Thomas Blersch
Student of military history for nearly 40 years.1y
What has been the greatest military invention of all time?
One very under-appreciated one:

Here’s a blow-up of part of an Egyptian relief of the Battle of Kadesh, around 1300BCE. An Egyptian soldier killing a Hittite soldier.


And here’s an image of an Assyrian relief of the Sack of Thebes, around
600 BCE. Note the Assyrians - guys holding swords.

Sack of Thebes - Wikipedia
Assyrian plunder of Kushite Thebes The Sack of Thebes took place in 663
BC in the city of Thebes at the hands of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under
king Ashurbanipal , then at war with the Kushite Twenty-fifth Dynasty of
Egypt under Tantamani , during the Assyrian conquest of Egypt . After a
long struggle for the control of the Levant which had started in 705 BC,
the Kushites had gradually lost control of Lower Egypt and, by 665 BC,
their territory was reduced to Upper Egypt and Nubia. Helped by the
unreliable vassals of the Assyrians in the Nile Delta region, Tantamani
briefly regained Memphis in 663 BC, killing Necho I of Sais in the
process. On learning of these events, Ashurbanipal aided by Necho's son, Psamtik I and his Carian mercenaries , returned to Egypt with a large
army and comprehensively defeated the Kushites near Memphis. The army
then proceeded south to Thebes, which quickly fell as Tantamani had
already fled to Lower Nubia. According to Assyrian texts, the city was thoroughly sacked, its inhabitants were deported and much booty taken
back to Assyria, including two large obelisks. to the contrary, the archaeological evidence from Thebes shows no signs of destruction,
plunder or major changes. The evidence shows more signs of continuity
than of disruption: all the officials that were in office before the
alleged sack of Thebes were still in office afterwards and the
development of tombs on the western bank of Thebes continued without interruption. [3] In the publications of Diethelm Eigner or Julia Budka,
the Assyrian sack of Thebes is not archaeologically detected. [4] [5]
The sack of Thebes was a major event in the history of the city and of
ancient Egypt in general. It effectively marks the end of the 25th
Dynasty of Egypt as Tantamani lost his main foothold in Egypt. The
Kushites were permanently expelled within a decade of the fall of Thebes
as none of Tantamani's successors would ever manage to retake
territories north of Elephantine. Durably weakened, Thebes peacefully
submitted itself less than six years after the sack to a large fleet
sent by Psamtik to control Upper Egypt as he freed himself from the
Assyrian vassalage. The sack thus permitted the rise of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty , the end of the Third Intermediate Period and the beginning of
the Late Period . The sack seems to have reverberated more generally
throughout the Ancient Near East , it is notably mentioned in the Book
of Nahum as an example of the destruction and horror that can befall a
city. Background [ edit ] Esarhaddon struggled with Taharqa for the
domination of the Levant and then of Egypt. In the late 8th century BC,
Egypt and Nubia were united and ruled by the Kushite pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt . The Neo-Assyrian Empire was already
extending its influence over the Levant at the same period, and in the
spring of 720 BC Piye or perhaps Shebitku fought and lost a first battle against the Assyrians near Rafah . [6] The situation did not ch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Thebes#/media/File:Ashurbanipal_II's_army_attacking_Memphis,_Egypt,_645-635_BCE,_from_Nineveh,_Iraq._British_Museum.jpg
See the innovation? Look at their feet. See it now? The Egyptian
soldier’s barefoot; the Assyrian soldiers have boots.

Before about 800 BCE, warriors were barefoot or, at best, wore loose
sandals or what would be equivalent to moccasins. Sufficient to good
weather and flat land such as the Mesopotamian or Nile flood plains…but
try walking in rough ground and/or bad weather in what are essentially flip-flops.

Around 800BCE, under Tiglath-Pilaser III, the Assyrians erupted from
their homeland and started conquering everyone. One of the main reasons
the Assyrian army was so successful was the boot: a shoe with leather
uppers, that laced up the shin and supported the addition of greaves,
but most importantly was hard-soled and hobnailed. It let the Assyrian
army march faster, farther, over almost any terrain from the salt
marshes of the lower Mesopotamian delta, to the Caucasus mountains - the Assyrian conquest of Urartu, in fact, would likely not have been
possible without the hard-soled boot, given that the Assyrians marched
through the mountains to bypass Urartu fortifications.

That innovation stays with us today. Ask any recruit out of boot camp
what they spent the most time doing: mostly standing, marching, running.
In hard-soled boots that lace up past the ankle. Outside of hating their
boots - the blisters, the soreness, the general discomfort - soldiers
rarely give their boots much thought, but it’s the single most-used in
their kit, and for that the most important…because soldiering when you can’t walk is damned difficult.

And you can thank the Assyrians for that innovation.

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