Military Culture
The armies of Sennar relied most on heavy cavalry: horsemen drawn from the nobility, armed with long broadswords as the toe stirrups they used did not permit the use of lances. These riders were armoured with chain mail while the horses were covered in thick quilts and copper headgear. A greater mass of troops were infantry carrying swords and armoured. This permanent standing army, the largest in East Africa until the 1810s, was garrisoned in castles and forts throughout the sultanate. Reliance on a standing army meant that the professional armies fielded by Sennar were usually smaller, but highly effective against their less organized rivals.
Read more about this topic: Sennar (sultanate)
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or culture:
“My faith is the grand drama of my life. I’m a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith. I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colours for those who see none.”
—Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)