Camel cavalry, or camelry, is a generic designation for armed forces

Armed forces

The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...

 using camel

Camel

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...

s as a means of transportation. Sometimes warriors or soldiers of this type also fought from camel-back with spears, bows or rifles.

Camel cavalry were a common element in desert warfare throughout history due in part to the animal's high level of adaptability. They provided a mobile element better suited to work and survive in an arid and waterless environment than the horses of conventional cavalry. The smell of the camel according to folklore alarms and disorients horses, making camels an effective anti-cavalry weapon. For this purpose Emperor Claudius is said to have brought a detachment of camel cavalry as part of his invasion force for conquering Britain

Roman conquest of Britain

The Roman conquest of Britain was a gradual process, beginning effectively in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, whose general Aulus Plautius served as first governor of Britannia. Great Britain had already frequently been the target of invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the Roman Republic and...

.

Early history

The first recorded use of the camel as a military animal is by the Arab king Gindibu, who is claimed to have employed as many as 1000 camels at the Battle of Qarqar

Battle of Qarqar

The Battle of Qarqar was fought in 853 BC when the army of Assyria led by king Shalmaneser III encountered an allied army of 12 kings at Qarqar led by Hadadezer of Damascus and King Ahab of Israel...

 in 853 B.C. A later instance occurred in the Battle of Thymbra

Battle of Thymbra

The Battle of Thymbra was the decisive battle in the war between Croesus of the Lydian Empire against Cyrus the Great in the first months of 547 BC. Cyrus, having pursued Croesus into Lydia following the drawn Battle of Pteria, met the remains of Croesus' partly disbanded army in battle on the...

 in 547 BC, fought between Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great

Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...

 of Persia and Croesus

Croesus

Croesus was the king of Lydia from 560 to 547 BC until his defeat by the Persians. The fall of Croesus made a profound impact on the Hellenes, providing a fixed point in their calendar. "By the fifth century at least," J.A.S...

 of Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....

. According to Xenophon

Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...

, Cyrus' cavalry were outnumbered by as much as six to one. Acting on information from one of his generals that the Lydian horses shied away from camels, Cyrus formed the camels from his baggage train into the first camel corps in history. Although not technically employed as cavalry, they were crucial in panicking the Lydian cavalry and turning the battle in Cyrus' favor.

Muslim conquests and colonial period

The camel was used in this way by many civilizations, especially in Arabia and North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

. Both camel and rider were sometimes armored like the contemporary cataphracts. The Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

s used camels to great effect against their horse-mounted Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an enemies during the Muslim conquests

Muslim conquests

Muslim conquests also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests, began with the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He established a new unified polity in the Arabian Peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Muslim power.They...

. During the late nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries camel troops were used for desert policing and patrol work in the British, French, German, Spanish and Italian colonial armies. Descendents of such units still form part of the modern Indian, Moroccan and Egyptian armies. Camels are still used by the Jordanian Desert Patrol. .

See also

• Bikaner Camel Corps
  Bikaner Camel Corps
  The Bikaner Camel Corps was a unit of Imperial Service Troops from India that fought for the allies in World War I and World War II.The Corps was founded by Maharaja Ganga Singh of the Indian state of Bikaner, as the Ganga Risala after the British government of India accepted his offer to raise a...
  
  
• Dromedarii
  Dromedarii
  Dromedarii were camel riding auxiliary forces recruited in the desert provinces of the Late Roman Empire.They were developed to take the place of horses where horses were not common...
  
  
• Imperial Camel Corps
  Imperial Camel Corps
  The Imperial Camel Corps was a brigade-sized military formation which fought for the Allies in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I. Its personnel were infantry mounted on camels for movement across desert....
  
  
• Méhariste
  Mehariste
  Méhariste is a French word that roughly translates to camel cavalry. The word is most commonly used as a designation of military units.-Origins of French Camel Corps:...
  
  
• Somaliland Camel Corps
  Somaliland Camel Corps
  The Somaliland Camel Corps was a unit of the British Army based in British Somaliland from the early 20th century until the 1960s.Camels are a necessity in East Africa, being as important as ponies are in Mongolia...
  
  
• Sudan Defence Force
  Sudan Defence Force
  The Sudan Defence Force was a Sudanese military unit formed in 1925, as its name indicates, to maintain the borders of the Sudan under the British administration...
  
  
• Tropas Nomadas
  Tropas Nómadas
  The Tropas Nómadas were an auxiliary regiment to the colonial army in Spanish Sahara , from the 1930s until the end of the Spanish presence in the territory in 1975...
  
  
• U.S. Camel Corps
• Zaptié
  Zaptié
  Zaptié was the designation given to locally raised gendarmerie units in the Italian colonies of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland between 1889 and 1942....
  
  
• Zumbooruck
  Zumbooruck
  A zamburak or zumbooruk was a specialized form of camel cavalry and mobile artillery from the early modern era. The operator of a zumbooruk is known as a zamburakchi or zumboorukchee.-Use:...
  
  

parody:

• Hawmps 1976 comedy movie about fictional camel unit in the Old West of the United States