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On the basis of a 14th-century account by the Genoese Gabriele de’ Mussi, the Black Death is widely believed to have reached Europe from the Crimea as the result of a biological warfare attack.
Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa
This narrative contains some startling assertions: that the Mongol army hurled plague-infected cadavers into the besieged Crimean city of Caffa, thereby transmitting the disease to the inhabitants; and that fleeing survivors of the siege spread plague from Caffa to the Mediterranean Basin. If this account is correct, Caffa should be recognized as the site of the most spectacular incident of biological warfare ever, with the Black Death as its disastrous consequence.
Trebuchets and the geography of Caffa. Trebuchets were the culmination of medieval siege engine design, reigning as the most powerful artillery for centuries until cannons began to replace them in the late Middle Ages. Derbes wrote that from experiments and other sources, Payne-Gallwey had determined the largest trebuchets could throw an object weighing 300 pounds a distance of 300 yards. According to de Mussi’s account, catapults were used to fling bodies over the walls at Caffa, but both Derbes and Wheelis implied that these would have been trebuchets, the best of which could theoretically launch a human payload.
But there are several problems with accepting that the Mongols launched cadavers with trebuchets.
For one, no trebuchet has ever been found, Zanders said. What’s left to history are historical references or drawings that lack perspective. Following in the footsteps of Payne-Gallwey and his experiments, researchers and trebuchet fans on YouTube have re-imagined what the weapons must have looked like, constructing their own. But these are modern re-creations that may not accurately reflect medieval capabilities.
Even if trebuchets had a range of 300 yards, as Payne-Gallwey concluded, Caffa would have been suboptimal terrain for them, Zanders argues. The hilly topography would have made it challenging to launch non-aerodynamic bodies up hills and over walls. The Mongols would have had to place their trebuchets close to the fortress, where they would have been vulnerable to defensive fire. And Zanders said people were living outside of the city walls, meaning there would have been opportunities for the plague to spread between the besiegers and the besieged.
The most powerful trebuchets weighed tens of tons. Dismantling and moving them would have been a massive logistical operation. Across most terrains, Zanders said, the weapons were “too huge to transport” and would have been built on site using local wood. Zanders couldn’t find reference in his research to there being suitable trees around Caffa with which to build trebuchets. “One thing that stood out was the absence of trees in descriptions,” he said. “Many shrubs and other things and low trees, but definitely nothing like oak trees—solid wood to build these types of machines.”
Not that the Mongols even used the type of trebuchet that could launch bodies, those operated by dropping a heavy counterweight, such as container full of sand or rocks, to swing a launching arm. According to Zanders’s research, the Mongols instead used mangonel trebuchets that operated by human labor. “The Mongols at the time, the Golden Horde, used Chinese trebuchet technology, which were mangonels," Zanders said. "So the wrong type of engines." These smaller trebuchets could fire a 33-pound projectile close to 400 feet, according to Zanders.
originally posted by: Thoughtful2
a reply to: Guyfriday
Compliments of Chief Nerd-
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