«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 140 n John Masson Smith, Jr. could gallop between two rows of reeds set upright at intervals of seven yards, and striking with the sword, left and right, could cut a span from each reed — as if a head from an enemy — at a rate of perhaps three swings a second 1 . When they finally charged the Mongols, they did not hit and run, but hit again — and again and again. The unarmored Mongols with their clubs could not cope with this. The long-frontage arrangement at the second battle of Homs, mentioned above, was intended to meet several needs of the advancing Mongol army. It was logistically sensible, spreading the army out to give each unit access to unused pasture, instead of allowing the leading units to trample the grass to be used by those behind. And it positioned all parts of the force in readi- ness to encounter the enemy, who would have difficulty slipping past, or out- flanking the army. Wherever the enemy turned up, some part of the Mongol force would confront him, and the other parts would attempt encirclement. Rashiduddin puts a suggestive name to this arrangement in describing the Mongol campaign into Russia and Hungary: the armies advanced “tümen by tümen, in jerge formation” 2 . The name of this formation may explain the gap in the front at Homs II. The jerge/nerge was formed by hunters approach- ing game animals from different directions, gradually driving the animals together, closely encircling and then slaughtering them. At the outset of the hunt there were gaps between the hunters that would gradually close as they tightened the circle 3 . Tactical encirclement is well described by Babur, founder of India’s “Mo- gul” dynasty, who was subjected to it in 1501 by (Jochid) Özbeks led by Sh- aybaq Khan: 4 As we [Babur and his army] wished to fight, we marched from our camp at dawn, we in our mail, our horses in theirs, formed up in array of right and left, centre and van ... When our two armies approached one another, [Shaybaq Khan] wheeled his right towards our rear. To meet this, I turned [our centre to the left]; this left our van ... to our 1 Rabie, “Maml ū k F § ris”, 153–63. A televised news report in the 1990s showed Russian cavalry practicing a similar exercise. 2 RaD, II, 326f, 331. It was used in raiding by the renegade Mongol Karaunas according to Marco Polo, 64: “they ride side by side, sometimes as many as 10,000 of them ...so that they overspread all the region they mean to rob. Nothing they find ... can escape capture”. This may be the “lake” array of the Secret History , § 195. 3 See Juvaini, I, 27–28, who somewhat implausibly has the ring formed at the outset of the hunt and maintained for months. 4 Babur-Nama /Beveridge, 139–40.