[No Spoilers] Joffrey's Royal Army

[Chirios]

I got to thinking and this doesn't seem like that bad an idea.

A major problem of Middle Age armies was that each commander could only field about 2-5000 well trained men. The rest were farmhands and other feudal tenants who had to be taken away from the land in order to fight. They were badly trained, not very well fed and didn't have standardised weaponry.

Standing armies change that. A decently sized standing army can beat a much larger force of well, rabble, simply because they are well disciplined and carry actual weapons, and not farming tools. If Joff were to offer pay, training, and food to any man across the seven kingdoms who wanted to join the Royal Army, he could quickly get himself a standing force of say, 10000. If he were to then pay for the upkeep of this army the normal ways states normally do, then this army would, eventually, be loyal to him instead of to the other lords. In the event of a civil war, some would desert obviously, but it's not unreasonable to assume that most would have married women in Kings Landing, and made friends with people from other places, and would be loyal to Joff instead of to the North.

The flip side of this is that standing armies are expensive, and they have a tendency to initiate coup attempts. The way the best kingdoms paid for their standing armies, and ensured their loyalty, was through conquest. A king would march to another country, loot the hell out of it, and his army would be loyal to him because they'd see him as a brother-in-arms who had shared their trial by fire. This made them a lot more willing to fight in civil wars, (see-> Julius and Augustus Caesar).

What do you guys think? If the royal family had the funds, could this be pulled off or not?

[Valmy]

What do you guys think? If the royal family had the funds, could this be pulled off or not?

It took centuries of political and military evolution (usually with periods of Aristocratic revolts) to do this in our world. Joffrey is way ahead of his time: a visionary leader of how to make an absolutist autocratic tyranny.

[Chirios]

It took centuries of political and military evolution (usually with periods of Aristocratic revolts) to do this in our world. Joffrey is way ahead of his time: a visionary leader of how to make an absolutist autocratic tyranny.

That's... true in a way, but The Roman Empire for example had quite a large standing army, as did the Athenians and the Spartans. It's certainly true of the early middle ages though. Although, the Roman Empire did spend most of it's time conquering other nations so it's not a perfect analogy.

[C.T. Phipps]

Yes,

Joffrey's idea is actually one of the ideas that, were he not to have thrown in the whole "crush the North" business then he would have actually the beginnings of an extraordinary way to solidify his control over the Seven Kingdoms.

Trained soldiers versus conscripts is also very very VERY true.

Really, Joffrey wouldn't have much trouble finding work for his standing army anyway as it would be undoubtedly used to put out the kind of fires that trouble any King in Westeros.

[Lord Varys]

It could be pulled off, I think, if you worked to accomplish this goal through a generation or so. The Crown could do it, I guess, by drafting and training the people it controls directly (i.e. those who directly sworn to King's Landing). Joffrey really some kind of revolutionary here, and his plan would make the Crown much less dependent on its lords, who, in fact, do rule their lands as if they were Kings in their own right (at least the Great Lords like the Starks, Lannisters, Arryns, and such).

And with Lannister gold you should really be able to create such an army. Not just a bunch of sellswords, a real army.

Use such an army to crush the North would be stupid, of course, but use it to threat the North into doing what you want them to do would be actually a good idea. That's what a standing army is for, after all.

[Chirios]

It could be pulled off, I think, if you worked to accomplish this goal through a generation or so. The Crown could do it, I guess, by drafting and training the people it controls directly (i.e. those who directly sworn to King's Landing). Joffrey really some kind of revolutionary here, and his plan would make the Crown much less dependent on its lords, who, in fact, do rule their lands as if they were Kings in their own right (at least the Great Lords like the Starks, Lannisters, Arryns, and such).

And with Lannister gold you should really be able to create such an army. Not just a bunch of sellswords, a real army.

Use such an army to crush the North would be stupid, of course, but use it to threat the North into doing what you want them to do would be actually a good idea. That's what a standing army is for, after all.

The problem with using Lannister gold is that the Crown would increase its debt to one family. In return, the Lannisters' might ask for greater concessions, pissing off the Great Lords. No, for the standing army to work it must transcend family ties completely. It must be funded by all of the kingdoms, and the soldiers must be supplied from each kingdom. Joff's idea of conscription is bad because it amounts to a slave army, and he'd have to deal with a lot more desertions, hence why it would be better to have a volunteer force.

A nationwide tax would do it I think, scaled to fit the revenues of each kingdom. So, the gold mines of the Lannister's would be taxed say, 20%, the Starks would be taxed 5-10% only because they are much poorer, whatever the most profitable business in the Tyrell lands is would be taxed 20%, so on and so forth. Eventually, Joff would have enough money to pay off his debts. He could keep that money for another year and use it to build his standing army.

Another problem is it would scare many of the Great Lords. People don't build armies unless they intend to use them after all. So Joff would have to invent/find a new enemy as an excuse for building this new army. The situation is similar to Henry II of England actually. Joff can't just decide to build the army, and say: I'm going to conquer an empire, because the Great Lords would be like: "WTF? I'm not spending millions just for your glory!" So he needs to find himself an enemy first, then use that enemy as an excuse to build a standing army, then he is free to use that standing army to attack any rebellious twits that decide to F with him.

[Lord Varys]

Well, if Joff would be King, he could use his close ties to House Lannister and just take all the gold he needs. That is, when/if his grandfather, Cersei's father, is no longer around to object. Succession is a complicated thing in Westeros, and due to the Lannister family dynamics it's not entirely unthinkable that Joffrey could become King of Westeros and Lord of Casterly Rock. In fact, he'd most likely work in that direction if he intended to build such an army as he would need that much money.

The army would, of course, have to be an army of volunteers. Or at least drafted people who are well compensated by coin during their time as soldiers, and with land when they service is done.

If the Crown would start by only drafting its own people (those sworn directly to KL) the lords could technically not object against that. Although it would still create unrest, of course, and you would really have to tread most carefully, and over a longer period of time to appear not as much a revolutionary on the way to an absolute monarchy. You would have to do lip service to the old system, and be as good in public relations as Augustus was when he created the Roman Empire. And one can seriously doubt that Joffrey would be able to pull this off. He would rush things too much, and have to face a rebellion long before his army would be ready. After all, the only reason he want to create such an army is to be an autocratic dictator who is able to crush people who annoy him whenever he likes. These kind of people don't have the patience it takes to build something.

[Xenophon]

I thought this was one of the best scenes so far. By giving Joffrey the idea to create a royal army, they

1) establish that he's not a complete idiot/pure evil stereotype

2) show that he's extremely naive and narcissistic, thinking that he can just uproot deeply-established social structures by fiat

3) show us the limits of Cersei's worldview, and how she's setting him up to be a bad king (She tells him the truth will be whatever he says it is; then he says that the Northmen will obey him because he says so; and Cersei immediately has to backtrack telling him that there are some limits on how far the King's word can shape reality.)

As for whether his plan would work, as others have said, it's not impossible, but Joffrey hardly seems the sort of political mastermind who could pull it off. The reason RL kingdoms didn't have standing armies in the middle ages wasn't because nobody thought of it (everyone knew of the examples from antiquity/the Mongols), it was because most kings didn't have enough political clout. A standing army = a centralized state, and the nobility resisted any attempts to curtail their power. Westeros seems particularly fragmented, so it would take a particularly skillful king to wrest power away from the Great Houses, and Joffrey does not seem like the man for the job.

[Lord Varys]

Technically, such a move could only work in Westeros if they would have to fight an invading force for some time. The fact that Westeros is very much pacified makes a standing army pretty much pointless. It's only use would be to consolidate the power of the King.

Oh, and yeah, Joff really got some redeeming/human qualities in the series. He is still a sadistic asshole, but he is not a completely evil sadistic asshole ;-). And it was always evident, that Cersei, and Cersei alone, was to blame for his tendency to see himself and being the King as above the law or reality itself. We just never saw a private Cersei-Joffrey-conversation before, and I'm pretty sure that they Cersei would have planted such ideas in his head.

And in my opinion, Cersei most certainly does not appear to be competent at all during this episode. But we cannot discuss that here in this thread ;-).

[sToNED_CAT]

Well, Westeros has royal navy, so the idea of royal army is certainly not that unthinkable. And I'm not that sure it would lead to rebellion or something like that. After all it took quite a lot of executions for nobles to rebel against Aerys. Of course the funding might be a pretty big problem. I just wonder from where does the king get money in Westeros? Do they even have royal taxes?

[Basileus777]

The problem with standing armies is that they are very expensive. The crown is already deep in debt and Westeros is a very decentralized kingdom with little in terms of bureaucracy. Forcing taxes on a huge decentralized realm run mostly by extremely powerful feudal lords is no small task. And we don't really know the legal situation. Feudal nobility have rights and privileges, does the crown even have the right to impose new types of taxes on them? The crown also has little in terms of direct raw power which could be used to coerce the Lords paramount. And there doesn't seem to be a middle class, urban groups, or collection of lesser knights powerful enough to be of any real aid to the crown. How would one enforce the collection of taxes on a kingdom the size of South American given this level of technology anyway? Even if Westeros had a more entrenched bureaucracy, it would seem like an impossible task.

It'd probably be more practical to just rely on mercenaries when such a force was needed, which was what was more typical in the late middle ages.

If you want to increase the crown's power, expand the size of the royal demesne. Things like taking Storm's End and making the Stormlands directly sworn to the crown, or claiming vacant titles like Harrenhal for the crown would work. Though once again, the nobility would not be happy with this.

[L’Age d’or]

With the coming of a long ass harsh winter and the crown's debt of 6 million and counting this could never be possible even in Joffery's lifetime, thus making this discussion withing this particular context quite far fetched and hypothetical.

[Phantomwriter05]

I sort of saw this as a conversation about state's rights (GOT style)

Cersei is warning him that a standing royal army would threaten the great lords rights to assemble and make war.

It's 1861 all over again.

I don't see how Cersei is stupid in this scene ... because I really liked her militristic style of coaching Joffery.

[The Anti-Targ]

While Westeros is still nominally thought of as the Seven Kingdoms a standing army could never happen. Who would be the first great lord to:

a) give up their best and brightest soldiers to the crown, and

B) pay the crown additional taxes for the privilege of sending away their best and brightest.

The Targs could have done it because they had no inherent bias for or against any given region in Westeros. Given they were a foreign conquering power every great house was equally subjugated (well except perhaps the Martells).

But now that a House (Houses) with definite regional bias occupies the Iron Throne then the Great lords of the other regions won't see it as supplying men and gold to the iron throne but as supplying men and gold to House Baratheon and House Lannister. Most unpalatable.

[corbon]

That's... true in a way, but The Roman Empire for example had quite a large standing army,

The romans went from a citizen army (not standing at all, citizens enlisted only for a limited campaign and required to supply their own equipment) to a series of professional armies owned by the super-rich, to a united professional army owned by the last super-rich dude standing, to a professional army which tended to extreme interference in politics, very dangerous to it's supposed 'owner'.

Through it all from the end of the true citizen armies roman society was highly developed economically, far far more than westeros, and possessed a middle class actually capable of supporting a standing army.

Westeros does not.

Roman economics was also based for a long time on the systematic looting of conquered economies, something not available to the Kings of Westeros. That's how the super-rich romans got to be super-rich enough to afford their own professional armies.

as did the Athenians and the Spartans.

No, they did not. Well, the Spartans sort of did, but not in a model that could translate anywhere without the same sort of culture

The Spartan army was basically just the equivalent of the nobility.

Westeros already has this, it is just that politically the nobility is fragmented and follows its own agenda's rather than a single unifying state agenda (and the nobility is spread administering its estates rather than concentrated in barracks - where the estates pay mess fees etc or the Spartiate gets the boot). Without the culture of sacrifice found in Spartan culture, it just wouldn't adapt.

Note also that the Spartan system was socially unsustainable and really lasted less than a couple of centuries before crumbling largely under its own weight - there were only 400 Spartiates at Leuctra, down from up to 8000 at their peak.

The Athenians didn't have any sort of standing army, just an citizen army (and navy) more like militia.

The Macedonians were perhaps the first fully professional army, but they were very much mercenaries - fighting for whoever paid them, and notably rebelling, and even swapping sides, when financial problems occurred.

They are not the sort of example that a ruler would want to emulate. Ask Perdiccas and especially Eumenes. Even Alexander had troubles with them (mutiny during the invasion of India).

Essentially a standing army is extremely expensive. It needs to be funded through either a substantial middle class which can be taxed, or endless conquest.

Neither of those options are available to Westeros.

Not to mention the 6 million Dragon debt the crown is already in.

Politically it is also extremely dangerous to have a standing army in an autocracy (monarchy) situation where there is a lack of dynastic stability. It concentrates the power in one place, and not in the King, instead of spreading it around through various nobles which are beholden to the king. Look up the history of the Praetorian guard for example...

An idea worthy of Joffrey. :dunce:

[Thefalconemperor]

I remember Martin once saying that the dynamics of the seven kingdoms were a bit like the holy roman empire, and like the holy empire, the kings/emperors didn't had that much power. The royal army idea would be quickly opposed by the local lords due to the power shifts it would cause.

Anyways a really strong monarch, possibly being backed by other powers like the peasants and/or the faith of the seven, could do it. Still I wonder why the first dragon kings didn't do it.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

It would probably take a king with a dragon to enforce this, Joffrey is like Viserys, they both just assume people will follow their orders because they're the King. They don't understand that loyalty has to be earned.

[Xenophon]

I remember Martin once saying that the dynamics of the seven kingdoms were a bit like the holy roman empire, and like the holy empire, the kings/emperors didn't had that much power. The royal army idea would be quickly opposed by the local lords due to the power shifts it would cause.

Anyways a really strong monarch, possibly being backed by other powers like the peasants and/or the faith of the seven, could do it. Still I wonder why the first dragon kings didn't do it.

Probably because they didn't need to. Their flying, fire-breathing super-weapons were just as effective, much cheaper, and wouldn't ever become involved in a palace coup. And by the time they could have used a standing army, they no longer had enough power to create one.

[amore]

Just posted a question about this on the Episode 3 thread and been directed here.

I was amazed that they gave this revolutionary idea to Joffrey and am confused as to why?

Could it be done? Yes but not without sweeping changes to the administration of the Kingdom. As other posters have pointed out the Romans had a standing army but after the fall of the Roman Empire this became unaffordable.

King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden re-introduced it during the 1600's and for a time Sweden became the predominant military force in europe leading the them making great victories in the 30 Years War. Ultimately the rest of europe had to follow suite in order to be able to compete with them.

In order to finance this however, he had to first introduce a sweeping change in fiscal policy, leading to the introducton of income taxes and various other trade tax reforms. He also had to bring in a bureaucracy to administer it all.

The military advantages were huge though so it was worth the cost.

I imagine Westorosi to compare to europe circa 1100 though (?) so this would be about 500 years ahead of itself.

The question for me though is why are they trying to make Joffrey out to be a military genius of this scale? It is often quoted that Adolphus was known as the Father of Modern Warfare and was admired as an inspiration to both Napoleon and Wellington. It is totally in contrast to his competence levels portrayed in the books to credit him with a military innovation that was pretty much unparalled in over 1000 years of history?

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

It's not military genius, it's stupid.

Westeros is an isolated continent, it's doesn't need a standing army to defend itself, like other places where they actually border enemies.

A standing army is a huge waste of resources with very little benefit, the only one it benefits is the King who can use it against the other houses, that's it. Given the length of winters and the constant battle for survival, to use resources this way to only satisfy the maniacal tendencies of a King is the very definition of despotism. If fits Joff personality perfectly that he would come up with such a ridiculously pompous and wasteful idea.