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A war elephant is an elephant that is Animal training and guided by for combat purposes. Historically, the war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant-mounted troops.
War elephants played a critical role in several key battles in Ancient history, especially in ancient India. While seeing limited and periodic use in Ancient China, they became a permanent fixture in armies of historical kingdoms in Southeast Asia. During classical antiquity they were also used in ancient Persia and in the Mediterranean world within armies of Macedon, Hellenistic Greek states, the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire, and Ancient Carthage in North Africa. In some regions they maintained a firm presence on the battlefield throughout the Medieval era. However, their use declined with the spread of and other gunpowder weaponry in early modern warfare. After this, war elephants became restricted to non-combat engineering and labour roles, as well as being used for minor ceremonial uses.
The ancient Indian epics Ramayana and Mahābhārata, dating from 5th–4th century BC, elaborately depict elephant warfare. They are recognized as an essential component of royal and military processions. In ancient India, initially, the army was fourfold ( chaturanga), consisting of infantry, cavalry, elephants and Ratha. Kings and princes principally ride on chariots, which was considered the most royal, while seldom riding the back of elephants. Although viewed as secondary to chariots by royalty, elephants were the preferred vehicle of warriors, especially the elite ones. While the chariots eventually fell into disuse, the other three arms continued to be valued. Many characters in the epic Mahābhārata were trained in the art. According to the rules of engagement set for the Kurukshetra War two men were to duel utilizing the same weapon and mount including elephants. In the Mahābhārata the akshauhini battle formation consists of a ratio of 1 chariot : 1 elephant : 3 cavalry : 5 infantry soldiers. Many characters in the Mahābhārata were described as skilled in the art of elephant warfare e.g. Duryodhana rides an elephant into battle to bolster the demoralized Kaurava army. Scriptures like the Nikāya and Vinaya Pitaka assign elephants in their proper place in the organization of an army. The Samyutta Nikaya additionally mentions the Gautama Buddha being visited by a 'hatthāroho gāmaṇi'. He is the head of a village community bound together by their profession as mercenary soldiers forming an elephant corp.
Ancient Indian kings certainly valued the elephant in war, some stating that an army without elephants is as despicable as a forest without a Asiatic lion, a kingdom without a king, or as valor unaided by weapons. The use of elephants further increased with the rise of the Mahajanapadas. King Bimbisara (), who began the expansion of the Magadha kingdom, relied heavily on his war elephants. The Mahajanapadas would be conquered by the Nanda Empire under the reign of Mahapadma Nanda. According to Curtius, Alexander learned that the Nanda had 200,000 infantry; 20,000 cavalry; 3,000 elephants; and 2,000 four-horse chariots. Diodorus gives the number of elephants as 4,000. Plutarch inflates these numbers significantly, except the infantry: according to him, the Nanda force included 200,000 infantry; 80,000 cavalry; 6,000 elephants; and 8,000 chariots. It is possible that the numbers reported to Alexander had been exaggerated by the local Indian population, who had the incentive to mislead the invaders. , Alexander the Great would come in contact with the Nanda Empire on the banks of the Beas River and was forced to return due to his army's unwillingness to advance. Even if the numbers and prowess of these elephants were exaggerated by historic accounts, elephants were established firmly as war machines in this period. the height of his power, Chandragupta Maurya of the Maurya Empire is said to have wielded a military of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 8,000 chariots and 9,000 war elephants besides followers and attendants. In the Mauryan Empire, the 30-member war office was made up of six boards. The sixth board looked after the elephants, and were headed by Gajadhyaksha. The gajadhyaksha was the superintendent of elephants and his qualifications. The use of elephants in the Maurya Empire as recorded by Chanakya in the Arthashastra. According to Chanakya, catching, training, and controlling war elephants was one of the most important skills taught by the military academies. He advised Chandragupta to set up forested sanctuaries for the wellness of the elephants. Chanakya explicitly conveyed the importance of these sanctuaries. The Maurya Empire would reach its zenith under the reign of Ashoka, who used elephants extensively during his conquest. During the Kalinga War, Kalinga had a standing army of 60,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 700 war elephants. Kalinga was notable for the quality of their war elephants which were prized by its neighbors for being stronger. Later the King Kharavela was to restore an independent Kalinga into a powerful kingdom using war elephants as stated in the Hathigumpha inscription or "Elephant Cave" Inscriptions. Following Indian accounts foreign rulers would also adopt the use of elephants.
The Chola Empire of Tamil Nadu also had a very strong elephant force. The Chola emperor Rajendra Chola had an armored elephant force, which played a major role in his campaigns.
Sri Lanka made extensive use of elephants and also exported elephants with Pliny the Elder stating that the Sri Lankan elephants, for example, were larger, fiercer and better for war than local elephants. This superiority, as well as the proximity of the supply to seaports, made Sri Lanka's elephants a lucrative trading commodity.Pliny the Elder, Book 6 of his 37 volume history, quoting Megasthenes had recorded the opinion of one Onesicritus. history records indicate elephants were used as mounts for kings leading their men in the battlefield, with individual mounts being recorded in history. The elephant Kandula was King Dutugamunu's mount and Maha Pambata, 'Big Rock', the mount of King Ellalan during their historic encounter on the battlefield in 200 BC, for example.
Chinese armies faced off against war elephants in Southeast Asia, such as during the Sui–Lâm Ấp war (605), Lý–Song War (1075–1077), Ming–Mong Mao War (1386–1388), and Ming–Hồ War (1406–1407). In 605, the Champa kingdom of Lâm Ấp in what is now southern Vietnam used elephants against the invading army of China's Sui dynasty. The Sui army dug pits and lured the elephants into them and shot them with crossbows, causing the elephants to turn back and trample their own army. (2025). 9780618133840, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780618133840 In 1075, the Song defeated elephants deployed on the borderlands of Đại Việt during the Lý–Song War. The Song forces used scythed polearms to cut the elephants' trunks, causing them to trample their own troops. During the Mong Mao campaign, the elephants were routed by an assortment of gunpowder projectiles. In the war against the Hồ dynasty, Ming troops covered their horses with lion masks to scare the elephants and shot them with firearms. The elephants all trembled with fear and were wounded by the guns and arrows, causing the Viet army to panic.
By the time Alexander reached the borders of India five years later, he had a substantial number of elephants under his own command. When it came to defeating Porus, who ruled in what is now Punjab region, Alexander found himself facing a force of between 85 and 100 war elephants 8.13.6. 54 at the Battle of the Hydaspes. Preferring stealth and mobility to sheer force, Alexander manoeuvered and engaged with just his infantry and cavalry, ultimately defeating Porus' forces, including his elephant corps, albeit at some cost. Porus for his part placed his elephants individually, at long intervals from each other, a short distance in front of his main infantry line, in order to scare off Macedonian cavalry attacks and aid his own infantry in their struggle against the phalanx. The elephants caused many losses with their tusks fitted with iron spikes or by lifting the enemies with their trunks and trampling them. Arrian described the subsequent fight: "Wherever the beasts could wheel around, they rushed forth against the ranks of infantry and demolished the phalanx of the Macedonians, dense as it was.", Book 5, Chapter 17
The Macedonians adopted the standard ancient tactic for fighting elephants, loosening their ranks to allow the elephants to pass through and assailing them with javelins as they tried to wheel around; they managed to pierce the unarmoured elephants' legs. The panicked and wounded elephants turned on the Indians themselves; the were armed with poisoned rods to kill the beasts but were slain by javelins and archers.
Looking further east again, Alexander could see that the emperors and kings of the Nanda Empire and Gangaridai could deploy between 3,000 and 6,000 war elephants. Such a force was many times larger than the number of elephants employed by the Persians and Greeks, which probably discouraged Alexander's army and effectively halted their advance into India. On his return, Alexander established a force of elephants to guard his palace at Babylon, and created the post of elephantarch to lead his elephant units.
The successful military use of elephants spread further. The successors to Alexander's empire, the Diadochi, used hundreds of Indian elephants in their wars, with the Seleucid Empire being particularly notable for their use of the animals, still being largely brought from India. Indeed, the Seleucid–Mauryan war of 305–303 BC ended with the Seleucids ceding vast eastern territories in exchange for 500 war elephants – a small part of the Maurya Empire forces, which included up to 9000 elephants by some accounts. VI, 22.4 The Seleucids put their new elephants to good use at the Battle of Ipsus four years later, where they blocked the return of the victorious Antigonid cavalry, allowing the latter's phalanx to be isolated and defeated.
The first use of war elephants in Europe was made in 318 BC by Polyperchon, one of Alexander's generals, when he besieged Megalopolis in the Peloponnesus during the wars of the Diadochi. He used 60 elephants brought from Asia with their mahouts. A veteran of Alexander's army, named Damis, helped the besieged Megalopolitians to defend themselves against the elephants and eventually Polyperchon was defeated. Those elephants were subsequently taken by Cassander and transported, partly by sea, to other battlefields in Greece. It is assumed that Cassander constructed the first elephant transport sea vessels. Some of the elephants died of starvation in 316 BC in the besieged city of Pydna in Macedonia. Others of Polyperchon's elephants were used in various parts of Greece by Cassander.
Although the use of war elephants in the western Mediterranean is most famously associated with the wars between Carthage and Roman Republic, the introduction of war elephants was primarily the result of an invasion by Hellenistic era Epirus across the Adriatic Sea. King Pyrrhus of Epirus brought twenty elephants to attack Roman Italy at the battle of Heraclea in 280 BC, leaving fifty additional animals, on loan from Ptolemaic Pharaoh Ptolemy II, on the mainland. The Romans were unprepared for fighting elephants, and the Epirot forces routed the Romans. The next year, the Epirots again deployed a similar force of elephants, attacking the Romans at the battle of Asculum. This time the Romans came prepared with flammable weapons and anti-elephant devices: ox-drawn wagons, equipped with long spikes to wound the elephants, pots of fire to scare them, and accompanying screening troops who would hurl javelins at the elephants to drive them away. A final charge of Epirot elephants won the day, but this time Pyrrhus had suffered very heavy casualties. The Seleucid Empire king Antiochus V Eupator, whose father and he contended with Ptolemaic Egypt's ruler Ptolemy VI for control of Syria, i.i.§ 1 invaded Judea in 161 BCE with eighty elephants (some sources claim thirty-twoTropper, A. (2017). The Battle of Beth Zechariah in Light of a Literary Study of 1 Maccabees 6: 32–47. Hebrew Union College Annual, 88, p. 7), some of which were clad in armoured breastplates, in an attempt to subdue the Jews who had revolted during the Maccabean Revolt.Hoover, O. D. (2005). Eleazar Auaran and the elephant: killing symbols in Hellenistic Judaea. Scripta Classica Israelica, 24, p. 35
The Ptolemaic Egypt and the Punics began acquiring for the same purpose, as did Numidia and the Kingdom of Kush. The animal used was the North African elephant ( Loxodonta africana pharaohensis) which would become extinct from overexploitation. These animals were smaller and harder to tame, and could not swim deep rivers compared with the Asian elephants used by the Seleucid Empire, particularly . Elephas maximus asurus. It is likely that at least some Syrian elephants were traded abroad. The favourite, and perhaps last surviving, elephant of Hannibal's crossing of the Alps was an animal named Surus ("the Syrian"), which may have been of Syrian stock, though the evidence remains ambiguous.Nossov, p. 30.
Since the late 1940s, a strand of scholarship has argued that the African forest elephants used by Numidia, the Ptolemies and the military of Carthage did not carry howdahs or turrets in combat, perhaps owing to the physical weakness of the species.Scullard (1948); (1974) 240–245 Some allusions to turrets in ancient literature are certainly anachronistic or poetic invention, but other references are less easily discounted. There is contemporary testimony that the army of Juba I of Numidia included turreted elephants in 46 BC.Caesar, De Bello Africo 30.2, 41.2, 86.1. This is backed by the image of a turreted African elephant used on the coinage of Juba II.J. Mazard, Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque (Paris 1955) 103, no. 276, pl. 247 This also appears to be the case with Ptolemaic armies: Polybius reports that at the battle of Raphia in 217 BC the elephants of Ptolemy IV carried turrets; these elephants were significantly smaller than the Asian elephants fielded by the Seleucids and so presumably African forest elephants.Polybius v.84.2–7 There is also evidence that Carthaginian war elephants were furnished with turrets and howdahs in certain military contexts.Rance (2009)
Farther south, tribes would have had access to the African savanna elephant ( Loxodonta africana oxyotis). Although much larger than either the African forest elephant or the Asian elephant, these proved difficult to tame for war purposes and were not used extensively.In event, size alone was not necessarily a decisive factor. The elephants used by the Ptolemaic Egypt at the battle of Raphia in 217 BC were smaller than their Asian counterparts, for example, but that did not guarantee victory for Antiochus III the Great of Syria. Asian elephants were traded westwards to the Mediterranean markets, with Sri Lankan elephants being particularly preferred for war.
Perhaps inspired by the victories of Pyrrhus of Epirus, Carthage developed its own use of war elephants and deployed them extensively during the First and Second Punic Wars. The performance of the Carthaginian elephant corps was mixed, illustrating the need for proper tactics to take advantage of the elephant's strength and cover its weaknesses. At Adyss in 255 BC, the Carthaginian elephants were ineffective due to the terrain, while at the battle of Panormus in 251 BC the Romans' velites were able to terrify the Carthaginian elephants being used unsupported, which fled from the field. At the battle of Tunis the charge of the Carthaginian elephants helped to disorder the , allowing the Carthaginian phalanx to stand fast and defeat them. During the Second Punic War, Hannibal led an army of war elephants across the Alps. Many of them perished in the harsh conditions but the surviving elephants were successfully used in the battle of Trebia, where they panicked the Roman cavalry and Gallic allies. The Romans eventually developed effective anti-elephant tactics, leading to Hannibal's defeat at his final battle of Zama in 202 BC; his elephant charge, unlike the one at the battle of Tunis, was ineffective because the disciplined Roman maniples made way for them to pass.
Elephants also featured throughout the Roman campaign against the Lusitanians and Celtiberians in Hispania. During the Second Celtiberian War, Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was helped by ten elephants sent by king Masinissa of Numidia. He deployed them against the Celtiberian forces of Numantia, but a falling stone hit one of the elephants, which panicked and frightened the rest, turning them against the Roman forces. After the subsequent Celtiberian counterattack, the Romans were forced to withdraw. Later, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus marched against Viriathus with another ten elephants sent by king Micipsa. However, the Lusitanian style of ambushes in narrow terrains ensured his elephants did not play an important factor in the conflict, and Servilianus was eventually defeated by Viriathus in the city of Erisana.
The Romans used a war elephant in their first invasion of Britain, one ancient writer recording that "Caesar had one large elephant, which was equipped with armour and carried archers and slingers in its tower. When this unknown creature entered the river, the Britons and their horses fled and the Roman army crossed over"Polyaenus, (VIII, 23.5). – although he may have confused this incident with the use of a war elephant in Claudius' final conquest of Britain. At least one elephant skeleton with flint weapons found in England was initially misidentified as one of these elephants, but later dating proved it to be a mammoth skeleton from the Stone Age.
In the African campaign of the Roman civil war of 49–45 BC, the army of Metellus Scipio used elephants against Caesar's army at the battle of Thapsus. Scipio trained his elephants before the battle by aligning the elephants in front of slingers that would throw rocks at them, and another line of slingers at the elephants' rear to perform the same, in order to propel the elephants only in one direction, preventing them turning their backs because of frontal attack and charging against his own lines, but the author of De Bello Africano admits of the enormous effort and time required to accomplish this.
By the time of Claudius, such animals were being used by the Romans in single numbers only – the last significant use of war elephants in the Mediterranean was against the Romans at the battle of Thapsus, 46 BC, where Julius Caesar armed his fifth legion ( Alaudae) with axes and commanded his legionaries to strike at the elephant's legs. The legion withstood the charge, and the elephant became its symbol. The remainder of the elephants seemed to have been thrown into panic by Caesar's archers and slingers.
The Sassanid elephant corps held primacy amongst the Sassanid cavalry forces and was recruited from India. The elephant corps was under a special chief, known as the Zend−hapet, meaning "Commander of the Indians", either because the animals came from that country, or because they were managed by natives of Hindustan. The Sassanid elephant corps was never on the same scale as others further east, and after the fall of the Sassanid Empire the use of war elephants died out in the region.
The Gupta Empire demonstrated extensive use of elephants in war and greatly expanded under the reign of Samudragupta. Local squads which each consisted of one elephant, one chariot, three armed cavalrymen, and five foot soldiers protected Gupta villages from raids and revolts. In times of war, the squads joined together to form a powerful imperial army. The Gupta Empire employed 'Mahapilupati', a position as an officer in charge of elephants. Emperors such as Kumaragupta I struck coins depicted as elephant riders and lion slayers.
Harsha established hegemony over most of North India. The Harshacharita composed by Bāṇabhaṭṭa describes the army under the rule of Harsha. Much like the Gupta Empire, his military consisted of infantry, cavalry, and elephants. Harsha received war elephants as tribute and presents from vassals. Some elephants were also obtained by forest rangers from the jungles. Elephants were additionally taken from defeated armies. Bana additionally details the diet of the elephants, recording that they each consumed 600 pounds of fodder consisting of trees with mangos and sugarcanes.
The Chola dynasty and the Western Chalukya Empire maintained a large number of war elephants in the 11th and 12th century. The war elephants of the Chola dynasty carried on their backs fighting towers which were filled with soldiers who would shoot arrows at long range. The army of the Pala Empire was noted for its huge elephant corps, with estimates ranging from 5,000 to 50,000.
The Ghaznavids were the first amongst the Islamic dynasties to incorporate war elephants into their tactical theories. They also used a large number of elephants in their battles. The Ghaznavids acquired their elephants as tribute from the Hindu princes and as war plunder. The sources usually list the number of beasts captured, and these frequently ran into hundreds, such as 350 from Qanauj and 185 from Mahaban in 409/1018-19, and 580 from the Raja Ganda in 410/1019-20. Utbi records that the Thanesar expedition of 405/1014-15 was provoked by Mahmad's desire to get some of the special breed of Sri lankan breed of elephants excellent in war
In 1526, Babur, a descendant of Timur, invaded India and established the Mughal Empire. Babur introduced firearms and artillery into Indian warfare. He destroyed the army of Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat and the army of Rana Sanga in 1527 at the Battle of Khanua. The great Moghul Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605 AD) had 32,000 elephants in his stables. Jahangir, (reigned 1605–1627 A.D.) was a great connoisseur of elephants. He increased the number of elephants in service. Jahangir was stated to have 113,000 elephants in captivity: 12,000 in active army service, 1,000 to supply fodder to these animals, and another 100,000 elephants to carry courtiers, officials, attendants and baggage.
King Rajasinghe I laid siege to the Portuguese fort at Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1558 with an army containing 2,200 elephants, used for logistics and siege work. The Sri Lankans had continued their proud traditions in capturing and training elephants from ancient times. The officer in charge of the royal stables, including the capture of elephants, was called the Gajanayake Nilame, while the post of Kuruve Lekham controlled the Kuruwe or elephant men. The training of war elephants was the duty of the Kuruwe clan who came under their own Muhandiram, a Sri Lankan administrative post.
In history there is a significant event known as the ‘Am al-Fil (, "Year of the Elephant"), approximately equating to 570 Anno Domini. At that time Abraha, the Christians ruler of Yemen, marched upon the Ka‘bah in Mecca, intending to demolish it. He had a large army, which included one or more elephants (as many as eight, in some accounts). However, the (single or lead) elephant, whose name was 'Mahmud', is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter – which was taken by both the Meccans and their Yemenite foes as a serious omen. According to Islamic tradition, it was in this year that Muhammad was born.
In the Middle Ages, elephants were seldom used in Europe. Charlemagne took his one elephant, Abul-Abbas, when he went to fight the Danes in 804, and the gave Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II the opportunity to capture an elephant in the Holy Land, the same animal later being used in the capture of Cremona in 1214, but the use of these individual animals was more symbolic than practical, especially when contrasting food and water consumption of elephants in foreign lands and the harsh conditions of the crusades.
The Mongol Empire faced war-elephants in Khorazm, Burma, Siam, Vietnam, Cambodia and India throughout the 13th century. Despite their unsuccessful campaigns in Vietnam and India, the Mongols defeated the war elephants outside Samarkand by using and , and during the Mongol invasions of Burma in 1277–1287 and 1300–1302 by showering from their famous . Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan both retained captured elephants as part of their entourage. Another central Asian invader, Timur faced similar challenges a century later. In the Sack of Delhi, Timur's army faced more than one hundred Indian elephants in battle and almost lost because of the fear they caused amongst his troops. Historical accounts say that the Timurids ultimately won by employing an ingenious strategy: Timur tied flaming straw to the back of his before the charge. The smoke made the camels run forward, scaring the elephants, who crushed their own troops in their efforts to retreat. Another account of the campaign by Ahmed ibn Arabshah reports that Timur used oversized to halt the elephants' charge. Later, the Timurid leader used the captured animals against the Ottoman Empire.
In Southeast Asia, the powerful Khmer Empire had come to regional dominance by the 9th century AD, drawing heavily on the use of war elephants. Uniquely, the Khmer military deployed double cross-bows on the top of their elephants. With the collapse of Khmer power in the 15th century, the successor region powers of Myanmar (now Myanmar) and Siam (now Thailand) also adopted the widespread use of war elephants. In many battles of the period it was the practice for leaders to fight each other personally in . One famous battle occurred when the Burmese army attacked Siam's Kingdom of Ayutthaya. The war may have been concluded when the Burmese crown prince Mingyi Swa was killed by Siamese King Naresuan in personal combat on elephant in 1593.Observed in Thailand as Armed Forces Day. However, this duel may be apocryphal.
In Thailand, the king or general rode on the elephant's neck and carried ngaw, a long pole with a sabre at the end, plus a metal hook for controlling the elephant. Sitting behind him on a howdah, was a signaller, who signalled by waving of a pair of peacock feathers. Above the signaller was the chatras, consisting of progressively stacked circular canopies, the number signifying the rank of the rider. Finally, behind the signaller on the elephant's back, was the steerer, who steered via a long pole. The steerer may have also carried a short musket and a sword.
In Malaysia, 20 elephants battled the Portuguese during the Capture of Malacca (1511).
The Chinese continued to reject the use of war elephants throughout the period, with the notable exception of the Southern Han during the 10th century AD – the "only nation on Chinese soil ever to maintain a line of elephants as a regular part of its army". This anomaly in Chinese warfare is explained by the geographical proximity and close cultural links of the southern Han to Southeast Asia. The military officer who commanded these elephants was given the title "Legate Digitant and Agitant of the Gigantic Elephants". Each elephant supported a wooden tower that could allegedly hold ten or more men. For a brief time, war elephants played a vital role in Southern Han victories such as the invasion of Chu in 948 AD, but the Southern Han elephant corps were ultimately soundly defeated at Shao in 971 AD, defeated by crossbow shooting from troops of the Song dynasty. As one academic has put it, "thereafter this exotic introduction into Chinese culture passed out of history, and the tactical habits of the North prevailed". However, as late as the Ming dynasty in as far north as Beijing, there were still records of elephants being used in Chinese warfare, namely in 1449 where a Vietnamese contingent of war elephants helped the Ming dynasty defend the city from the Mongols.
Nonetheless, in south-east Asia the use of elephants on the battlefield continued up until the end of the 19th century. One of the major difficulties in the region was terrain, and elephants could cross difficult terrain in many cases more easily than horse cavalry. Burmese forces used war elephants against the Chinese in the Sino-Burmese War where they routed the Chinese cavalry. The Burmese used them again during the Battle of Danubyu during the First Anglo-Burmese War, where the elephants were easily repulsed by deployed by British Army. The Siamese Army continued utilising war elephants armed with up until the Franco-Siamese conflict of 1893, while the Vietnamese used them in battle as late as 1885, during the Sino-French War. During the mid to late 19th century, British forces in India possessed specialised elephant batteries to haul large siege over ground unsuitable for oxen.
Into the 20th century, military elephants were used for non-combat purposes in the Second World War, particularly because the animals could perform tasks in regions that were problematic for motor vehicles. Sir William Slim, commander of the XIVth Army wrote about elephants in his introduction to Elephant Bill: "They built hundreds of bridges for us, they helped to build and launch more ships for us than Helen ever did for Greece. Without them our retreat from Burma would have been even more arduous and our advance to its liberation slower and more difficult."Williams, James Howard Elephant Bill (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1954) Military elephants were used as late as the Vietnam War.
Elephants were as of 2017 being used by the Kachin Independence Army for an auxiliary role. Elephants are now more valuable to many armies in Failed state for their ivory than as transport, and many thousands of elephants have died during civil conflicts due to poaching. They are classed as a pack animal in United States Army Field Manuals issued as recently as 2004, but their use by U.S. personnel is discouraged because elephants are endangered.
Capturing elephants from the wild remained a difficult task, but a necessary one given the difficulties of breeding in captivity and the long time required for an elephant to reach sufficient maturity to engage in battle. Sixty-year-old war elephants were always prized as being at the most suitable age for battle service. Today an elephant is considered in its prime and at the height of its power between the ages of 25 and 40, yet elephants as old as 80 are used in tiger hunts because they are more disciplined and experienced.
It is commonly thought that the reason all war elephants were male was because of males' greater aggression, but it was instead because a female elephant in battle will run from a male; therefore only males could be used in war, whereas female elephants were more commonly used for logistics.
In addition to charging, elephants could provide a safe and stable platform for archers to shoot arrows in the middle of the battlefield, from which more targets could be seen and engaged. The driver, called a mahout, was responsible for controlling the animal, who often also carried weapons himself, like a chisel-blade and a hammer (to kill his own mount in an emergency). Elephants were sometimes further enhanced with their own weaponry and armour as well. In India and Sri Lanka, heavy iron chains with steel balls at the end were tied to their trunks, which the animals were trained to swirl menacingly and with great skill. Numerous cultures designed specialized equipment for elephants, like and a protective tower on their backs, called . The late sixteenth century saw the introduction of , and rockets against elephants, innovations that would ultimately drive these animals out of active service on the battlefield.
Besides the dawn of more efficient means of transportation and weaponry, war elephants also had clear tactical weaknesses that lead to their eventual retirement. After sustaining painful wounds, or when their driver was killed, elephants had the tendency to panic, often causing them to run amok indiscriminately, making casualties on either side. Experienced Roman infantrymen often tried to sever their trunks, causing instant distress, and possibly leading the elephant to flee back into its own lines. Fast armed with javelins were also used by the Romans to drive them away, as well as flaming objects or a stout line of long spears, such as Triarii. Another method for disrupting elephant units in classical antiquity was the deployment of . Ancient writers believed that elephants could be "scared by the smallest squeal of a pig".Pliny the Elder VIII, 1.27. Some warlords, however, interpreted this expression literally. At the siege of Megara during the Diadochi wars, for example, the Megarians reportedly poured oil on a herd of pigs, set them alight, and drove them towards the enemy's massed war elephants, which subsequently bolted in terror.
The value of war elephants in battle remains a contested issue. In the 19th century, it was fashionable to contrast the western, Roman focus on infantry and discipline with the eastern, exotic use of war elephants that relied merely on psychological tactics to defeat their enemy. One writer commented that war elephants "have been found to be skittish and easily alarmed by unfamiliar sounds and for this reason they were found prone to break ranks and flee". Nonetheless, the continued use of war elephants for several thousand years attests to their enduring value to the historical battlefield commander.
In the game shogi, there used to be a piece known as the "Drunken Elephant"; it was, however, dropped by order of the Emperor Go-Nara and no longer appears in the version played in today's Japan. Sho Shogi. Chess Variants. April 2, 1997.
Elephant armour, originally designed for use in war, is today usually only seen in museums. One particularly fine set of Indian elephant armour is preserved at the Leeds Royal Armouries Museum, while Indian museums across the sub-continent display other fine pieces. The architecture of India also shows the deep impact of elephant warfare over the years. War elephants adorn many military gateways, such as those at Lohagarh Fort for example, while some spiked, anti-elephant gates still remain, for example at Kumbhalgarh fort. Across India, older gateways are invariably much higher than their European equivalents, in order to allow elephants with to pass through underneath.
War elephants also remain a popular artistic trope, either in the Orientalism painting tradition of the 19th century, or in literature following Tolkien, who popularised a fantastic rendition of war elephants in the form of 'oliphaunts' or mûmakil.
Numerous strategy video games feature elephants as special units, usually available only to specific factions or requiring special resources. These include Age of Empires, , the Civilization series, the Total War series, Hearts of Iron IV, , and Crusader Kings III.
In the 2004 film Alexander, the scene depicting the Battle of Hydaspes includes war elephants fighting against the Macedonian phalanx.
In the 2017 video game Assassin's Creed Origins, they are distributed around the map as boss fights.
In , Mûmakil (or Oliphaunts) are fictional giant elephant-like creatures used by Sauron and his Haradrim army in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
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