Turks and Turkish Invasion

The Turkish Invasion started into India from the north¬west.

Mounted archers and spearmen of Turk tribe first like Scythians and later like Sakas, Huns and Parthians invaded India.

However from 1000 AD onwards Muslims Turks invaded India.

Bands of Afghans accompanied these invaders as their servants, who formed a second line and converted to islam a century or two later than the Turks.

Turks disdain of caste and race and formed close knit society like the members of one vast family of brothers.

Turks and Turkomen Horses

The arms and horses of these trans-border invaders gave Turks indisputable military superiority over the Indians.

They carried their provisions on fast-trotting camels, which required no fodder for themselves but fed on the roots and leaves on the wayside.

While Indian army has the slow and burdensome Banjara pack-oxen.

The Turk consider Turkomen horse best in the whole of Central Asia with speed, endurance, intelligence, faithfulness and a marvelous sense of locality.

On their expeditions the Turkomans often cover 650 miles in the water less desert in five days.

They owe their powers to the training of thousands of years in the endless steppes and deserts, and to die conducting plundering raids.

The speed and vigor of Turks cavalry charges made them famous in the Asiatic world.

The phrase Turk-sawar (i.e. Turkish horseman) became a general name for the mounted dashing cavalry of any race.

Weapon of Turks

The Iranian and Turkish nomads used composite, the most dreaded weapon of antiquity.

Turks used mounted archers as light troops for harassing and killing the enemy.

But the Turkish nobles themselves fought as heavy cavalry,—clad in armor for both man and horse, and wielding long spears.

Their massed charge was irresistible on die plains of north India.

The ancient Persian empire before its decline and defeat at the hands of Alexander develop the tactics of turkish invader.

Turkish archer fire at mass of enemy creating disorder. Armored heavy cavalry chage into this mass of confused enemy.

This with a few necessary changes, was exactly the tactics by which Prithvi-raj was defeated in 1192 at the second battle of Tarain.