#war elephants

[mapsontheweb]

Historical range of the use of war elephants throughout history

Historical range of the use of war elephants throughout history

[illustratus]

[medievalistsnet]

Were War Elephants Really Used During the Crusades?

Discover how history, art, and medieval imagination shaped Western perceptions of these towering beasts.

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[tyrannoninja]

Egyptian War Elephants

The ancient Egyptians being able to train war elephants in the first Age of Empires game as well as Age of Mythology is a guilty pleasure of mine. I say guilty because I know that, in real history, it wasn't until Ptolemaic period when Egypt ever fielded war elephants. I am not aware of any evidence of indigenous Egyptian dynasties ever using them (although the Kushites further up the Nile may have used them during their Meroitic period, as evidenced by a possible elephant stable being found at the site of Musawwarat al-Sufa).

Then again, they have uncovered an elephant skeleton at the predynastic site of Hierakonpolis, so who knows, maybe predynastic Egyptians would have ridden them into battle before the desertification of the Sahara drove the animals southward.

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

The Battle of the Hydaspes by Giuseppe Rava

[stellanslashgeode]

I was thinking about war elephants

Really, they were most effective on cultures that had never seen or only heard rumors of elephants. Maybe some strange kludged-together drawings illustrated by someone who'd never seen one.

Can you IMAGINE never having seen elephants in children's books, on cartoons, television or movies your whole life? Your FIRST exposure to this huge mammal with arrow and sword-resistant skin and HUGE TUSKS is on the battlefield? How could you not soil yourself and run? This animal is so big that instead of a saddle it's a little house and there are guys in the house shooting arrows at you?

[Edit]: Oh, and also their nose is a snake. It's just a snake. No teeth but it can grasp things.

[madcat-world]

Defense - Alejandro Burdisio

[i-was-today-years-old-when]

i learned that prior to the American civil war, King Rama IV of Siam offered to send war elephants to the Union for their own military and logistical use. Lincoln declined, stating that the American climate would not support the domestication of elephants and that the steam engine would suffice (x)