Norman cavalry, fortifications, and crusading expansion

Viking armies had relied on infantry, while their Norman descendants became known for heavy cavalry and strategic fortification. Norman expansion in the eleventh century established rule in England and southern Italy, followed by consolidation in the twelfth. Montgomery connects this military energy to the revival that produced the Crusades and stresses the Normans' appetite for war. He also brings in his family's Norman origins, Roger of Montgomery at Hastings, and his own army's movement through Normandy in the opposite direction in 1944.