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Early Slavic Warfare, draft for possible new article

Our understanding of Early Slavic warfare is based both on archeological discoveries and the writings of ancient authors, which give a consistent picture of the warfare of the Slavs, as well as their tactics and enemies. The Early Slavs were many tribes, at different stages of development and in contact with different enemies, which resulted in different martial techniques and strategies.

Tactics
The Early Slavs were highly

Guerilla tactics
The Early Slavs were highly maneuverable and flexible, moving and fighting easily through difficult terrain. They were highly skilled at crossing rivers, by building boats and bridges. They were experts in ambush and guerrilla warfare, and preferred to fight in the cover of forests rather than pitch battle. The Early Slavs were highly skilled in concealing themselves, even behind scant cover. Due to this, the Byzantines preferred to fight them in the winter when the the Slavs could not use their mobility, and the cover of the forest to their greatest advantage. The Slavs often used feigned retreats and attacked their enemies flank.

"They live among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes, and have made the exits from their settlements branch outing many directions because of the dangers they might face...They live like bandits and love to carry out attacks against their enemies in densely wooded narrow, and steep places. They make effective use of ambushes, sudden attacks, and raids, devising many different methods by night and by day.Their experience in crossing rivers surpasses that of all other men, and they are extremely good at spending a lot of time in the water. Often enough when they are caught by surprise, they dive to the bottom of a body of water. There they take long, hollow reeds they have prepared for such a situation and hold them in their mouths, the reeds extending to the surface of the water. Lying on their backs on the bottom they breathe through them and hold out for many hours""

Procopius wrote of a Slav ambushing a Goth: "For there were some men in his (byzantine emperors') command, he said, from the nation of the Sclaveni, who are accustomed to conceal themselves behind a small rock or any bush which may happen to be near and pounce upon an enemy. In fact, they are constantly practising this in their native haunts along the river Ister, both on the Romans and on the barbarians as well...So Valerian chose out one of the Sclaveni...this barbarian at early dawn went close to the fortifications, and hiding himself in a bush and drawing his body into small compass, he remained in concealment near the grass.  And at daybreak a Goth came there and began hastily to gather the blades of grass, suspecting no harm from the bush, but looking about frequently toward the enemy’s camp, lest anyone should attack him from there.  Then the barbarian, falling unexpectedly upon the Goth from behind, made him captive, grabbing him by the tongue with his hands, and thus carried him to the camp and handed him over to Valerian."

Open battle and Seiges
The Slavs did not like open battles, but did occasionally have to fight them and were many times successful. They used their great numbers to their advantage and used war cries to intimidate the enemy, often charging straight forward against them. If a direct attack failed they would use a feigned retreat tactic.

The Slavs were also capable of pulling of the sieges of cities, as demonstrated in the attack on the Roman city of Topeiros, Markianopol Thessalonica, and the Avar-Slav assault on Constantinople. The Slavs employed various seige engines in this attack: siege towers, ladders, battering rams, catapults and "turtles" which were hide coverings to provided protection from the defending arrows. These were engineered by the Slavs themselves as mentioned by Saint Demetrius.

Various strategies were used in the seiges, at Topeiros as described by Procopius, the Slavs lured out the city guard and ambushed them from the Flanks, then overwhelmed the city with arrow fire, bwfore finally moving in and taking the town. At Markianopol, the Slavs disguised in Byzantine uniforms and equipment, were let into the city freely. At Thessalonica and Constantinople however, they used conventional seige techniques involving seige engines and storming the walls. The Slavs would often keep the defenders pinned down behind the battlements with large volumes of arrows and javelins.

As described by Saint Demetrius, who was present at the siege of Thessalonica, the besieging Slav army consisted of: "armoured bowmen, shield bearers, infantry units, javelin throwers, slingers, war machine keepers and the braver of them with siege ladders and fire."

Weaponry
The weaponry of Early Slavic tribes depended on their material wealth and stage of development. However, due to the writings of historical authors and archeological findings we know what weapons most Slavic tribes used.

tTe main weapons of the Slavs were spears and arrows. Swords and armour(chainmail or lammellar) are rare, and were reserved for the warrior elite. Body armour was rare among other tribal peoples in Europe as well, including the Goths. Most Slav warriors used only wooden shields for protection, bits and pieces of armour such as occasional helmets were also used, mostly it was looted from the battlefield. However, the Early Slavic way of war relied heavily on mobility and guerrilla tactics, in which case armour would have been cumbersome. Procopius wrote that some Slav warriors went into battle without shirts or cloaks, but bare chested. This was common among other Indo-European groups as well including the Celts, Germans and Franks. It purpose was for the warrior to display strength, courage and intimidate the enemy.

The early Slavs used different types of shields, but often used circular shields with a central metal boss. Larger and heavier shields were also used. In addition to spears, javelins and bows, axes and slings were also used. however, of all the spear was the most common.

The bows of the Slavs were made of wood, with poison tipped arrows. Arrow heads came in different shapes, some being three bladed such as those of the nomads. Procopius wrote of Slav and "Hun" horsemen armed with bows and arrows. Spears were most often of the javelin type, each warrior carrying several, historical sources frequently mention Slav use of javelins. Ibn Rusta wrote that the Slavs also used javelins and lances, the latter which indicates the long spear was used from horseback.

Later Armies
By the 8th-9th century the Slavic migrations came to a close, and states began to form. Along with the rise of statehood came a more rigid social system, with the warrior class being more and more distinct from common people. This warrior class was mounted, and equiped in expensive mail or lamellar armour. Swords, of the long bladed slashing type, became very common among the cavalry. This showed the transition from the older Slavic way of war, on foot, to the structure of the high middle ages with heavy cavalry. Moravian heavy cavalry resembled the Frankish predecessors of knights.

The Slavs became increasingly well armed and organized as time went on. By the middle ages they had powerful developed armies.

In west Slavic areas, axes were the primary weapons, along with spears used by both foot and cavalry. Swords of the western style were common, while nomadic type equipment was absent. Bows were