Dothraki Army - Hunnic Wannabes

[Aldarion]

So I have had discussions about Dothraki over at ASoIaF forum, and decided to write an article about Dothraki army. And then I kept writing. And kept writing, until I ended up with a four-part series.

Here be the Part 1 of series about our favorite lobotomized horse nomads:

Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 1: Organization, Logistics, Strategy

Dothraki are the local Essosi nomads from A Song of Ice and Fire book and A Game of Thrones TV series. They are one of the most prominent groups in Essos, and are the local to-go horse nomads. Whil…

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Dothraki are the local Essosi nomads from A Song of Ice and Fire book and A Game of Thrones TV series. They are one of the most prominent groups in Essos, and are the local to-go horse nomads. While Martin claims that they are an "amalgman of a number of steppe and plains cultures", discussions about their military capability mostly focus on two specific models: the Huns and the Mongols, and more often the latter.

But how good of nomadic army Dothraki really are? I will be addressing this question in four parts.

Historical Model

In an interview (available on Youtube here), George Martin had stated that he has based Dothraki on "a number of influences from the horse tribes from the Eurasian steppes. Certainly there is a lot of Mongols in them, but they are not purely the Mongols, I added some sort of material about the Huns, there is some material there that I took from Amerindian tribes such as the Sioux and the Cheyenne, the horse tribes of the Great American Praeries. And there is a certain amount that is pure fantasy – you know, where you have a little fun, and you mix all this stuff together, you come up with a thing and then you add few fantasy twists on it… Because this is after all, a fantasy series.".

This is repeated nearly word-for-word in So Spake Martin: "The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures… Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes… seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy. So any resemblance to Arabs or Turks is coincidental. Well, except to the extent that the Turks were also originally horsemen of the steppes, not unlike the Alans, Huns, and the rest.

There do exist many other cultures and civilizations in my world, to be sure. The peoples of Yi Ti have been mentioned, as have the Jogos Nhai. I am not sure to what extent those peoples will ever enter this present story, however… their lands are very far away.

(I also have peoples and tribes that are pure fantasy constructs, like the Qartheen and the brindled men of Sothoryos).

In general, though, while I do draw inspiration from history, I try to avoid direct one-for-one transplants, whether of individuals or of entire cultures. Just as it not correct to say that Robert was Henry VIII or Edward IV, it would not be correct to say that the Dothraki are Mongols."

But as will become obvious later, Dothraki are absolutely nothing like the Eurasian nomads, especially the Mongols. Even the American Indians would likely feel insulted by comparison of their own tactics and military capabilites to those of Dothraki. There is not a "certain amount that is pure fantasy" – Dothraki are, in fact, nearly 100% pure fantasy, are are very different from (and inferior compared to) any and all of their "historical inspirations".

User Craving Peaches from A Song of Ice and Fire forum has noted that Dothraki are possibly based on the Sea Peoples that had destroyed the Hittite Empire and had also attacked Egypt. They would rape, pillage and burn, never building anything, and were likely unarmored or only lightly armored. Sarnori themselves are a good parallel to Hittites as they utilized chariots and were also very prone to infighting.

But since claims about capabilities of the Dothraki are usually based on their alleged Mongol and, to a lesser extent, Hunnic inspiration, this is what I will be focusing on.

 

[Olorgando]

... possibly based on the Sea Peoples that had destroyed the Hittite Empire ...

A common misconception. While the Sea Peoples (note the plural) were part of the Late Bronze Age Crisis and Collapse, they were quite definitely mariners without the land forces to take on the almost entirely land-based Hittites. The Hittite "empires" had for centuries to deal with hostile neighbors from the Black Sea region, mainly to the north-east, called the Kaskians. These latter probably played a leading role, especially in the sack of the Hittite capital of Hattusa (which was a serious distance from the south Anatolian coast of the Mediterranean). And the Hittites had been weakened by territorial losses to Assyria in eastern Anatolia, as well as losses in western Anatolia, so their "empire" had been crumbling even before it collapsed - but the Sea Peoples had very little if anything to do with it.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

they were quite definitely mariners

The term "Sea Peoples" is itself a misleading misnomer, coined by Gaston Maspero; 19th century historians called them the "peuples de la Mer Méditerranée", that is, people inhabiting the Mediterranean Basin. Maspero's shortening of it gives the impression of something like corsairs or pirates, or even the conception of a people whose only homes were their ships.

Maspero's theory was of great migratory invasions, something like the People's migrations during the Roman era. Unfortunately for his theory, no evidence has been found for any large-scale migrations during this era. Egyptian records show that even various Pharoahs employed some of these so-called "Sea Peoples" as mercenaries.

 

[Olorgando]

"Corsairs or pirates" probably hits nearer the mark than "migratory invasions". "Armed naval raiding forces from the Aegean" is probably closest. "Trade", as carried out by palace-centered "economies" in the Bronze Age, was practically limited to what we would call "luxury goods" - with customers being for example the palaces of Mycenaean Greece (or palaces elsewhere). A non-trivial item being the immensely rarer tin (chemical symbol Sn) needed to be added to the soft metal copper to produce the most wide-spread bronze alloy. The "Sea Peoples" were likely enemy forces of a conflict in the Aegean, with various alliances. Egypt and the Hittite "empire" were formally allied at the time of the Bronze Age Crisis and Collapse, at any rate, and a lot of "my enemy's enemy is my ally" thrown in - whenever the combatants knew anything about the "enemy's enemy". What people tend to forget about Homer's epics is that the Mycenaean kingdoms (hardly duchies by more modern standards) all collapsed at the end of the Bronze Age, besides the Hittite "empire", a lot of eastern Mediterranean city-states, and some larger ones. Plato's writings about "Atlantis" are very likely a very garbled (by multiple translation errors) account of some of the events ending the Bronze Age.

 

[Aldarion]

Two more parts:

Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 2: Tactics

Nomadic battle tactics generally favored deception, feigned retreats and ambushes. In combat, nomads such as Huns would form army into several units of irregular size with a separate force in reser…

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Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 3: Weapons and Equipment

Aside from tactics and organization, superior technology was in fact crucial for successes of nomadic armies against their sedentary opponents. Scythians and later Mongols used lamellar armor at th…

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[Hisoka Morrow]

...And the Hittites had been weakened by territorial losses to Assyria in eastern Anatolia, as well as losses in western Anatolia, so their "empire" had been crumbling even before it collapsed...

In fact, it's "civil wars" might be the main reasons of the Hittite's empire's fall. Hittes had been defeated by multiple foes apart from Assyria before, such as Mitanni, yet not enough to cause any destructive result, after all, no Assyria military front push was conducted after their only-recorded battle. I'm pretty sure the last recorded king of Hittite even faced no military threat from Assyria but domestic revolt instead, and don't forget Assyria had no iron-made weapons craftsmanship during such period.

..The "Sea Peoples" were likely enemy forces of a conflict in the Aegean, with various alliances. Egypt and the Hittite "empire" were formally allied at the time of the Bronze Age Crisis and Collapse, at any rate, and a lot of "my enemy's enemy is my ally" thrown in - whenever the combatants knew anything about the "enemy's enemy"...

Maybe we could consider that the "Hittte vassals" themselves were among the "Sea People", since the Hittite empire seemed to preffer "federacy" instead of "centralized", such as their treatment to Mitanni and bunches of city state(possibly such as Troy). According to Homer's iIliyad, Troy's side had "many allied kings", in other words, we could infer the political system of the Hittites if we took it as Troy.

 

[Olorgando]

The "Sea Peoples" were most likely composed of rivals in the Aegean. Looking at the architecture of the Hittite capital of Hattusa and that of late Mycenaean palaces, an alliance between the Hittites and Mycenaeans is most likely. In between were "Trojans", more likely an alliance of west-Anatolian states resembling the Mycenaeans, rivals of them in seafaring, and troublesome western neighbors (probably never vassals) of the Hittites. Seems nobody got along with their direct neighbors, but the neighbor's neighbor on the other side ...

 

[Aldarion]

Final part:

Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 4: Combat Performance

Nomadic victories are often attributed to simplistic factors: superior numbers of combatants, incompetence of nomads’ enemies, or innate advantages of nomadic societies over sedentary counter…

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[Berzelmayr]

I disliked their swords, which are a similar to a khopesh, but worse looking.