The Problem with Necking

[Giant Ice Spider]

So I have been working on a novel in a low-fantasy setting (and no, it's not about politics or apocalypses so nothing like ASOIAF), and I was doing research on medieval military logistics. And I learned something very interesting.

A soldier carries their own food, and can at most carry a week's worth of food at any one time.

This creates a problem with a certain event in ASOIAF, namely Robb's march south. It's indicated it takes a few weeks to pass through the Neck. So what did Robb and his army eat?

For the record, there were two ways to resupply an army in the Middle Ages: having ships follow them (impossible), and foraging (how the hell are you gonna forage in the Neck of all places???).

I think George describes armies carrying food in the baggage train, which is bloody ridiculous. You need more wagons, which means more pack-animals, which means you need more feed, which means you need more wagons to carry said feed, which means … you get the picture.

In fact, as I'm writing this, how does anyone pass through the Neck? There are no places to stop off and resupply (despite the fact this could be very profitable for the crannogmen), most people can't hunt frogs, and even if you could carry a month's rations, what's to stop them spoiling?

Seriously, HOW DO PEOPLE GET THROUGH THE NECK???

[Ran]

Pack animals that carry feed can be slaughtered for food, so they are meat on the hoof as well, and so can be a solution to providing feed for animals as well as feeding men. This was clearly the case at certain points during Alexander the Great's campaigns in Asia. 

Armies can lay food ahead in depots, as was also done by ancient armies, and I don't know if the swamp that is the Neck necessarily means that it is of a uniform type. Arya certainly seemed able to run around in the Neck without anyone fearing for her too much, so there are likelier drier spots and wetter spots and varieties of fauna because of it.

[argonak]

15 hours ago, Giant Ice Spider said:

So I have been working on a novel in a low-fantasy setting (and no, it's not about politics or apocalypses so nothing like ASOIAF), and I was doing research on medieval military logistics. And I learned something very interesting.

A soldier carries their own food, and can at most carry a week's worth of food at any one time.

This creates a problem with a certain event in ASOIAF, namely Robb's march south. It's indicated it takes a few weeks to pass through the Neck. So what did Robb and his army eat?

For the record, there were two ways to resupply an army in the Middle Ages: having ships follow them (impossible), and foraging (how the hell are you gonna forage in the Neck of all places???).

I think George describes armies carrying food in the baggage train, which is bloody ridiculous. You need more wagons, which means more pack-animals, which means you need more feed, which means you need more wagons to carry said feed, which means … you get the picture.

In fact, as I'm writing this, how does anyone pass through the Neck? There are no places to stop off and resupply (despite the fact this could be very profitable for the crannogmen), most people can't hunt frogs, and even if you could carry a month's rations, what's to stop them spoiling?

Seriously, HOW DO PEOPLE GET THROUGH THE NECK???

 

Westerosi armies simply have to be better organized than most medieval european armies were.   Their numbers are far too large otherwise.  There's no reason they can't have an effective baggage train, plenty of armies figured it out more primtive settings.  Fodder is actually going to be more challenging than food, as the armies we seen in ASOIAF utilize a lot of cavalry, and horses eat a lot of it.

 

If you think about it, Westeros really should be good at one thing above everything else:  Storing and transporting food.  If they're not, then every winter would see a mass die off of the population, which would just be a serious negative feedback cycle until everyone was dead.  The north especially would have no growing season during the "winter" if half what we've been told is true.  The television show has done a very poor showing of this, but the novels have mentioned on numerous occasions that many lords are shirking their responsabilities when it comes to food storage, and the wars have really just exacerabted that.   

Its probably a reasonable assumption that Robb marched south on the food he should have been saving for winter.  He wouldn't have had another option for acquiring supplies in such a short time frame.

[Giant Ice Spider]

On ‎8‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 12:12 AM, argonak said:

 

Westerosi armies simply have to be better organized than most medieval european armies were.   Their numbers are far too large otherwise.  There's no reason they can't have an effective baggage train, plenty of armies figured it out more primtive settings.  Fodder is actually going to be more challenging than food, as the armies we seen in ASOIAF utilize a lot of cavalry, and horses eat a lot of it.

 

If you think about it, Westeros really should be good at one thing above everything else:  Storing and transporting food.  If they're not, then every winter would see a mass die off of the population, which would just be a serious negative feedback cycle until everyone was dead.  The north especially would have no growing season during the "winter" if half what we've been told is true.  The television show has done a very poor showing of this, but the novels have mentioned on numerous occasions that many lords are shirking their responsabilities when it comes to food storage, and the wars have really just exacerabted that.   

Its probably a reasonable assumption that Robb marched south on the food he should have been saving for winter.  He wouldn't have had another option for acquiring supplies in such a short time frame.

The implication I get is that lords store food for their castles, not their smallfolk. I see no way in which the smallfolk are able to survive at all, frankly. I'm one of those people who thinks GRRM didn't completely think through the weird seasons.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Giant Ice Spider said:

The implication I get is that lords store food for their castles, not their smallfolk. I see no way in which the smallfolk are able to survive at all, frankly. I'm one of those people who thinks GRRM didn't completely think through the weird seasons.

That is a misconception. Food is stored in every holdfast. But instead of the dozen or so holdfasts we see on the map of the North, for example, there is a holdfasts for every vassal lord, petty lord and landed knight. Maybe more than one each, one for every cluster of small villages, in fact. After all, the idea is that the holdfast protects the local village or villages in its immediate surroundings.

With a population of millions, and an average village size of say 50 people, we are talking 80,000 plus villages in the North. That means at least 20,000 holdfasts, even if some are no more than Stannis’s current tower in the Wolfswood.

And each one will store the food for its local area.

[Giant Ice Spider]

23 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

That is a misconception. Food is stored in every holdfast. But instead of the dozen or so holdfasts we see on the map of the North, for example, there is a holdfasts for every vassal lord, petty lord and landed knight. Maybe more than one each, one for every cluster of small villages, in fact. After all, the idea is that the holdfast protects the local village or villages in its immediate surroundings.

With a population of millions, and an average village size of say 50 people, we are talking 80,000 plus villages in the North. That means at least 20,000 holdfasts, even if some are no more than Stannis’s current tower in the Wolfswood.

And each one will store the food for its local area.

In the North, at least, that will only help the holdfast population.

For neighbouring villages in the North, winter could well have them totally cut off from the nearest holdfast. What are they to do then?

[Ygrain]

1 hour ago, Giant Ice Spider said:

For neighbouring villages in the North, winter could well have them totally cut off from the nearest holdfast. What are they to do then?

Perhaps they abandon the village and move in close to the holdfast? That at least seems to be the idea behind Winterfell's Wintertown.

[Jaak]

Is there any evidence that the winter food stores are in castles or "holdfasts"?

 

King´s Landing points at the opposite.

Food supplies to King´s Landing are interrupted by fighting in Riverlands and Reach being on the other side - and King´s Landing promptly starves.

It is autumn after a long summer and before a feared long winter.

Somewhere in Westeros should be the food stores for a long winter.

The hunger in King´s Landing is evidence that the stores were not there. The stores had been left in Riverlands and Reach, and the plan for King´s Landing must have been to transport food from Riverlands and Reach continuously throughout winter, with no stockpile kept in the city.

Castles and holdfasts?

They have some stockpiles for themselves. But are those meant just for garrisons and courts permanently residing there?

For the winter stores of smallfolks might just as well stay dispersed in the smallfolk homesteads.

[Ygrain]

Given the poor management (not to mention certain people sowing chaos) inKL, I wouldn't take it as an example of how Westerosi winters are managed. 

[argonak]

On 8/26/2018 at 5:12 AM, Jaak said:

Is there any evidence that the winter food stores are in castles or "holdfasts"?

 

King´s Landing points at the opposite.

Food supplies to King´s Landing are interrupted by fighting in Riverlands and Reach being on the other side - and King´s Landing promptly starves.

It is autumn after a long summer and before a feared long winter.

Somewhere in Westeros should be the food stores for a long winter.

The hunger in King´s Landing is evidence that the stores were not there. The stores had been left in Riverlands and Reach, and the plan for King´s Landing must have been to transport food from Riverlands and Reach continuously throughout winter, with no stockpile kept in the city.

Castles and holdfasts?

They have some stockpiles for themselves. But are those meant just for garrisons and courts permanently residing there?

For the winter stores of smallfolks might just as well stay dispersed in the smallfolk homesteads.

 

Is your average peasant going to be willing to spend 10 years saving food and living lean because of what might happen?  In my opinion its most likely going to be the responsability of the Lord or Ser, because he's a member of the leadership caste, and has access to a Maester (or his Lord's Maester) who can advise him.    Leaving food supplies diserpsed in smallfolk homesteads would make them a target for bandits and wildlings.  it makes more sense that everyone would retire to the hold fast during the worst of the winter, and that the primary food stores would be kept there the rest of the time. 

 

In any famine situation you have to get control of the food supply and start rationing.  Otherwise profiteering goes up, and eventually the fabric of society tears apart when people start murdering each other for food for their children.  The best way to keep everything together is for some sort of central management which can provide just dispersement.  It makes complete sense to use the existing fuedal structure for this.

 

As to King's Landing, Robert was a TERRIBLE King.  The crown was 6 million in debt, so Littlefinger would likely have sold all the food supplies off.  

[Jaak]

About the Neck: when Theon´s trickery cleared Moat Cailin, Ramsay sent riders with message to Roose´s army of 4000.

The whole return trip was just 3 days - riders Moat Cailin to Roose, then Roose marching from where they met to Moat Cailin.

[Giant Ice Spider]

4 hours ago, Jaak said:

About the Neck: when Theon´s trickery cleared Moat Cailin, Ramsay sent riders with message to Roose´s army of 4000.

The whole return trip was just 3 days - riders Moat Cailin to Roose, then Roose marching from where they met to Moat Cailin.

Roose was not at the base of the Neck. I think it's stated that he was waiting just on the other side of Moat Cailin.