History of Archery - Decline, Last Uses, and Survival of Archery

Decline, Last Uses, and Survival of Archery

The advent of firearms eventually rendered bows obsolete in warfare. Despite the high social status, ongoing utility, and widespread pleasure of archery in England, Korea, China, Japan, Turkey, Armenia, America, Egypt, and elsewhere, almost every culture that gained access to even early firearms used them widely, to the relative neglect of archery. Early firearms were vastly inferior in rate-of-fire, and were very susceptible to wet weather. However, they had longer effective range and were tactically superior in the common situation of soldiers shooting at each other from behind obstructions. They also required significantly less training to use properly, in particular penetrating steel armour without any need to develop special musculature. Armies equipped with guns could thus provide superior firepower by sheer weight of numbers, and highly-trained archers became obsolete on the battlefield.

"Have them bring as many guns as possible, for no other equipment is needed. Give strict orders that all men, even the samurai, carry guns." —Asano Yukinaga, 1598

In Europe the last regular unit armed with bows was also a part of the oldest regular unit armed with gunpowder weapons, the Archers’ Company of the Honourable Artillery Company.

In Eastern Europe and the Asian Steppe however archery continued to play an important part in warfare, although now restricted to mounted archery. The Ottoman Empire still fielded auxiliary cavalry which was noted for its use of bows from horseback. This practice was continued by the Ottoman subject nations, despite the Empire itself being a proponent of early firearms. The practice declined after the Crimean Khanate was finally absorbed by Russia; however mounted archers remained in the Ottoman order of battle until the post 1826 reforms to the Ottoman Army.

The sole exceptions may be the Comanches of North America, whose mounted archery was more effective than muzzle-loading guns. (Other Plains Indians fought mostly on foot, and usually found guns to be superior weapons when they did so.) "After... about 1800, most Comanches began to discard muskets and pistols and to rely on their older weapons." Repeating firearms, however, were superior in turn, and the Comanches adopted them when they could. Bows remained effective hunting weapons for skilled horse archers, used to some extent by all Native Americans on the Great Plains to hunt buffalo as long as there were buffalo to hunt. The last Comanche hunt was in 1878, and it failed for lack of buffalo, not lack of appropriate weapons.

The last recorded use of bows in battle in Britain seems to have been a skirmish at Bridgnorth; in October 1642, during the English Civil War, an impromptu militia was effective against un-armoured musketmen. The most recent death in war from British archery was probably in 1940, on the retreat to Dunkirk, when Jack Churchill who had brought his bows on active service "was delighted to see his arrow strike the centre German in the left of the chest and penetrate his body". In Ireland, Geoffrey Keating (c. 1569 - c. 1644) mentions archery as having been practiced "down to a recent period within our own memory" Archery continued in some areas that were subject to limitations on the ownership of arms, such as the Scottish Highlands during the repression that followed the decline of the Jacobite cause, and the Cherokees after the Trail of Tears. The Tokugawa shogunate severely limited the import and manufacture of guns, and encouraged traditional martial skills among the samurai; towards the end of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, some rebels fell back on the use of bows and arrows. Archery remained an important part of the military examinations until 1894 in Korea and 1904 in China. Ongoing use of bows and arrows in some African conflicts has been reported in the 21st century, and the Sentinelese still use bows as part of a lifestyle scarcely touched by outside contact. A remote group in Brazil, recently photographed from the air, aimed bows at the aeroplane. Bows and arrows saw considerable use in the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis.

Traditional archery remained in minority use for sport and for hunting in many areas long after its military disuse. In Turkey, its last revival for this purpose took place with the encouragement of Mahmud II in the 1820s, but the art, and that of constructing composite bows, fell out of use with the death of the last bowyer in the 1930s. The rest of the Middle East also lost the continuity of its archery tradition at this time. In Korea, the transformation from military training to healthy pastime was led by Emperor Gojong, and is the basis of a popular modern sport. Japanese continue to make and use their unique traditional equipment. Among the Cherokees, popular use of their traditional longbows never died out. The British have also maintained a continuous tradition of longbow use, with a major revival as an upper-class pursuit from about 1780-1840. In China, the improvement of firearms and other circumstances of 20th century China led to the demise of archery as a military and ritual practice, and for much of the 20th century only one traditional bow and arrow workshop remained. However, in the beginning of the 21st century, there has been revival in interest among craftsmen looking to construct bows and arrows, as well as in practicing technique in the traditional Chinese style. In modern times, mounted archery continues to be practiced in some Asian countries but is not used in international competition. Modern Hungarians have revived mounted archery as a competitive sport. Archery is the national sport of the Kingdom of Bhutan.