Standing Armies

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Past the formation of the Empire Rome was among the most stable empires in history. The lesson that every successful dynasty learned from the civil wars that brought them to power was that the military was extremely dangerous to political stability, and that the best way to keep the military small was to avoid expansion.

After the final war between Augustus and Marc Antony, Rome expanded in bulk, or attempted to, exactly four times. The Claudian conquest of Britain, the Trajanic conquests of Dacia and what is now Iraq, and Marcus Aurelius's attempts to subdue the Germanic tribes.

The Roman military was very hard for the state to finance, but this was primarily because of flaws in the Roman taxation and salary system not due to the wealth or lack of wealth of the Empire. Many of these flaws were deliberately designed to reinforce the power of the emperor over the military and the Senate.

By every account I've read the Imperial period saw the army shrink to a dangerously small size in relation the Empire that was only possible given the extreme quality, high success rate, and infrequency of campaign use that the army saw. If the Legions of this period lost even a single major battle, then the Empire found itself in terrible danger. As was seen at Teutonoberg forest, a crisis that forced Augustine to call up retired legions in order to cover the hole left in the Northern defenses.

Periods prior to the Imperial period had much much larger build-ups of troops. In the late Imperial period the Empire attempted to achieve higher levels of militarization, but things were so disorganized at that point that I doubt anyone could make an accurate guess at the size of military formations versus the population.

I've always been under the impression that Thucydides didn't deserve the skepticism that Ceasar or Herodotus do. The largest armies he mentions are in the low hundred thousands and he comments on them as being unusually large and not very well organized.

 

[S'mon]

I've always been under the impression that Thucydides didn't deserve the skepticism that Ceasar or Herodotus do. The largest armies he mentions are in the low hundred thousands and he comments on them as being unusually large and not very well organized.

Herodotus has gods and magic in his account of eg Marathon, he's a sort of transitional figure between the mythographer and the historian. Thucydides was a real historian, and certainly worthy of respect. AIR he put the Persian army in the invasion of Greece at 2.5 million +2.5 million camp followers, total 5 million. Modern estimates still put it at amongst the largest forces ever assembled, around 600,000 altogether. With an empire population of 60 million or so that seems credible, and of a similar size to the total of all Roman armies fighting in the Civil War period.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Huh, I remember Thucydides' account of the great armies of Thrace and Macedon, but not an account of Persia.

Thanx for the info. Soon as I have some free time I'll start looking for my Thucydides again.

BTW, the disease that Thucydides's described as plagueing Athens resurfaced in Wisconsin. Turns out to be a combination of the flu and Toxic Shock syndrome that only occurs under very specific conditions such as unusual levels of crowding and a lot of flu.

 

[Xeriar]

Maybe 1/6 of the _adult male_ population. The USA did not have 20-30 million soldiers abroad in WW2! I read that 7 million served in the US military in WW2, if true that would put it at 5% of the total population, which is about the maximum for a professional (ie trained) wartime army. You might get another 5% in citizen militias/home guard. 1e DMG suggested that 20% of the population are 'capable of bearing arms'; but only barbarian tribes and peasant revolts can field armies of that size.

IIRC the American armed forces totalled over 17 million at the end of the draft, out of a population of 120 million. Not all were in combat roles, obviously.

Your 3% for Roman standing army is likewise OTT. Roman military numbered around 250,000-300,000 including all arms (auxiliaries, navy etc) from a population of around 60-100 million or so, about .5% of population at a generous estimate.

I thought the Roman population closer to 10 million (around Augustus's time, anyway).

 

[Xeriar]

It's hard to know what to make of accounts like Benin. I personally find the idea that Benin has a standing professional army of > 3% of its population very hard to believe. This is similar to the Greek statement that the Persian army numbered 1,000,000. I'm much more inclined to believe that that was an accounting of the number of able bodied men who owned weapons, or of the size of militia, or simply the men of a certain age, or what not. I don't believe that 3% of the population had no other job but the protection of the rest, and I certainly don't believe Benin could have put 100,000+ men in the field at any point in the country. The logistic difficulty of putting 100,000 non-producer into a small area for an extended period is even today pretty daunting. But, who knows. Different methods of agriculture create different rules of war, so I guess anything is possible. However, to err on the safe side I'd assemble my rules from things we have pretty good numbers for (Europe, China, etc.)

The 100,000 was a Dutch figure, and like many European assertations can be a bit uncertain, but keep in mind this is rainforest, and they aren't necessarily nonproducers during peacetime. They didn't field it against one country, but all of their neighbors at the same time, thus the some 12-18 million slaves they sent over (most of which died on the way, etc. etc.).

I don't think it was an army in the medieval Europe sense of the term, cultural context, again...

 

[Kevin O'Reilly]

Levies and Household Guard

Medieval warfare, and armies, didn't really comprise of standing armies battling. Even as lat as Vietnam, the US did not truely have a standing army, but rather conscription.

A medieval period army would be comprised of Household Guard (paid soldiers, often mercenaries); Noble Volunteers hoping to gain land through glorious conflict; and the Fueudal Levy, the classic "if they don;t fight for me I throw them off their land."

A lord could look for about 45 days service from each houselhold holding to a Feudal Levy; The household guard would cost 2sp per warrior level per day (DMG), while a noble volunteer might fight for a year for free.

The DMG tables give a good rough idea of the available levels by population density.

On a different note Sun Tzu, feudal japan, seems to indicat 1 in 7 families would provide a soldier, and with family populations from 5-7, this seems to indicate 2-3% of the population.

Of course in situations like siege and "young man" could be put to fight (Helms Deep), douyling the available troops

 

[S'mon]

I thought the Roman population closer to 10 million (around Augustus's time, anyway).

Given that the population of the city of Rome itself was near on 1 million, that would be incorrect. Some of the eastern provinces like Egypt and those in Asia minor had very large populations also; 60 million total is a conservative estimate.

 

[Agback]

1. What sort of percentage of the population would comprise a standing army for a kingdom set in a medieval/fantasy world? I'm sure it depends greatly on culture and history, but I'm looking for ballpark figures.

Well, the Southern Soong (a mediaeval Chinese Empire) maintained a standing army somewhat over 1% to defend their northern borders. But they had a number of significant advantages (highly productive (wet rice) agriculture, good water transport from their farming areas to every point on their defended border, etc.), and even so the effort destroyed their economy in a generation and they were overwhelmed. Apart from that I don't know of any pre-Modern polity that has maintained a standing army of 1%.

I don't count knights doing 40 days a year of guard and ward in royal castles a 'standing army'. Most feudal kingdoms maintained a standing 'army' consisting of only a couple of hundred knights of the Royal household out of populations around a couple of million. Call that 0.01%.

2. What about during times of war?

Nations with a citizen-soldier tradition and a law requiring all free men to own arms (eg. the English, the early Franks and Germans) can mobilise every free man between 15 and 55 in either agricultural off-seasons or during dire emergencies, for campaigns up to about 90 days. Allowing 50% for women, 50% of the population under the age of 15, figure that as about 10-20% of the total population. But the troops are usually not very good.

10,000 men was a big army in England at a time when its population was about 4,000,000 to 5,000,000. Call that 0.2%.

3. How long, on average, would it take for a kingdom to muster an army for defense (I'm moreso wondering of the scale of magnitude - days, weeks, months, etc...)

Check up on King Harold's mobilisation of the fyrd in the summer of 1066, when he was expecting the Danes and the Normans to attack. I think the muster of the North under earls Edwin and Morcar took about five days, but it was by no means complete. The fyrd of the South was called out, assembled, kept waiting, and dismissed four times during the summer. So each muster can hardly have taken weeks.

On the other hand, the muster of the First Crusade took two years: but you might consider that a counter-offensive.

Regards,


Agback