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How the heck did medieval war work? And other rambling questions.
In my upcoming game, I plan on the PCs living and adventuring in a kingdom currently fighting a two front war. I don't know if they'll get involved in the conflict yet, as for the moment I'm planning on having them mainly deal with internal affairs and conflicts. But, when I was thinking about adventures involving them fighting in the war itself, I realized that every assumption I'd made was based on post medieval war.
In reality, I don't care much for the medieval period, but I like the fantasy genre and D&D as a setting (which I guess is kind of strange). I'm the kind of guy who has to have a logical consistency in his game world, so I can't rightly have a war fought with swords, spears, arrows and a touch of magic work the same as a war fought with rifles and artillery.
My favorite conflict in history is probably the First World War, and I'm using that as inspiration (the characters are citizens of the country roughly analogous to Germany), but I feel I can't get the feel I want, which is political, cultural and physical devastation and pointless loss of life, with what I imagine a D&D war would look like. At least, I can't do that without introducing elements that would break the whole thing for me. Poison gas I could easily do, but constant shelling is hard. And, almost most importantly, it's hard to come up with something in a fantasy universe analogous to trench warfare in terms of psychology and atmosphere.
How can I get something similar to the front, with both sides at a stalemate, throwing men at each other's entrenchments with little to no gain in a medieval setting? I guess that's my main question. I'm afraid I don't have the imagination to come up with an answer.
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The use of trenches was actually fairly prevalent - before cannon, they'd try to tunnel under the walls to undermine them. Then cannon were introduced, which could knock down the walls without mining, which led to the fortress designs changing (to the "star fort" style of earthworks), which then led to a new round of trenching and undermining. So I think you can get that feel, but mostly in long sieges of cities. You wouldn't see that sort of thing out in the open field as you did in WWI.
Magic, of course, changes things, and you should give some thought to how prevalent magic is in war before going too much farther. I keep my wars fairly magic light, so I can keep things close to the medieval/rennaissance paradigm. The more magic, the more the war will start to resemble modern warfare, I think.
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I do think it's best to drop much effort to be historically realistic about medieval warfare. An enormous amount depends on where and when you're trying to simulate, and some basic military tropes just don't translate back from WWI very well.
First off, medieval societies could not sustain a "total war" footing. The mass conscript armies of the WWI era, supplied by enormous logistical tails that reached back into every major population center, just did not happen. Actual logistics and financing could be surprisingly sophisticated, but they were sophisticated in the context of societies like England, where they balanced the yearly books by moving counters around on a checkerboarded table.
This is not to say that attempts weren't made to fully mobilize the populace. Indeed, the essentially tribal character of a lot of Dark Age societies contributed to an archaic conception of a general muster involving all able-bodied men, especially those who held land and property. This archaic principle rapidly decayed into payment in money or goods in place of men, because the confused mob of peasants, townsmen, and nobility produced by a general muster was of extremely limited use on the battlefield, to say nothing of the economic damage caused in a society that simply did not have the productivity excess to support such a percentage of its population doing non-productive work.
Carolingian edicts were issued insisting that every man who presented himself for the muster must have a helmet, a spear, and a jack, but even that proved too much in some cases. Royal orders insisted that arriving with nothing but a staff or club was not sufficient. Eventually, the funds and goods provided in place of military service went to finance the maintenance of smaller corps of professional soldiers, though there were always variations among places and times.
If you really want conscript armies bloodletting each other in endless siege warfare, you're probably best off short-circuiting the historical progression that turned the muster into scutage-money. Perhaps magic provides unusual productivity for the nations, allowing large percentages of its population to spend their time killing each other. Perhaps the borders are heavily fortified, with castles, manors, and other hard points that have to be reduced if an enemy army is to penetrate into the soft interior. Honestly, I'd be surprised if your players ever noticed if you just did it this way even without any magical explaination.
If you want info for the flavor of medieval warfare, I'd recommend Philippe Contamine's "War in the Middle Ages". It's a little dry at points, but it covers the evolution of mass musters into paid soldiery quite well, and gives a lot of useful detail on specific weaponry, armor, and tactics. Marc Bloch's "Feudal Society" series is another great read; it's a little dated in some places, but there's a reason it's such a classic.
How can I get something similar to the front, with both sides at a stalemate, throwing men at each other's entrenchments with little to no gain in a medieval setting? I guess that's my main question. I'm afraid I don't have the imagination to come up with an answer.
What you want is a siege. The besieging army will be dug in and could be there for months. Trenches, mud, fortifications, mud, disease, fighting in tunnels under the walls, and more mud. I highly recommend reading Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell for tons of great info and flavor for this sort of thing.
What you want is a siege. The besieging army will be dug in and could be there for months. Trenches, mud, fortifications, mud, disease, fighting in tunnels under the walls, and more mud. I highly recommend reading Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell for tons of great info and flavor for this sort of thing.
Great recommendation. It also reinforces one of your thoughts...wide-spread devastation. Because of poor logistics, an army on the march fed off of the land, consuming entire villages along their path.
Consider listening to several of Dan Carlin's Hard Core History podcasts (easily googleable.) He's an amateur historian who is superb at making you feel like you're right there at the battle. Highly recommended!
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You can still use artillery bombardment: Pots/balls filled with Napatha, Large stones and Ballista bolts continuously raining down would be emotionally crippling for most people I would imagine. Depending on what sort of medieval you're going for looking at articles on the Roman Empire's Wars might be useful as well.
You could have large-scale alchemical weapons, too -- catapults firing bucket-loads of alchemist's fire & the like. Posit some sort of cheap-ish magical enhancements for catapults that increases their range, and you can at least get near "artillery".
Also, if one or both sides field undead like shadows or wights -- creatures that can create more undead -- you can get similar levels of terror and despair.
Glen Cook's Black Company novels got into some fairly modern-ish feeling wars, in the Books of the South. It involved lots of sieges, as others suggested above, along with powerful magic.
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Also, watch "Braveheart" and "Excalibur" for the feel of melee fighting and "King Arthur" for that 'small group of heros in the midst of a big battle' feel, especially in the climactic end battle. "Kingdom of Heaven" also gives you a bit of the siege feel. These are resources you may already have and can be done at the times where you want more of a passive gain and can be watched going to bed or whenever.
The ideas listed above by others are also what I would recommend for active 'learning'.
The use of trenches was actually fairly prevalent - before cannon, they'd try to tunnel under the walls to undermine them. Then cannon were introduced, which could knock down the walls without mining, which led to the fortress designs changing (to the "star fort" style of earthworks), which then led to a new round of trenching and undermining
Hang on a sec. This is D&D. The cannon isn't realistic and it certainly isn't canon.
Well I have a huge Roman-style Empire in one part of my homebrew campaign world (in fact they ARE, or were Romans, started by Romans from a parallel Earth, not ours, my settings got a lot of links to parallel or counter Earths).
They've advanced over centuries and have a very affluent culture where politics is not about murder! More like oh mix of Rome with a dash of 15th century Venice and any culture they liked to pinch bits from
The Empire is truly enormous though, and it's borders and other areas are very dangerous.
Rather than "points of light" it's more liek a "web of civilization with bloody dangerous bits in between the strands" and it's a constant battle to keep the strands from being severed.
Large part of it's to do with usign adventurers (hence they are a recognized feature and have guilds) and a very organized police/security force counterign all kinds of schemes infiltrations etc, and the Adamantine Legions who slaughter anything that threatens their homeland.
The legions are armed/armoured in adamantine, which being so incredibly tough, last for millenia, and the Empire has lasted for 4 millenia, and slowly amassed that arsenal from it's adamantine mines where condemned priosners are sent (it's a death sentence, the super hard fine dust destroys the lungs).
The legions have their own "magical corp", often they take orphans or youngsters whoing potential and train them in magicla arts, in turn they serve minimum of 25 years.
Each century has between 5 and 10 spell casters roughly 2/3rds or so of which are clerics of war. A century is roughly, varying on makeup, 50 infantry, 10 archers/slingers, 10 cavalry, 5 scouts, 5 casters (or up to 10 if they are lucky/hard campaign), and 20"auxilliaries" (who're actually mostly craftsmen, drovers, cooks, physicians and the like and are either retired/wounded ex-legionnaries, experts, or youngsters, they tend ot the necessities and can fight)
Often, elite centuries or a cohort are sent to root out trouble that small mercenary bands (ie adventurers) can't deal with or aren't trusted with (politically).
So it's quite common on the fringes with truly dangerous areas, for a cohort to go in, establish a base, from which adventuring parties or legion scouts hit special targets, and centuries handle larger tasks.
The EMpire has two main military "schools" (that is, not just one establishments each, but widespread learning structures), one teaching battle magic/co-operation with units to casters, the other teaching centurions/officers strategy etc.
As noted, they like getting willing orphans/youngsters and raising them to be very loyal to the legions, which has proven very successful.
A choice between starivng in alleys or worse, and a full belly for an exciting, if dangerous and striclty disciplined life, is one many jump at.
The Legions are a meritocracy and won't stand for idiot leaders, and are very professional, more akin to a modern army in going about it "business fashion". They've been at it 4,000 years so they are definately not stupid, the EMprie cannot afford mistakes, so no "chinless wonders" are allowed
The empire has massive roads and canals across it, plus magical gates for special needs.
That allows comparitivley quick movement of armies. They also have aireal units (dragons hippogriff archers etc)
Generally, they wage total war, that is, compplete extermination, because the foes they face are not by any manner of means safe, or worth keeping aorund. So it's nasty stuff. However, they do eagerly make alliances with those they believe they can use or trust. So on the border, there's friendly or at least, allied groups of orcs and hobgoblins (there's even a hobgoblin legion who're more neutral than evil, but that legion is usually kept apart from the several dwarven legions to avoid friction).
Often border fortresses get besieged, or they do the same to orcs and undead/drow (the EMpire's worst enemies). Northern orcs use dinosaurs as mounts, southern orcs are often mutated, and worse than them live in the mountains. So it's almost always a constant low gade war.
The Empire is massive and rich enough to field nearly 100 legions and supplies. It doesn't like large mercanry forces, for lot of reasons, but recently has begun using Viking allies in such capacities in the North as both were in trouble and needed each other's assistance. (the Viking folk needed food due to bad harvests and also wanting to develop more trade and advancements, and they needed the security the Empire provided on their sea lanes)
A long time ago the Empire tried taking over an area home to a folk akin to Native North Americans, but they gave that up when they woke up the tarrasque and left that region post haste! A couple of thousand years later, they are sort of allies with those folks but they are pretty remote due ot the difficult terrain and the tarasque prevents major settlements being built in a big chunk of land (hence the locals are semi nomadic, or live in the hills or canyons where the tarrasque rarely if ever shows up)
A massive canyon goes across that land and that's where trade flows along it's river and many odd communities dot it's banks and cliffs.
The worst battles are fougth against the drow and undead from an island to the south. Millenia ago, an emperor was fantastically successful, expanding the EMpire enormously but became a tyrant, to extend his life he became a vampiric lich (rather rare if not unique state, he draws life, not blood to sustian himself). He was eventually driven off, but he still yearns for rule of the Empire.
The drow from this land do not worship Lolth, but other gods and him as their "living god".
They are otherwise every bit as sneaky nasty and deadly as other drow, worse even, because they are seen as heretics.
A recent invasion by that dread emperor, left more than a million dead and the Empire is recovering (hence the use of Viking allies). The invasion was halted and turned back at horrific cost, but it's not over yet and will take years if not two or three decades to retake the captured lands and cities, and much longer to clean up all pockets of enemies.
So you can imagine the horrific battles that raised great cities to the ground, counter epsionage to prevent break outs or mass slaughter of civilians by poison etc to weaken the war effort and so on.
The Empire hires dragons of any type provided they are reliable (dragons only tend towards alignments in my campaign), for various tasks and stations, smelting metal, spellcasters, some enjoy politics and are senators etc.
Dragons are seen as very auspicious (the empire's symbol and good luck charm is a white dragon) and are offered citizenship, provided they stick to the laws like everyone else.
a lot enjoy working for the legions, which treats them as honourary officers, as the dragons can unleash their fury (they really enjoy that), and many of them are patriotic or just plain hate the ex-emperor's blasphemies, and they prove invaluable in battles.
the enemy has dragons too, especially dracoliches (which many living dragons consider abominations), but in much smaller numbers
the vampire lich's homeland is much smaller, comparatively, than the enormous continent the EMpire largely controls, so, less area for dragons, and also, population of humanoids, but the evil ex-emperor makes up for that by massive undead armies.
the undead dont' care about polluting wells and the like, and drow are master of stealth, so the Empire's forces have a heck of a job on their hands...which is why they are so damn professional, they've been through this before and have a "no tolerance" policy of idiocy and break or execute nitwits who play political games that cause harm to the war effort or bad military tactics.
One of the challenges a fantasy gamemaster or writer faces is the problem of logistics. Traditionally, the bad guys have endless hordes at their disposal, but keeping those hordes fed can be quite a challenge. It's especially a problem when the bad guys are a nomadic barbarian race (e.g., orcs); the nomadic lifestyle does not support huge populations.
Some possible solutions:
#1: The bad guys have a slave empire supplying them with food and cannon fodder, and a sophisticated logistical apparatus to keep the supplies flowing. (This is the "Lord of the Rings" setup; the Mordor that Frodo and Sam saw, with zillions of orcs swarming around a barren wasteland, was supported by a massive offscreen network of slave laborers and tributary countries.) This works very well for a siege scenario.
#2: The bad guys belong to a race that can breed at a phenomenal rate compared to humans; multiple births are the norm and generations may be as little as 5 years. In this case, the race may tend to go through population booms and busts, and the invasion takes place at the peak of a boom. The invaders will be desperate for food and cannot sustain a long siege; they must quickly overrun their foes or starve.
#3: The bad guys simply don't need to eat. An army of undead is the usual example. Such an army is an unholy terror from a strategic point of view; it has no supply lines to worry about and it does not have to stop and forage. Wherever it needs to be, it can just up and go there and not worry about how it's going to stay fed. You might want to consider giving such troops some other limitations, like not being able to move in sunlight.
#4: Being a bad guy is infectious. This is often coupled with #3 for a zombie apocalypse. In this case, the bad guys can quickly amass an army of new "recruits" and throw them into the meat grinder, secure in the knowledge that they can make more.
Last edited by Dausuul; 17th June 2009 at 10:47 PM..
You might want to take a look at the Eberron campaign setting which featured a very long and drawn out global war amongst multiple kingdoms called the Last War. It featured lightning rails that brought disparate troops together on the battle field at one time, similar to how the railroads did in WWI. As Dausuul suggested, they had armies that didn't have to eat like sentient undead and warforged. Eberron also has magewrights and artificers. Consider treating an artificer in armies like a machine gun nest capable of exterminating whole platoons of troops very quickly.
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For cultural, political, and economic devastation you might want to look at what happened to Germany during the 30 Years War. Medieval/P&S armies aren't huge, but they're hard to support and tend to devastate the landscape even in friendly areas because the governments aren't organised well enough to pay and supply them properly. Add in the widespread use of mercenaries with no particular ties to an area which is also a common medieval feature, and you get armies that need to supply themselves and towns that have no choice but to supply them. Add a few sacked major cities on all sides to give everyone a reason to take revenge, bands of peasant irregulars in opposition to everyone (peasant revolts were a problem in 100YW France), the use of scorched earth as a deliberate policy, raiding and destruction for the sake of it, deserters who are interested in taking what they can, and you can thoroughly devastate an area without much problem. It's going to be worst along sensible invasion routes, but since those are usually the more fertile areas for logistical reasons it will affect some of the wealthiest parts of a country.
How can I get something similar to the front, with both sides at a stalemate, throwing men at each other's entrenchments with little to no gain in a medieval setting? I guess that's my main question. I'm afraid I don't have the imagination to come up with an answer.
Actually, I'd say a lot of medieval war was like that. Besieging a castle was time consuming and exhausting. Reading the Wikipedia article on Sieges might give you a lot of inspiration.
Heck, if you just one thing to inspire you, try the Siege of Troy. Yeah, I'm sure the story had a lot of things in it that weren't accurate, but the basis has at least been somewhat validated.
All you need to do is have defensive magics that are strong enough to stand up to any offensive ones, and you'll be set.
Social issues, wealth (or lack of it), and education (or the lack of it) are vastly underplayed, but I don't know how to convey a sense of war that is real seeming that does not treat these issues.
There are fragments of information that I've read that, after some thought, are eye-opening. I unfortunately don't have all of the details, but consider, what were the biggest killers of soldiers? (I understand this to be either bleeding to death or infection.) Or, the idea of working on a ship-of-war after having been press ganged on board from a large city, with a few hundred others, and having month old biscuits and water to eat, while living on a ship held together by cables. Or, that many classes of people were not permitted to own anything -- and if found with money, or any asset of any notice would be swiftly deprived of it. Or, that for many people, their geographic knowledge was to only a small distance from their home. Or, that folks were rather quite a bit insular.
Does anybody have any historical examples of a city or fortress that was encapsulated by enemy walls/battlements during a siege?
I have a city in my campaign that during a siege, magically they slowly built out walls around it and then built the walls inward. The war ended with the enemy army showing up and a massive battle was the outer-ring battled both invaders coming from the outside and the sieged city from the inside coming out...
I understand there's a bit magical (reminds me of an RTS tactic!) but was curious if anything like this happened in real life so I could look at some ideas about when/how it happened to make the story more believeable and any maps too.
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Also, if one or both sides field undead like shadows or wights -- creatures that can create more undead -- you can get similar levels of terror and despair.
Ghouls. Not only is it just creepy that you have ghouls that eat the dead, but they also spread Ghoul Fever.
Quote:
#2: The bad guys belong to a race that can breed at a phenomenal rate compared to humans; multiple births are the norm and generations may be as little as 5 years. In this case, the race may tend to go through population booms and busts, and the invasion takes place at the peak of a boom. The invaders will be desperate for food and cannot sustain a long siege; they must quickly overrun their foes or starve.
Or, this could be how the race weeds out the weakest. Sort of like locusts, but natural selection is enforced by warfare. As many die, the survivors are left with resources to continue propagating.
Quote:
what were the biggest killers of soldiers? (I understand this to be either bleeding to death or infection.)
Diseases played a big part, too. Lots of men crammed close together in nasty conditions = disease breeding ground.
Does anybody have any historical examples of a city or fortress that was encapsulated by enemy walls/battlements during a siege?
I have a city in my campaign that during a siege, magically they slowly built out walls around it and then built the walls inward. The war ended with the enemy army showing up and a massive battle was the outer-ring battled both invaders coming from the outside and the sieged city from the inside coming out...
I understand there's a bit magical (reminds me of an RTS tactic!) but was curious if anything like this happened in real life so I could look at some ideas about when/how it happened to make the story more believeable and any maps too.
If I understand you correctly, that actually happened in most sieges, perhaps most famously at Alesia where Caesar defeated Vercingetorix.
here is another interesting example of a Seige from another forum I'm on:
In January 1598, the vastly outnumbered Japanese garrison of Ulsan resisted the assaults of a numerically superior allied Chinese/Korean army.
The tiny wajo of Ulsan was to be the scene of one of the bitterest sieges in the Japanese occupation of Korea, or Imjin War. It was held by 7000 Japanese against a vastly superior allied Chinese/Korean army whose main objective was the mighty wajo of Seosaengpo.
On the 29th of January 1598, led by General’s Yang Hao and Ma Gui, the 36000 strong Ming army arrived at Ulsan in the freezing pre-dawn darkness, accompanied by 11,500 Koreans under the command of Gwon Yul. A detachment of Chinese soldiers burnt the barracks outside the unfinished walls of Ulsan, forcing the Japanese troops into the fortress, pursued by thousands of Chinese and Korean warriors.
Fierce Japanese musketry did not prevent the Ming troops from entering the castle. In desperation, the Japanese opened another gate and mounted a ferocious counter-charge against the Ming flank, eventually driving them off.
The Siege of Ulsan
The Chinese now encamped around the walls of Ulsan. Cannon were brought to bear but due to the rugged landscape they were unable to get close enough for their fire to be of maximum effect. The Ming resorted to human wave attacks. On the first day, they managed to penetrate the unfinished gates and burnt invaluable Japanese storage boxes, causing a conflagration so intense it killed thousands of Japanese labourers in the suffocating heat and smoke.
The Japanese garrison, led by Daimyo Kato Kiyomasa, resisted desperately. A samurai named Reizei Motomitsa slaughtered at least 15 Chinese soldiers with his naginata. The Chinese were equally relentless, mounting attack after attack, scaling the huge mounds of corpses against the walls in their thousands. The garrison kept them out with concentrated volleys of musketry and furious hand-to-hand fighting.
The Japanese held out for ten days as they awaited reinforcements. By that time, they were eating horsemeat roasted on fires fuelled with broken Chinese arrows and many had not slept for days. The lack of a well meant that the defenders also had to endure the torments of thirst. A rain-storm provided the defenders with much-needed relief but also brought about a drop in temperature so savage that many soldiers on both sides froze to death.
The Relief of Ulsan
Having fought each other to a standstill, both sides subsided into an exhausted silence. A Japanese scouting force from Seosaengpo managed to climb a hillock across the river and waved their banners in the hopes of attracting the garrisons attention. The Ming army, realising that the arrival of a Japanese relief force was imminent, made one last desperate attempt to take the castle.
The Japanese relief army from Seosaengpo attacked the Chinese rear, inflicting heavy casualties. After thirteen days of savage fighting in appalling winter weather, the garrison of Ulsan was finally relieved.
Despite terrible Japanese casualties, the siege of Ulsan proved the effectiveness of the Japanese castle design in withstanding assault. It’s political repercussions were of little consequence, because the Japanese were to shortly withdraw from Korea.
Sources:
Japanese Castles in Korea, 1592-98 ,Stephen Turnbull, 2007, Osprey.
Warriors of Medieval Japan, Stephen Turnbull, 2005, Osprey.
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