Army Organization
Samori's army was well equipped with European firearms and a complex structure of permanent units. His army was divided into an infantry wing of sofa (Mandinka for infantry, usually slaves) and a cavalry wing. By 1887, Samori could field 30,000 to 35,000 infantry and about 3,000 cavalry. Infantry were divided into units of 10 to 20 men known as a "se" or "kulu". Cavalry were divided into bands of 50 horsemen called a "sere". Kulus were under the command of a Kun-Tigui, meaning chief. Ten kulus equaled a bolo (100-200 men). The bolo, which in the Banmana language translates to "arm", was strictly an infantry unit. The bolo kun-tigui commanded this unit.
Read more about this topic: Wassoulou Empire
Famous quotes containing the words army and/or organization:
“Man is the end of nature; nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he; no moss, no lichen is so easily born; and he takes along with him and puts out from himself the whole apparatus of society and condition extempore, as an army encamps in a desert, and where all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city in an hour, a government, a market, a place for feasting, for conversation, and for love.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Science, unguided by a higher abstract principle, freely hands over its secrets to a vastly developed and commercially inspired technology, and the latter, even less restrained by a supreme culture saving principle, with the means of science creates all the instruments of power demanded from it by the organization of Might.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)