(^20) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
Siberian steppe where Khrushchev tried to grow wheat, or the cotton
lands around Lake Baikal—to get a sense of how narrow the edge
where rains are fickle and rare.
This favorable environment enabled Europeans to leave more of the
land for forest and fallow and so raise livestock without seeking far for
pasture. Their animals were bigger and stronger than those of other
lands. The Mongolian pony, scourge of the steppe, stood tiny next to
a European battle steed; the same for Arab mounts. Much of India
could not breed horses at all because of the climate. Yet both small and
large animals offered advantages. The Mongol and Tartar could move
easily across their empty inland sea, striking fast and hard against the
sedentary populations round. The European horse, carrying an ar
mored warrior, amounted to a living tank, irresistible in charges, un
beatable in set combat.
The conflict between these two tactics gave rise to some of the great
est battles in history. In 732, Charles Martel, grandfather of Charle
magne and Frankish Mayor of the Palace, led an army of mounted
knights against the Arab invaders near Tours and set a westward limit
to what had seemed irresistible Muslim expansion.* Some four hun
dred fifty years later, in 1187, the Saracen troops of Saladin let the Eu
ropean knights charge down at them at the Horns of Hattin, stepping
aside at the last moment to let them through. By then the crusader
mounts, which had been carrying their riders all day in the blazing sun,
were exhausted. The Saracens had only to close and cut down the Eu
ropeans from the rear. So ended the crusading kingdom of Jerusalem
and Christian feudal power in the Holy Land.
In the long run, however, the Europeans won. Larger animals meant
an advantage in heavy work and transport. Dray horses could plow the
clayey soils of the great northern plain (the horse is more powerful than
the ox, that is, it moves faster and does more work in less time), while
moving fresh crops to urban markets. Later on they would haul field
guns to war and into combat. European herds were typically larger
and yielded lots of animal fertilizer (as against the human night soil em
ployed in East Asia). This enabled more intensive cultivation and larger
crops, which gave more feed, and so on in an upward spiral. As a re
sult, Europeans kept a diet rich in dairy products, meat, and animal
proteins. They grew taller and stronger while staying relatively free of
- Gibbon, the great historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by way of
emphasizing the momentousness of this victory, remarked that had the Arabs won, all
of Europe would now be reading the Koran and all the males circumcised.