Tell me about medieval armies!

[Dirigible]

(I think the state of Sparta was nothing but army.)

Interestingly, no. There was this one guy, Frankus, who used to do nothing but build papier-mache models of chickens for the warriors to use as target practise. Other than thet, yup, every man, woman and child was a trained killing machine. Even the gerbils, as I understand it.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Also trade strengthened the cities and led to an accumulation of power in the hands of the residents, who were able to gain some degree of autonomy from the local nobles.

Actually the cities were always pretty independent. That was one of the 'benefits' of the Empire, and cities, falling apart. Their size, importance, and wealth did vary. And it's certainly true that the development of cities was used as means to greater power by the upper aristocracy at the expense of the lesser.

Though there are the major exceptions of Great cities, a status which rarely depended on size, such as Rome, London, various German and Spanish cities at various times, Paris at times, and the great cities of the East such as Constantinople or Alexandria.

Cities are an incredibly problematic military/political circumstance during the middle ages, though in Italy and, to a lesser extent Germany, they are the norm. Or at least very small ones are.

From the raising troops standpoint they're interesting because they pretty much automatically defend themselves.

Cities were nearly universally obligated to provide the troops and arms necessary to defend their walls, but as a result they were extremely reluctant to serve as recruiting grounds for armies that would drain their own military reserves. At times, laws and nobles could convince them to draw up regular militias who would accompany properly designated authorities through part of the year and they could be good resources for fund raising and material, but, again, the real power was in the country.

The nice thing was they were really good at holding important points, if they happened to be located on them, or protecting important people, if those people could get inside them.

As a result, cities and their governments became important allies of military commanders even if they were largely irrelevant from the armies point of view.

 

[trollwad]

"Agincourt would have been completely different if the french had taken the "defeated english peseants" seriously. But then that could be said about most battles.[/QUOTE]"


This is one of five misconceptions that are common about medieval armies.

First, let me start by pointing out that how vast the medieval era was in time and space. Therefore, recognize that you have vast lattitude for your campaign. Modelling forces on organized mongol cavalry armies, ill organized turkish raiders, viking boat raiders, rus river trader/raiders, byzantine light cavalry, norman knights, french knights, english yeoman and longbowmen, a central european feudal levy, Vlach (rumanian) light cavalry, Genoese mercenary light crossbowmen, highly motivated and organized teutonic knights and knights templar, or high spirited italian mercenary heavy horsemen from the city states and Swiss pikemen are all acceptable.

Second, if there is a central point to remember it is that the rulers were constantly cash-strapped and (quality) manpower short to varying degrees because they lived in such a structurally backward era without developed notions of taxation, economics, patriotism etc. Individual orders of knighthood, say the templars or the teutonic knights in the baltics, could develop a coherent ideology to motivate their knights, sustain the funding needed to support knights, the accompanying men at arms and footmen, skirmishers, etc., and sustain an army in the field. Other rulers would constantly run out of money, have to disband troops (or have them leave in disgust unpaid, pillaging as they go), declare bankruptcy etc. Normal rulers also often had relatively unmotivated armies (unlike greek hoplite armies of citizen soldiers) who wanted to perform their feudal service, plunder and leave. Therefore, the "average" medieval army was relatively disorganized and "ad hoc" compared to even colonial american armies and way disorganized compared to a modern western army or a roman republican army. In addition, because of this cash-strapped and ad hoc nature, medievael armies had great difficulty taking well-defended serious fortifications. This is why the castle was (almost) king until the development of gunpowder. This is also partly why regional nobles could defy their king as they knew that the king would be hard-pressed to take their castle before the development of cannon.

Third, from time to time, a strong ruler with a decent treasury and popular support of his people COULD from create a medium-sized decent army with a feudal core, a strong yeoman-like infantry, and large numbers of effective mercenaries. For example, both William the Conqueror's army and his opponents (the Saxons) at Hastings were fairly large (maybe 8,000 men) and reasonably effective though they were quite different in composition.

Fourth, effective (trained motivated free men) infantry makes a core to an army that is VERY difficult to break and is generally much more effective than a chivalric group of knights and a peasant rabble levy of infantry. However, large numbers of trained motivated free men were not totally common in all societies. For example, the English archers and men at arms did NOT get lucky at Agincourt, they also annhilated the French at Crecy and Poitiers and never lost a major battle until the french began using cannons. Flemish bourgeous infantry without archers crushed the French chivalry about the same time in similar fashion. Skilled swiss pikeman humiliated the cavalry, mercenaries and levies from austria. Needless to say, motivated Roman legions and Greek Hoplites would have easily done the same thing in a set piece battle against French knights. Remember, motivation is the heart of an army. If you are searching for a modern analogue, think of it as the difference between Israel (highly trained, motivated free men fighting to avoid genocide) and the Arabs (unfree men living in backward despotic regimes, fighting for the glory of their tyrants).

Fifth, what knight-centric armies were truly good at was a combination of skirmishing, raiding, pillaging and serious castle building to secure a territory. For example, the Norman knights who were far better warriors than the traditional French chivalry conquered Southern Italy and Sicily and were the heart of the Crusader armies that held a good chunk of the Holy Land while outnumbered by 10:1+. Intelligent and less scrupulous knights like the Normans knew that the weakness of feudal infantry was its relative immobility and its inability to take fortified places. At Hastings, the Normans did not crush the elite Huscarle heavy infantry of the Saxons, rather, after a long battle, one of their archers managed to shoot the Saxon King in the eye. In short they were opportunists and did not embrace romantic chivalry.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Cursed double posting.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Trollwad has a very good point about cash. Funding was a chronic problem throughout the middle ages and much of that has to do with the fact that the institutions of their 'structurally backward' era were not as single mindedly designed to support a military as our own tend to be.

This problem, btw, was even worse for the Romans. Where a mideaval and early modern nation could expect poorly supported troops to simply dissolve into the countryside the Roman could expect another decade of civil war with accompanying Barbarian invasions.

The following counter-arguments:

Against the superiority of infantry:

Two Classical events: Adrianople and the fall of Crassus

One Mideaval army: The Mongols. I could list others, but why would I need to.

I would confidently put the Mongols against any equivalent or superior force from any pre-field artillery period and submit that there is really no way you could achieve similar results with infantry.

And I would more than happily put the Mongols against any democratic army and be prepare to see yet another pyramid of skulls erected to the great Khan's honor.

Against the Superiority of freemen:

Mongols, who only became great when they were no longer free.

Jannissaries

Mamlukes

The French Chivalry who were at least as free as any Spartan citizen, and certainly freer than their opponents.

The Conquering armies of Alexander the Great, fresh from the newly imposed yoke of Hellenistic depotism.

Ceasar, who might have become the doctor of the Republic but was certainly its death.

There are too many variables to cover in ancient and mideaval warfare, no single system or specialty is going to prove to be the answer or the necessary development of warfare.

Unless, of course, you can fight with the Mongols.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'd also like to point out that, despite their admirable virtue, the English did owe their victories to luck.

The incredible luck to be fighting the French, and not, say, the Swiss, Spanish, Turks, or anyone from the Steppes.

The incredible luck to be fighting the French during perhaps their worst period for organizing effective armies.

It's worth noting that though the English won those battles through some spectacularly effective tactics they were never in a position to win the war.

France was still very good at war and very very strong. The nation just had some incredible and specific problems.

 

[txwad]

"Against the superiority of infantry:

Two Classical events: Adrianople and the fall of Crassus

One Mideaval army: The Mongols. I could list others, but why would I need to.

I would confidently put the Mongols against any equivalent or superior force from any pre-field artillery period and submit that there is really no way you could achieve similar results with infantry.

And I would more than happily put the Mongols against any democratic army and be prepare to see yet another pyramid of skulls erected to the great Khan's honor.

Against the Superiority of freemen:

Mongols, who only became great when they were no longer free.

Jannissaries

Mamlukes

The French Chivalry who were at least as free as any Spartan citizen, and certainly freer than their opponents.

The Conquering armies of Alexander the Great, fresh from the newly imposed yoke of Hellenistic depotism.

Ceasar, who might have become the doctor of the Republic but was certainly its death.

There are too many variables to cover in ancient and mideaval warfare, no single system or specialty is going to prove to be the answer or the necessary development of warfare.

Unless, of course, you can fight with the Mongols."


I didnt say infantry was "superior" -- I just said with a strong and willing free infantry contingent at the heart of the army, your army was very difficult to beat decisively. Adrianople actually proves my point. By the fourth century AD, we are talking about late empire, not republic, legions werent manned by traditional "romans" (in the sense of free italian yeoman types). Fourth century legions had erratic discipline, had abandoned a lot of the armor of their forebears, did not use the same sort of entrenchment tactics as thoroughly, etc. As for Crassus, sure the Parthians beat one legion, big deal, but they couldnt DO anything. IE their horse archers couldnt follow up against the strings of heavily fortified cities, disciplined garrisons. It was a one-off much like Teutobuger Wold. That is what I mean when I say disciplined infantry is very difficult to beat decisively in a meaningful way.

He is definately right about the EARLY Mongols, while they were united under Subotai and Genghis and were using Chinese and Persian siege engineers they were arguably the most formidable army until Napoleon. I think you overstate your case about the others, the Turks overran a bunch of balkan peasants, big deal. The first real european city (vienna) stopped their advance (barely).

The Mamlukes and Janissaries were formidable but they didnt conquer much except for a wretched peasant fellahin population in egypt and some balkan peasants. They certainly had at best a mixed record (Lepanto, Vienna) when they werent fighting on their home turf.

Of course the French KNIGHTS were free, they were aristocrats, not democrats. The point is that you cant make an army out of that. The peasants and Genoese crossbowmen who formed the bulk of their army were near worthless, because they had no real incentive to fight, no espirit de corps. By contrast, the Greeks (at least those who were eligible to serve as hoplites) were free men by definition and that was the heart of their army. Incidently, Sparta was NOT invincible against their freer greek neighbors. Sure they looked good against a bunch of naval pansies like the Athenians, but the Thebans wiped out the Spartans time after time, under a gifted Epaminondas.

Your point about Alexander actually illustrates my point further. It was only very late in his conquests that Alexander made a serious effort to be perceived as a god among his own troops (rather than peasants). This was part of the reason there was at least assasination attempt against him later on. Alexander's troops were free greeks out to avenge their society against the persians, they certainly would have killed anyone who tried to whip them into battle. Much like the Roman Republic morphing into a degenerate empire, the same is essentially true of Hellenism.

Im not claiming any one branch of an army is superior in an absolute sense. Im saying that while you can claim an occasional victory against well-trained, motivated freemen, it is very difficult to conquer them -- look at hannibal, he wiped out legion after legion after legion and didnt do anything to the romans. then scipio wins one big battle at zama and the carthaginians collapse like a house of cards. by contrast, dictatorships with mercenaries like saddam's iraq or darius' persia or french chivalric armies dont have much financial or staying power.

 

[txwad]

I'd also like to point out that, despite their admirable virtue, the English did owe their victories to luck.

The incredible luck to be fighting the French, and not, say, the Swiss, Spanish, Turks, or anyone from the Steppes.

The incredible luck to be fighting the French during perhaps their worst period for organizing effective armies.

It's worth noting that though the English won those battles through some spectacularly effective tactics they were never in a position to win the war.

France was still very good at war and very very strong. The nation just had some incredible and specific problems.

I disagree. I just named four examples of "luck". When you annhilate your foe three or four times and your foe never even wins a major battle you arent lucky! When was the last time you drew four black jacks in a row? As for the foes, admittedly the medieval french were generally a weak foe, but the english acquitted themselves well in the third crusade when they were vastly outnumbered.

Of course the English were unlikely to win the war. Think about it this way. It took France, with a 4:1 (?) population advantage, and the advantage of fighting on the defensive, four hundred years of off and on fighting before they could evict the english. In addition, the biggest french victory was when they finally started using cannon against the english -- ie leaving the medieval era.

France was and is awful at war. Other than the massive armies of citizen soldiers in the Napoleonic period (and the Normans who must be owe it to their viking genes), the French are notable mostly for their ineptitude.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Look, I certainly don't want to derail the spirit of the thread with a nasty series of rather tangential arguments, so let me get straight to the heart of the matter.

It's not that I think free infantry are a bad idea. It's that I find them to be a very suspect idea.

When looking at history it's important to give respect to where it's due. To do otherwise is to both discredit the very value of history and to cast it falsely.

The reason why I suspect discourse on the ultimate value of free infantry is that all too often people are only willing to give respect to the home team.

Such, for lack of a better term, chauvinism is particularly apparent when discussing the middle ages and the early modern period, my two favorites, and holds near total dominion over much of popular classical learning.

The problem is that it renders the discourse mute over both the disadvantages of the priveleged themes and the advantages of their alternatives.

Take, for instance, this recent debate over Alexander the Great's armies. Now it's all well and good to praise them for any number of reasons and to hold forth Alexander as, initially, a shining example of Greekness in the face of Persian barbarism...

...but to claim that his soldier's thought of themselves as freemen taking vengeance on Persian tyranny is to ignore the desperate struggle of the Greek states to free themselves first from Alexander and Phillip's rule.

A rule they had feared as the greater threat long before in Thucydides's descriptions of the great events of Thrace as dwarfing the Pellopennessian war.

And a resistance that had been immortalized in the speeches of Demosthenes. Speeches that were, for centuries nigh on millenia, hailed as the greatest speeches in praise of liberty and freedom ever made, if not the greatest speeches ever made.

And I question how these things could possibly be ignored but for the need of the idea of infantry formations to be associated with victory, freedom, and a view of history that allows for no alternatives.

Similarly, to state the Turks fought against nothing but Balkan peasants as a means of discrediting them is a statement of at best igonorance and at worst blatant racism.

The overwhelming power and skill of the Turkish empire is testified to by the fact that much of our modern history developed as Europe desperately attempted to react to the threat the Turks represented.

The greatest Christian city of the world fell to them and the cities of Vienna and the peninsula of Italy survived only because they were saved by forces that had spent decades, if not centuries, training themselves to fight the Turks.

The fact that the Turkish Empire is not remembered in all our minds as greater than that of Rome's is not a testimony to the Turks' incompetence as it is the astounding excellence of their Spanish and Polish adversaries.

So please, let us not denigrate the striving and bloodshed of our ancestors as a whole in order to better praise a few of their descendants.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I disagree. I just named four examples of "luck". When you annhilate your foe three or four times and your foe never even wins a major battle you arent lucky! When was the last time you drew four black jacks in a row? As for the foes, admittedly the medieval french were generally a weak foe, but the english acquitted themselves well in the third crusade when they were vastly outnumbered.

Of course the English were unlikely to win the war. Think about it this way. It took France, with a 4:1 (?) population advantage, and the advantage of fighting on the defensive, four hundred years of off and on fighting before they could evict the english. In addition, the biggest french victory was when they finally started using cannon against the english -- ie leaving the medieval era.

France was and is awful at war. Other than the massive armies of citizen soldiers in the Napoleonic period (and the Normans who must be owe it to their viking genes), the French are notable mostly for their ineptitude.

Hmm, that last statement is more than a little ungentlemanly. And inaccurate, the main reason we see so many French defeats is that they fight so often and drive their opponents to such mad desperation. They did more than all right in the Italian wars, the thirty years, several English dynastic struggles, the first crusade, the Battle of Tours went their way, and there were more than a few imperial projects or crazy splinter groups which did well.

In fact, the War of the Roses we were discussing was ended by a French heir, treacherous English nobles, and a French force.

I meant no disrespect by praising the English for their luck. And I certainly didn't mean to imply the English got lucky four times. No they won four battles over a series of decades by their own virtue.

I meant to imply that the English got lucky once.

It's certainly not by your own virtue that you get implicated in a civil war cum dynastic struggle against a foe suffering from massive structural and leadership difficulties.

If your foe also happens to be many times more powerful than you and capable than you, at least in terms of the sinews and bones of war if not the muscle and nerves, than I think you can be called lucky.

And my other point about the French knights is that they had a lot more in common with the Spartan hoplites, who were the people the very phrase aristocracy was coined for, than the Spartans did with the English yeomen.

Democracies are a great idea and tyranny has its difficulties, but the idea that democracies have an inherent advantage militarily strikes me as wee bit dangerous and certainly more than a little skewed when they have traditionally been a weak and unstable form of government particularly in times of war.

And in terms of my prior rant on historical chauvinism. I don't know that you could claim the Carthaginians were any less democratic and free than the Romans.

In fact, if anything, they lost because their empire was set up less like a tyranny and more like an alliance.

All right, I have to admit. I do love this style of historical debate. I do hope its useful and pleasant to anyone else.