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Westerosi armies, composition and implications


Aldarion

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1) Oftentimes we see combinations of "pikemen and archers" - and it is unclear whether archers are bowmen, as Martin also uses "archers" for crossbowmen. Though I figure they mostly use longbows, because, hey, Fantasy England.

2) Mounted bowmen are used. These were very prominent in English armies. Unlike e.g. Byzantine mounted archers, or even Hungarian mounted crossbowmen, English mounted longbowmen typically dismounted for combat.

3) Again, pikemen. This means that infantry is either professional or semi-professional, as effectively using pikes - even in a purely defensive manner, which is not what we see in Westeros - requires training.

4) Pikemen in battle form squares, with cavalry on flanks. Pikemen are backed up by (dismounted) men-at-arms . What this means is several things:

a) George does not use proper terminology. Man-at-arms was a mounted solider, knight-but-not-a-knight, so if you want men-at-arms on foot, it has to be noted.

b) Formation is actually only prepared for attacks from front. In an all-directional defensive formation, such as infantry square, dismounted men-at-arms would be within the square, in order to engage with close-combat weapons (pollaxes etc.) any enemies which managed to penetrate ranks of pikemen. Assuming men-at-arms weren't acting as pikemen to begin with.

c) Westerosi infantry is actually highly disciplined. If they were a peasant rabble, no sane commander would have allowed them to hold the center. Basically:

* Trained infantry can be positioned in the center, as they will hold. They are the pivot which cavalry leans on, and if they fail, battle is lost.

* Untrained infantry will be positioned behind cavalry, as they can only be relied on to finish off already broken enemy. Thus the typical feudal order of battle which begins and ends with charge of heavy mounted cavalry, while infantry provides, at best, a cheering squad.

5) Northern infantry in AGoT advances "with a measured tread behind a wall of shields and pikes". This is not what untrained rabble can achieve. Even if you provided peasants with pikes and gave them a crash course, the best they could do is to form a circle and wait for cavalry charge. That is how Hungarians used their native infantry, and relied on missile infantry and Western mercenaries (such as Swiss pikemen) to give infantry offensive punch.

6) We do see "fieldhands and half-trained boys" - in the same battle - but the arrangement is nonsense. First, they ride "plow horses". You can't ride a plow horse into battle. "War horses", specifically destriers, were ridden for a reason. They are not just strong (though not necessarily that large), they are also trained for war. Noise is the biggest problem here. Untrained horse will run away uncontrollably from sudden noise, as noted here. Destriers were a) trained and b) mildly psychotic. They were trained to actually fight, and destrier could be almost as dangerous as man on him. Second, they are "armed with scythes and their fathers' rusted swords". I mean, seriously? Those are not weapons you use from horseback. If you are fighting from a horse, order of weapons is lance / spear > warhammer > sword. Notice anything? All these are weapons used in one hand - and while Byzantine lancers might have used lances in two hands, such a lance did not require much hand movement, thus horse could still be controlled. Unlike, say, a scythe.

All of the above shows that we cannot expect realism from Martin's warfare. Luckily, he himself appears aware of that, and thus puts combat into second plan, while in the first plan are political machinations - Robb Stark loses due to politics, etc. But warfare does play a part. And Essos is, when it comes to realism in warfare, even worse. George is using warfare to push his points, but he sacrifices realism for sake of that. Much like in politics, he abandons history and realism for the sake of grimdark: just as medieval politics were nowhere as treacherous as what he is portraying (England might have been an exception in that - but from what I do know about Wars of the Roses and Plantagenets, they were still not as bad as Westerosi kings and lords), so was warfare not as inhumane as what he is showing. Yes, you would murder peasants and burn fields (chevauchee), but - and this is an important point - it was done only when fighting an outside force (e.g. English-French, Hungarian/Croatian-Ottoman wars). Reason why Wars of the Roses saw numerous pitched battles was precisely because combatants did not want to destroy resources they were fighting over, and thus had to opt for pitched battle. So either you have chevauchee, or you have numerous pitched battles - yet in Westeros, you get both, with no good explanation as to why. Tywin's behaviour of "burn, rape and pillage" only makes sense if he has accepted North as independent kingdom from the outset and is acting in a similar way. And even then, there were still rules of warfare in Middle Ages, something which in Westeros does not seem to exist. Something like sack of King's Landing (where Lannister forces were killing people of all ages - as Mormont states, "babes were butchered, and old men, and children at play"), or sack of any city seen in ASoIaF, almost never happened in Middle Ages - at least, in wars between Christians (religious wars such as Crusades were another thing). In fact, if a lord ordered such a sack, it was not unimaginable that his own troops would kill him. What George Martin is describing is not Wars of the Roses, it is Ottoman Wars or Thirty Years War. And why is this important? Because neither features a feudal state. Ottoman Empire during 15th and 16th centuries was a quasi-Byzantine polity, with landowning soldiers but very centralized political authority at Constantinople - Ottoman raids often involved forces larger than what English fielded for major battles in Hundred Years' War. Warfare in Thirty Years War was likewise war between highly centralized states. And scale of warfare in ASoIaF means that combatants there control - each - a large polity equivalent to perhaps France or Holy Roman Empire - except far more centralized and politically cohesive than either was in this period. All of the factors noted mean that warfare in ASoIaF is not feudal, it is early modern. And this means that armies, too, can hardly be feudal.

In fact, not only is total military establishment large - though not unrealistically so even for a feudal society - but field armies are massive. Renly Baratheon has a host - in the field - of 80 000 men. For comparison, Battle of Mohacs - a battle which saw the end of medieval kingdom of Hungary - saw Hungarians field 25 000 troops. Around 10 000 of those were infantry, and majority of the rest light cavalry. This was the most that Hungary was able to muster at all, as similarly-sized force was mustered in 1521-2. Ottoman army, for comparison, fielded 60 000 regular troops and unknown number of irregulars. Which, again, shows that armies are not feudal.

CONCLUSIONS

To sum up, Westerosi armies are:

1) predominantly professional

2) modern

3) with modern and extensive logistical system

Anything else - peasant rabble, or even feudal retinue-of-retinues, does not make sense in the light of above.

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57 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

CONCLUSIONS

To sum up, Westerosi armies are:

1) predominantly professional

2) modern

3) with modern and extensive logistical system

Anything else - peasant rabble, or even feudal retinue-of-retinues, does not make sense in the light of above.

Cat's description of Robb's army

 

And yet there was sense in what they said. This host her son had assembled was not a standing army such as the Free Cities were accustomed to maintain, nor a force of guardsmen paid in coin. Most of them were smallfolk: crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of innkeeps and traders and tanners, leavened with a smattering of sellswords and freeriders hungry for plunder. When their lords called, they came … but not forever. "Marching is all very well," she said to her son, "but where, and to what purpose? What do you mean to do?"

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1 hour ago, Bernie Mac said:

Cat's description of Robb's army

 

And yet there was sense in what they said. This host her son had assembled was not a standing army such as the Free Cities were accustomed to maintain, nor a force of guardsmen paid in coin. Most of them were smallfolk: crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of innkeeps and traders and tanners, leavened with a smattering of sellswords and freeriders hungry for plunder. When their lords called, they came … but not forever. "Marching is all very well," she said to her son, "but where, and to what purpose? What do you mean to do?"

And yet their behaviour is complete opposite of what they are described as.

Besides, Westeros seems to be divided into "nobility" and "smallfolk". Which means that even professional or semi-professional troops would be considered "smallfolk" in Westeros; and as I noted in other threads, being a professional soldier does not mean that you cannot have profession along military one (that is what I mean by semi-professional - basically, similar to Byzantine thematic troops or modern-day US National Guard).

Lastly, this is Catelyn we are speaking of. She is not exactly the most reliable source of information. And even if she were, I do not see why we should throw away actual descriptions of how forces in question act in favour of internal thoughts of one person.

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53 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

And yet their behaviour is complete opposite of what they are described as.

Besides, Westeros seems to be divided into "nobility" and "smallfolk". Which means that even professional or semi-professional troops would be considered "smallfolk" in Westeros; and as I noted in other threads, being a professional soldier does not mean that you cannot have profession along military one (that is what I mean by semi-professional - basically, similar to Byzantine thematic troops or modern-day US National Guard).

Lastly, this is Catelyn we are speaking of. She is not exactly the most reliable source of information. And even if she were, I do not see why we should throw away actual descriptions of how forces in question act in favour of internal thoughts of one person.

It is not just Cat. Septon Meribald's monologue on soldiers turning becoming broken men describes an army that is not really professional.

Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.

“Then they get a taste of battle.

“For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.

“They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.

“If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world…

 

We also have the Westerland army being released so they can get back to their harvests.

As for the Lannister host, two thousand seasoned veterans remained encamped outside the city walls, awaiting the arrival of Paxter Redwyne's fleet to carry them across Blackwater Bay to Dragonstone. Lord Stannis appeared to have left only a small garrison behind him when he sailed north, so two thousand men would be more than sufficient, Cersei had judged.
The rest of the westermen had gone back to their wives and children, to rebuild their homes, plant their fields, and bring in one last harvest
 
As well as the Vanguard of Tywin's army at the Battle of the Green Fork
 
He watched Ser Gregor as the Mountain rode up and down the line, shouting and gesticulating. This wing too was all cavalry, but where the right was a mailed fist of knights and heavy lancers, the vanguard was made up of the sweepings of the west: mounted archers in leather jerkins, a swarming mass of undisciplined freeriders and sellswords, fieldhands on plow horses armed with scythes and their fathers' rusted swords, half-trained boys from the stews of Lannisport … and Tyrion and his mountain clansmen.
"Crow food," Bronn muttered beside him, giving voice to what Tyrion had left unsaid. He could only nod. Had his lord father taken leave of his senses? No pikes, too few bowmen, a bare handful of knights, the ill-armed and unarmored, commanded by an unthinking brute who led with his rage … how could his father expect this travesty of a battle to hold his left?
 
 
We are told that both the Umbers and Karstarks sent too many men which has meant both have not been able to bring in their harvests.
 
"My lady, how do things stand at Karhold with your food stores?"
"Not well." Alys sighed. "My father took so many of our men south with him that only the women and young boys were left to bring the harvest in. Them, and the men too old or crippled to go off to war. Crops withered in the fields or were pounded into the mud by autumn rains. And now the snows are come.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
"The crows in Eastwatch are too few to stop them, and they go to ground quick as weasels. It's longships we need, aye, and strong men to sail them. The Greatjon took too many. Half our harvest is gone to seed for want of arms to swing the scythes."

 

The evidence suggests that there is a pretty large amount of 'civilians' in the armies of Westeros.

 

edit: Finally a direct quote from GRRM himself on the Northern army

 

I'd say these three kingdoms were roughly equal in the force they could assemble... but the north is much bigger, so it takes longer for an army to gather. And life is harsher there as well, so lords and smallfolk both need to think carefully before beating those plowshares into swords.

 

This does not suggest that the majority are professional.

 

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12 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

It is not just Cat. Septon Meribald's monologue on soldiers turning becoming broken men describes an army that is not really professional.

 

I have already adressed this in other thread, but point is, neither of these are in line with actual events. While there may be some peasants in the army, first-line troops behave like professional soldiers.

So basically we have events and actions of these armies which point to well-trained, cohesive and at least somewhat professional forces, and then statements of characters (and the author) which point towards peasant mobs or militia at most.

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45 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

have already adressed this in other thread, but point is, neither of these are in line with actual events. While there may be some peasants in the army, first-line troops behave like professional soldiers.

So basically we have events and actions of these armies which point to well-trained, cohesive and at least somewhat professional forces, and then statements of characters (and the author) which point towards peasant mobs or militia at most.

And I already have answered you about this contradiction: It because we see events and actions build upon movements and tactics of real armies, most of which were professionals or at least semi-professionals, while we get the characters telling us how the armies really look like.

Martin doesn't care too much that many of the tactics wouldn't be possible with the armies he is building, or more specific: we only get glimpses of what is happening on the battlefields, we don't see that the majority of those untrained small-folk is doing in the battle, except of what Meribald has told us.

But he needs this structure of these armies, else for example the GC would not stand a chance against a much much bigger host of at least decently trained "soldiers", not to start with real early modern armies. :)

 

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1 minute ago, Morte said:

And I already have answered you about this contradiction: It because we see events and actions build upon movements and tactics of real armies, most of which were professionals or at least semi-professionals, while we get the characters telling us how the armies really look like.

Martin doesn't care too much that many of the tactics wouldn't be possible with the armies he is building, or more specific: we only get glimpses of what is happening on the battlefields, we don't see that the majority of those untrained small-folk is doing in the battle, except of what Meribald has told us.

But he needs this structure of these armies, else for example the GC would not stand a chance against a much much bigger host of at least decently trained "soldiers", not to start with real early modern armies. :)

Generally speaking, when discussing reliability of evidence, "word of mouth" - a.k.a. statements - are considered the least reliable. Which is to say, if X happens in the text, but character says that Y happened, then X is correct. If X is archeological evidence, and Y is written evidence, then X overwrites Y. Why should it be different when discussing Westerosi armies?

And Martin does not need Westerosi armies to be composed of peasants to have them suffer catastrophic defeats. Armies of trained soldiers still got slaughtered if their enemy was much more successful at integrating combined-arms tactics, or simply exploiting the advantage of terrain. Western knights were professionals and unstoppable in charge, yet Ottomans - despite their main striking arm (sipahis) being significantly inferior to Western knights - regularly won battles against Western-model armies; even when latter were led by competent commanders who knew how Ottoman military worked, such as Janos Hunyadi. Golden Company is a professional combined-arms force, whereas Westerosi armies are comprised of nobility. And seeing how Reach is basically France, and French stupidity lost Crusaders the battle of Nicopolis... point is, even with professional army, leadership and tactics still matter. Highest professionalism in the world will not save you if your commander is an infantile moron brought up on tales of chivalry (a.k.a. from Reach).

There is a reason why Mace Tyrell will be the one leading attack against Aegon, instead of Randyll Tarly, and why Martin portrayed Mace with an inflated view of his own military ability. It is about the time that that baloon burst...

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The Meribald speech cannot be stressed enough - it is a core piece of prose in AFfC, effectively the biggest reason why that book is named 'A Feast for Crows' (depicting the destruction and death that follows war) - especially because this was actually a Westerosi war of agression, a preemptive strike against a potential enemy of the Iron Throne on foreign soil. The Westerosi invaded the Stepstones in that war. Which means, the men marching to war there weren't the men you muster when some kind of succession or civil war or a local lord rebelling tears apart your neighborhood (the current state of affairs in the Riverlands would see much more men in arms because they are protecting their homes and attacking the men who killed their neighbors and family and stole their goods).

If we have a guy from a modest village like Septon Meribald going to war on the Stepstones for his lord and king, then this wasn't an army made up of a lot of professionals. If there were many professionals in Westeros then Jaehaerys II would have called on those - he would have formed a strong force of professional warriors drawn from all the Seven Kingdoms so that he would not have to rely on men who didn't know their trade on foreign soil. Because dragging unexperienced men to a war like that wouldn't be done if it could be avoided. And Meribald doesn't send us the message he and his brothers were the only people like that.

But that's not what happened.

One can guess that every castle can send a certain number of professional warriors to his liege lord or king - the great houses could send hundreds one imagines (think of the size of the personal guard the Lannisters and Starks can afford), the lesser houses scores, dozens, or only a handful. And all those modest landed knights or petty lords who barely can keep their own keep running they only go themselves, with their sons and, perhaps, a squire or a single sworn sword. All men they will bring in addition to that will be men from villages whose only experience at fighting would be if they had been to a war before - which most of the Westerosi simply wouldn't have been because there usually are no proper wars in Westeros.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The Meribald speech cannot be stressed enough - it is a core piece of prose in AFfC, effectively the biggest reason why that book is named 'A Feast for Crows' (depicting the destruction and death that follows war) - especially because this was actually a Westerosi war of agression, a preemptive strike against a potential enemy of the Iron Throne on foreign soil. The Westerosi invaded the Stepstones in that war. Which means, the men marching to war there weren't the men you muster when some kind of succession or civil war or a local lord rebelling tears apart your neighborhood (the current state of affairs in the Riverlands would see much more men in arms because they are protecting their homes and attacking the men who killed their neighbors and family and stole their goods).

If we have a guy from a modest village like Septon Meribald going to war on the Stepstones for his lord and king, then this wasn't an army made up of a lot of professionals. If there were many professionals in Westeros then Jaehaerys II would have called on those - he would have formed a strong force of professional warriors drawn from all the Seven Kingdoms so that he would not have to rely on men who didn't know their trade on foreign soil. Because dragging unexperienced men to a war like that wouldn't be done if it could be avoided. And Meribald doesn't send us the message he and his brothers were the only people like that.

But that's not what happened.

One can guess that every castle can send a certain number of professional warriors to his liege lord or king - the great houses could send hundreds one imagines (think of the size of the personal guard the Lannisters and Starks can afford), the lesser houses scores, dozens, or only a handful. And all those modest landed knights or petty lords who barely can keep their own keep running they only go themselves, with their sons and, perhaps, a squire or a single sworn sword. All men they will bring in addition to that will be men from villages whose only experience at fighting would be if they had been to a war before - which most of the Westerosi simply wouldn't have been because there usually are no proper wars in Westeros.

And what we actually see throughout A Song of Ice and Fire is the exact opposite of what Meribald described in his little speech. And even if we take his description at face value, the reason why it should not be taken as a typical Westerosi force is the exact same for why you believe it should be: it was a preemptive strike against enemy of Iron Throne on foreign soil. How much will lord have cared about enemies of Iron Throne at all? They are definitely not going to send their best troops to die in a foreign land unless they perceive a direct threat to themselves. In Hungary in 15th century, John Hunyadi - and later Matthias Corvinus - had massive problems in campaigns against Ottomans because nobles were not required to send troops beyond borders of the kingdom. If anything, any force Seven Kingdoms sent to the Stepstones will have been dregs of the dregs, rather than elite. This is a feudal society; why would lords have sent any forces at all for such a campaign? Iron Throne can be happy it got some troops at all.

And why do you think Jaehaerys will have had access to professional troops in Westeros? Again, professional soldiers =/= standing royal army. What you are describing is behaviour of a king with access to a standing army, akin to French Compagnies d'Ordonnance, Hungarian Black Army or Byzantine tagmata. But Westeros does not have a standing army. What it does have is a system of banderies, where each lord maintains a force of professionals and then leads this force at king's call. These are not necessarily full-time soldiers - neither were Byzantine thematic troops - but they are not amateurs either, much less hastily trained peasants. Again, see how US National Guard functions - it is the closest modern-day equivalent. Even so, political structure of such a system means that king cannot just command nobles' forces as he wants. These are private armies, and nobles are free to send the king whatever they want - assuming of course they believe they can get off doing so without reprisals. Which in this case they could, since it was Iron Throne engaging in foreign adventurism rather than Westeros itself being invaded.

It is generally agreed here that Westerosi armies = 1% of total populace. That means that they are professional forces. If the situation truly was what you describe, that Robb Stark and other kings brought field hands with them, that would have meant that between 10 and 20% of population of Westeros was in these armies. That is what feudal societies managed when they went balls-to-the-wall and mobilized peasants. Do you really thing that Westerlands have population of 400 000? Even having "only" 4% of people in military would have still meant that they have part-time soldiers - not even Byzantine thematic troops, but actually part-time soldiers, a.k.a. militia.

I managed to find this to illustrate what I explained above:

https://external-preview.redd.it/wAPDdAVvPoY9ApqigXOGoDe5a8Oi1OBxw4D2b8Q8XQg.jpg?auto=webp&s=3f32cc54a050909771a264ae9fa76a4d972088de

Keep in mind that you are arguing not for part time troops, but for armed peasants. Which, again, means that Westerosi armies should be cca 10% of the entire population of the continent. Somewhat less when you account for professional elements such as knights, but definitely much more than 1%.

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Factoring that both the vale and north can raise 45k at full force. If we use the rule of 1% or 2% of the population was mustered. Than both the north and vale have a population of around 2-4 million. 

England had a population of around 2 million in the late Middle Ages and whenever the kings of England would sail to France theyd bring armies of around 10k-15k. Henry V brought somewhere around 12k to northern France, and all of these soldiers were semi and professional soldiers. 

So it would make more sense if Robb brought a mainly professional army with him. Full of free riders, masterly houses and their retinues, and the semi-professional peasants that serve as a part time soldier. 

It is reported that last hearth and karhold had a bad harvest due to the local men Marching off to war. Karstark and umber brought around 2k each. This makes little sense since both these lands are likely to have a population between 100k-200k. And even if their full 2k was all farmers, the umbers and karstarks would still have more than enough man to collect the harvest. 

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The problem is that there is nothing stopping GRRM from describing soldiers in a way that historically implies professionalism in one paragraph and then turning round and saying they're more or less a peasant rabble in the next especially when he draws historical inspiration from places and periods where armies consisting of peasant rabbles weren't the reality whilst also wanting to make his commentary on the effect of war on people like Septon Meribald.  It's something you have to take with a grain of salt, like how all the castles in ASOIAF are giant impregnable strongholds one minute then fall like autumn leaves the next or how Stannis' army are basically fearless burning ship bridge crossing terminators when assaulting King's Landing... until they're not. 

The simple reality is, it aint that deep. 

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8 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Factoring that both the vale and north can raise 45k at full force. If we use the rule of 1% or 2% of the population was mustered. Than both the north and vale have a population of around 2-4 million. 

England had a population of around 2 million in the late Middle Ages and whenever the kings of England would sail to France theyd bring armies of around 10k-15k. Henry V brought somewhere around 12k to northern France, and all of these soldiers were semi and professional soldiers. 

So it would make more sense if Robb brought a mainly professional army with him. Full of free riders, masterly houses and their retinues, and the semi-professional peasants that serve as a part time soldier. 

It is reported that last hearth and karhold had a bad harvest due to the local men Marching off to war. Karstark and umber brought around 2k each. This makes little sense since both these lands are likely to have a population between 100k-200k. And even if their full 2k was all farmers, the umbers and karstarks would still have more than enough man to collect the harvest. 

Mightn't the North have contributed a higher percentage of their population and they just have a very small population?

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7 hours ago, Canon Claude said:

Mightn't the North have contributed a higher percentage of their population and they just have a very small population?

Thats what it seems like. Because Martin likes to remind us how the north is out of manpower in acok.

In a medieval setting for a kingdom to conscript most of its male population is practically impossible. Youd need to have the systems that France and the uk had during ww1.

If lets say the north had a small population (which is how it seems like) than that means Robb most have raised at least 10%-20% of its manpower which is practically impossible, especially with the size of the north and how quickly he raised his army.

Like I have trouble believing that because Karstark raised 2k man that now karhold a land that stretches 300 miles is deprived of its harvest due to the farmers going to war. It is very likely that at least 500 of these soldiers were professional and semi professional. 

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18 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Factoring that both the vale and north can raise 45k at full force. If we use the rule of 1% or 2% of the population was mustered. Than both the north and vale have a population of around 2-4 million. 

England had a population of around 2 million in the late Middle Ages and whenever the kings of England would sail to France theyd bring armies of around 10k-15k. Henry V brought somewhere around 12k to northern France, and all of these soldiers were semi and professional soldiers. 

So it would make more sense if Robb brought a mainly professional army with him. Full of free riders, masterly houses and their retinues, and the semi-professional peasants that serve as a part time soldier. 

It is reported that last hearth and karhold had a bad harvest due to the local men Marching off to war. Karstark and umber brought around 2k each. This makes little sense since both these lands are likely to have a population between 100k-200k. And even if their full 2k was all farmers, the umbers and karstarks would still have more than enough man to collect the harvest. 

Exactly. What you described is part of my point, actually: armies in the books are too small, and operate over too large distances, to be anything but professional soldiers.

18 hours ago, Trigger Warning said:

The problem is that there is nothing stopping GRRM from describing soldiers in a way that historically implies professionalism in one paragraph and then turning round and saying they're more or less a peasant rabble in the next especially when he draws historical inspiration from places and periods where armies consisting of peasant rabbles weren't the reality whilst also wanting to make his commentary on the effect of war on people like Septon Meribald.  It's something you have to take with a grain of salt, like how all the castles in ASOIAF are giant impregnable strongholds one minute then fall like autumn leaves the next or how Stannis' army are basically fearless burning ship bridge crossing terminators when assaulting King's Landing... until they're not. 

The simple reality is, it aint that deep. 

Agreed. Martin truly shines in character building and description, but his worldbuilding, while extensive, is rather shoddy.

2 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Thats what it seems like. Because Martin likes to remind us how the north is out of manpower in acok.

In a medieval setting for a kingdom to conscript most of its male population is practically impossible. Youd need to have the systems that France and the uk had during ww1.

If lets say the north had a small population (which is how it seems like) than that means Robb most have raised at least 10%-20% of its manpower which is practically impossible, especially with the size of the north and how quickly he raised his army.

Like I have trouble believing that because Karstark raised 2k man that now karhold a land that stretches 300 miles is deprived of its harvest due to the farmers going to war. It is very likely that at least 500 of these soldiers were professional and semi professional. 

Problem is that you need certain population density to have a coherent kingdom in the first place, else what you have is not a kingdom but a bunch of independent statelets. And North already is at the lower end of that spectrum. If it has 50 000 professional soldiers, that would mean a population between 2 500 000 and 10 000 000. North is 3 885 000 km2, which would mean population density of 0,64 to 2,57 people per square kilometer.

Population density of Sahara is 0,28 people per km2. That of Siberia is 3 people per km2. Meaning that with professional soldiers, you still get population densities which range from edge-of-plausible-low to logically-impossible-unless-zombie-plague-low (EDIT: note that this ignores requirements of cities such as King's Landing and Oldtown existing as well as the fact that North needs to be actually populated, which would render both densities implausibly low). But having those soldiers be militia or farmhands? That is impossible if you want to have a society which can exist to begin with.

So no, North could not have sent anything but cooling-balls-during-peacetime professional soldiers.

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10 hours ago, Canon Claude said:

Mightn't the North have contributed a higher percentage of their population and they just have a very small population?

Any notion that the North is able to mobilize a larger portion of its population for war than the southron kingdoms is non-sensical. This is the kingdom that has a lower agricultural yield per hectare of farmland than its southron counterparts, so needs more manpower per hectare to raise an equivalent volume of crops, so can spare fewer men. The lower yield further means that the North needs comparatively more men to generate the surplus needed to feed a soldier for every day spent on the march, and on top of that because of the greater distances each soldier will spend more days on the march so will need to have that daily surplus for more days than an equivalent southron army.

All of this compounds the reality that the North can in fact raise a SMALLER percentage of its population to war than the southron kingdoms. So if the North can raise a similar sized army as the Vale, that would mean that it likely has a larger population than the Vale.

As for composition. I would say the mounted lancers are all professional soldiers. In Robb’s army that was about 5000 out of 20000.

In addition there would probably be thousands of fairly well trained men at arms among the infantry, along with thousands of archers. But I doubt many of these spend all the years between wars permanently “soldiering”. Nope, they probably go and farm during peace time.

Essentially, the knights are professional soldiers, the rest are part timers with varying degrees of training and experience. 

And that’s before you get to the dregs, like Stafford’s army of pot boys and street urchins at Oxcross.

 

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Another major problem is northern cavalry. Or their ability to keep enough horses alive during long winters. After all it is not easy to keep horses alive during long winters. Reason is that horses need a lot of fresh and high quality food to stay alive and without that they would first became sick and then die. Limited supply of that was major reason why only 1 of 1000 people in Finland in year 1500 could be a cavalryman and here winter lasting 6 months would have been very long and terrible. If winters would have lasted any longer people almost certainly would have eaten their horses.

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On 6/5/2020 at 11:48 PM, Trigger Warning said:

The problem is that there is nothing stopping GRRM from describing soldiers in a way that historically implies professionalism in one paragraph and then turning round and saying they're more or less a peasant rabble in the next especially when he draws historical inspiration from places and periods where armies consisting of peasant rabbles weren't the reality whilst also wanting to make his commentary on the effect of war on people like Septon Meribald.  It's something you have to take with a grain of salt, like how all the castles in ASOIAF are giant impregnable strongholds one minute then fall like autumn leaves the next or how Stannis' army are basically fearless burning ship bridge crossing terminators when assaulting King's Landing... until they're not. 

The simple reality is, it aint that deep. 

Exactly. There are too many inconsistencies there to actually paint a consistent picture or construct a coherent 'military system' providing the background for the narrative George actually cares about.

This is why horses show up and disappear without a trace, why on the one hand things look professional, but other sources make it clear that they are not, etc.

In my opinion, especially casual descriptions of the looks of an army or groups in that army seen by a POV are not worth much. If somebody tells us that a group of Frey soldiers all look as if they were uniformly armored and equipped in the Frey colors then this doesn't allow us to conclude, in my opinion, that the Freys equip all their men in this manner nor necessarily that the character noting this *really meant* all the men in service of Frey in that particular instant - and especially not that all the other houses do it in that way. The Freys are pretty rich, so they certainly might equip all the men-at-arms permanently in their service in such a manner, but the entire feudalism thing means that most of the men that answer a Frey call of arms would wear their own colors, and the retainers of those lords would wear their own, and so on and so forth.

The idea one can take a throwaway line here or there - especially back in AGoT when the worldbuilding wasn't that detailed yet - as the foundation of a system and as source material to guess at or extrapolate how many men any given region or house might be able to field in the future is, in my opinion, completely misguided.

George is not going to limit himself by such restrictions.

On 6/5/2020 at 8:48 PM, Aldarion said:

And what we actually see throughout A Song of Ice and Fire is the exact opposite of what Meribald described in his little speech. And even if we take his description at face value, the reason why it should not be taken as a typical Westerosi force is the exact same for why you believe it should be: it was a preemptive strike against enemy of Iron Throne on foreign soil. How much will lord have cared about enemies of Iron Throne at all? They are definitely not going to send their best troops to die in a foreign land unless they perceive a direct threat to themselves.

This is a feudal system. If a lord didn't care to send men to his king, then he wouldn't call them to arms at all. But professional warriors - all those second sons of the lords and knights who cannot expect to inherit a lordship or a lot of land - would be rather keen to catch the eye of the king or a great lord by showing their prowess in battle so they can gain a permanent position at court or in such a lord's household.

If men like Meribald and his brothers and peers ended up fighting in a war on the Stepstones this means the lord who originally raised them wanted to go there and wanted to show Jaehaerys II to show he was loyal. They wouldn't have gone there on their own at all - because they weren't professional soldiers. Warfare wasn't their trade at all. They had to receive training before they went to the Stepstones.

If the king doesn't have a standing army/many professional men, neither do the lords - because they have to raise them the same way the king would raise men from the lands he controls directly.

The fact that men keen to show how great fighters they were - men like Brynden Tully, for instance - didn't make up all or the bulk of the men on the Stepstones shows us how unprofessional the fighting men of Westeros actually are.

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And why do you think Jaehaerys will have had access to professional troops in Westeros? Again, professional soldiers =/= standing royal army. What you are describing is behaviour of a king with access to a standing army, akin to French Compagnies d'Ordonnance, Hungarian Black Army or Byzantine tagmata. But Westeros does not have a standing army. What it does have is a system of banderies, where each lord maintains a force of professionals and then leads this force at king's call. These are not necessarily full-time soldiers - neither were Byzantine thematic troops - but they are not amateurs either, much less hastily trained peasants. Again, see how US National Guard functions - it is the closest modern-day equivalent. Even so, political structure of such a system means that king cannot just command nobles' forces as he wants. These are private armies, and nobles are free to send the king whatever they want - assuming of course they believe they can get off doing so without reprisals. Which in this case they could, since it was Iron Throne engaging in foreign adventurism rather than Westeros itself being invaded.

I think I made that clear - each lord of standing does have a small contingent of professional men-at-arms - guardsmen, sworn swords, (older) squires, that sort of thing. If we imagine the king assembling an army from all over the Seven Kingdoms then those professional would make a considerable portion of the army ... but even then not all of the men are such professionals.

And of course the king has the largest contingent of professional soldiers - the City Watch of KL is the largest in the Realm, and he is rich enough to keep the most household knights and sworn swords and the like. The Lannisters and Hightowers and Tyrells might be able to finance as many or perhaps even more men in this manner, but the bulk of Westerosi nobility does not have such resources. Keep in mind that Lord Sunderland, who rules all the Three Sisters, has trouble affording to make all his seven sons into knights. If this is an issue for this man, then very few lords can afford to permanently employ professional warriors - especially (other) knights.

Of course, the overall feudalism system of Westeros makes no sense at all. It is not realistic. The King on the Iron Throne should be a figurehead with no power, sort of a weaker version of the Holy Roman Emperor. In fact, even the kings before the Conquest would have just been powerless figureheads, especially the Starks in the North - who, without a standing army, would have never been able to conquer and hold those vast territories.

But to make the story work we simply have to assume that the lords of the Realm didn't see themselves as 'in all for themselves' or quarreling with the Crown over any issue, but be pretty content with the role the system gave them. The way I make sense of the Westerosi system now is that the lords like the Starks are perfectly happy serving the king in sort of double function - as hereditary royal officials (Wardens of the North) and powerful lordly landowners.

Unlike in the real world George completely ignored class struggles between (high) nobility and the monarchs. Nobody ever tried to turn the king into an impotent figurehead.

It also seems to me that overall most of the lesser nobility are traditionally royalists - as can be seen by the fact that Robert's Rebellion had many Arryn and Baratheon bannermen side with the king, at least in the beginning.

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It is generally agreed here that Westerosi armies = 1% of total populace. That means that they are professional forces. If the situation truly was what you describe, that Robb Stark and other kings brought field hands with them, that would have meant that between 10 and 20% of population of Westeros was in these armies. That is what feudal societies managed when they went balls-to-the-wall and mobilized peasants. Do you really thing that Westerlands have population of 400 000? Even having "only" 4% of people in military would have still meant that they have part-time soldiers - not even Byzantine thematic troops, but actually part-time soldiers, a.k.a. militia.

There is no actual internal confirmation for that 1% thing, and I'm not convinced by that, but even if you go by that, you always have to consider center vs. periphery in all that. There seems to be no proper royal or lordly administration in Westeros that would count as such - which means the larger a lordly territory is, the fewer men could the lord draft the farther away from his seat we go. That would mean that, say, 20-50% or more castle men might go to war, while 0% of the men in the periphery go.

In the North we have so much evidence that the men fighting effectively are the men doing the harvest. If the men doing the harvest weren't the men fighting, then the harvest could be brought in while all the Northern warriors are off fighting in the Riverlands - but that is clearly not the case. Stuff like that is a recurring theme we cannot really ignore.

Overall, issues like that are tedious because George isn't good with numbers. He doesn't calculate how many people live in castles compared to the countryside folk, and how high the percentage of castle people vs. smallfolk from villages is.

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If you want to be a bit generous to GRRM you can explain it through the fact that Westeros is a lot more peaceful than medieval Europe was. The past several decades prior to the War of the Five Kings saw only like, what, three real wars across the entire continent? All of which were brief.

Considering this, it can make sense that Westerosi military forces are less capable than you saw in medieval Europe. And particularly that they lack the large numbers of professional soldiers and mercenaries. There is simply not enough of a job market for them. 

 

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6 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

Another major problem is northern cavalry. Or their ability to keep enough horses alive during long winters. After all it is not easy to keep horses alive during long winters. Reason is that horses need a lot of fresh and high quality food to stay alive and without that they would first became sick and then die. Limited supply of that was major reason why only 1 of 1000 people in Finland in year 1500 could be a cavalryman and here winter lasting 6 months would have been very long and terrible. If winters would have lasted any longer people almost certainly would have eaten their horses.

It takes 2 years for a horse to be fully grown from birth. And with the long seasons, a horse wouldnt be experiencing the harsh winters.

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4 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

It takes 2 years for a horse to be fully grown from birth. And with the long seasons, a horse wouldnt be experiencing the harsh winters.

Don't start the entire winter thing. That just doesn't work from any realistic perspective. And it is a pity that George completely failed at that thing since that was his one singular new invention - the characteristic trait of his world are those freak seasons. Yet in five books and not even in the two history pieces did he give any sort of explanation how those people get through winter.

Westeros - or at least the North and perhaps also the Riverlands and parts of the West and the Vale - simply couldn't even practice agriculture if this was a realistic setting. I mean, the crucial reason while we in the real world developed agriculture in the regions where there are fixed seasons is that those seasons are fixed. Things are predictable. You know when it is going to snow and how long snow is likely to last, and you know, more or less, what to expect in the other seasons. Sure there can still be droughts and too much rain and storms and all that, but you still know what to expect.

Westerosi seasons are completely unpredictable. Winters can last years and, possibly only months (very short winters may have lasted less than a year). How the hell could any society - but especially a medieval feudal society - plan for that? How could they store sufficient food for winter if they don't know how long it will last?

That is just ridiculous if you actually think about for two minutes.

Also, the entire societal framework really makes no sense in that setting. Feudalism? Really, in a world where the collective survival of an entire continent would depend on cooperation and preparation rather than every village, town, castle hoarding as much food as they can store?

And then there is the warring nonsense - does it really make sense that any group in Westeros would behave as stupidly as our ASoIaF gang do if they truly lived in a world where winter could kill them all? Would they truly start wars in autumn/late summer? Would the people collectively accept shit like that? Or wouldn't have society evolved in a way that made it anathema to go to war when harvest had to be brought in and preparations for winter be made?

In fact, one wonders whether those rules the Summer Islanders allegedly developed to resolve their differences wouldn't also be the rules that would have been developed in Westeros - because society as a whole simply could not afford to go to war over trivial things. The survival of all would depend on that.

Westeros as this place plagued by freak seasons doesn't really fit well with the scheming Westeros of the present or a Westeros that was always at war with itself prior to the Conquest.

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