Ghaznavid War Elephants
The Ghaznavids used armored war elephants against the Turks of Central Asia and the Hindus of India in the 11th and 12th centuries. Islamic historians record that a standing force of 1000 elephants was maintained at Ghazni (also: Ghazna), the capital, and that as many as 400, 500, or even 700 elephants were deployed in some campaigns by the famed (and ferocious) Mahmud; purportedly, each animal had a crew of four archers and/or spearmen borne in "castle-like" structures on the elephants' backs.
Read more about this topic: Persian War Elephants
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or elephants:
“Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus, 44:14.
The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.
“Amid attempts to protect elephants from ivory poachers and dolphins from tuna nets, the rights of children go remarkably unremarked.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)