Andal Invasion of the North

[norwaywolf123]

Quote:

When the Andals attacked the eastern shores of the north, they were aggressively met by the Kings of Winter, House Stark of Winterfell, and their First Men bannermen.

When the Andals attacked the eastern shores of the north, they were aggressively met by the Kings of Winter, House Stark of Winterfell, and their First Men bannermen.

The Hungry Wolf, King Theon Stark, was supported by House Bolton when the Andal warlord Argos Sevenstar was slain in the Battle of the Weeping Water. Theon then sailed east, raided Andalos, and displayed the heads of his Andal victims along the shore of the north.^[13]

After the conquest of the Trident and the riverlands, the Andals began to attack the north from its south over land. However, every attack was thrown back by the crannogmen of the Neck or the strong fortifications of Moat Cailin; it is unknown how many Andal armies were destroyed in the Neck.^[4][5] Eventually, the Andals relented and the north was allowed to remain in peace,^[4] although over succeeding millennia Andal blood entered the kingdom through dynastic marriages.

Questions:

1. Why did the First-Men of the North manage to to hold/defeat the Andal Invasion? 

2. Are there any Andal Houses in the North? I think that the Flints having so many houses means that they have taken over the houses of vanquished lords, since the Widow's Watch is on the eastern seaboard, i think it might have been the castle too an Andal lord or petty king.

[Johnimus]

The Manderlys are an Andal House. 

It is known.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

Why did the Northmen hold back the Andals? Well for starters, the Neck is a giant swamp which would presumably wipe out half your army before you even saw Moat Cailin. Then you have to slog your way up to this huge fort and try to breach it. All to no avail. 

Sailing to the west coast leaves you vulnerable to Ironborn attack, plus there's nothing of great value in the west. And so that leaves the east coast, which the Starks rightly saw as the Andals' preferred destination so they paid close attention to it.

and remember, the Andals were coming over in large numbers but the First Men still outnumbered them by far. So if the North could concentrate their forces in two areas, that gives them an even bigger advantage over the Andals.

 

And on top of all that, there's the winter. The Northmen know how to live in winter. The Andals presumably did not.

[Free Northman Reborn]

27 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Why did the Northmen hold back the Andals? Well for starters, the Neck is a giant swamp which would presumably wipe out half your army before you even saw Moat Cailin. Then you have to slog your way up to this huge fort and try to breach it. All to no avail. 

Sailing to the west coast leaves you vulnerable to Ironborn attack, plus there's nothing of great value in the west. And so that leaves the east coast, which the Starks rightly saw as the Andals' preferred destination so they paid close attention to it.

and remember, the Andals were coming over in large numbers but the First Men still outnumbered them by far. So if the North could concentrate their forces in two areas, that gives them an even bigger advantage over the Andals.

 

And on top of all that, there's the winter. The Northmen know how to live in winter. The Andals presumably did not.

Also, with the naval technology of the time - and even in today's Westeros for that matter - I imagine that a significant portion of your fleet is likely to perish before landing in the North. Just look at the Golden Company trying to cross from Volantis to the Stormlands. Only half arrived. Not to mention Victarrion's Iron Fleet, half of which was lost trying to get to Meereen. And these are the best sailors in the world.

But basically, even once the fleet has made a successful landing, your forces are cut off from all supply or reinforcement, and at the mercy of the locals who know the ground like the back of their hands, to pick off at will. And the deeper you penetrate into the North, the more dangerous it gets.

Hear Jon's description of what would happen to Stannis's veteran soldiers if they tried to march across the Umber lands to get to the Dreadfort. He says they know every rock and every tree, and would cut his force to shreds before it even got to the Dreadfort.

The North's size, terrain and isolation is a major defensive advantage. If you could supply your army overland that would help a lot. But that is made impossible by the Neck and Moat Cailin. I don't think a naval conquest of the North is feasible.

[norwaywolf123]

1 hour ago, Johnimus said:

The Manderlys are an Andal House. 

It is known.

It is originally a FM house i think. Nut maybe some Andal married into the house like Joffrey Lydden and became the lord?

[daccu65]

I think pretty much any force is at a severe disadvantage when fighting on the other guy's home turf.  As previous posters have stated, the logistics is a formidable task.  In addition, the very low population density of the North can make foraging difficult; it isn't easy to 'appropriate' the local peasants' produce when the vast majority of the land is wilderness, with no peasants.  The climate, flora and fauna are very different to what the Andals are used to. 

Throw in the fact that the Andals had a very different culture.  When a territory is invaded by a people with a radically different religion, language and customs, the locals become even more motivated to throw them out.  In other words, a trapper back in the woods might sit out a Northern, house-vs-house war but would be more inclined to join in to repel the Andals. 

Finally, the North isn't a very rich realm.  The return on investment of blood and time isn't very great, prompting the invaders to give up the invasion earlier than they would if trying to take other kingdoms in Westeros.

 

As for Andal Houses, as previously stated, while the Manderys may be a first men house, they have enough Andal customs (knighthood, faith of the seven) to consider them an Andal House.  The fact that Ned was willing to have a Sept built in Winterfell tells me that at least some of the Northern houses are willing to accept Andals, so long as the Andals respect the northern customs.

 

 

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

I agree that the Manderly's are an Andal house, but I think they came peacefully to the North. Seems like excellent protection, but also low resources could play a big part in the failure of Andal invasion. If we consider the northern lords probably have stockpiles of food to feed their armies, while the southern armies would have limited resources and perhaps even less ability to fight in the cold they are not used too, I think it is not that surprising that the First Men could have held the Andals at bay. 

[Jon Fossoway]

Even if the andals managed to set a foot on the north, they are mostly cut off from supplies and reinforcements and facing a large region of people who consistently don't want them there. We don't know of any petty northern king who tried to make an alliance with the andals to defeat their enemies.

I assume that, considering this happened thousand of years ago, ships weren't as advanced as in the main series, so troop/resource/settlers movements would have been even more troublesome.

 

[TheSovereignGrave]

4 hours ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

Even if the andals managed to set a foot on the north, they are mostly cut off from supplies and reinforcements and facing a large region of people who consistently don't want them there. We don't know of any petty northern king who tried to make an alliance with the andals to defeat their enemies.

I assume that, considering this happened thousand of years ago, ships weren't as advanced as in the main series, so troop/resource/settlers movements would have been even more troublesome.

 

I don't think there were any petty Kings when the Andals were invading. The Red Kings of House Bolton were the Starks' last real rivals, and they bent the knee to Winterfell just as the Andal Invasion was beginning. So by the time of the Andals setting foot on Northern soil, it was probably all ruled by Houses sworn to the Starks.

[joluoto2]

6 hours ago, Johnimus said:

The Manderlys are an Andal House. 

It is known.

Define Andal House. Because the Manderlies are one of the many houses of First Men origin from the South. But they worship the Seven, so if that is the requirement: yes they are Andal.

[joluoto2]

6 minutes ago, TheSovereignGrave said:

I don't think there were any petty Kings when the Andals were invading. The Red Kings of House Bolton were the Starks' last real rivals, and they bent the knee to Winterfell just as the Andal Invasion was beginning. So by the time of the Andals setting foot on Northern soil, it was probably all ruled by Houses sworn to the Starks.

Had the Crannogmen bent the knee at that point?

[Jon Fossoway]

14 minutes ago, TheSovereignGrave said:

I don't think there were any petty Kings when the Andals were invading. The Red Kings of House Bolton were the Starks' last real rivals, and they bent the knee to Winterfell just as the Andal Invasion was beginning. So by the time of the Andals setting foot on Northern soil, it was probably all ruled by Houses sworn to the Starks.

Yup. That's what I said. If the World Book stops and gives us details about the Red Kings, they must surely have been some very mean and tough suckers. We don't get any specific reference to other petty kings: it is mostly the Starks reducing everyone to vassals.

 Starks dealt more effectively with oposition. I keep envision them like Starcraft's zergs: they either absorb you or destroy you. But you can't live next to them.

[Free Northman Reborn]

39 minutes ago, joluoto2 said:

Had the Crannogmen bent the knee at that point?

Yes. It is stated that the Red Kings were the last rival kings to bend the knee to the Starks. The Crannogmen were conquered one generation after the Wolf's Den was built by Jon Stark. Jon Stark's son, Rickard, defeated the last Marsh King and married his daughter.

This was some time - (probably a couple of centuries I would guess) - before the last Red King was conquered. The reasoning for my guestimate is that I believe that the building of the Wolf's Den substantially increased the power of the Starks in the Southeast and along the White Knife basin, and was likely a key development in them gaining the upper hand over the Red Kings

So I imagine that not too many generations passed after Jon Stark before the Boltons were forced to bend the knee.

EDIT

What interests me, is George's thought process in positioning the Dreadfort in the North. If his intention was to establish the Red Kings as these fierce rivals to the Starks, one would think that he would have placed them somewhere behind some natural geographic barrier that made it difficult for the Starks to access their portion of the North, or which meant that they could not be surrounded very easily by Stark vassals, or some such detail.

But the fact that the Starks conquered even the Umbers fairly early, makes it a bit weird that the Dreadfort - which is much closer to Winterfell and was therefore surrounded on all sides by Stark vassals - could hold out for thousands of years longer.

I wonder if there are more details we don't know yet in this regard.

[Jon Fossoway]

Apart from their closeness, we don't know of any intermarriages between Boltons and Starks. It is like they are from complete oposite planets but still they live across the street.

[Free Northman Reborn]

6 minutes ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

Apart from their closeness, we don't know of any intermarriages between Boltons and Starks. It is like they are from complete oposite planets but still they live across the street.

I think something dark went down between the two Houses during the Long Night. The World Book hints as much, saying their enmity dates back to the Long Night itself. There might well be more to this rivalry than meets the eye.

[TheSovereignGrave]

44 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

EDIT

What interests me, is George's thought process in positioning the Dreadfort in the North. If his intention was to establish the Red Kings as these fierce rivals to the Starks, one would think that he would have placed them somewhere behind some natural geographic barrier that made it difficult for the Starks to access their portion of the North, or which meant that they could not be surrounded very easily by Stark vassals, or some such detail.

But the fact that the Starks conquered even the Umbers fairly early, makes it a bit weird that the Dreadfort - which is much closer to Winterfell and was therefore surrounded on all sides by Stark vassals - could hold out for thousands of years longer.

I wonder if there are more details we don't know yet in this regard.

Well apparently it's stated that the Red Kings ruled from the Last River to the White Knife. So they weren't really surrounded by Stark vassals on all side; just on the North (once the Umbers bent the knee) and West while the South and East borders were with the sea.

[Free Northman Reborn]

10 minutes ago, TheSovereignGrave said:

Well apparently it's stated that the Red Kings ruled from the Last River to the White Knife. So they weren't really surrounded by Stark vassals on all side; just on the North (once the Umbers bent the knee) and West while the South and East borders were with the sea.

Well that is a rather disappointing area of rule, for the chief rivals to the Starks. Because the Last River to the White Knife is not significantly different to their current domain. The only neighbouring lords that this would have included, are the Hornwoods. Which is probably why the Boltons are so eager to conquer it again in the current period. They probably feel they have an historic right to it.

But really, the area stated in the World Book as the maximum domain of the Red Kings does not include the Karstark lands, as was once speculated. Nor does it include the Umber lands, as the Umbers have ruled as petty kings from the Long Night until the Starks subdued them.

And neither does it include any of the Flint, Locke, Slate or Manderly lands, as their southerly border was the Sheepshead hills.

So in short, the maximum extent of the Red King's rule included the current Bolton and Hornwood lands.

[The Wolves]

7 hours ago, Johnimus said:

The Manderlys are an Andal House. 

It is known.

They're not. They are First Men

[The Wolves]

38 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I think something dark went down between the two Houses during the Long Night. The World Book hints as much, saying their enmity dates back to the Long Night itself. There might well be more to this rivalry than meets the eye.

I wish I found the Boltons interesting enough to care since they've been intwined with my Starks for thousands of years but the Boltons suck in so many ways.  

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, The Wolves said:

I wish I found the Boltons interesting enough to care since they've been intwined with my Starks for thousands of years but the Boltons suck in so many ways.  

 

They are more interesting and nuanced in the books. The Show has ruined them, in my view.

But Roose refers to his ancestors buried in crypts below the Dreadfort - very similar to the Starks. This gives them a history and depth. And since he is by far the more interesting character than Ramsay, it makes the Boltons far more captivating as he is the primary Bolton villain, not the crude and rather stupid Ramsay, as depicted in the Show.