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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FreeTheSlaves" data-source="post: 2345685" data-attributes="member: 9952">I agree that the culture of war & social structure is going to determine how many can be mobilized & for how long. Wilphe touches on the nature of the fight, an aggressive invasion into a friendly neighbour is going to have a different character to the struggle vs annihilation; this in turn is going to have an effect upon the muster. The Nazi leadership relied heavily upon modern military institutions to wage their unjust war, without such a system they would have had a hard time convincing any population to march against such dangerous enemies. Then we've got the Holy Roman Empire's successful defence(s) of Vienna vs the Turks with the combined forces of all manner of central european kingdoms & principalities; the predicted threat of a foreign enemy of strange appearance & customs allowed a stout defence & a huge relief force to muster.Size & geography of kingdom will also play a part, Prussia had at one time something like 1/4 of it's population in the military or directly supporting it. With Russia to the east, Austria-Hungary to the south, Sweden to the north & France to the west; in that day and age this militarism was seen as essential. Smaller kingdoms may have to devote a larger % of the population to get any security compared to a larger kingdom.The campaign kingdom I dm is only of 4000 people with a feudal structure. I have 10% as fulltime men-at-arms of which 1/2 are knights & 1/2 are squires. Another 10% are trained peasant levees armed with bow or polearm that can fight with the skill of a squire. Another 10% peasant levee can be raised but include semi-skilled tradesmen and their absence for war will cause hardship after victory, they fight poorly & ideally free up better troops. For town and castle defence another 20% can be raised consisting of the very young, very old & brave women; more a liability in battle they can perform labour & soft tasks such as lookout.Of course this is a 'd&d' kingdom where the wizards form a 3rd branch of nobility, the clergy pack serious powers & other elite orders exist. Invaders do have to deal with a hard crust of powerful figures as part of their plans.</blockquote>

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