Tell me about medieval armies!

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Ok, now I'm totally giving in.

Adrianople is a perfect example of the weaknesses of an infantry cored free army. First of all, the very fact that the Legions were in decline was a result of their system not a symptom of the time. The Legions were impossibly hard to reform once they started being succesful, directly as a result of their freedom and prestige, and that's even granting they were in such a terrible state as is claimed, something I'm more than a little leery of stating.

The Roman empire in its later days certainly came up with a variety of structural military improvements, not least of which was coming up with a nice unifying religion. The Byzantine armies singing the Kyrie as they charged into battle is about the best image of Espirit de Corps I can think of.

That granted, however, Adrianople and the Fall of Crassus both illustrate the fundamental problem with the free infantry core. It's entirely unwilling to adapt and very inflexible in its application.

In both cases the legion could not accomodate, in one to new technology in the other to the terrain, and in both cases their lack of mobility won them total defeat in the battle and the triumph of the enemies political ends.

The Goths moved right on in at Adrianople and the Parthians, who had been invaded recall, kept their borders sound until the reign of Trajan.

Look, it may be that democracy has won out now, but if it has that's only because of very specific circumstances. And I'm certainly not comfortable calling it. Let's see where our taxes go first.

Throughout the rest of history, however, democracy has been just as alternately successful and weak as anything else.

As for free infantry cores. Hmmm, it's certainly a good idea. But there are a lot of good ideas, and I'm pretty convinced that the Mongol model is the superior idea.

Certainly, the best current doctrines seem to focus on mobility and material.

On the other hand, infantry based insurgencies seemed to do pretty well in the last century.

 

[sword-dancer]

How did standing armies work from a soldier's point of view?

A Standing Army didn`t exist.
.

How were armies divided?

Every Vasall comes in with the number of Lances and troops he had to provide.
Every Knight with fief had to provide a lance
Meaning the knight himself, with Weapons, Armor and Destrier
1 o more squires with more or less the same equipment
2 The serjeants or men at arms
More or less equipped as the knight only lighter Armor, and less quality horses

Archers in effect lighter armed footsoldiers than the serjeants, thy may but they don`t have to use the (long)bow

Non fighting part of the lance
The Page or more and the servant(knecht)
The knight had a riding horse, the destrier was only ridden for battle.

Then their was the citiy militia recruited or drafted from the guilds.
Mostly infantery medium to "heavy" armed and armoured with what they could pay and what was available.
Crossbows were an obvious choics as the godendaeg or polearms.

Free farmers Equipment would be the same as the miltias of the towns, like the swiss or the frisians.

Was there any initial training, similar in effect to modern boot camp?

Not really the same but
Squires i believe learnt their fighting skills as PAges, and the fineshied them as squires, and would be then knighted.
Men at armes would get their trainig as the retinue

The miltia would be trained at the chartered days.
The english Longbowmen, howq much of them really used the longbow and how much the bill is not really certain, trained after each sundays mass, for one or two hour IIRC.

How did different soldiers come to fill diferent rolls?

Equipment, trainig and orders from their captains, Bannerets or marschals.
Knight have fought on foot in siege or when ordered in battle.

Did soldiers typically live in a barracks, or did they live in homes near their posts like government housing?

They lived at their home where their craft or trade was.

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?

Yes it was, see above and the farmers had trainign from their liegelords, AFAIK organiced as 2 days Formation 2 hours defend and 30 min attack.

How did one quit the army?

When his time of contracted service ends, only 40 days a vasall was forced to saerve hios lord in the field.

Yeomanry is the english word for the free farmers and craftsmen and so on.

The discipline of a medieval army depend on the qualities of their leaders.
Barbarossa enforced a very strict discipline i his crusading forces.

then there were the Knightly orders
Who were Standing armies in their own right.

The mercenary companies like the bands of france, the Genuese Crossbowmen, or the swiss.
and the household troops of the Royalty and the great lords.

 

[S'mon]

Re French ineptitude - I agree that this view comes primarily from an Anglocentric view of history. The French military array based on heavy cavalry was notably ineffective vs the English army once it adopted the longbow as its primary weapon, but the French often dominated other nations long before Napoleon - qv eg Machiavelli's view of the French as probably the largest threat to the freedom of the Italian city-states. And no one could sensibly claim that the French knights weren't individually as skillful & brave fighters as any Englishman. If modern France has a reputation for ineptitude it's because from the mid-19th century they had the misfortune to be fighting an enemy stronger than themselves - Prussia/Germany. French accommodation with the reality that _Germany is stronger than France_ is at the heart of modern French policy.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

I don't think that you can generalise about france and the french army. France is big, and a look at the map will show that it's 'in the way.' As far as Eastern Europe is concerned France is en route to pretty much everywhere else.

As far as I can tell, luck (and/or overwhwlming force) plays a big part in most battles. There are defences against a cavalry charge, such as massed archers and pikemen. Every tactic has a counter but I don't think that you can dismiss certain troop types out of hand. If they were completely useless, they would not have been used.

This thread has moved on from the intitial questions.

However, CombatWombat51, if you're looking for a detailed medieval kindom, you could do worse than to check out:

http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5660

GOM

 

[Duck]

One thing to remember is they didnt have the vast array of weapons that D&D pc's have access too (spiked chain anyone?) even the psudo-popular short/long sword were rare (they were metal) there were, however, lots (and I mean LOTS) of spears. they are quick and easy to make, so they can be produced everywhere and anywhere at hardly any cost. you hardly need any training to use them (Keep the screaming thing at the pointy end) and were incrediably versitile. They could reach riders on horses, (and stop horses under riders) and they allowed deadly blows to be struck with minimal danger to your self. (Because all the buisness happens at the aforemantioned pointy end, almost 6-8 feet away!)

another (albeit later) development was the crossbow. Although expensive and complex, they were invested in with gusto because they are do damn useful. They were deadly, accurate, and a solider could be trained to use one to it's utmost power in hours, as opposed to the years it took to master the skill of archery.

Hope this helps!

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

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.

From my own personal point of view, I'd like to hear how some of these various different kinds of units were organized. Most D&D games have diverse cultures that often aren't really reflected in the make-up and tactics of the local armies and men-at-arms.

I have a pretty good sense of how the French Knights and other secular Western European forces would have worked, but knowing how the command structure of the Viking raiders, knights templar, or eastern european forces worked would be pretty handy.

 

[jasamcarl]

I'm seeing a lot of ignorance being passed off as fact on this thread, most of which is coming from txwad. Though to be fair to him, it is often difficult to discuss history, especially of the military variety without resorting to simplistic 'Great Man' or 'Great Culture' thinking.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

In terms of organization ala titles and chains of command, the best resources are the Byzantines and the Arabs.

The very term strategy comes from Byzantine and earlier Greek ideas about how armies should be organized.

They also had some amazing strategy manuals which we still have access to. Very very detailed descriptions of how different armies that their commanders were likely to encounter were organized and what their weaknesses and strengths were.

Anna Comnena's Alexiad is accessibly for free over the internet but it's narrative style isn't exactly the most helpful for what this thread is looking for even if it does make for a better book.

Osprey's Men-at-Arms series has always seemed pretty good to me.

They have a very nice book on the War of the Roses that, for its size, is really impressive. Lots of nice plates and while it errs on the side of accuracy over completeness it does actually show you some source texts and records.

The books of Ash are the best fictional account of mideaval warfare I've seen and they are explicitly based in both the Italian Wars and the War of the Roses.

Late for DnD, but fascinating in terms of a crazy anything goes period of warfare. The lady who wrote them, Mary Gentle, has a Masters, I'm not totally certain what that means in the English system, in War, which is pretty bitchin, and also wrote Grunts which is pretty much the funniest concept for a military fantasy novel ever. It's LotR from the front-line Orcs point of view.

The Mercenary company in the novels is organized into lances by nationality and armament. It's pretty clear though that lance is a functional term that means whatever whoever is speaking for it understands it to mean.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I do know something about how Mongols were organized.

The Tamarch, AFAIK spelling-wise, was the basic legion/division level organization and consisted of about 10,000 Mongol horsemen with attached support units.

The smallest unit was ten horsemen. Each unit had a veteran commander and they were paired up with one of the ten man units being senior. I don't know what sort of support staff these units had but I would assume at least one or two servants/young soldiers in training. Each unit would have had a pretty large pool of remounts and material to be responsible for. Mongol troops were very close to self-sufficient in terms of what they could produce themselves.

Diet on the march consisted primarily of yogurt, blood, dried fruit and grains, and meat. Think of them as very blood-thirsty hippies.

There were very specfic protocals/laws on how these units could behave and the whole unit, moving up according to the severity of the transaction and the level of deniability, would be punished by death for infractions they did not self-police. As a result they were famous for discipline and being extremely law abiding, at least with regard to their own bloody conventions.

They also had very strict and specific laws on hygiene and how you scouted the landscape for signs of disease. The Mongols are famous for being the first force to use biological warfare by identifying sick individuals and animals early and herding or flinging them towards their enemies. They apparently knew that the bubonic plague was associated with rodents.

Royal Tamarchs were the elite units and they could only go into battle if assigned by the great Khan. Their primary distinction was, aside from things like better material and experience, a fully equipped siege train as their primary attached support unit.

They proved to be the critical point of Mongol unity since a local commander could beat any army in the field without them but often had a hard time taking larger fortified cities. They would not march into battle except under the direct authorization of the Great Khan's immediate family or it's representative. This had political significance on three occasions.

One, the reconassiance force, that's right a scouting expedition, that destroyed Poland, Hungary, Russia, and most of Eastern Europe returned for the election of the next great Khan because their authority ran out with his death.

Two, the Golden Horde that terrified Eastern Europe subsequently changed their strategies so that they would not rely on siege trains and thus could avoid the poltical entanglements. As a result the Russian city states became tributaries to a force that could keep them cooped up in the cities but could not affect their internal development or govern them. I don't want to even begin to assess the effect this had on Russian history.

Three, the Mongol advance into Egpyt was halted when an assassination by opportunity on the part of a surrendering Mameluk officer took out the Mongol prince with authority over the Tamarchs. All of the divisions then retreated from the battle. Making that the first victory any organized group had over the Mongols.

It's also worth noting that the Mongol's only fought where their laws required it or there was a Mongol prince who decided he needed a new fief. If there wasn't a legal justification or a prince there they wouldn't bother.

So after the prince died they never went after Egypt again.

 

[Agemegos]

A Standing Army didn`t exist.

That is only "mostly true".

The Byzantine Empire had a standing army throughout the early and High middle ages.

The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon were a standing army in Palestine, Syria, Cyprus, and Spain from about 1120 to about 1310.

The Order of Knights of the Hospital of St John were a standing army in Plaestine, Syria, Cyprus, the Aegean, and Malta from about 1130 to about 1795.

The Teutonic Knights of St Mary's Hospital of Jerusalem were a standing army in Palestine, Syria, Prussia, Latvia, Livonia, and Estonia from 1198 to 1562.

The Knight of Alcantara, the Knights of Calatreva, the Knight of Santiago, the Knights of Aviz, the Knights of Christ, and the Knights of Montesa were standing armies in [what are now] Spain and Portugal from about 1158 and were eventually became or were absorbed into the royal armies.

Besides which there were the Knights of St Thomas Acon, the Mercedarian Knights, the Knights of St James of Compostella, and the eerie Knights of St Lazarus, who were perhaps never numerous enough to count as armies.

And some English and Scandinavian kings had very large households of huscarls or berserks, which were permanent professional military units, though perhaps not quite of army size.