Sayeret
01-03-2005, 09:11 PM
Greek Fire or Byzantine Fire or liquid fire was a weapon used by the Byzantine Empire, said to have been invented by a Syrian Christian refugee named Callinicus of Heliopolis. It was capable of discharging a stream of burning fluid, and was very effective both on sea and land, but it was used primarily at sea. It is rumored that the key to Greek fire's effectiveness was that it would continue burning under almost any conditions, even under water. Enemy ships were often afraid to come too near the Byzantine fleet because once within range the fire gave the Byzantines a strong advantage.
The secret of manufacturing the fluid was very carefully guarded--so well that today we still do not know how it was made. Various sources speculate that its constituents may have included sulfur, quicklime, and liquid petroleum. These materials were apparently heated in a cauldron, and then pumped out through a siphon.
Byzantine fire was largely responsible for many Byzantine military victories, and partly the reason for the Empire surviving as long as it did, particularly near the end of the Empire when there were not enough inhabitants of Byzantium to effectively defend it. It was first used in 672 against an attacking Arab fleet, and it quickly become one of the most fearsome weapons of the medieval world; the mere sight of any sort of siphon, whether it was used for Greek fire or not, was often enough to defeat an enemy. However, it was hard to control, and often accidentally set Byzantine ships on fire as well.
Greek fire was in a general way similar to the modern flamethrower
http://home.comcast.net/~sylvanarrow/greek_fire.htm
In a world where new warfare technology is adopted so quickly by so many nations, it’s hard to imagine that the method of creating a weapon as devastating as Greek Fire would be lost to the passage of time. But the recipe for this weapon was so closely guarded that within only 50 years of its invention, the knowledge was lost even to the original owners. While incendiary weapons had been in use for centuries (petroleum and sulfur had both been in use since the early days of the Christians) Greek fire was much, much more potent. Very similar to our modern napalm, it would adhere to surfaces, ignite upon contact, and water alone would not extinguish its flames.
The term “Greek Fire” was not attributed to the concoction until the time of the European Crusades. Some of the original names it was known by include “liquid fire”, “marine fire”, “artificial fire” and “Roman fire”. The latter was most probably due to the fact that the Muslims (against whom the weapon was most commonly used) believed the Byzantines to be Roman rather than Greek.
Greek Fire is believed to have been created in the seventh century (673 AD) by a Syrian engineer named Kallinikos (or Callinicus). The weapon was first used by the Byzantine Navy, and the most common method of deployment was to emit the formula through a large bronze tube onto enemy ships. Usually the mixture would be stored in heated, pressurized barrels and projected through the tube by some sort of pump while the operators were sheltered behind large iron shields.
The Byzantines used Greek Fire rarely, presumably out of fear that the secret mixture might fall into enemy hands. This was probably justifiable. The widespread usage of Greek Fire would be a far greater loss to the Byzantines then the loss of a single battle.
There are however two known incidents of the Byzantines using this weapon. In 678 they utterly destroyed a Muslim fleet (it is believed over 30,000 men were lost) and also in 717-718, when Caliph Suleiman attacked Constantinople. Most of the Muslim fleet was once again destroyed by Greek Fire, and the Caliph was ultimately forced to flee. As there is virtually no documentation of its usage after this time by the Byzantines, it is generally believed (partially due to the poor performance of the Byzantine fleets after this date) that it was during this era that the secrets of creating Greek Fire were lost.
While there has been much speculation involved in preparation of Greek Fire, no one to date has been able to successfully recreate this concoction. The closest would be the Arabian armies, who eventually created their own version (opinions differ as to exactly when this took place, presumably sometime between the mid-seventh century and the early tenth), but the formula was inexact and, compared to the original Byzantine substance, was relatively weak. This did not stop it from being one of the most devastating weapons of the era. The Arabs used the Greek Fire in very effective ways; much like the Byzantines, they used brass tubes aboard ships and upon castle walls. They also filled small glass jars with the substance, allowing them to hurl it by hand at their opponents. Arrows and spears would be used to carry the mixture further onto the battlefield and gigantic war engines could be used to hurl large amounts of the substance over a castle wall.
The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, a thirteenth century French nobleman, include these observations of Greek Fire during the seventh Crusade:
“It happened one night, whilst we were keeping night-watch over the tortoise-towers, that they brought up against us an engine called a perronel, (which they had not done before) and filled the sling of the engine with Greek fire. When that good knight, Lord Walter of Cureil, who was with me, saw this, he spoke to us as follows: "Sirs, we are in the greatest peril that we have ever yet been in. For, if they set fire to our turrets and shelters, we are lost and burnt; and if, again, we desert our defences which have been entrusted to us, we are disgraced; so none can deliver us from this peril save God alone. My opinion and advice therefor is: that every time they hurl the fire at us, we go down on our elbows and knees, and beseech Our Lord to save us from this danger."
“So soon as they flung the first shot, we went down on our elbows and knees, as he had instructed us; and their first shot passed between the two turrets, and lodged just in front of us, where they had been raising the dam. Our firemen were all ready to put out the fire; and the Saracens, not being able to aim straight at them, on account of the two pent-house wings which the King had made, shot straight up into the clouds, so that the fire-darts fell right on top of them.”
“This was the fashion of the Greek fire: it came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed.”
“Thrice that night they hurled the Greek fire at us, and four times shot it from the tourniquet cross-bow.”
Beyond the physical dangers of Greek Fire, this excerpt gives us an idea of its potency as a psychological weapon. The horrors of watching your comrades burn to death must have been a shattering blow to many a soldier. Many men were known to simply flee their posts rather than face the flames.
However, as devastating as Greek Fire might have been, there were some methods of combating it; as water alone was largely ineffective, common defenses included sand, vinegar and urine.
http://stronghold.heavengames.com/sc/history/greekfire
GREEK - FIRE, the name applied to inflammable and destructive compositions used in warfare during the middle ages and particularly by the Byzantine Greeks at the sieges of Constantinople. The employment of liquid fire is represented on Assyrian has-reliefs. At the siege of Plataea, (429 B.c.) the Spartans attempted to burn the town by piling up against the walls wood saturated with pitch and sulphur and setting iton fire (Thuc. ii. 77), and at the siege of Delium (424 B.c.) a cauldron containing pitch, sulphur and burning charcoal, was placed against the walls and urged into flame by the aid of a bellows, the blast from which was conveyed through a hollow tree-trunk (Thuc. iv. 100). Aeneas Tacticus in the following century mentions a mixture of sulphur, pitch, charcoal, incense and tow, which was packed in wooden vessels and thrown lighted upon the decks of the enemys ships. Later, as in receipts given by Vegetius (c. A.D. 350), naphtha or petroleum is added, and some nine centuries afterwards the same substances are found forming part of mixtures described in the later receipts (which probably date from the beginning of the i3th century) of the collection known as the Liber ignium of Marcus Graecus. In subsequent receipts saltpetre and turpentine make their appearance, and the modern carcass composition, containing sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpetre and crude antimony, is a representative of the same class of mixtures, which became known to the Crusaders as Greek fire but were more usually called wildfire. Greek fire, properly so-called, was, however, of a somewhat different character. It is said that in the reign of Constantine Pogonatus (648685) an architect named Callinicus, who had fled from Heliopolis in Syria to Constantinople, prepared a wet fire which was thrown out from siphons (rh 6ui T&V ai4sdivwv C1e4ep6t.eer-ov rri3p &yphv), and that by its aid the ships of the Saracens were set on fire at Cyzicus and their defeat assured. The art of compounding this mixture, which is also referred to as irip OaXihwnov, or sea fire, was jealously guarded at Constantinople, and the possession of the secret on several occasions proved of great advantage to the city. The nature of the compound is somewhat obscure. It has been supposed that the novelty introduced by Callinicus was saltpetre, but this view involves the difficulty that that substance was apparently not known till the i3th century, even if it were capable of accounting for the properties attributed to the wet fire. Lieut.-Colonel H. W. L. Hime, after a close examination of the available evidence, concludes that what distinguished Greek fire from the other incendiaries of the period was the presence of quicklime, which was well known to give rise to a large development of heat when brought into contact with water. The mixture, then, was composed of such materials as sulphur and naphtha with
http://62.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GR/GREEK_FIRE.htm
The secret of manufacturing the fluid was very carefully guarded--so well that today we still do not know how it was made. Various sources speculate that its constituents may have included sulfur, quicklime, and liquid petroleum. These materials were apparently heated in a cauldron, and then pumped out through a siphon.
Byzantine fire was largely responsible for many Byzantine military victories, and partly the reason for the Empire surviving as long as it did, particularly near the end of the Empire when there were not enough inhabitants of Byzantium to effectively defend it. It was first used in 672 against an attacking Arab fleet, and it quickly become one of the most fearsome weapons of the medieval world; the mere sight of any sort of siphon, whether it was used for Greek fire or not, was often enough to defeat an enemy. However, it was hard to control, and often accidentally set Byzantine ships on fire as well.
Greek fire was in a general way similar to the modern flamethrower
http://home.comcast.net/~sylvanarrow/greek_fire.htm
In a world where new warfare technology is adopted so quickly by so many nations, it’s hard to imagine that the method of creating a weapon as devastating as Greek Fire would be lost to the passage of time. But the recipe for this weapon was so closely guarded that within only 50 years of its invention, the knowledge was lost even to the original owners. While incendiary weapons had been in use for centuries (petroleum and sulfur had both been in use since the early days of the Christians) Greek fire was much, much more potent. Very similar to our modern napalm, it would adhere to surfaces, ignite upon contact, and water alone would not extinguish its flames.
The term “Greek Fire” was not attributed to the concoction until the time of the European Crusades. Some of the original names it was known by include “liquid fire”, “marine fire”, “artificial fire” and “Roman fire”. The latter was most probably due to the fact that the Muslims (against whom the weapon was most commonly used) believed the Byzantines to be Roman rather than Greek.
Greek Fire is believed to have been created in the seventh century (673 AD) by a Syrian engineer named Kallinikos (or Callinicus). The weapon was first used by the Byzantine Navy, and the most common method of deployment was to emit the formula through a large bronze tube onto enemy ships. Usually the mixture would be stored in heated, pressurized barrels and projected through the tube by some sort of pump while the operators were sheltered behind large iron shields.
The Byzantines used Greek Fire rarely, presumably out of fear that the secret mixture might fall into enemy hands. This was probably justifiable. The widespread usage of Greek Fire would be a far greater loss to the Byzantines then the loss of a single battle.
There are however two known incidents of the Byzantines using this weapon. In 678 they utterly destroyed a Muslim fleet (it is believed over 30,000 men were lost) and also in 717-718, when Caliph Suleiman attacked Constantinople. Most of the Muslim fleet was once again destroyed by Greek Fire, and the Caliph was ultimately forced to flee. As there is virtually no documentation of its usage after this time by the Byzantines, it is generally believed (partially due to the poor performance of the Byzantine fleets after this date) that it was during this era that the secrets of creating Greek Fire were lost.
While there has been much speculation involved in preparation of Greek Fire, no one to date has been able to successfully recreate this concoction. The closest would be the Arabian armies, who eventually created their own version (opinions differ as to exactly when this took place, presumably sometime between the mid-seventh century and the early tenth), but the formula was inexact and, compared to the original Byzantine substance, was relatively weak. This did not stop it from being one of the most devastating weapons of the era. The Arabs used the Greek Fire in very effective ways; much like the Byzantines, they used brass tubes aboard ships and upon castle walls. They also filled small glass jars with the substance, allowing them to hurl it by hand at their opponents. Arrows and spears would be used to carry the mixture further onto the battlefield and gigantic war engines could be used to hurl large amounts of the substance over a castle wall.
The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, a thirteenth century French nobleman, include these observations of Greek Fire during the seventh Crusade:
“It happened one night, whilst we were keeping night-watch over the tortoise-towers, that they brought up against us an engine called a perronel, (which they had not done before) and filled the sling of the engine with Greek fire. When that good knight, Lord Walter of Cureil, who was with me, saw this, he spoke to us as follows: "Sirs, we are in the greatest peril that we have ever yet been in. For, if they set fire to our turrets and shelters, we are lost and burnt; and if, again, we desert our defences which have been entrusted to us, we are disgraced; so none can deliver us from this peril save God alone. My opinion and advice therefor is: that every time they hurl the fire at us, we go down on our elbows and knees, and beseech Our Lord to save us from this danger."
“So soon as they flung the first shot, we went down on our elbows and knees, as he had instructed us; and their first shot passed between the two turrets, and lodged just in front of us, where they had been raising the dam. Our firemen were all ready to put out the fire; and the Saracens, not being able to aim straight at them, on account of the two pent-house wings which the King had made, shot straight up into the clouds, so that the fire-darts fell right on top of them.”
“This was the fashion of the Greek fire: it came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed.”
“Thrice that night they hurled the Greek fire at us, and four times shot it from the tourniquet cross-bow.”
Beyond the physical dangers of Greek Fire, this excerpt gives us an idea of its potency as a psychological weapon. The horrors of watching your comrades burn to death must have been a shattering blow to many a soldier. Many men were known to simply flee their posts rather than face the flames.
However, as devastating as Greek Fire might have been, there were some methods of combating it; as water alone was largely ineffective, common defenses included sand, vinegar and urine.
http://stronghold.heavengames.com/sc/history/greekfire
GREEK - FIRE, the name applied to inflammable and destructive compositions used in warfare during the middle ages and particularly by the Byzantine Greeks at the sieges of Constantinople. The employment of liquid fire is represented on Assyrian has-reliefs. At the siege of Plataea, (429 B.c.) the Spartans attempted to burn the town by piling up against the walls wood saturated with pitch and sulphur and setting iton fire (Thuc. ii. 77), and at the siege of Delium (424 B.c.) a cauldron containing pitch, sulphur and burning charcoal, was placed against the walls and urged into flame by the aid of a bellows, the blast from which was conveyed through a hollow tree-trunk (Thuc. iv. 100). Aeneas Tacticus in the following century mentions a mixture of sulphur, pitch, charcoal, incense and tow, which was packed in wooden vessels and thrown lighted upon the decks of the enemys ships. Later, as in receipts given by Vegetius (c. A.D. 350), naphtha or petroleum is added, and some nine centuries afterwards the same substances are found forming part of mixtures described in the later receipts (which probably date from the beginning of the i3th century) of the collection known as the Liber ignium of Marcus Graecus. In subsequent receipts saltpetre and turpentine make their appearance, and the modern carcass composition, containing sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpetre and crude antimony, is a representative of the same class of mixtures, which became known to the Crusaders as Greek fire but were more usually called wildfire. Greek fire, properly so-called, was, however, of a somewhat different character. It is said that in the reign of Constantine Pogonatus (648685) an architect named Callinicus, who had fled from Heliopolis in Syria to Constantinople, prepared a wet fire which was thrown out from siphons (rh 6ui T&V ai4sdivwv C1e4ep6t.eer-ov rri3p &yphv), and that by its aid the ships of the Saracens were set on fire at Cyzicus and their defeat assured. The art of compounding this mixture, which is also referred to as irip OaXihwnov, or sea fire, was jealously guarded at Constantinople, and the possession of the secret on several occasions proved of great advantage to the city. The nature of the compound is somewhat obscure. It has been supposed that the novelty introduced by Callinicus was saltpetre, but this view involves the difficulty that that substance was apparently not known till the i3th century, even if it were capable of accounting for the properties attributed to the wet fire. Lieut.-Colonel H. W. L. Hime, after a close examination of the available evidence, concludes that what distinguished Greek fire from the other incendiaries of the period was the presence of quicklime, which was well known to give rise to a large development of heat when brought into contact with water. The mixture, then, was composed of such materials as sulphur and naphtha with
http://62.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GR/GREEK_FIRE.htm