CombatWombat51 said:
How did standing armies work from a soldier's point of view? I know how America's army works now, though I imagine it was much different long ago.
A few specific questions to get brains rolling. All of this assumes a feudal European setting, since that most closely resembles my D&D campaigns.
How were armies divided? Did each ruler have his own soldiers or were they all from one pool, and assigned various stations and posts?
Was there any initial training, similar in effect to modern boot camp?
How did different soldiers come to fill diferent rolls? Archers, cavalry, etc.
Did soldiers typically live in a barracks, or did they live in homes near their posts like government housing?
Was there any kind of organized training, or was it mostly up to each soldier to find a way to learn not to get stabbed?
How did one quit the army? Were there contracts for lengths of enlistment, or could you just up in leave (not in a time of war)?
Those are just some of the many things I'm clueless about
I'm sure that in answering these questions, people will post all kinds of things I never even knew that I wanted to know
One of the biggest problems here is that the Middle Ages, depending on how you count it, runs roughly 1000 years over a wide swath of Europe; in other words, there are no hard and fast answers that are always true.
Most feudal "armies" were raised on a local level. The closest thing you have to a "standing army" in many instances are the knights. Knights, depending on their "contract", might have to provide other troops as well, possibly other knights or horse troops, possibly archers, etc. Again, these arrangements vary widely. Knights usually owed specific period of military service each year, 40 days being fairly common, after which they would have to be paid for their service, if they could be convinced to stay in the field at all.
Knight are trained from an early age in horsemanship and weaponry. It was quite common to have pages and squires (knights-in-training) practice with weapons and armour that were quite a bit heavier than normal weapons so that in real combat with real weapons the items will feel lighter and can move faster.
On the other hand, by the end of the Middle Ages many knights were more interested in their social position than in their combat prowess. One standard practice worked to this point -- scutage, or shield money (from scutum, a shield). Essentially a knight did not have to provide military service if he could provide for someone else to take his place. Since there were usually many younger sons of knights who had the training, but not the title, it was easy enough to hire these "freelancers" (origin of that term) to take their place. (And speaking of term origins, "Scot Free" has nothing to do with Scotlands or Scots in general, it has to do with scutage -- getting away "scot free" meant to somehow not show up for combat and yet not have to pay for a replacement.)
A number of areas produced local militia, fyrd, and the like. These are usually local foot troops, sometimes only called out when their own (very local) land is attacked, others called up for specific periods of time. Again, how long they might serve and the like were open to wide variations.
Now the subject of mercenaries. "Soldiers" (those who fight for soldis, silver coins) are ubiquitous and highly variable. Some are permanent guards of castles, cities, or of specific lords; some are called up for short periods of time. Some were highly professional and very loyal; others could be open to "contract negotiations" in the middle of combat.
Organization is even more tricky. Armies (usually quite a bit smaller than what we consider armies nowadays) were often divided into three divisions -- Forward Guard, Middle Guard, Rear Guard (and, again, these are only examples of names -- very little is consistent); on the battle field these would become the right, center, and left flank of the army. On a smaller scale you might find Lances (a knight and his personal troops) or Companies (a highly variable number of troops). There is no specific hierarchy of command and often knights would choose for themselves when they would attack, no matter what the orders from above might be.
As for different roles for troops, the lowly footsoldiers were suppose to hold their ground while the cavalry (read: knights) were the hammerblow. Archers were sometimes important, sometimes not. And, as is quite common, specific commanders had a better grasp of the use of different kinds of troops than others.
For much, much better information on all these topics, but still in an "overview" form, I would suggest finding a copy of David Nicolle's
Medieval Warfare Soure Book: Warfare in Western Christendom. It is an excellent book.
Added in -- here are some links on the topic (representative only):
http://www.xenophongroup.com/montjoie/oriflam.htm
http://www.hyw.com/Books/History/Logistic.htm
http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/ARTICLES/showalter.htm
http://www.hyw.com/books/history/Medi0000.htm
