Before the Mongols struck out across most of Asia as the premier mounted warriors of their day, the Seljuk Turks carved an impressive empire stretching from their homeland in Central Asia, across Persia and Mesopotamia to the Levant and finally Anatolia (modern day Türkiye). The Seljuk Turks were a nomadic people from Central Asia who had converted to Sunni Islam. After defeating their Turkish rivals Ghaznavids for control of Khorasan at the battle of Dandanaqan in 1040, the Seljuks moved gradually into the heart of Persia and Armenia, growing in size in the eleventh century and taking over the Eastern provinces of the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258). In 1055, the Abbasid capital of Baghdad was seized by Toghril Beg (r.1055-1063), forcing the caliph into a purely figurehead role. Toghril became the de facto ruler of Islamic Persia and Mesopotamia and forged a new Near Eastern imperium. Known as the Great Seljuk Empire (1037-1194), it encompassed 1.5 million square miles and quickly became a regional power using swift cavalry tactics and a merciless brand of warfare.

Using Mesopotamia as a base, the Seljuk Turks exerted military pressure on the Shia Fatimid dynasty in the Levant and Egypt and the eastern borders of the Byzantine Empire. Toghril’s successor, sultan Alp Arslan (r.1063-1072) defeated Romanus IV Diogenes (r.1068-1071) at the battle of Manzikert in August 1071, capturing, ransoming, and releasing the emperor who was unable to regain his throne. However, in the wake of the battle of Manzikert Byzantium lost most of Anatolia to permanent Turkish invasion and migration by 1081.  After decades of military decline, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Komnenos (r.1081-1118) stabilized his frontiers on the Greek Adriatic coast against the Normans, defeated the Pechenegs in the Balkans, and stopped further Seljuk penetrations in western Anatolia. However, lacking the resources to undertake additional campaigns against the Turks, Alexius turned to Western Europe for military assistance, writing Pope Urban II (p.1088-1099) a letter in 1095 asking for Catholic support to recapture land lost to the Seljuks. Urban responded by “calling to arms” the First Crusade (1095-1099) at the Council of Clermont in southern France.  Catholic armies converged first on Constantinople, and then crossed into Anatolia, the new homeland of a formidable mounted enemy from the east, the Seljuk Turks.

Seljuk warfare was typical of nomadic tactics that evolved from constant mounted raiding on the fringes of civilization and from great hunting drives on the Eurasian steppes. The Seljuk warrior relied on the mobility of his horse as his best defense. Originally, Turkish warriors rode sturdy steppe ponies similar in appearance to the Przewalski horse, mounts that possessed a combination of excellent qualities, including courage, stamina, and the ability to subsist on little food and food of a lesser quality. But contacts with the Islamic world introduced Seljuk warriors to the leaner and nimbler Turkmene and Arabian breeds. Turkmene horses weighed 800 to 900-lbs and measured in at around fifteen hands high (like their modern descendants, the Akhal-Tekes of modern Turkmenistan). The Arabians would have been smaller, well under fifteen hands high and weighing between 700 and 800-lbs. Unlike the Christian counterparts in western Europe, steppe warriors preferred mares over stallions as war horses. Broken and ridden hard for their first two years, these horses were then put out to pasture for the next three years to develop a herd mentality. If left untied, the horses did not stray. Afterwards, they were trained for warfare.

Top photo: Art depicting the battle of Dandanaqan between Ghaznavids and Seljuks in 1040. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

Map image: The Seljuk Empire. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

Weapons photo: Left: Unstrung Turkish composite bow with unfletched arrows. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Right: two styles of scimitars: an Egyptian shamshir (left) and an Ottoman kilij (right). Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

Bottom artwork: Ottoman Turkish mounted archer shooting backwards in a Parthian shot. Ottoman and earlier Seljuk mounted archery shared many similarities in the type of bow, arrows and quiver utilized. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

Seljuk warriors were well protected by a panoply that mirrored the arms and armor of their civilized adversaries, with important Central Asian additions. Wealthier warriors adopted the chainmail hauberk and pointed conical helmet with chain or leather aventail or chain coif to protect their necks and shoulders. Sometimes, scale armor or leather lamellar armor was worn instead. Still, most Seljuk warriors went into combat unarmored, instead wearing the kaftan-like overcoat typical of steppe nomads of all eras. Loose-fitting breaches and leather boots completed the warrior’s dress. For additional protection, he carried a small round convex shield.   

Offensively, the Seljuk warriors’ primary weapon was their short composite bow, although other weapons could include javelins, a light lance, mace, battle axe, lasso, or saber.  Javelins were utilized as short-distance missile weapons or stabbing weapons, while the light twelve-foot lance, a weapon preferred by Arabs and Iranians, was not neglected by Turkish warriors despite their love of mounted archery. Maces and small battle axes were also used by Turkish warriors from horseback and examples of these types of weapons go back to the origins of steppe cultures and are commonly seen in the archaeological record. Small equestrian battleaxes were also used by Turkish warriors.  Additionally, the Seljuk warrior carried a curved saber (Turkish kilij and the later Persian shamshir), although straight swords continued to be used. With a blade length of between twenty-five and thirty inches and a rounded grip made of wood or ivory, the curved kilij proved to be an excellent equestrian sword.

The centerpiece of a Seljuk warriors’ arsenal was their short composite bow. Smaller than its Mongolian or Persian brothers, the Turkish bow was about three feet in length strung and recurved in shape. The bow was constructed in three parts: a thin central stave of wood (often maple, cornus, or mulberry because these woods absorb glue well) laminated with sinew on the back and horn on the belly. Some bows used bamboo as the wood source. Typically, the bowyer cut the wood into five sections joined together with fishtail splices some three and a half inches long. Each bow had a central section for the grip, joined to two bow arms and tipped with grooved ends where the string would attach. Horn from buffalo, long-horned cattle, or ibex was then glued to the belly of the bow.

This composite construction gave the Turkish bow a powerful draw weight, while the short recurve design allowed the steppe warrior to shoot the arrow quickly, in any direction, and at great distance. Much has been written about the extraordinary draw weights of steppe war bows. The most powerful of these war bows belonged to the Mongols with an estimated 160-lbf (pound force) draw weight and a range of over 350 yards. Turkish bows were smaller and less powerful, though still capable of impressive ranges and penetration. Mounted Seljuk warriors could draw and shoot up to twelve arrows a minute, keeping an arrow in flight as the first shaft hit its target and the third was notched on the string. Successful mounted archery was a numbers game, as most arrows were sent towards the enemy in volleys rather than the warrior carefully picking his target. When combined with the arrows of their comrades, this medieval “firing for effect” barrage could riddle a battlefield with shafts. This type of coverage was often necessary, since only between one and fifty and one and one hundred shots would be a kill shot and a single arrow strike was most often only temporarily debilitating to horse or rider. The range of a war bow was around two-hundred yards, while the effective killing distance was between fifty and sixty yards. Steppe warriors were also adept at shooting their arrows at steep angles (forty-five degrees) to have the arrows rain down on a target, an effective tactic against massed enemies. 

One of the secrets to the steppe warrior’s military success was strategic surprise, and this surprise was dependent on the number and quality of his remounts. Typically, a raiding party might have three or four remounts available per man, thus allowing the warrior to cover great distances per day and still have a suitable horse for war if required.  Although the distance covered depended on topography, one observer of a steppe warrior’s prowess in the saddle noted that a rider could cover 600 miles in nine days. Maintaining these many horses was easy to do in Central Asia and Anatolia because of the abundant forage available on the steppes and the reliable horse breeding and procurement system nomads developed over the centuries.  When first approaching the enemy, Seljuk horse archers hovered just within bowshot of their enemy, firing in echelon, and slipping away after discharging a volley. A twelfth century Catholic observer of Seljuk tactics during the Third Crusade (1189-1192) commented that the nomads were “like flies that could be beaten off but not driven away.”  When the enemy offered battle, the Seljuks would retreat, twisting their torsos and firing arrows backward at their pursuers in what is often now referred to as the “Parthian shot” after the Parthian horse archers who famously defeated the triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus (115-53 BCE) and his Roman legions at the battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE. Although Seljuk Turks were infamous for their archery skills from horseback, this tactic alone was seldom enough to give them victory on the battlefield. Mounted archery was used to break-up enemy formations for a follow-up shock attack with lances, sabers, maces, and axes. 

Seljuk commanders understood the importance of the principles of surprise, offense, and maneuver in military operations and of seizing and maintaining the initiative, even if the strategic mission was defensive. When the enemy was located, Seljuk scouts relayed information concerning his strength, compliment, position, and direction of movement back to the commanding general, who in turn disseminated this information back to local commanders. Once intelligence had been gathered and the plan coordinated, the main force converged and surrounded their adversary, while other elements continued to advance and occupy the country behind the enemy’s flank and rear, threatening their lines of communication. If the enemy force was small, it was simply destroyed, but if it proved formidable, then Seljuk generals used maneuver, terrain, and their enemy’s aggressive tendencies to best advantage. If the enemy army was stationary, the Seljuk commander might command his main force to strike it in the rear, or turn its flank, or engage and then feign a retreat, only to pull the enemy into a pre-planned ambush using elite cavalry, killing both men and horses. The Seljuks excelled in this kind of feigned retreat. Sometimes, their retreats lasted many days, designed both to wear down their enemies and draw them away from their bases and towards a larger body of steppe warriors. Once their enemy tired, the Turks would wheel and strike or spring a trap. This form of feigned retreat became a signature tactic in numerous battles between the Seljuks and their Byzantine and Crusader adversaries, including Manzikert (1071), Harran (1104), and al-Sannabra (1113). 

Eventually, the Great Seljuk Empire would split into smaller Turkish states, including the Sultanate of Kermân (1041–1186) in southern Persia and northern Arabia, the Sultanate of Rûm (1074–1308) in Anatolia, as well as the Emirates of Aleppo and Damascus in Syria. In Anatolia and Syria, Seljuk rulers continued to fend of the expanding Christian powers of Byzantium, the Latin Crusader states, and the rising power of Armenia, as well as Muslim Egyptian dynasties (Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk). Seljuk infighting halted any hope of a reunited empire, while new thirteenth and early fourteenth century khanates, first the Mongol and then the Timurid, pulled many Turkish tribes into their service. Turkish fortunes in Anatolia would rise again in the late fourteenth century with the rise of Osman I (r.1299-1324), the founder of what would become the Ottoman Sultanate and empire, an early adopter of gun powder technologies and the Mediterranean basin’s greatest Islamic state.

Suggested Readings:

Primary sources

Anna Comnena. The Alexiad. Translated by E.R.A. Sewter. Penguin, 2009

Anonymous. Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi. Edited by W. Stubbs. Rolls Series, 1864.

Bekkar, Immanuel, ed. Attaleiates Historia. University of Wisconsin, 2010.

Secondary sources

Carey, Brian Todd et al, Road to Manzikert: Byzantine and Islamic Warfare: 527-1071. Pen and Sword Books, 2012.

Freely, John, Storm on Horseback: The Seljuk Warriors of Turkey. I.B Tauris, 2008.

Hildinger, Erik. Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 BC to 1700 AD. Sarpedon, 1997.