How can nations afford armies?

[Luthor Harkon]

Hey every body I was having a quick look thru AEG's "War" book the other day and it got me thinking about the possibility of having an army. Well when i got home I did a few quick mental calculations and sum stuff on the calculator and the cost of having an army amazed me and I wondered whether even whole countries could afford this. By my calculations to train and equip 5000 infantry (scale mail,large wood shield,longsword) and 1000 Heavy cavalry (scale mail,large wood shield, scale barding, Heavy lance,longasword,heavy warhorse) would cost approximately 980000 gp!

Now by my understanding this would have been a rather small army in medieval times and this is even without the obligatory Mages or clerics that many ppl have pointed out would be neccessary in a fantasy environment. can some one explain to me how the nations in our fantasy worlds afford armies then? This sort of cost would surely chew up entire treasuries and with such small armies how do nations stand against invading hordes of orcs etc that plague them?

 

[Ace32]

Simple,
They buy in Bulk.

 

[Neo]

hehe just look at it in real world terms, nations can't afford armies, but then few nations are in the black, most are greatly in the minus, trading on goods and services in lieu, borroiwng from banks, and other financial establishments etc...

Plus most armies tend to be normal "joe bloggs" most of the time, living their day to day lives and doing other jobs, only playing an active roll when called up in times of need, thus a nation only has to pay their service wages as and when it's needed. Also most wars don;t last a long time so apart from the initial expense, things get cheaper. The greater price tends to be paid not in the cash department for wages, but in supplies, food, travel, ammunition etc...

 

[Crothian]

Taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

 

[Aaron L]

Feudal countries didn't have very many standing armies. Professional soldiers weren't common. There were knights, and peasant levies. The king had a small number of knights, each with retainers, and all of his lesser nobles had a small number of knights, each with retainers, and in times of war the king would call for his nobles to send him troops, and all put together they had an army. Thats a little simplistic, but basically how it went.

 

[Lawrence of Arabica]

The simple answer is that medieval states couldn't afford them. For much of the medieval period armies weren't all that big. And as others have pointed out there weren't standing armies. Also:
* check the knight/foot ratio-- I'm not sure that 5:1 is right
* some of the soldiers' "compensation" might come in the form of pillage, or ransom for noble prisoners
* At the end of the middle ages, armies got larger and the use of mercenaries increased. Many states had to go heavily into debt. The situation favored larger states and ones with better fiscal organization. It's one factor (but not the only one) that caused the creation of the modern European nation-states out of the fragmented political world of the middle ages.

BTW, a lot of setting designers either don't understand the last point, or ignore it, and as a result are really designing renaissance or early modern settings.

In actual fact, if I recall correctly some of the figures I've seen for the costs of the late medieval mercenary armies are in millions of gold piece range. I can probably dig up the hard numbers if you really want them.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, there are several potential explanations:

(1) The particular empires involved are huge--they have over 100 Million citizens, and thus have an enormous tax base. Include a vast trade network throughout such an empire, and spreading to foreign kingdoms beyond it's own borders, and you can then multiply such mundane tax income significantly.

(2) GOLD MINES! Forget small veins of a few thousand. Even modern day mines produce huge amounts of gold--it's in the BILLIONS of DOLLARS in value. In the fantasy campaign world, why can't your empires be digging into mines that have hundreds of millions in gold pieces worth of gold ore? The cost and time to actually mine and process it might keep inflation in check, but at the same time, the gold is produced in whatever sufficient quantities that you need to afford whatever size army is necessary.

(3) Combine both options one and two, and presume some good financial management, and the empires have plenty of gold to do whatever it is that they need to do.

How's that sound?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Fesperse]

What everyone else said....

But the short answer, in many cases, is that they couldn't afford the armies or the wars. A little after medieval times, during the age of discovery (circa 16th-17th centuries) both France and Spain declared bankruptcy. That's one of the biggest reasons there was an age of discovery.

Regards,
--Steve

 

[Numion]

I also had the impression that a massacre of a couple of thousand soldiers was considered a disaster in medieval times. Makes one think about how they did in ancient Rome, then.

 

[Carnifex]

Also, medieval armies actually weren't very large most of the time - 6,000 is a sizeable force.

Also ntoe that during the medieval period there were very few pitched battles - both sides had too much to loose.

And as for cost, you can forget a large chunk of it due to feudal levies amd obligations, allowing for large numbers of troops to be accumulated for lower costs than professional soldiers would require.