serving as a kind of hook that was used to throw enemy shields. Axes were also advanced, widely used by the infantry who still preferred the sword.
The composite bow, made from layers of bone and wood, was used by the Egyptians giving them a real advantage. It allowed to reach a great distance and allowed to penetrate scale armor. However, this type of bow required special maintenance, since the strings had to be changed more often and the help of a second person and a lot of strength were needed. They also used to be covered to prevent moisture from destroying them. In addition, they were especially difficult to build and they were not bought from outside; so, many still used the recurve bow or the simple bow.
Later, mercenaries would also be used to complete their ranks, such as the Sherden, of the Sea Peoples, Libyans, and even Mittans or Hebrews.
The battle
Tutmosis III was possibly one of the most important pharaohs, reaching the maximum territorial extension of his time. But by the beginning of his reign he was hungry for fame and he had to deal with an initial revolt in the eastern Levant, specifically in Syria. The provinces to the north of where the revolts took place tried to use these as a buffer and changed their vassalage to the Hittite Empire and Mittani. He quickly formed a confederation to confront Egypt led by Kadesh and Megiddo, two monarchical city-states. In addition, the rebellion of these territories cut off the fundamental route of trade between the lands of the Nile and the also rich Mesopotamia.
For this campaign, the pharaoh would gather about 20,000 men, of which 1,000 were on fearsome chariots and who would face the 15,000 formed by different clans, tribes and cities. It is remarkable to explain their route, since they traveled about 500 kilometers from Tjaru, a fortress where the road that led to the Levant began, to Megiddo. From Tjaru he went to Gaza, a city conquered by Ahmose and which had remained faithful; 11 days later they arrived at Yehem, where Thutmose had no choice but to send scouts to try to guess the route of the enemy army, since three routes could be followed: two relatively easy and one very risky in which he had to cross a dangerous and winding gorge. where the chances of an ambush were enormous. Thutmose III, using reverse psychology reasoning, decided to take the latter path, and was successful despite attempts by his officers to dissuade him. The success was such that he managed to avoid important detachments of troops that the king of Kadesh had deployed on the other two roads and, in addition, conquer the city of Aruuna, which was almost devoid of a garrison. Are we facing one of the first examples of military intelligence and counterintelligence? We have no answer to that, but the warrior-king had stationed himself with his army at the gates of one of the enemy strongholds.
That night, Thutmose ordered to camp and when the enemy camp was in the most absolute silence he took all the troops from their tents and marched on it. The next morning he unexpectedly attacked with a concave formation covering both flanks of the enemy, making the pocket easily predictable. Thutmose himself fought in the battle in which the rebels were outmatched and had to flee hopelessly into the city. Such was their desperation that they had to climb the walls because the gate had been closed. Many died in the rout…