Muwattalli did muster all the forces he could for the engagement,
especially after his earlier defeat by Ramesses’father on the same
battlefield.
Allowing for the possibility of a mercenary element in his army
at least for this battle, we can probably put the size of Muwattalli’s
owntroops at Qadesh at somewhere around 40,000. Of course, he
would have needed to leave a sizeable defence force behind him in
Anatolia, both within the Hittite homeland, as well as in the south
in the region around his new capital Tarhuntassa. (This is on the
assumption that he had shifted his royal capital there prior to
Qadesh.) Already several of his predecessors had learnt from bitter
experience the dangers of exposing their homeland regions to
enemy invasions by failing to leave an adequate defence force there
while they were engaged on major campaigns in distant lands. At a
guess, I suggest that a force of at least 10,000–15,000 troops would
have been left to defend core regions of the empire. Many of these
were probably‘reservists’, who had other occupations as farm
labourers etc., but had also been given military training and
could be quickly called up from their usual jobs if and when the
need arose. The total size of the Hittite army around the time of
the Qadesh engagement would thus have been around 50,000 to
Figure 18.1 Hittite Warriors (locals used in Ekip Film’sThe Hittites).
168 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA