Tabor (formation)

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This is an article on the military formation called tabor. For other uses see: Tabor (disambiguation)

Cossack tabor, (magnified)

Cossack tabor, Poland

A tabor (Ukrainian: also tabir) is a convoy or a camp formed by horse-drawn wagons. For example, nomadic Gypsies used to wander and camp in tabor formations. Tabors supported the armies in Europe between the 13th and 20th centuries. Tabors usually followed the armies and carried all the necessary supplies and rear units, such as field kitchens, armourers or shoemakers.

In the 13th century the armies of Kievan Rus used the tabors in the battle of Kalka to defend themselves from Mongol forces.

In the 15th century, during the Hussite Wars, the Hussites developed tactics of using the tabors as mobile fortifications. When the Hussite army faced a numerically superior opponent, the Bohemians usually formed a circle of the armed wagons, joined them with iron chains, and defended the resulting fortification against charges of the enemy. Such a camp was easy to establish and practically invulnerable to enemy cavalry. The etymology of the word Tabor may come from the Hussite fortress and modern day Czech city of Tábor. See also, Wagenburg.

The tactics were later copied by various armies of Central Europe, including the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the 16th and 17th centuries, these tactics were also mastered by the Cossacks, who used their tabors for the protection of marching troops as well.