Why are the Essosi so militarily incompetent?

[GyantSpyder]

The Free Cities have little reason to organize large armies to fight on land, because there is little if nothing worth conquering over land on the continent - most of it isn't developed for agriculture, and a whole lot of it is blasted wasteland - including large parts of the areas between them.

So instead they focus on navies and the shoreline, which is how they conduct business as well. And on the rare occasion they need land armies, they hire mercenaries.

[Universal Sword Donor]

50 minutes ago, hodorisfaclessman said:

Covered this before essos would stomp westeros in a war...bravos alone is a naval superpower waiting to happen and thats before we talk volantis fleets.

No they have walls, few civilisations have fared well vs nomads (they always come back and persuing them into the wilderness is death) and the free cities standing professional merc forces are ahead of westeros fedual system not behind it. 

The ghicari cities seem kinda weak but bear in mind thats because new ghis seems to be the military powerhouse of that sub region the other 3 are economic powethouses more.

We've covered this and I don't recall any kind of consensus on this. What I do recall is basically the most prevalent opinion is that the fighting would be pointless because any invasion force would be trashed by whichever side was defending.

[hodorisfaclessman]

2 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

We've covered this and I don't recall any kind of consensus on this. What I do recall is basically the most prevalent opinion is that the fighting would be pointless because any invasion force would be trashed by whichever side was defending.

Id say naval superiority means essos would own the seas and that always allows it to slowly win a war of attrition. Landlock westeros then assasins,raids,bribery etc etc to grind em down

Agree itd be horrificly costly though

[Universal Sword Donor]

24 minutes ago, hodorisfaclessman said:

Id say naval superiority means essos would own the seas and that always allows it to slowly win a war of attrition. Landlock westeros then assasins,raids,bribery etc etc to grind em down

Agree itd be horrificly costly though

Narrow Sea maybe, but keeping ships sailing and paying the sailors for essentially war duties means the Free Cities would bankrupt themselves. More importantly they'd be able to do little and less about the western shores of Westeros. It would take months or years for the ships to get their full strength there and they'd be fighting on someone else's home waters.

[elder brother jonothor dar]

5 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

They're allied w each other because of the US involvement in NATO.

I don't understand is everyone in NATO part of the EU? is the UK not part of NATO? How did Brexit happen? Did we get special permission form the US to separate from the EU?

If you want to argue the US won the war or that much of Europe would looked to Russia if not for US intervention fine, Brexit was an existential threat to the EU, the concern in Europe was if the EU collapsed what would stop the continent falling into war as we have done since the dawn of time.  At no point during this threat did I hear anyone mention that should the EU disintegrate that it would all be fine because we are all allies with the US.

US often leads the EU economically and culturally but do not mistake this for dependence.  If you substituted Germany for the US in your original statment I would probably agree with you, they are the heart of the EU and many states do depend on them.

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, GyantSpyder said:

The Free Cities have little reason to organize large armies to fight on land, because there is little if nothing worth conquering over land on the continent - most of it isn't developed for agriculture, and a whole lot of it is blasted wasteland - including large parts of the areas between them.

But that's a bit circular. Unless there's some post-magic-apocalypse factor,* presumably the only reason so much of at least western Essos is undeveloped is that nobody has built an army capable of defending settlements there. Norvos and Qohor were strong enough to knock Volantis out of the central Rhoyne, but not strong enough to build their own colonies there, presumably because any time you try to build anything less well-defended than Qohor or Volon Therys, the Dothraki show up and burn it down.

---

* I actually like the post-magic-apocalypse idea, but I'm pretty sure there's no textual evidence for it, so the simpler explanation is probably what GRRM intended.

[Tucu]

12 minutes ago, falcotron said:

But that's a bit circular. Unless there's some post-magic-apocalypse factor,* presumably the only reason so much of at least western Essos is undeveloped is that nobody has built an army capable of defending settlements there. Norvos and Qohor were strong enough to knock Volantis out of the central Rhoyne, but not strong enough to build their own colonies there, presumably because any time you try to build anything less well-defended than Qohor or Volon Therys, the Dothraki show up and burn it down.

---

* I actually like the post-magic-apocalypse idea, but I'm pretty sure there's no textual evidence for it, so the simpler explanation is probably what GRRM intended.

The Doom and the wars and dothraki invasions during the Century of Blood explain the dark age in Essos. Apart from the cities lost in the Valyrian Peninsula the wiki lists ~20 cities destroyed after the Doom.

[falcotron]

1 minute ago, Tucu said:

The Doom and the wars and dothraki invasions during the Century of Blood explain the dark age in Essos. Apart from the cities lost in the Valyrian Peninsula the wiki lists ~20 cities destroyed after the Doom.

There really isn't a dark age. Civilization didn't collapse, and there's no discontinuity in records, which are the two reasons periods get called dark ages by historians. The Free Cities and their surviving colonies ended the Century of Blood in good technological and economic shape, and with ridiculously huge populations. Trade continued worldwide (well, at least as far as Westeros to the Jade Sea) the entire time. (Of course if you look at some areas locally, like the Qaathi homeland or the central Rhoyne, it's a different story, but Essosi civilization in general continued unabated.)

Also, what are you responding to? The Dothraki are exactly the explanation I gave for why all that land became and remains empty.

[hodorisfaclessman]

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Narrow Sea maybe, but keeping ships sailing and paying the sailors for essentially war duties means the Free Cities would bankrupt themselves. More importantly they'd be able to do little and less about the western shores of Westeros. It would take months or years for the ships to get their full strength there and they'd be fighting on someone else's home waters.

Narrow sea and the sunset sea too would be theirs 

Raids could help sustain the cost and weaken the 7 kingdoms...either way you dont need to utterly invade and destroy to have won a war esp a fedudal and fractious one.

 

 

[Universal Sword Donor]

6 minutes ago, hodorisfaclessman said:

Narrow sea and the sunset sea too would be theirs 

Raids could help sustain the cost and weaken the 7 kingdoms...either way you dont need to utterly invade and destroy to have won a war esp a fedudal and fractious one.

Yes and I am saying the sunset sea would pretty much be out of play because of logistical and numerical reasons. Braavos is a seapower but unless they continuously build ships and send fleets to the sunset sea -- which is like 5000 miles as the ship sails and somehow escape getting broken up by storms which has been done by pretty much no one we've seen -- they are not going to outnumber the IB + the Reach navies, let alone be able to dominate and blockade over 3000 miles of land. On top of that, it's fairly easy to build a protected naval yard where an amphibious assault would need to be combined with a land assault to make any headway. Manderly does it in under a year. That kind of force projection works on occasion but there is a reason why the Italian city-states didn't dominate the Caspian Sea or the Arabian Gulf, and those are 2.5x closer than the sunset sea from Braavos.

[Tucu]

1 hour ago, falcotron said:

There really isn't a dark age. Civilization didn't collapse, and there's no discontinuity in records, which are the two reasons periods get called dark ages by historians. The Free Cities and their surviving colonies ended the Century of Blood in good technological and economic shape, and with ridiculously huge populations. Trade continued worldwide (well, at least as far as Westeros to the Jade Sea) the entire time. (Of course if you look at some areas locally, like the Qaathi homeland or the central Rhoyne, it's a different story, but Essosi civilization in general continued unabated.)

Also, what are you responding to? The Dothraki are exactly the explanation I gave for why all that land became and remains empty.

It was as much a dark age as the centuries that followed the fall of the western Roman Empire. Knowledge, order and population centres were lost with the fall of Valyria, some of its colonies and Sarnor. We see the evidence of the depopulation in the travels of Dany and Tyrion. For example we get this about Volantis:

Quote

Mighty Volantis, grandest and most populous of the Nine Free Cities. Ancient wars had depopulated much of the city, however, and large areas of Volantis had begun to sink back into the mud on which it stood. Beautiful Volantis, city of fountains and flowers. But half the fountains were dry, half the pools cracked and stagnant. Flowering vines sent up creepers from every crack in the wall or pavement, and young trees had taken root in the walls of abandoned shops and roofless temples.

 

[DominusNovus]

2 hours ago, elder brother jonothor dar said:

I don't understand is everyone in NATO part of the EU? is the UK not part of NATO? How did Brexit happen? Did we get special permission form the US to separate from the EU?

If you want to argue the US won the war or that much of Europe would looked to Russia if not for US intervention fine, Brexit was an existential threat to the EU, the concern in Europe was if the EU collapsed what would stop the continent falling into war as we have done since the dawn of time.  At no point during this threat did I hear anyone mention that should the EU disintegrate that it would all be fine because we are all allies with the US.

US often leads the EU economically and culturally but do not mistake this for dependence.  If you substituted Germany for the US in your original statment I would probably agree with you, they are the heart of the EU and many states do depend on them.

I'm making a completely different point than you seem to think I'm making (particularly with conflating EU matters w Europe in general), but I don't want to derail this discussion further with the analogy. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss it.

[Dorian Martell's son]

17 hours ago, FylkirKarl said:

Why are the Essosi so bad at warfare? They suffer problems from unarmored light cavalry, and their cities are so unprotected. Their main source of military is either the Unsullied, poorly trained and equipped slave soldiers or untrustworthy mercenaries. The only factions in Essos that can be said to have a competent military is either Braavos or New Ghis with their reborn lockstep legions. Essos is home to the First Men, Andals and Rhoynish who used steel and bronze armor and weapons, but the Essos seem so backwards militarily. If a war were to ever breakout between Essos and Westeros, the only thing the Essos would have on them would be being economically superior and having numbers, but that matters little with trained soldiers who can be as disciplined as the Ghiscari if they have a competent commander like Stannis Baratheon or Randyl Tarly. Anyone know why? Another question I have is what were the military forces of the Valyrian Freehold like? I'd imagine similar to the Greek soldier-citizens who would be the foil to the Roman Legion structured Ghiscari, but this is only theory. Any answers?

They aren't incompetent at all. The walls of Meereen are holding against the invaders. The free cities have been at war since the collapse of the freehold. The thing that kept volantis from taking the mantle of the of the old freehold was military alliances. That does not happen due to incompetence. Are you sure you are not just thinking of slavers bay, where they rely on unsullied for defence and thus having troops that play a mostly ceremonial role? 

[GyantSpyder]

4 hours ago, falcotron said:

But that's a bit circular. Unless there's some post-magic-apocalypse factor,* presumably the only reason so much of at least western Essos is undeveloped is that nobody has built an army capable of defending settlements there. Norvos and Qohor were strong enough to knock Volantis out of the central Rhoyne, but not strong enough to build their own colonies there, presumably because any time you try to build anything less well-defended than Qohor or Volon Therys, the Dothraki show up and burn it down.

There's also the terrain to consider. It's not just insufficient investment or manpower that has made the land unsettled or unpopulated. It is simply not easy to move people or goods around this part of the world, even without the Dothraki as a factor.

Like Greece, the Free Cities are on a (relatively) small peninsula that has a lot of natural barriers (chief among with is a giant river - and big rivers often inhibit the passage of armies - consider the Rhine in the ancient world). Braavos is surrounded by mountainous islands, Norvos is surrounded by hills, Lorath and Qohor are guarded by thick forests. A lot of the major cities are on islands, there's a lot of cultural isolation too.

There is a lot of war and diplomacy, domination and conquest, and people fight their way through and around these barriers, but through all of it no real reason for anybody to actually walk a really long distance to do any of it - and in particular no reason to build a campaigning army designed for conquest that can venture out into enemy territory and stay there past the end of a campaigning season. Unifying the area required dragons - which sped travel, the passage of information, and allowed for advanced construction and engineering to build proper roads.

Without dragons, all the marching around happens on a smaller scale.

And then, even if it's not magical, consider that there's nothing for anybody in the Sorrows, there's nothing in the Red Waste, and consider that Slaver's Bay and the Free Cities are constantly engaged with each other, but because of the Red Waste more even than because of the Dothraki, you can not get an army from one to the other on foot or horseback (we see from Daenerys's perspective what a terrible and costly idea it can be to try).

And as for it being circular, I think if you look at the great conquering armies of history, it's not really a cycle - a place develops and becomes worth conquering, and then the army is created to conquer it.

A good contrast to take here is Julius Caesar in Gaul vs. Marcus Crassus in Parthia. Caesar takes his legions into Gaul - he meets with the people who live there, he makes alliances, he plays them off each other. He gets involved in the politics. When he conquers new territory, he does it from a position that exists - he has places to fall back to, hostages, friends, places to forage and to get food. He builds his own infrastructure as he goes. He moves around strategically, he doesn't just march his army around constantly in enemy territory with no fallback.

That's what Crassus did in Parthia - first, like Caesar, he went into the part of Mesopotamia where he had sympathetic locals, and they started surrendering to him, and he had the opportunity to just take that land, keep it, and consolidate it. Then he had the opportunity to ally with the King of Armenia and go through friendly territory to attack the Parthian heartland.

But instead Crassus insisted on crossing a big river and going off into total enemy territory, figuring his big army and his technological advantages would be enough to bring him victory. Maybe once he had victory, he could then backfill the territory he had conquered with settlers or something, right? Like the American west eventually did.

But this of course was not how it worked, because the technology developed for his familiar terrain back in Rome was not well-suited to the terrain in Parthia, and because he could walk around forever and not come across any place to rest or fall back to. He was committed and thus vulnerable - whereas Caesar was capable of great boldness, but also knew the value of falling back to safety and not deploying before you knew what you were dealing with. Crassus in Partha was, once he crossed the river into enemy territory alone, always deployed everywhere. When he just sat around out there he was a sitting duck, and he could get infinitely harried and picked off. And eventually his son was killed, his army was lost, he was humiliated and then murdered.

And you can even compare it to Napoleon, and how Napoleon in Europe had a bunch of places where his soldiers could live off the land, people he could make deals with and turn into temporary allies, places to rest. But Napoleon in Russia was in no-man's land, without a place to properly rest. And his army turned out to be a very wrong tool for the situation.

Most of the time, it's not that you need an army to get economy and you need economy to build an army - like building an economic expansion in an RTS like StarCraft. You really do need the economy first - and here I mean not just your own economy, but the economic and political development, to an extent, of the places you want to conquer - and the army comes after. 

And here we're talking about an army as a tool for a job. If you don't have the job to do, there's no reason to make that tool. The Free Cities and Slaver's Bay have different jobs to do - not huge overland military campaigns of conquest - so they developed different tools.

[OberynBlackfyre]

22 hours ago, FylkirKarl said:

But in terms of what Essos has to offer, Ghis and the Unsullied are the best they have. Extremely disciplined soldiers, one being slaves, the other citizens. Every other point I agree on.

I honestly think people are underestimating the Golden Company.  Their discipline and power are the reason they are taken seriously even in Westeros.  I mean they bacjed the majority of the Blackfyre rebellions.

[OberynBlackfyre]

I think that Essos just seems inept at warfare because their wars are mostly fueled by money.  I mean you also have to look at Essos armies like the Dothraki and the Golden Company.  Both of these are really feared armies.  The Dothraki are bought off becauseits ultimately cheaper for the merchants......only because they'd lose if they tried to fight them.  

[falcotron]

7 hours ago, GyantSpyder said:

Like Greece, the Free Cities are on a (relatively) small peninsula that has a lot of natural barriers (chief among with is a giant river - and big rivers often inhibit the passage of armies - consider the Rhine in the ancient world). Braavos is surrounded by mountainous islands, Norvos is surrounded by hills, Lorath and Qohor are guarded by thick forests. A lot of the major cities are on islands, there's a lot of cultural isolation too.

I think you really need to look at a map.

The Free Cities are not on a small peninsula, they're spread around the edges of an area slightly larger than all of Europe, and geographically pretty similar to Europe.

And there's nothing wrong with the terrain—especially along the Rhoyne. That same territory was the homeland of thriving civilizations like, most obviously, the Rhoynar, for thousands of years. And after the Rhoynish, Andals, etc. were kicked out, the Valyrian colonies that eventually became the Free Cities expanded into those lands. And built Valyrian roads that are still there, and still usable even in places like Mantarys. Those lands have only been empty for the last 300 years.

Imagine if, in 1450, you just erased all the people in Europe except in Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rouen, Bordeaux, Barcelona, and Genoa plus three smaller Ligurian cities. How long do you think all that area would remain empty?

The Dothraki aren't the only possible explanation, but they are the most obvious one—especially since we're explicitly told that the Dothraki are the reason the old Ibbish and Sarnor lands haven't been repopulated. Qohor and Norvos can muster the force to destroy a Volantine colony, but they can't muster the force to build a new colony that can withstand the Dothraki, so the land remains uninhabited.

Of course a magical apocalypse, or a curse, could also be an explanation for at least some of that land. As I said in my earlier reply, I actually like this idea, but I haven't been able to find any textual support for it, so I suspect the Dothraki explanation is the one GRRM intended.

7 hours ago, GyantSpyder said:

There is a lot of war and diplomacy, domination and conquest, and people fight their way through and around these barriers, but through all of it no real reason for anybody to actually walk a really long distance to do any of it - and in particular no reason to build a campaigning army designed for conquest that can venture out into enemy territory and stay there past the end of a campaigning season. Unifying the area required dragons - which sped travel, the passage of information, and allowed for advanced construction and engineering to build proper roads.

There's war and diplomacy, domination and conquest, but only within some of the lands around the borders of the continent between the Free Cities—most obviously the Disputed Lands among the Three SIsters. In the empty spaces in between, there's nothing but ruined cities and abandoned farms—as we saw in Tyrion's travelogue.

7 hours ago, GyantSpyder said:

And then, even if it's not magical, consider that there's nothing for anybody in the Sorrows, there's nothing in the Red Waste, and consider that Slaver's Bay and the Free Cities are constantly engaged with each other, but because of the Red Waste more even than because of the Dothraki, you can not get an army from one to the other on foot or horseback (we see from Daenerys's perspective what a terrible and costly idea it can be to try).

Again, you need to look at a map.

The Red Waste is far to the east of Slaver's Bay. It does not impede travel between Slaver's Bay and the Free Cities, any more than the Sahara impedes travel between Egypt and Israel. It only gets in the way of going to Qarth or the southern (Sand Road to Bayasabhad) pass into eastern Essos.

The only reason Dany had to go through it is that she started out in eastern Lhazar, and if she'd gone west through Lhazar along the Skahazadhan to Slaver's Bay she would have been attacked by Dothraki khals, so she had to go south to Qarth.

7 hours ago, GyantSpyder said:

And as for it being circular, I think if you look at the great conquering armies of history, it's not really a cycle - a place develops and becomes worth conquering, and then the army is created to conquer it.

But once it's been settled, it generally stays settled. Even in "dark ages" like the Greek or Western European ones, it usually only takes a couple of generations before all those lands are back in use. It takes the kind of complete civilization collapse that you see with, say, the Maya to leave useful land unused for 300 years—without some other good reason.

7 hours ago, GyantSpyder said:

A good contrast to take here is Julius Caesar in Gaul vs. Marcus Crassus in Parthia

…

But instead Crassus insisted on crossing a big river and going off into total enemy territory, figuring his big army and his technological advantages would be enough to bring him victory. Maybe once he had victory, he could then backfill the territory he had conquered with settlers or something, right? Like the American west eventually did.

There's a huge difference between enemy territory and empty but developed territory: enemy territory has enemies. Even if they don't attack you, they will harry your forces and cut off your supply lines.

Which is exactly why the lands south of Myr should be less attractive than the lands east of Myr. South of Myr is full of Tyroshi, Lysene, and even Volantine enemies, while east is just abandoned farms and towns. So, again, that demands an explanation, and again, the answer is probably Dothraki knocking down any town they see. 

7 hours ago, GyantSpyder said:

Most of the time, it's not that you need an army to get economy and you need economy to build an army - like building an economic expansion in an RTS like StarCraft. You really do need the economy first - and here I mean not just your own economy, but the economic and political development, to an extent, of the places you want to conquer - and the army comes after. 

And here we're talking about an army as a tool for a job. If you don't have the job to do, there's no reason to make that tool. The Free Cities and Slaver's Bay have different jobs to do - not huge overland military campaigns of conquest - so they developed different tools.

Sure, but look at the economy of the Free Cities.

All of the Free Cities we've seen are said to be larger than King's Landing—which is already twice as big as medieval Paris at its peak. Volantis probably has far beyond 1 million people within the city and 5 million in the overall city-state (even one of its colonies is more than twice the size of KL). The technology seems to be roughly 15th century, but with far more trade (there's a routine trade route that's about the equivalent of Ireland to Hong Kong).

They definitely have the economy to expand, and their biggest problems ought to be overcrowding and lack of farmland.

And there are empty lands that were developed by the Volantines themselves in the recent past, just there for the taking.

[Darken]

A-    GRRM’s world is similar to the real world but it’s still a fantasy. That explains the high use of swords in a world were full plate armour is quite in vogue. In the medieval world, swords were mostly used as a sidearm in exchange to war piercing weapons such as maces and warhammers. Alternatively flexible weapons that gave the user plenty of reach (ex harberds and poleaxes) were used. In such circumstances we can say that the advantage between heavy infantry and light infantry (ex the Dothraki or the Unsullied) isn’t that huge.

B-    The GRRM’s world is hugely set in an early medieval mindset. Sure the highborn would have top of the range armour but their army will be mostly made up of poorly trained and poorly motivated peasants who are dragged into their liege lords wars. These people stand no chance against professional armies such as the GC, the Dothraki or the Unsullied.  

C-    Full Plate armour doesn’t turn a knight into superman. Heavy cavalry/infantry is often slow and easy target to armour piercing arrows + fighting with full plate armour in very hot conditions is an absolute nightmare. The English just love to mention the battle of Agincourt where the French crème were ripped into pieces mostly thanks to the Brits longbowmen. There again, the same result could be achieved by less trained soldiers (ex Battle of the Golden Spurs). 

D-    The likes of Ned, Robert, Tywin and co are decent generals but they are nowhere near to true tactician masters such as the likes of Charlemagne or Genghis Khan.  The former might win wars against an enemy that pretty much fight their own way. I can’t see Ned going toe to toe against a huge army which fight so differently to his own style.

E-    Essos (and particularly Braavos) are extremely wealthy and fiercely independent. They can raise an enormous fleet which would smash the Westerosi fleet at sea and disrupt supply lines between Essos and Westeros.  They are quite versed in the art of bribery which means that soon enough 1-2 LPs will be offered the iron throne or wealth beyond measure in exchange of them betraying the invading the king. Huge armies can be raised and the faceless men will make a massacre of any invading sovereign. 

F-    Essos is well versed in the art of magic. From the red priests and priestesses who can resurrect people and use shadows to assassin people right to the citizens of Asshai, you wouldn’t want to cross that path.
 

[Barbrey Dustin]

On 9/17/2017 at 7:47 PM, FylkirKarl said:

Why are the Essosi so bad at warfare? They suffer problems from unarmored light cavalry, and their cities are so unprotected. Their main source of military is either the Unsullied, poorly trained and equipped slave soldiers or untrustworthy mercenaries. The only factions in Essos that can be said to have a competent military is either Braavos or New Ghis with their reborn lockstep legions. Essos is home to the First Men, Andals and Rhoynish who used steel and bronze armor and weapons, but the Essos seem so backwards militarily. If a war were to ever breakout between Essos and Westeros, the only thing the Essos would have on them would be being economically superior and having numbers, but that matters little with trained soldiers who can be as disciplined as the Ghiscari if they have a competent commander like Stannis Baratheon or Randyl Tarly. Anyone know why? Another question I have is what were the military forces of the Valyrian Freehold like? I'd imagine similar to the Greek soldier-citizens who would be the foil to the Roman Legion structured Ghiscari, but this is only theory. Any answers?

I don't agree with you.  The Dothraki would wipe out the armored knights and poorly trained conscripts of Westeros in open battle.  Daenerys Targaryen's Unsullied infantry is the best in the world.  The legions of Old Ghis fought five wars with the Valyrian Freehold before finally going down.  The armies of Westeros lost to three dragons and three Targaryens rather easily.  So it is accurate to say the legions of Old Ghis would have an easy time destroying the armies of Westeros.  If a war broke out between Essos and Westeros, with Dany uniting and commanding the armies of Essos, Westeros would go down pretty easily. 

[DominusNovus]

58 minutes ago, Barbrey Dustin said:

I don't agree with you.  The Dothraki would wipe out the armored knights and poorly trained conscripts of Westeros in open battle.  Daenerys Targaryen's Unsullied infantry is the best in the world.  The legions of Old Ghis fought five wars with the Valyrian Freehold before finally going down.  The armies of Westeros lost to three dragons and three Targaryens rather easily.  So it is accurate to say the legions of Old Ghis would have an easy time destroying the armies of Westeros.  If a war broke out between Essos and Westeros, with Dany uniting and commanding the armies of Essos, Westeros would go down pretty easily. 

I doubt it. Take an equal number of heavy cavalry like knights and pit them against light cavalry like nomads in an open battle, and the heavy cavalry usually wins. The knights have more armor, larger horses, and thus, more momentum.