The battle of Qadesh (sometimes Kadesh) is one of the oldest battles in world history where scholars have enough information to reconstruct the strategy, tactics, and equipment used by the belligerents, specifically the New Kingdom Egyptians and their northern rivals, the Hittites from the Anatolian peninsula (modern Türkiye). Most of this information comes from two sources, the bas relief inscriptions at Abu Simbel, and the Poem of Pentaur inscribed at the temple of Karnak celebrating this victory. This battle also demonstrates an early example of “active command” in military history, a general leading his troops from the front in active participation in the battle, as opposed to “remote command” or “removed command” where a general directs the battle from the safety of a rear echelon position surrounded by his bodyguard. In this case, the commander was the young Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II (r.1279-1213 BCE), the most famous pharaoh of the New Kingdom era (c.1570-c.1069 BCE). In 1275 BCE, the young Ramses faced the expansionistic Hittites who had moved from their base in southern Anatolia into northern Syria. Ramses’ target was the city of Qadesh on the Orontes River, and his goal was to end Hittite interference in the Egyptian sphere of influence in Syria by defeating the enemy’s main force in the field. 

Ramses’ expeditionary army marched from Egypt to the city of Qadesh in one month. The Egyptian army contained 20,000 men, composed of four divisions of 5,000 each and some allied contingents. Each of the divisions consisted of chariots, archers, spearmen, and axe-wielding infantry and were named after the gods Amon, Ra, Sutekh (Seth) and Ptah. Almost half the Egyptian force was comprised of 5,000 chariots and an unknown number of attendants necessary to keep the sophisticated machines and their horses battle ready.  Defending the city of Qadesh was the Hittite king Muwatallis II’s (r.1295-1272 BCE) Hittite army of 19,000 men and around 3,500 chariots. Egyptian chariots were crewed by two men, a driver, and an archer, and were primarily a firing platform for archers, and accordingly, were light and flexible. The Hittite chariots encountered at Qadesh were heavier, six-wheeled platforms crewed by three (a driver, shield-bearer, and soldier) and designed for shock attack, a combat mode that required a sacrifice of speed and flexibility for combat survivability. But a new interpretation suggests that the composite bow was the primary weapon in Hittite chariots as well, and that the heavier platforms were simply better protected firing platforms, and not moving battering rams.   

On the morning of May 10, Ramses moved out in command of the van of the Amon division hoping to seize Qadesh by the end of the day.  As the first elements of the lead division of Amon reached the forward camp, two newly captured Hittite scouts revealed under torture that the Hittite army was hidden to the east of Qadesh near the ruins of the old town of Qadesh. Before Ramses could react, the Hittite army quickly forded the Orontes from the southeast and struck the exposed right flank of the Ra division. The heavier Hittite war chariots pushed into the Egyptian files, killing, and scattering the invading infantry. The Ra division broke in panic and retreated up against the just-arriving Amon division, which joined their beleaguered comrades in rout.  

The Hittite chariots pushed through the Egyptian column before swinging to the northeast and pressing their attack on the western gate of Ramses’ encampment. Although the lead Hittite units that penetrated the camp were quickly dragged from their chariots by the pharaoh’s bodyguard and killed, Ramses was unable to hold the fort. At this critical moment in the battle, Ramses mounted his chariot and rushed forward without his bodyguard into the thick of the battle in an audacious example of active command. Inspired by the courage of their pharaoh, a small force of Egyptian chariots sallied forth from the east gate, and wheeling to the northwest, struck the Hittite flank while it was preoccupied looting the camp. 

While the Egyptians began a concerted counterattack against the fleeing Hittite forces, King Muwatallis acted, committing his remaining 1,000 chariots to the battle. This relief force forded the Orontes north of Qadesh and swung south to hit Ramses on the flank. Unfortunately for Muwatallis, arriving from the north were recovering Egyptian troops, while the third of the Egyptian divisions, the Sutekh, approached from the south. Just as the Hittite chariots spread out onto the plain and into line of attack, their right was threatened by the arriving rallied Egyptian forces from the north. To make matters worse for the Hittite king, Ramses broke off pursuit of the Hittite chariots trapped between him and the river and, joining forces with the Sutekh division, turned north to intercept the Hittite relief force. Caught between the two converging Egyptian armies, the Hittite relief force was destroyed. As the remnants of the first Hittite force escaped south of Qadesh across the Orontes, the final of the four Egyptian divisions, the Ptah, arrived on the battlefield too late to join the melee.

Tactically, the battle of Qadesh ended in a stalemate. Ramses withdrew from Syria, leaving the Hittites in Qadesh. Strategically, the Egyptians had failed in a major military operation to end Hittite influence in Syria-Palestine. Over the next two decades, the Hittite would instigate revolts in Palestine, forcing Ramses to respond with military action, but never again did the Egyptians threaten the Hittites north of the Orontes. Eventually, these enemies became allies in the face of a new regional threat, the rise of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia. Ramses’ role at Qadesh was immortalized during his lifetime with the creation of two rock cut temples at Abu Simbel in southern Egypt along the frontier with Nubia, with bas reliefs showing the warrior-pharaoh smiting his Hittite enemy in a manner reminiscent of Narmer on his palette.

Suggested Readings: 

Cotterall, Arthur. Where War Began: A Military History of the Middle East from the Birth of Civilization to Alexander the Great and the Romans.  Stackpole Books, 2022.

Elliott, Paul. Warfare in New Kingdom Egypt. Fonthill Media, 2017.

Shaw, Ian. Ancient Egyptian Warfare: Tactics, Weaponry, and Ideology of the Pharaohs. Casemate, 2019.

Yadin, Yigael. The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discovery. Hassell Street, 2021.