How could the Ironborn have ever held the Riverlands?

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

Populations fluctuate perhaps this was a time when Iron Born populations was at its highest and two you have to swallow the Riverland whole take it in bites each petty king at a time .

[hodorisfaclessman]

why wouldnt they be able to hold them any more than any other region could conquer the next?

the riverlanders expended their strength repelling the stormlanders and the ironborn swooped in...simple

[Victor227]

Westeros plays very fast and loose with siegecraft. One the one hand, castles like Storm's End can hold in perpetuity, on the other, Gregor Clegane could sweep through half the castles in the Riverlands in a week, Robb could blaze a trail through the Westerlands, and the Ironborn could take all four of the Shield Isles in a single battle. Also, despite having no experience or inclination towards siegecraft, Dagmar Cleftjaw took Torhen's Square -after- being routed by Rodrik.

 

By comparison, the Ironborn taking the Riverlands is pretty tame. With easy-siege Westeros, it's no wonder Harren wanted a super-castle that couldn't just be steamrolled.

[Pox Americana]

The reign of the Hoares saw the Ironborn become a trading power house. They had the money to keep their dominion of the Riverlands going and to dissuade other regions from trying to fight them. Also worth mentioning that they weren't your typical Ironbron sea raiders. At least some of the Hoares utilized conventional tactics in their war with the Stormlanders, and once their rule had been established it would've been quite simple to destabilize Riverlander resistance and raise indigenous levies of the same type. I suspect there were enough loyal Riverlords to keep the Kingdom of Isles and Rivers going, regardless of the yoke of Harren the Black.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Westeros plays very fast and loose with siegecraft. One the one hand, castles like Storm's End can hold in perpetuity, on the other, Gregor Clegane could sweep through half the castles in the Riverlands in a week, Robb could blaze a trail through the Westerlands, and the Ironborn could take all four of the Shield Isles in a single battle. Also, despite having no experience or inclination towards siegecraft, Dagmar Cleftjaw took Torhen's Square -after- being routed by Rodrik.

 

By comparison, the Ironborn taking the Riverlands is pretty tame. With easy-siege Westeros, it's no wonder Harren wanted a super-castle that couldn't just be steamrolled.

This is not really unrealistic. During real medieval warfare there were big differences between monstrous, gigantic castles like Coucy in France, where the main tower alone should have had room to garrison a thousand men 

http://www.burgenkunde.de/images/coucy/Washing1_big.jpg

http://www.burgenkunde.de/images/coucy/K217_big.jpg

 

And minor castles like this one

http://www.heberger-image.fr/data/images/13382_51594374.jpg

(ruined and redesigned a bit, but you see the size). 

 

The former could be incredibly difficult to take in sieges, whereas the latter kinds were often only held by a handful of fighters and sometimes did not even try to resist large enemy forces, but surrendered pretty much straight away. Storm's End is probably like the former, whereas most castles Gregor went through were probably pretty small and weak. Plus unprepared for war. 

[RainGhost]

For the same reason that their invasion of the North was so successful - the river lords were too busy fighting each other. Yes, you would think that with such a terrible liege lord they would rebel but they would need someone to lead the rebellion. If, for example, Lord Blackwood tried to start a rebellion, Lord Bracken would have fought for the Hoares and vice versa.

 

Of course, the Hoares were more like greenlanders than ironborn anyway, so better at siege warfare and horseriding etc. But I still think it had more to do with the river lords' unwilingness to unite than the ironborn's unbeatable military skills.

[falcotron]

Halfdan Ragnarsson and his brothers were able to conquer a third of England in a bit over a decade with a couple thousand men and (at the start of the invasion) either 0 or 5 horses. His descendants held it for most of a century.

And it's pretty clear that GRRM based the Hoare conquest of the Riverlands on the Great Heathen Army's conquest of the Danelaw. Which means it's as plausible as what actually happened in real life.¹

So, how did the Danes conquer so much of England?

Of course their naval supremacy over the Channel made it easy for them to land in the first place--and also made it much easier for them to profit off trade once they'd won, and to stave off later invaders. And they still had the traditional Viking river-raiding tactics.

But neither of those were much use in invading Northumbria, much less Mercia or Wessex. They won their victories with swift-moving horse-driven forces. (Halfdan, like Hoare, was described as having a tent for a castle and a saddle for a throne.) And they won their campaigns as much with diplomacy as in battle--turning lords against lieges, exploiting a local civil war, taking bribes to attack different enemies than their original targets, and finally negotiating a treaty which included their kings accepting the English religion (Christianity).

¹ Well, not quite as plausible. Unlike Westeros, which apparently had late-medieval technology and culture for thousands of years with little change, England was in the early middle ages in the 9th century, and the petty kingdoms they were fighting were decades or at most a couple centuries old, not millennia. But that's no more of a problem for the Hoare conquest than it is for just about everything else in Planetos history.

[mankytoes]

People who think this sort of thing is impossible should read some history. More impossible than some Mongolian warlords holding half the civilised world, including the usually considered unconquerable Russia and China?

They were strong, united and organised, while the Rivermen were none of these things.

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

 

Also we do not know how many ships were destroyed in the Battle of Fair Isle . Just because the Iron Fleet was defeated does not mean all their ships were destroyed . If half of them escaped the battle then the fact that the Iron fleet is built up over 10 years is not hard to believe. 

The Iron fleet was trapped by a superior force, I think it is safe to say they got annihilated.

[HappilyEverAfter]

The Iron fleet was trapped by a superior force, I think it is safe to say they got annihilated.

If it was a land battle. It is much harder to destroy every ship in an open sea battle, even if you surround your enemy. The sea is just too large. Hell, even in the Battle on the Blackwater, a river engulfed in wildfire, some ships from the Royal Fleet survived.

[A Bastard Snow]

Halfdan Ragnarsson and his brothers were able to conquer a third of England in a bit over a decade with a couple thousand men and (at the start of the invasion) either 0 or 5 horses. His descendants held it for most of a century.

And it's pretty clear that GRRM based the Hoare conquest of the Riverlands on the Great Heathen Army's conquest of the Danelaw. Which means it's as plausible as what actually happened in real life.¹

So, how did the Danes conquer so much of England?

Of course their naval supremacy over the Channel made it easy for them to land in the first place--and also made it much easier for them to profit off trade once they'd won, and to stave off later invaders. And they still had the traditional Viking river-raiding tactics.

But neither of those were much use in invading Northumbria, much less Mercia or Wessex. They won their victories with swift-moving horse-driven forces. (Halfdan, like Hoare, was described as having a tent for a castle and a saddle for a throne.) And they won their campaigns as much with diplomacy as in battle--turning lords against lieges, exploiting a local civil war, taking bribes to attack different enemies than their original targets, and finally negotiating a treaty which included their kings accepting the English religion (Christianity).

¹ Well, not quite as plausible. Unlike Westeros, which apparently had late-medieval technology and culture for thousands of years with little change, England was in the early middle ages in the 9th century, and the petty kingdoms they were fighting were decades or at most a couple centuries old, not millennia. But that's no more of a problem for the Hoare conquest than it is for just about everything else in Planetos history.

Have you played Viking Conquest (Mount and Blade mod)I highly recommend it.I went around raiding Christian Monasteries for loot.And made most everyone hate me as they all converted cept for me.
Odin ftw

They also have a game mode with one person being Thor and smacking people with your hammer and the person who kills Thor becomes Thor.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Halfdan Ragnarsson and his brothers were able to conquer a third of England in a bit over a decade with a couple thousand men and (at the start of the invasion) either 0 or 5 horses. His descendants held it for most of a century.

And it's pretty clear that GRRM based the Hoare conquest of the Riverlands on the Great Heathen Army's conquest of the Danelaw. Which means it's as plausible as what actually happened in real life.¹

So, how did the Danes conquer so much of England?

Of course their naval supremacy over the Channel made it easy for them to land in the first place--and also made it much easier for them to profit off trade once they'd won, and to stave off later invaders. And they still had the traditional Viking river-raiding tactics.

But neither of those were much use in invading Northumbria, much less Mercia or Wessex. They won their victories with swift-moving horse-driven forces. (Halfdan, like Hoare, was described as having a tent for a castle and a saddle for a throne.) And they won their campaigns as much with diplomacy as in battle--turning lords against lieges, exploiting a local civil war, taking bribes to attack different enemies than their original targets, and finally negotiating a treaty which included their kings accepting the English religion (Christianity).

¹ Well, not quite as plausible. Unlike Westeros, which apparently had late-medieval technology and culture for thousands of years with little change, England was in the early middle ages in the 9th century, and the petty kingdoms they were fighting were decades or at most a couple centuries old, not millennia. But that's no more of a problem for the Hoare conquest than it is for just about everything else in Planetos history.

The "late medieval technology for thousands of years" image one often gets in the books may well just be because of most present day Westerosi being ignorant of history, and thus assuming that the past had pretty much the same technology as they did. Which some posters on these boards have pointed out was quite common during the real Middle Ages and afterwards. 

 

In the books Jaime mentions that older castles have square towers instead of round, and IIRC Tyrion says that during the wars against the Faith Militant (so a couple of decades after Aegon's conquest and the downfall of the Ironborn) fighters used kite shields instead of the heater shields they use now.

 

Now in real history kite shields were mainly used during the 10th-12th centuries, partially overlapping with the Viking Age. So this might hint that during the time of the old Ironborn conquests the rest of Westeros had less modern ways of fighting as well. 

[falcotron]

The "late medieval technology for thousands of years" image one often gets in the books may well just be because of most present day Westerosi being ignorant of history, and thus assuming that the past had pretty much the same technology as they did. Which some posters on these boards have pointed out was quite common during the real Middle Ages and afterwards.

The reason I put this in a footnote is that at best it's a weak objection to my main point. If you want to argue that it's not an objection at all, I have no problem with that.

In the books Jaime mentions that older castles have square towers instead of round

Sure, but the official history says those square castles are up to 12000 years old, and the round ones are less than 6000 years old, which leaves us with the same problem. And there are other similar problems. But, again, this isn't the place to argue these points. Even if you concede to the official history, the Hoare conquest is still a perfectly reasonable parallel to the Ragnarsson conquest.

Have you played Viking Conquest (Mount and Blade mod)I highly recommend it.

Thanks for reminding me! Someone gifted me that game on Steam a while back, but I never played it. I'll check it out.

People who think this sort of thing is impossible should read some history. More impossible than some Mongolian warlords holding half the civilised world, including the usually considered unconquerable Russia and China?

Yes, there are an awful lot of ASoIaF fans who like to say "X is impossible because it would never work in the real world", "No real-life king would ever do Y", "Anyone who did Z in real life would be quickly put down and executed", etc., when anyone with even a cursory knowledge of history or even a basic ability to search Wikipedia can quickly discover that X worked many times in the real world, dozens of real-life kings did Y, and people who did Z frequently succeeded and were rarely punished when they failed. I have no idea where these people get their information, or why they're so sure of it. Or why, if they're so sure that everything GRRM writes is completely implausible even (or maybe even especially) when he's borrowing directly from real-life history, they bother reading his books.

[Stannis in the middle]

 

It's not like the Iron Born attacked a united Riverlands . See the information below and it's not hard to believe they were able to conquer the Riverlands.

"Harwyn planned the invasion of the riverlands, which were weakly held by the Storm King Arrec Durrandon. The ironborn landed one hundred longships south of Seagard and then carried the ships to the Blue Fork. Samwell Rivers' small host was shattered by Harwyn's charge at the Tumblestone. Harwyn then defeated the army of Lady Agnes Blackwood, who was betrayed by Lord Lothar Bracken. Harwyn was impressed with Agnes and offered her to become his salt wife, but the king killed her when she refused.^[2]

The Storm King Arrec then met Harwyn in a battle at Fairmarket. Aided by many river lords, including Lothar Bracken, Theo Charlton, and Lords Goodbrook, Page, and Vypren, the Hoares crushed the stormlanders and Arrec's rule over the riverlands collapsed. The rivermen had hoped to regain their independence and celebrated at first, but Harwyn retained control for himself. Lord Bracken had desired to be river king; he rose in rebellion six months later, which resulted in him starving to death in a crow cage"

The order of the Ironborn invasion of the Riverlands  doesnt even make sense. They carried their ships to the Blue Fork, then somehow ended up at the Tumblestone for their first battle, then they fought the blackwoods, then ended up back at the Blue Fork to fight the Storm King??

 

 

[Ramsay Gimp]

Agreed about the Ironborn being different now, a pale imitation of what they thought they were

But what bugged me about this section is how the Ironborn conquer the Riverlands and then just leave everything in place. They took no castles for themselves, not even the Bracken's after he rebelled against Harwyn. It's another case of GRRM making everything too static to be plausible