Proof that Westerosi armies are professionals

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Freys however are still major lords. We also see Karstarks use their own sigils. What I do not recall however is landed knights using their own coats of arms. So overall, system appears to be roughly similar to Hungarian banderial system.

Nope, everybody with a sigil uses his own sigil, not that of his lord. Just look at the household knights and the sworn swords in service to petty lords and the like.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You also cannot dismiss the fact that Meribald is describing his personal experiences, nor the fact that those personal experiences do not fit description of any army we see in the field (Tywin's and Roose's armies in Battle of Green Fork, Tywin's and Stannis' armies in Battle of King's Landing, Stannis' army at the Wall). Yet you dismiss those facts, despite there being an explanation that is a) logical, b) internally consistent and c) does not require dismissing any evidence. That solution are camp followers.

Of course those accounts fit - we don't have any detailed descriptions of those battles and all the people involved, nor do we have any indication that men like Meribald cannot meet your standards of discipline.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I never dismissed Meribald's speech. You however are dismissing entire battles in favour of speech which can be easily shown to not be describing actual troops utilized by Westerosi armies.

I don't put much meaning into this stuff because I know the author doesn't, either. He doesn't care creating some kind of consistent military system background, just as he doesn't give a damn about portraying feudalism realistically - or giving us any indication how government in this world could work.

Neither would. It is not a very well thought out fictional world on that level. And that shows.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Drafted to serve as camp followers. Not drafted to serve as basis of line of battle.

That is wrong. Meribald and his brothers were drafted to fight, not as camp followers. And he makes it clear that this is how war goes in general, and he is not contradicted by either Hyle Hunt or Brienne of Tarth who listen to him. They do not talk about professional soldiers and stuff there, do they?

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Soldier-peasants are professional soldiers. They are part-time professionals, who have to work their lands in addition to training with weapons, but they are professionals - soldiering is their profession. And they would actually be financed and equipped by several households, not just their own. They are not conscripts, much less untrained and undisciplined rabble.

The point there is that men necessary for harvest are not financed and equipped by several households who can afford that - they are actually crucial for the harvest and are missing in war. And those are just a couple of people, they are the bulk of the men many a Northern lord led to war. And it is not claimed that those would be professional soldiers of any kind (men actually working on the field doing crucial work there cannot professionally train at arms).

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And North suffering due to harvest does not even mean that troops themselves are peasants (though many may be - but again, they would be trained, equipped, organized and disciplined). Armies need camp followers, and those are easiest to find in proximity of castles - which means that castles will loose hands necessary to bring in the harvest.

Nobody ever mentions anything about male camp followers so far, so a huge focus on that means you invent things for yourself. And, frankly, it makes no sense that you as a lord would allow to crucial people who are to bring in your own harvest to go to war if they could also take camp followers from other lands. The Glovers and Karstarks need winter provisions in their own castle if they want to survive winter. They would care about their own well-being first. Yet instead we have them failing to bring in their own personal harvest.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You cannot keep raiders out of your lands in premodern times, no matter what kind of army you have. Romans were not able to keep barbarians or Arabs out of their lands, Byzantines were not able to keep Arabs or Turks, Hungarians and Croatians were not able to keep Ottomans, Americans were not able to keep Indians... fact that North suffers raids does not mean its armies are not professional. In fact, peasant levies would probably be better at keeping raiders out than professional soldiers, simply because there would be more of them (on the order of 150 000 - 250 000 in North alone).

You could do a better job at that if you actually had proper soldier-peasants there, no? Like it is in the Vale or the Marches where the Dornish and wildling raiders do not cause a migration out of the region - unlike in the Gifts.

The comparison there is also way off in light of the fact that wildlings have, as a general rule, no discipline and inferior weaponry, armory, and equipment, which means a handful of men under proper arms in any given Northern village should be able repel a wildling raider band consisting of a dozen or a score of wildlings - and that seems to be the size of the average raiding party, we don't hear the wildlings raiding the Gifts and the other lands in large numbers, do we?

Last time I checked this kind of difference isn't made in real world Europe, right?

5 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think @ran has pointed out that it would be very difficult to keep more than 5-6% of the adult male population under arms for any length of time, without agricultural production crashing.

Of course, we just have no clue how high the percentage of the noble elites and their retinues are in comparison to rest?

For the North we can say that agricultural production crushes if the Starks call in their banners. Because that's what happened in the books ... and would have happened if Cregan Stark had marched earlier to war during the Dance.

5 hours ago, SeanF said:

But, that would still leave a substantial proportion of adult males who had some skill at arms, and owned weapons.  As I mentioned upthread, archers in particular had to practise continuously to be any good.  In England, they were overwhelmingly drawn from the class of prosperous  peasants, who could afford bows, and afford the time to practise. Very few people would be full time soldiers, but many would hold plots of land, or hunting rights, or receive a retainer on the understanding that they would fight when called upon.

Yeah, there are archers among the smallfolk in Westeros. But they are scarce to our knowledge, and we don't know that they train at villages and settlements on their own, or only at castles under the supervision of their lords. The only region famed for their archery are the men of the Dornish Marches (where Anguy also comes from) which is an exceptional region in the sense that there is a very martial culture there.

I mean, we never get any talk about their being, say, private smallfolk archers - who trained at archery on their own, in their villages, because it is part of their culture. And there was more than enough opportunity for Catelyn, Arya, Brienne, Jaime, etc. to meet such people in the Riverlands.

Structurally, the smallfolk are not militarily organized independent of their lords. We hear a lot about septries being despoiled and plundered in the Riverlands, meaning that not even the religious authorities do have defenders of any kind. And the Poor Fellows, the humble order of the Faith Militant, do not have any archers, either. They do wield axes.

5 hours ago, SeanF said:

But, yes, you'd also get the men who followed Ser Eustace, and the men who are described by Merribald, who just get conscripted.

The point is that we cannot really speculate properly about the way any given army is made up because we simply do not know from what places the more professionally looking/behaving soldiers actually come from. Are they all/for the most part castle men? Lords, knights, squires, even? Are they the combination of all the professional garrisons of the big castles? How high is the percentage of professional freeriders and hedge knights and sworn swords and sellswords in a given army? And so on.

Without knowing that, we can not make any claims about how professional the feudal levies which are raised and called in actually are. They could just be rabble for the most part ... with the professional war business being shouldered by the castle men and hired folk (hedge knights, sworn swords, freeriders, sellswords).

Because the issue there simply is that we haven't gotten any description of the men who get drafted other than what we see in TSS and get told by Septon Meribald.

The world George is painting is a feudal world where the lords in power force the common men to fight for their benefit ... sort of like the US government forced the youth of George's generation to fight in Vietnam. He does not paint a world where the common man is on the same page as the elite in the military and war department. They do have different (class) interests and do not exactly complement each other - as would be the case, say, if the bulk of the Westerosi military would be the proud English longbowman who actually got something out of his skill set and the loyalty towards the king.

[The Green Bard]

8 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I never claimed that Westerosi armies are standing armies. I did claim, and still claim, that majority of troops in Westerosi armies are professionals.

Look, I think I did my best to understand your claim.  I read your entire post, which is more than many would do, given that you claimed "proof" and gave one quote from the text, which IMHO contradicted your claim. 

How can you have professional soldiers without standing armies?  What do they do for money when the army is not standing?  If it isn't "being a soldier in an army," I have to question your definition of professional soldier.  What is that definition btw? It seems to me that there should be no logical difference between my understanding of your claim (that it logically means there is a standing army) and your actual claim.  What am I missing?

[Universal Sword Donor]

11 hours ago, The Green Bard said:

My understanding, such as it is, is that serfs basically didn't have property rights.  What am I missing?  Can you explain with evidence?  Logically I am still struggling with the assertion that they were well-armed, owning their own weapons, but they were actually peasants and did not go off to war.  

These armies are largely based on English armies during the war of the roses and before. There were rules set forth by the Plantegenets on the kind of equipment you had to bring to serve in the army when called and these were based on the Viking era before the Conqueror came. I will prolly screw up the the arms armor a little bit, but depending on your wealth / income you had to bring different equipment:

• 2 pounds - spear, helmet, padded jack (later this could be an archer too)
• 5 pounds - spear, chainmail, helmet, shield
• et al

So there were indeed dirt poor serfs / peasants but they were not the ones fighting. The guys running the estate / small farm (or their son) would go off fighting and the untrained serfs would be left behind to farm or whatever activities they were assigned.

11 hours ago, The Green Bard said:

I've read it.  You are going to have to do a better job explaining what is incongruent.  It is definitely the picture the author wants to paint. Perhaps the issue is more in the earlier POVs account of the actual situation on the ground.  Every single one of our POVs, save Melisandre and some of the Epilogue / prologue character, are high-borne.  What I see is that he is shredding their biased view of the world.  We also get a lot of this in Dunk and Egg which is primarily in DUnk's POV.  Also, it's not like Brienne took issue with anything he said.  

Basically every soldier we see, with 2 exceptions*, is armed with at least a spear / axe / pike and wearing chainmail and a helmet, from Robb's army to Tywin's to Renly's to Tarly's and more. Meribald's brother was a potboy at an inn, so he wouldn't have had the money to properly arm himself (nor should a pot boy be expected to). We know he stole a knife from the kitchen and marched off with the army along with Meribald and three others. Only one of them died on the battlefield and none had a weapon or armor.

For a consolidated set of quotes and explanations, you can read this

* We see "the sweepings of Lannisport" that Tywin is using for a trap and a few of the Frey soldiers going north in ADWD only have fire hardened sticks but the majority are properly outfitted 

11 hours ago, The Green Bard said:

Also, desertion is a problem in both Stannis and Robb's armies.  Perhaps we don't see it in Bolton and Tywin's armies because of the inherent risk associated to their ruthlessness and proclivity for foraging parties.  It also clearly happens in battle when the defeated side breaks.  I just don't see what about Meribald's story does not fit with this?

Tywin loses men to desertion and on the march. It's specifically mentioned the march from the Trident to KL (or wherever they met Mace) they left men on the roadside and we see the Mummers and a Tyroshi sellsword desert Tywin at various points. Not to mention the Westerlings.

11 hours ago, The Green Bard said:

I really think that the misunderstanding between us here is that I am reading and basing my understanding of the wars in this story based upon what the author has written, but y'all are applying a lot of RL logic to it, which might be logical to you, but might not be how the author views it, and in Westeros, the authors opinion matters more.  To me, the text definitely states that these types of people are brought along on these campaigns. 

We have the word of someone who was never trained to be a soldier versus actual words showing competent fighters in all the panoply of war. There are clearly some assumptions being made by everyone here. We see almost everything from the noble perspective. The best description we get of a common soldier is Steelshanks Walton, who owns a farm, is well armed and armored, and is one of Roose's captains. Roose isn't going to use a peasant who doesn't know war or how to organize / train men as his captain of the guard or escort a high value hostage to the king, and he does both those things.

 

[Universal Sword Donor]

58 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That is wrong. Meribald and his brothers were drafted to fight, not as camp followers. And he makes it clear that this is how war goes in general, and he is not contradicted by either Hyle Hunt or Brienne of Tarth who listen to him. They do not talk about professional soldiers and stuff there, do they?

Actually we know he wasn't. Meribald snuck off to war because he didn't want to be left behind. His brothers and friend might have been conscripted, but having to steal a knife doesn't exactly strike me as being recruited by a lord but Brienne does use the phrase "march you off to war" or something similar.

Quote

Structurally, the smallfolk are not militarily organized independent of their lords. We hear a lot about septries being despoiled and plundered in the Riverlands, meaning that not even the religious authorities do have defenders of any kind. And the Poor Fellows, the humble order of the Faith Militant, do not have any archers, either. They do wield axes.

The faith hasn't been allowed to keep and bear arms since Maegor. The crown promised to protect them, so it's not a surprise that they don't have any inherent protection from their order(s). 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Actually we know he wasn't. Meribald snuck off to war because he didn't want to be left behind. His brothers and friend might have been conscripted, but having to steal a knife doesn't exactly strike me as being recruited by a lord but Brienne does use the phrase "march you off to war" or something similar.

I know that Meribald wasn't conscripted as such, but neither are, in any real sense, Eustace Osgrey's levies, are they? Dunk and Bennis show up in their villages, demand they come to join the army, and they do. There is no formal conscription there, nor any kind of indication that this kind of thing is done in an official or bureaucratic fashion. Instead, it is implied that any able-bodied commoner living on the lands of his lord or knight has to fight for him if he is called upon. There is no indication that only a certain class of people, nor is there any indication that a lord has a system in place that ensures the farming and agricultural thing continues as before. Whoever feels like it can leave home and hearth and fields and cattle and march off to war.

In fact, the authorities are the ones rejecting volunteers, there is no indication that people actively try to avoid conscription.

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

The faith hasn't been allowed to keep and bear arms since Maegor. The crown promised to protect them, so it's not a surprise that they don't have any inherent protection from their order(s). 

Oh, but if you have a considerable number of armed commoners in any given region - say, the Riverlands around those septries we talk about - then those men would band together and deal with minor enemy raiding and foraging parties, no? A dozen longbowmen or more would have made short work out of Tywin's raiding parties. And we do know that Robb allowed the Riverlords to take their levies back home to defend their own lands, meaning that those lands weren't defenseless. We see that the smallfolk are appalled by how the various factions treated the members of the Faith, yet apparently they didn't have the power to stop them - which they would have if they had had any arms as smallfolk.

And to be sure, the Poor Fellows are back long before Maegor's laws are overturned - they may have never been truly gone if you think about the Shepherd - considering the sparrows call themselves Poor Fellows and are armed like Poor Fellows even before the Poor Fellows are officially back.

The fact remains - there is no indication that armed commoners in Westeros arm themselves or have to maintain be able to finance their own equipment. That is something independent knights (i.e. hedge knights) have to do, but nobody else so far. Landed knights and lords would also pay for their stuff by ways of their incomes, but household knights might be paid in coin or might receive a mixed income of coin and other revenues they might have (although they don't hold any lands).

[Universal Sword Donor]

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I know that Meribald wasn't conscripted as such, but neither are, in any real sense, Eustace Osgrey's levies, are they? Dunk and Bennis show up in their villages, demand they come to join the army, and they do. There is no formal conscription there, nor any kind of indication that this kind of thing is done in an official or bureaucratic fashion. Instead, it is implied that any able-bodied commoner living on the lands of his lord or knight has to fight for him if he is called upon. There is no indication that only a certain class of people, nor is there any indication that a lord has a system in place that ensures the farming and agricultural thing continues as before. Whoever feels like it can leave home and hearth and fields and cattle and march off to war.

That's pretty much the definition for conscription. I guess you can call it summoning the levy, but the end result and mechanism are the same. I feel very comfortable calling it conscription.

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, but if you have a considerable number of armed commoners in any given region - say, the Riverlands around those septries we talk about - then those men would band together and deal with minor enemy raiding and foraging parties, no? 

I was confirming that of course septs are going to be despoiled because they have no defense. Ideally the lords or landed knights (or sheriff) would gather some men and deal with outlaws, and we see the Freys doing exactly that on Jaime's RL campaign.

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The fact remains - there is no indication that armed commoners in Westeros arm themselves or have to maintain be able to finance their own equipment. That is something independent knights (i.e. hedge knights) have to do, but nobody else so far. Landed knights and lords would also pay for their stuff by ways of their incomes, but household knights might be paid in coin or might receive a mixed income of coin and other revenues they might have (although they don't hold any lands).

We know that the northern army is made up of small folk who bring their own weapons and armor, so I would dispute that nearly completely. We see dozens of lords with their assembled men and in the inside of numerous castles, and nary a one talks about arming their levies.

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Nope, everybody with a sigil uses his own sigil, not that of his lord. Just look at the household knights and the sworn swords in service to petty lords and the like.

 

Maybe, but we see Frey and Karstark infantry using sigils of their houses, and at least where infantry is concerned I have only seen sigils of major houses be mentioned.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Of course those accounts fit - we don't have any detailed descriptions of those battles and all the people involved, nor do we have any indication that men like Meribald cannot meet your standards of discipline.

 

First, we have at least very detailed description of Tywin's army in AGoT. Descriptions of other armies also give no indication of untrained and underequipped rabble being present in significant numbers. Second, men like Meribald definitely do not meet standards of equipment, and are clearly unlikely to meet standards of discipline. Third, we know what happens to untrained men:

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The gold cloaks were almost as uncertain a weapon. Six thousand men in the City Watch, thanks to Cersei, but only a quarter of them could be relied upon. "There's few out-and-out traitors, though there's some, even your spider hasn't found them all," Bywater had warned him. "But there's hundreds greener than spring grass, men who joined for bread and ale and safety. No man likes to look craven in the sight of his fellows, so they'll fight brave enough at the start, when it's all warhorns and blowing banners. But if the battle looks to be going sour they'll break, and they'll break bad. The first man to throw down his spear and run will have a thousand more trodding on his heels."

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Then suddenly the mammoths were fleeing, running from the smoke and flames and smashing into those behind them in their terror. Those went backward too, the giants and wildlings behind them scrambling to get out of their way. In half a heartbeat the whole center was collapsing. The horsemen on the flanks saw themselves being abandoned and decided to fall back as well, not one so much as blooded. Even the chariots rumbled off, having done nothing but look fearsome and make a lot of noise. When they break, they break hard, Jon Snow thought as he watched them reel away. The drums had all gone silent. How do you like that music, Mance? How do you like the taste of the Dornishman's wife? "Do we have anyone hurt?" he asked.

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It's done, Jon thought, they're breaking. The wildlings were running, throwing down their weapons, Hornfoot men and cave dwellers and Thenns in bronze scales, they were running. Mance was gone, someone was waving Harma's head on a pole, Tormund's lines had broken. Only the giants on their mammoths were holding, hairy islands in a red steel sea. The fires were leaping from tent to tent and some of the tall pines were going up as well. And through the smoke another wedge of armored riders came, on barded horses. Floating above them were the largest banners yet, royal standards as big as sheets; a yellow one with long pointed tongues that showed a flaming heart, and another like a sheet of beaten gold, with a black stag prancing and rippling in the wind.

Compare this to Northerners in AGoT who fight a battle tired after a long quick march (Wildlings were fresh):

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The trumpets blared again, da-DAAA da-DAAA da-DA da-DA da-DAAAAAAA. Ser Gregor waved his huge sword and bellowed a command, and a thousand other voices screamed back at him. Tyrion put his spurs to his horse and added one more voice to the cacophony, and the van surged forward. "The river!" he shouted at his clansmen as they rode. "Remember, hew to the river." He was still leading when they broke a canter, until Chella gave a bloodcurdling shriek and galloped past him, and Shagga howled and followed. The clansmen charged after them, leaving Tyrion in their dust.

A crescent of enemy spearmen had formed ahead, a double hedgehog bristling with steel, waiting behind tall oaken shields marked with the sunburst of Karstark. Gregor Clegane was the first to reach them, leading a wedge of armored veterans. Half the horses shied at the last second, breaking their charge before the row of spears. The others died, sharp steel points ripping through their chests. Tyrion saw a dozen men go down. The Mountain's stallion reared, lashing out with iron-shod hooves as a barbed spearhead raked across his neck. Maddened, the beast lunged into the ranks. Spears thrust at him from every side, but the shield wall broke beneath his weight. The northerners stumbled away from the animal's death throes. As his horse fell, snorting blood and biting with his last red breath, the Mountain rose untouched, laying about him with his two-handed greatsword.

Shagga went bursting through the gap before the shields could close, other Stone Crows hard behind him. Tyrion shouted, "Burned Men! Moon Brothers! After me!" but most of them were ahead of him. He glimpsed Timett son of Timett vault free as his mount died under him in full stride, saw a Moon Brother impaled on a Karstark spear, watched Conn's horse shatter a man's ribs with a kick. A flight of arrows descended on them; where they came from he could not say, but they fell on Stark and Lannister alike, rattling off armor or finding flesh. Tyrion lifted his shield and hid beneath it.

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Dazed, the dwarf knelt and lifted the blade. Pain hammered through his elbow when he moved his arm. The battle seemed to have moved beyond him. No one remained on his part of the field save a large number of corpses. Ravens were already circling and landing to feed. He saw that Ser Kevan had brought up his center in support of the van; his huge mass of pikemen had pushed the northerners back against the hills. They were struggling on the slopes, pikes thrusting against another wall of shields, these oval and reinforced with iron studs. As he watched, the air filled with arrows again, and the men behind the oak wall crumbled beneath the murderous fire. "I believe you are losing, ser," he told the knight under the horse. The man made no reply.

It takes protracted battle, missile bombardment and heavy cavalry charge to break Northern infantry, which was without cavalry support, without significant missile support, outnumbered and fighting after an exhausting march. Wildlings? They had numerical advantage, advantage in cavalry, mammoths - basically everything except surprise and training. Yet they break hard and break fast - Stannis defeats a host of 30 000 at least (100 000 minus women and children) with 1 500 his own cavalry. Do you think he could have won at these odds had he been facing trained men? Conversely, if untrained men can be defeated at such odds, do you really think anyone will bother fielding them?

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't put much meaning into this stuff because I know the author doesn't, either. He doesn't care creating some kind of consistent military system background, just as he doesn't give a damn about portraying feudalism realistically - or giving us any indication how government in this world could work.

Neither would. It is not a very well thought out fictional world on that level. And that shows.

Doesn't matter. As I have already pointed out, I don't give half a... whatever about what he intended (it is not like either one of us can know that, anyway). What matters is what he described. Whether by accident or by intent, Martin has shown that Westeros predominantly uses well-trained, well-equipped, well-organized and well-disciplined soldiers.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is wrong. Meribald and his brothers were drafted to fight, not as camp followers. And he makes it clear that this is how war goes in general, and he is not contradicted by either Hyle Hunt or Brienne of Tarth who listen to him. They do not talk about professional soldiers and stuff there, do they?

 

He never says any of that stuff. He only mentions that he fought, but he doesn't say that he was intended to fight. He does mention that he and his friends had only one stolen kitchen knife between them - which is as good as outright saying they were never intended to be in combat in the first place, as any lord would give at least sharpened sticks to people who are expecting to fight in a battle (much like Dunk does with his peasant levy). The fuck they were supposed to do with a single knife? And Meribald is hardly a reliable narrator of military matters, compared to Tyrion (a lord with at least some training in command and organization) or Jon Connington (same). And unlike both Tyrion and Jon Connington, where we see internal thoughts of a character (who thus have no reason to lie), Septon Meribald is both a) speaking out loud and b) giving, in essence, a political speech.

Yes, there is evidence going both ways. What I do not understand is why are you consistently focusing on less reliable evidence while dismissing more reliable pieces?

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The point there is that men necessary for harvest are not financed and equipped by several households who can afford that - they are actually crucial for the harvest and are missing in war. And those are just a couple of people, they are the bulk of the men many a Northern lord led to war. And it is not claimed that those would be professional soldiers of any kind (men actually working on the field doing crucial work there cannot professionally train at arms).

 

And as I have already explained, you have absolutely no proof that it is soldiers who are crucial to the harvest, as opposed to army as a whole. Fact is that camp followers exist in ASoIaF, and fact is that any medieval army had a tail of camp followers two or more times as numerous as its actual soldiers. In fact, camp followers are a better explanation for whole harvest stuff, as an army of 20 000 men would have had anywhere between 20 000 and 100 000 camp followers - and seeing how this is a medieval feudal army, it will almost certainly be towards the "fatter" side (Roman force of 20 000 - two legions plus auxillia - would have had 20 000 camp followers, while early modern (17th century) army of 20 000 would have had 50 000 camp followers; medieval armies however were much more wasteful). Further, camp followers are much more likely to be locally drafted, thus creating localized shortcomings of workforce.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't put much meaning into this stuff because I know the author doesn't, either. He doesn't care creating some kind of consistent military system background, just as he doesn't give a damn about portraying feudalism realistically - or giving us any indication how government in this world could work.

Neither would. It is not a very well thought out fictional world on that level. And that shows.

Nobody mentions existence of oxygen or gravity (I think) yet we know it must exist. And you are forgetting that a) camp followers are absolutely crucial (no, they are not just whores) and b) whole campaign was mounted in a hurry. So no, they could not have been "taken from other lands", because entire campaign would have fallen apart before army even left Winterfell.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You could do a better job at that if you actually had proper soldier-peasants there, no? Like it is in the Vale or the Marches where the Dornish and wildling raiders do not cause a migration out of the region - unlike in the Gifts.

The comparison there is also way off in light of the fact that wildlings have, as a general rule, no discipline and inferior weaponry, armory, and equipment, which means a handful of men under proper arms in any given Northern village should be able repel a wildling raider band consisting of a dozen or a score of wildlings - and that seems to be the size of the average raiding party, we don't hear the wildlings raiding the Gifts and the other lands in large numbers, do we?

Last time I checked this kind of difference isn't made in real world Europe, right?

Gift was responsibility of Night's Watch. It has absolutely no relevance to military capability of northern kingdom.

All disadvantages of wildlings you had noted are absolutely irrelevant for raids. Again, if armed peasants were the normal state of things as your insistence on conscription implies, wildling raids would not be a problem. But a professional army is too limited numerically to be able to counter raiders, especially if majority of said army consists of infantry - as is the case in Westeros.

Your argument actually supports existence of professional soldiers.

1 hour ago, The Green Bard said:

Look, I think I did my best to understand your claim.  I read your entire post, which is more than many would do, given that you claimed "proof" and gave one quote from the text, which IMHO contradicted your claim. 

How can you have professional soldiers without standing armies?  What do they do for money when the army is not standing?  If it isn't "being a soldier in an army," I have to question your definition of professional soldier.  What is that definition btw? It seems to me that there should be no logical difference between my understanding of your claim (that it logically means there is a standing army) and your actual claim.  What am I missing?

You clearly have not read it, or at least not with attention, considering you are asking the very question (bolded) I have answered in both OP itself and multiple times since then.

I do not have patience to explain things I have already spent posts upon posts explaining (in this thread and many times before it), so I will just cite myself:

On 8/21/2020 at 4:09 PM, Aldarion said:

• Fact that lords "call the banners" implies that armies are raised by a system similar to Hungarian banderial system: private armies of professional levies and mercenaries maintained by nobility, and raised at request of a liege lord (senior noble, king). The language used in the text, socio-economic system of Westeros, as well as political consequences of the system all point to banderial system being used, or at least a system fairly similar to banderial system. And this means professional soldiers - but predominantly part-time professionals. Banderial soldiers are professionals, and while they are normally supported from estates of nobles who raise them, when campaigning they are paid campaign wage.

On 8/21/2020 at 4:09 PM, Aldarion said:

• Levies could indeed be "crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of innkeeps and traders and tanners", but this does not mean they were undertrained or underequipped. Such troops would be equivalent to medieval city militia, Byzantine thematic infantry or modern-day US National Guard: troops whose job is fighting, but who have jobs other than fighting as well. Levies would thus be part-time professionals: not exactly on the level of full-time professionals such as knights or mercenary companies (e.g. Golden Company), but very definitely not an untrained rabble, and fully capable of holding their own in a battle.
•  

On 8/23/2020 at 1:17 PM, Aldarion said:

And, again, not full-time =/= not professional. You can have professional soldiers who have "day job" alongside their job as a soldier. So he has duties as a soldier but also has another job which helps support him, and has drills and practice certain number of days in a month. There were and are quite few such troops throughout history:

http://www.warfareeast.co.uk/main/Hungarian_Armies.htm

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        The decline in the Generalis Exercitus increasingly lead to the responsibility for providing sufficient military forces shifting to the senior Nobles of the realm. As with almost all feudal societies the Nobility of Hungary had their own armed retinues. These retinues were originally made up of kinsmen called Familiaris or Servientes. This gave rise to the term familiaries to describe a Noble's armed following. Unlike western practises though those that served as familiaris were not automatically vassals of their chosen Noble. Service was not equated to vassalage, the familiaris only committed himself and not his own family, lands or retainers. It also fell to the Lord in question to equip and supply his familiaries. In this way the majority of the retinues tended to be made up of Hungary's lesser Nobility. The break down in Royal authority in the 13th and 14th Century saw an increase in the size of these familiaries. No longer were they comprised solely of trusted kinsmen but included anyone willing to serve. The name of these retinues also changed, they became Vexillum (flag/banner) and they also became a significant threat to the King's power. Vexillum came into use as it was customary for the familiaries to be fielded under their Noble's personal standard and leadership. The requirement for vexillum to provide the King with troops also brought about the risk of civil war. A situation clearly shown at the end of the 13th century with the death of the last Arpad King. The Nobles of Hungary used their Vexillum in the power struggle for the throne and created a myriad of 'little Caesars' in Hungary.

https://www.napoleon-series.org/military-info/organization/Austria/ArmyStudy/c_AustrianInsurrection.html

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In order to push back enemies through the borders and in order to achieve the so called “Tregua Domini” (by the Lord a Truce), the higher Prelates, the royal barons and the hereditary lands barons (landowners) had to raise their own troops, under their own standards (Fähnlein) or Banderia. This was the:

- Insurrectio Banderialis: noblemen and the Holy-orders had to raise hussars regiments (banderia. Singular Banderium) according to their financial wealth. These men were organised into the "Banderia" (at least 50 men, namely 1/8 of the full 400 men banderium force) of the noblemen owner (or Holy-order). It fought under the colour (standard) of the "Owner". If the noble was not so wealthy to raise 50 hussars, the eventual enrolled men were sent under the colour of the County (Banderium of the county). The King, the Queen, the Lords, Higher Prelates and some Holy-order could retain their own Banderia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Medieval_levies

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In medieval Scandinavia the leiðangr (Old Norse), leidang (Norwegian), leding, (Danish), ledung (Swedish), lichting (Dutch), expeditio (Latin) or sometimes leþing (Old English), was a levy of free farmers conscripted into coastal fleets for seasonal excursions and in defence of the realm.

The bulk of the Anglo-Saxon English army, called the fyrd, was composed of part-time English soldiers drawn from the freemen of each county. In the 690s Laws of Ine, three levels of fines are imposed on different social classes for neglecting military service.[10] Some modern writers claim military service was restricted to the landowning minor nobility. These thegns were the land-holding aristocracy of the time and were required to serve with their own armour and weapons for a certain number of days each year. The historian David Sturdy has cautioned about regarding the fyrd as a precursor to a modern national army composed of all ranks of society, describing it as a "ridiculous fantasy":

The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription.[11]

https://www.todaysmilitary.com/ways-to-serve/full-part-time-options

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Reservists are part-time service members, allowing them time to pursue a civilian career or college education while simultaneously serving their country. Members of the Reserve attend boot camp and are required to participate in training drills one weekend a month as well as a two-week program each year. Reservists can be deployed to serve alongside active-duty service members for special missions.

 

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

That's pretty much the definition for conscription. I guess you can call it summoning the levy, but the end result and mechanism are the same. I feel very comfortable calling it conscription.

Oh, well, in a feudal setting you would expect the lord/master of the manor to make sure that the men he needs for the field work to stay at home, you would not more or less hire volunteers. And there would, of course, be a feudal contract of sorts, meaning only the people who hold land and farms and have money would have an obligation to go to war.

But the author clearly doesn't make such distinctions.

On the other hand it is quite clear that it is a feudal service done to a lord to accompany him to war. It is made crystal clear that the Northmen won't wait indefinitely for Robb's pleasure.

6 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

I was confirming that of course septs are going to be despoiled because they have no defense. Ideally the lords or landed knights (or sheriff) would gather some men and deal with outlaws, and we see the Freys doing exactly that on Jaime's RL campaign.

Well, if the bulk of men-at-arms actually were soldier-peasants in the many villages and towns across the Riverlands, then there would be little to no use for lords there, no?

6 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

We know that the northern army is made up of small folk who bring their own weapons and armor, so I would dispute that nearly completely. We see dozens of lords with their assembled men and in the inside of numerous castles, and nary a one talks about arming their levies.

I didn't say all would equip them - but those Frey folk seem to be equipped in a kind of uniform and they seem to be equipped in a manner that the smallfolk we meet simply could not afford. And there are no towns on Frey territory that we know of where men wealthy enough to afford this kind of stuff could live.

Men in permanent service of lords - garrisons, city watches, etc.  wouldn't come in with clothes and armor depicting the colors and sigils of their new lords. They would be given or acquire that kind of stuff when they enter into the service of their lords.

Men in service to the vassals of a lord would at best wear the colors of their immediate lord, not those of the lord on the next tier. After all, the Webber men wear Webber colors or their own ... not Rowan or Tyrell colors.

Guardsmen wear the colors of the house they serve, but that's it. Men doing feudal service wear their own colors and depict their own sigils and banners. Household knights and the like, too. Not even the Kingsguard walk around in the colors of the royal family or have the dragon or the stag on their clothes. Only actual members of the noble houses seem to be doing that. It is a big deal that Harry the Heir includes the moon-and-falcon of House Arryn into his personal sigil.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Maybe, but we see Frey and Karstark infantry using sigils of their houses, and at least where infantry is concerned I have only seen sigils of major houses be mentioned.

There are battle standards/banners carried in front of a particular part of an army, but that's something that's dependent on who leads what part of an army - which isn't clear even with the Northmen as the quarrels they have about who takes precedent shows.

If you imagine the army of the Black Dragon then the Osgrey levies would have marched behind the standard of the Chequy Lion, especially until they reached the other parts of the eventual Redgrass Army ... and since they were rebels they would have decided themselves (or Daemon some other high commander would have done it for them) under whom they would serve in battle.

The same would be the case on the smaller scale. When the Karstarks call in their men they would march behind the standards of their lords and petty lords and masters, etc.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

First, we have at least very detailed description of Tywin's army in AGoT. Descriptions of other armies also give no indication of untrained and underequipped rabble being present in significant numbers. Second, men like Meribald definitely do not meet standards of equipment, and are clearly unlikely to meet standards of discipline. Third, we know what happens to untrained men:

This is not just discipline, it is also different equipment and different abilities/willingness to follow orders.

It is your claim that people have to be professional or semi-professional soldiers to be better soldiers than the wildlings. But that is not necessarily the view of the novels.

And I mean - there is no internal consistency to Goldcloaks being green and men first marching to war being green - which would be the case for most of the men going to war during the War of the Five Kings.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Compare this to Northerners in AGoT who fight a battle tired after a long quick march (Wildlings were fresh):

That is one battle. Not enough to make a conclusive case. Especially since you have no way of showing what kind of men those professionals you want to see there actually are. You could just as well conclude Stannis' men at the Blackwater were all green/undisciplined considering how they broke when Renly showed up.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

It takes protracted battle, missile bombardment and heavy cavalry charge to break Northern infantry, which was without cavalry support, without significant missile support, outnumbered and fighting after an exhausting march. Wildlings? They had numerical advantage, advantage in cavalry, mammoths - basically everything except surprise and training. Yet they break hard and break fast - Stannis defeats a host of 30 000 at least (100 000 minus women and children) with 1 500 his own cavalry. Do you think he could have won at these odds had he been facing trained men? Conversely, if untrained men can be defeated at such odds, do you really think anyone will bother fielding them?

That kind of thing has to be explained by the advantage of surprise as well as the wildlings completely unfamiliarity with knightly charges. Mance would have had has many, possibly more, professional soldiers than Stannis considering the number of raiders and spear wives and wildling fighters were among his men. He just couldn't use that advantage, not knowing how many men the enemy actually had. If Mance had known Stannis just had 1,500 men and Mance had time to prepare things would have likely gone very differently.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Doesn't matter. As I have already pointed out, I don't give half a... whatever about what he intended (it is not like either one of us can know that, anyway). What matters is what he described. Whether by accident or by intent, Martin has shown that Westeros predominantly uses well-trained, well-equipped, well-organized and well-disciplined soldiers.

No, he has established that this is actually not the case.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

He never says any of that stuff. He only mentions that he fought, but he doesn't say that he was intended to fight. He does mention that he and his friends had only one stolen kitchen knife between them - which is as good as outright saying they were never intended to be in combat in the first place, as any lord would give at least sharpened sticks to people who are expecting to fight in a battle (much like Dunk does with his peasant levy). The fuck they were supposed to do with a single knife? And Meribald is hardly a reliable narrator of military matters, compared to Tyrion (a lord with at least some training in command and organization) or Jon Connington (same). And unlike both Tyrion and Jon Connington, where we see internal thoughts of a character (who thus have no reason to lie), Septon Meribald is both a) speaking out loud and b) giving, in essence, a political speech.

Not every lord has to be a man who properly prepares his troops for battle.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Yes, there is evidence going both ways. What I do not understand is why are you consistently focusing on less reliable evidence while dismissing more reliable pieces?

Battle descriptions aren't reliable pieces. They are deliberately faulty because we are to get the image of a person stuck in a battle not knowing what's going on.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And as I have already explained, you have absolutely no proof that it is soldiers who are crucial to the harvest, as opposed to army as a whole. Fact is that camp followers exist in ASoIaF, and fact is that any medieval army had a tail of camp followers two or more times as numerous as its actual soldiers. In fact, camp followers are a better explanation for whole harvest stuff, as an army of 20 000 men would have had anywhere between 20 000 and 100 000 camp followers - and seeing how this is a medieval feudal army, it will almost certainly be towards the "fatter" side (Roman force of 20 000 - two legions plus auxillia - would have had 20 000 camp followers, while early modern (17th century) army of 20 000 would have had 50 000 camp followers; medieval armies however were much more wasteful). Further, camp followers are much more likely to be locally drafted, thus creating localized shortcomings of workforce.

Considering the numbers given in the series proper do not differentiate between camp followers and proper soldiers we have to assume the numbers given (or most of them at least) refer to all men in an army, not just the men who aren't camp followers.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Nobody mentions existence of oxygen or gravity (I think) yet we know it must exist. And you are forgetting that a) camp followers are absolutely crucial (no, they are not just whores) and b) whole campaign was mounted in a hurry. So no, they could not have been "taken from other lands", because entire campaign would have fallen apart before army even left Winterfell.

Camp followers may not be just whores ... but guess what: In ASoIaF only female camp followers showed up so far. This was actually a considerable issue for me when dealing with the specifics for the German edition - make it 'Marketenderin', a specific female translation, or try to find something else. And there are actually sentences where it is made clear that George means exclusively female sex workers when talking about camp followers.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Gift was responsibility of Night's Watch. It has absolutely no relevance to military capability of northern kingdom.

That is a non-argument. The smallfolk are the same smallfolk, and them actually serving a professional military order on the Gifts should increase their chances to receive proper training at arms and stuff, considering that all black brothers are professional warriors - unlike all Northmen south of the Gifts.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

All disadvantages of wildlings you had noted are absolutely irrelevant for raids. Again, if armed peasants were the normal state of things as your insistence on conscription implies, wildling raids would not be a problem. But a professional army is too limited numerically to be able to counter raiders, especially if majority of said army consists of infantry - as is the case in Westeros.

The wildling raids usually do not include more than a handful/dozen of men if the party we see in ASoS is any indication.

[Universal Sword Donor]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, well, in a feudal setting you would expect the lord/master of the manor to make sure that the men he needs for the field work to stay at home, you would not more or less hire volunteers. And there would, of course, be a feudal contract of sorts, meaning only the people who hold land and farms and have money would have an obligation to go to war.

But the author clearly doesn't make such distinctions.

Right so it's conscription / impressment since we have to fall back to the definition of english words.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

On the other hand it is quite clear that it is a feudal service done to a lord to accompany him to war. It is made crystal clear that the Northmen won't wait indefinitely for Robb's pleasure.

There are definitely 

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, if the bulk of men-at-arms actually were soldier-peasants in the many villages and towns across the Riverlands, then there would be little to no use for lords there, no?

...... No. Because those domains and demesnes would belong part and parcel to the lords. We see as much in the Bracken / Blackwood conflict.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I didn't say all would equip them - but those Frey folk seem to be equipped in a kind of uniform and they seem to be equipped in a manner that the smallfolk we meet simply could not afford. And there are no towns on Frey territory that we know of where men wealthy enough to afford this kind of stuff could live.

They have livery and similar arms. Are you really saying there are no landowners of any size beyond crofters in their domains?

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Men in permanent service of lords - garrisons, city watches, etc.  wouldn't come in with clothes and armor depicting the colors and sigils of their new lords. They would be given or acquire that kind of stuff when they enter into the service of their lords.

Or you just underestimate the attention to detail an author who admits he only has like two types of nobles and made a mistake.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Men in service to the vassals of a lord would at best wear the colors of their immediate lord, not those of the lord on the next tier. After all, the Webber men wear Webber colors or their own ... not Rowan or Tyrell colors.

And yet we see otherwise with the Frey men

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Guardsmen wear the colors of the house they serve, but that's it. Men doing feudal service wear their own colors and depict their own sigils and banners. Household knights and the like, too. Not even the Kingsguard walk around in the colors of the royal family or have the dragon or the stag on their clothes. Only actual members of the noble houses seem to be doing that. It is a big deal that Harry the Heir includes the moon-and-falcon of House Arryn into his personal sigil.

Harry the Heir is a noble, and he is heir to the Vale. Nameless men at arms are not anything similar. Why would anyone care who Frey thug #178 wears on his livery, which is 100% completely different than a personal sigil.

[Aldarion]

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There are battle standards/banners carried in front of a particular part of an army, but that's something that's dependent on who leads what part of an army - which isn't clear even with the Northmen as the quarrels they have about who takes precedent shows.

If you imagine the army of the Black Dragon then the Osgrey levies would have marched behind the standard of the Chequy Lion, especially until they reached the other parts of the eventual Redgrass Army ... and since they were rebels they would have decided themselves (or Daemon some other high commander would have done it for them) under whom they would serve in battle.

The same would be the case on the smaller scale. When the Karstarks call in their men they would march behind the standards of their lords and petty lords and masters, etc.

I'm not talking about battle standards, but about sigils painted on the shields (pavises?).

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

This is not just discipline, it is also different equipment and different abilities/willingness to follow orders.

It is your claim that people have to be professional or semi-professional soldiers to be better soldiers than the wildlings. But that is not necessarily the view of the novels.

And I mean - there is no internal consistency to Goldcloaks being green and men first marching to war being green - which would be the case for most of the men going to war during the War of the Five Kings.

Except it is the view of the novels. I have just provided citations which prove that; please stop ignoring them.

Difference is that Goldcloaks are essentially a police force, and their ranks had seen massive expansion anyway. On the other hand, those men first marching to war are still trained soldiers.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

This is not just discipline, it is also different equipment and different abilities/willingness to follow orders.

It is your claim that people have to be professional or semi-professional soldiers to be better soldiers than the wildlings. But that is not necessarily the view of the novels.

And I mean - there is no internal consistency to Goldcloaks being green and men first marching to war being green - which would be the case for most of the men going to war during the War of the Five Kings.

Then we can end the discussion here, because, according to that logic, we do not have enough proof for anything. And it is not just one battle: Stannis' men at Blackwater did not in fact "break". Men he got from Renly switched sides, but his own Dragonstone men managed to put up rearguard action (Roland Storm):

Quote

Ser Gerald Gower fought stoutly on the Blackwater, but afterward had been heard to say that R’hllor must be a feeble god to let his followers be chased off by a dwarf and a dead man. Ser Andrew Estermont was the king’s cousin, and had served as his squire years ago. The Bastard of Nightsong had commanded the rearguard that allowed Stannis to reach the safety of Salladhor Saan’s galleys, but he worshiped the Warrior with a faith as fierce as he was. King’s men, not queen’s men. But it would not do to boast of them.

That is not what concripted peasants do when caught by surprise.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That kind of thing has to be explained by the advantage of surprise as well as the wildlings completely unfamiliarity with knightly charges. Mance would have had has many, possibly more, professional soldiers than Stannis considering the number of raiders and spear wives and wildling fighters were among his men. He just couldn't use that advantage, not knowing how many men the enemy actually had. If Mance had known Stannis just had 1,500 men and Mance had time to prepare things would have likely gone very differently.

 

Cut the BS. Wildlings didn't form up lines and then get crushed, they were completely overrun without managing to mount even a semblance of organized resistence. The center column they shattered only because horses fear mammoths. 

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, he has established that this is actually not the case.

 

Where? Show me some proof instead of endlessly repeating one and the same thing.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Not every lord has to be a man who properly prepares his troops for battle.

 

And not every description of people who go with the army has to be of soldiers.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Battle descriptions aren't reliable pieces. They are deliberately faulty because we are to get the image of a person stuck in a battle not knowing what's going on.

 

Funny how this argument clearly invalidates the key "evidence" you have for Westerosi troops being rabble yet you don't see it. Personal memories are far less reliable than battle descriptions because a) they are naturally malleable and b) humans like to BS to themselves as much as they like to BS to others. It is not about "reliable vs unreliable" but "more reliable vs less reliable". You deliberately choose the latter simply because it agrees with your beliefs (which are based on I don't know what).

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Considering the numbers given in the series proper do not differentiate between camp followers and proper soldiers we have to assume the numbers given (or most of them at least) refer to all men in an army, not just the men who aren't camp followers.

 

Except they clearly do not refer to all men in the army, because Tywin's army is numbered like this:

• 20 000 troops total
• 4 000 heavy cavalry on right wing (professionals)
• 2 500 heavy cavalry in reserve (professionals)
• 2 500 infantry in reserve (professionals)
• 7 000 (?) infantry in center (professionals)
• 4 000 (?) cavalry on left wing (conscripts)

Even if you disagree with me about all these troops being professionals, it is clear that they all are - except those 4 000 on left wing - soldiers. Yet every time Tywin's main army is mentioned in the books, it is stated to have 20 000 troops. Likewise, Tyrell army is stated to have 80 000, Northern army 20 000... if those 20 000 truly included camp followers, Robb would not be a threat at all to Tywin. Yet he is. Likewise, when Stannis has arrived at Wall, he comes with "no more than fifteen hundred men". It is quite clear that this number in fact refers to his fighting strength.

So no, camp followers are not included in numbers given for armies in the series. Not single one of them. Have you read the books or you are merely making assumptions you believe would best help you support your argument?

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Camp followers may not be just whores ... but guess what: In ASoIaF only female camp followers showed up so far. This was actually a considerable issue for me when dealing with the specifics for the German edition - make it 'Marketenderin', a specific female translation, or try to find something else. And there are actually sentences where it is made clear that George means exclusively female sex workers when talking about camp followers.

 

Except they haven't. Septon Meribald and his men are clearly camp followers. Yes, when George uses the term "camp followers" he (usually) does refer to whores - he appears to use term "servants" for other camp followers. But that is just another example of him not understanding medieval military terminology and talking about things without understanding what he is talking about. But that doesn't mean that other types of camp followers do not exist.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is a non-argument. The smallfolk are the same smallfolk, and them actually serving a professional military order on the Gifts should increase their chances to receive proper training at arms and stuff, considering that all black brothers are professional warriors - unlike all Northmen south of the Gifts.

Most soldiers in Westeros are professional soldiers, even if only a small portion are full-time professionals. Also, presence of full-time professional soldiers would decrease the likelyhood of civilians getting military training, because they would a) be more reliant on military protection and b) have much less interaction with soldiers to begin with.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The wildling raids usually do not include more than a handful/dozen of men if the party we see in ASoS is any indication.

Which only means that they are a) more numerous, b) more difficult to spot and c) less dangerous individually. Making them absolute hell to deal with for a standing army, but a perfect reason to raise peasant militia - unless doing so is not normal practice in Westeros.

[Lion of the West]

Absolutely wonderful OP but as great as it is, i think that GRRM simply has not, at least had not at the start of the series, read so much about medieval warfare that he had this complex system in mind. It really isn't a military fantasy, which would've have been very interesting to read but it isn't, and so I just think that he hasn't thought that much about exactly how the armies of Westeros are supposed to work in the details.

[Aldarion]

5 hours ago, Lion of the West said:

Absolutely wonderful OP but as great as it is, i think that GRRM simply has not, at least had not at the start of the series, read so much about medieval warfare that he had this complex system in mind. It really isn't a military fantasy, which would've have been very interesting to read but it isn't, and so I just think that he hasn't thought that much about exactly how the armies of Westeros are supposed to work in the details.

Agreed. But as I have noted before, we cannot know what he did or did not think of. What matters is what he wrote, and how the models he described compare to actual historical models he might have used for inspiration.

[Daeron the Daring]

-Do you speak hungarian?

-No.

-Akkor a kurva anyád.

Anyway, greetings from Hungary.

FUNFACT:The name Sandor(translated from Alexander) and Janos(John) are  hungarian names, I wonder why George used these among the hungarian bannerial system, but whoknows.

[Nittanian]

On 9/1/2020 at 3:53 PM, HerblYY said:

The name Sandor(translated from Alexander) and Janos(John) are  hungarian names, I wonder why George used these among the hungarian bannerial system, but whoknows.

Looks like he was unaware. https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/To_Be_Continued_Chicago_IL_May_6_8/

Quote

Coming up with the names for the characters is very tough. They can't be too weird (with like apostrophies and stuff) and they can't be too "real", like Francois or Patrick or any kind of a name that is tied to a place (Sandor being a Hungarian name was unintentional)

 

[Aldarion]

On 9/1/2020 at 9:53 PM, HerblYY said:

-Do you speak hungarian?

-No.

-Akkor a kurva anyád.

Anyway, greetings from Hungary.

FUNFACT:The name Sandor(translated from Alexander) and Janos(John) are  hungarian names, I wonder why George used these among the hungarian bannerial system, but whoknows.

Probably accident as noted. And in fact, I believe that his usage of banderial system is accidental as well. Or rather, the fact that it was used by Hungary (and that I am familiar with it) is accidental. Hungary was hardly the only country in history to use such a system: Manchu used similar system, though I am fairly certain GRRM got the system from European, not Chinese, history (seeing how he is using it within context of feudalism).

[Daeron the Daring]

35 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Probably accident as noted. And in fact, I believe that his usage of banderial system is accidental as well. Or rather, the fact that it was used by Hungary (and that I am familiar with it) is accidental. Hungary was hardly the only country in history to use such a system: Manchu used similar system, though I am fairly certain GRRM got the system from European, not Chinese, history (seeing how he is using it within context of feudalism).

I don't see the names getting from another langauage as an accident. Maybe he's doing it just to use unique names in his story without thinking out something that could end up looking weird or bad. Anyway, I'm totally fine with it, and as a hungarian the reason I love his novels isn't because he used hungarian names(which are as common that it couldn't be accidental, in the 20th century almost half of the male hungarian population was called Sandor or Janos, and many hungarian historical leaders had these names too, for real) or the hungarian bannerial system.

[Aldarion]

7 hours ago, HerblYY said:

I don't see the names getting from another langauage as an accident. Maybe he's doing it just to use unique names in his story without thinking out something that could end up looking weird or bad. Anyway, I'm totally fine with it, and as a hungarian the reason I love his novels isn't because he used hungarian names(which are as common that it couldn't be accidental, in the 20th century almost half of the male hungarian population was called Sandor or Janos, and many hungarian historical leaders had these names too, for real) or the hungarian bannerial system.

Thing is, "banner" is used as a term for military units because banner (flag) is the main way of identification. It might be that Hungary was near-unique in Europe in using it as a term for standardized military formations (or military formations in general), but I have no way of knowing as I did not study Western European military history in any great detail (my primary interest is in Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Wars).

[Lord Varys]

George took his talk about 'calling the banners' either from Druon or Costain. It has been a time since I read those books, and I never made any notes as to exactly where George took things, but both things are in there.

How little he cares about stuff like that can be drawn from the fact that he never explained what it actually means to call the banners ... after he has given us two history books about Westeros.

Instead, we know that even lords who may not have any banners to call do call in their levies exactly the same way the great houses who have banners to call in do.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

I'm not talking about battle standards, but about sigils painted on the shields (pavises?).

Sigils painted on shields not only are the personal arms of any given knight, but actually should/have to be those, as Prince Baelor explains to Dunk in TMK ... just as Gormon Peake later assumes Dunk's personal sigil is the sigil on the shield he uses in TMK.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Except it is the view of the novels. I have just provided citations which prove that; please stop ignoring them.

You are trying to force your own view on the novels when the novels themselves do not give us an actual accurate picture of what's going on behind the scenes.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Difference is that Goldcloaks are essentially a police force, and their ranks had seen massive expansion anyway. On the other hand, those men first marching to war are still trained soldiers.

That is actual an internal discrepancy. It makes no sense that men under arms who constantly train (the City Watches) should be worse soldiers than peasants in the countryside in the service of backwater lords.

By the time of FaB George seems to realize this - which is why during the Dance armies are raised from cities (Aemond's army, part of Borros Baratheon's later army) and the Hightowers are considered to be able to continue the war in part because they can raise more armies by conscripting Oldtowners ... even after they lost a lot of men at Tumbleton.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Then we can end the discussion here, because, according to that logic, we do not have enough proof for anything. And it is not just one battle: Stannis' men at Blackwater did not in fact "break". Men he got from Renly switched sides, but his own Dragonstone men managed to put up rearguard action (Roland Storm):

Those were, what? Those 1,500 men Stannis got back to Dragonstone compared to the 20,000 he led to the Blackwater. Not every part of a breaking army has to break.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

That is not what concripted peasants do when caught by surprise.

This is just your claim. You don't know what conscripted Westerosi peasants do when they are caught by surprise, do you?

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Cut the BS. Wildlings didn't form up lines and then get crushed, they were completely overrun without managing to mount even a semblance of organized resistence. The center column they shattered only because horses fear mammoths.

They were surprised. And, yes, Mance doesn't have a proper army as such ... but a considerable number of his men were professional warriors. They didn't have the time/opportunity to properly form. But if they had had time to prepare they would have crushed Stannis.

The wildlings lost because they panicked. They would have won had they realized how pitiful Stannis' forces actually were.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Funny how this argument clearly invalidates the key "evidence" you have for Westerosi troops being rabble yet you don't see it. Personal memories are far less reliable than battle descriptions because a) they are naturally malleable and b) humans like to BS to themselves as much as they like to BS to others. It is not about "reliable vs unreliable" but "more reliable vs less reliable". You deliberately choose the latter simply because it agrees with your beliefs (which are based on I don't know what).

The point here is that most battle numbers and stuff are BS. They are not given by an omniscient narrator, but filtered through the perceptions of the POVs. And they make mistakes.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Except they clearly do not refer to all men in the army, because Tywin's army is numbered like this:

• 20 000 troops total
• 4 000 heavy cavalry on right wing (professionals)
• 2 500 heavy cavalry in reserve (professionals)
• 2 500 infantry in reserve (professionals)
• 7 000 (?) infantry in center (professionals)
• 4 000 (?) cavalry on left wing (conscripts)

Even if you disagree with me about all these troops being professionals, it is clear that they all are - except those 4 000 on left wing - soldiers. Yet every time Tywin's main army is mentioned in the books, it is stated to have 20 000 troops. Likewise, Tyrell army is stated to have 80 000, Northern army 20 000... if those 20 000 truly included camp followers, Robb would not be a threat at all to Tywin. Yet he is. Likewise, when Stannis has arrived at Wall, he comes with "no more than fifteen hundred men". It is quite clear that this number in fact refers to his fighting strength.

You are just over-thinking this. The author doesn't care about giving us a concise depiction of how military stuff works in Westeros, and that's why people try to make this make sense ... when it doesn't really.

Tyrion is no military expert, nor did he walk around and double-check what kind of men this or that lord had brought to fight in his father's army. This is a general impression. And George R. R. Martin never gives us the impression that infantry men have to be well-trained or to be professional warriors. He doesn't care about how it is that such men are in an army or what they had to learn or do to get there. They are just there.

Robb's army was never 'a threat' to Tywin ... at least not the one at the Green Fork which had only 1/10 of the Northern cavalry left ... standing against what might be half the cavalry in the West.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

So no, camp followers are not included in numbers given for armies in the series. Not single one of them. Have you read the books or you are merely making assumptions you believe would best help you support your argument?

That is just nonsense. You should go back and actually do check all the instances where numbers are given for the various armies ... which has been done to death on those boards in the past. At times there are numbers which are more reliable because they were taken over a longer amount of time. But at other times estimates are made by the number of fires burning in a camp, by people as, well, perceptive and smart as Theon-Reek 'counting' men riding in a column, etc.

For Renly's army ... and the subsequent size of the Tyrell portion of the Blackwater host we just never got any good number.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Except they haven't. Septon Meribald and his men are clearly camp followers. Yes, when George uses the term "camp followers" he (usually) does refer to whores - he appears to use term "servants" for other camp followers. But that is just another example of him not understanding medieval military terminology and talking about things without understanding what he is talking about. But that doesn't mean that other types of camp followers do not exist.

Well, again, this is a fantasy series, not real world history. If a man-at-arms is something different in Westeros than in the real world - which he is - then a similar thing can - and actually is - also the case for the camp follower term.

There are also servants, etc. in an army ... but we are never given any indication how large their number is compared to the soldiers, nor do we have any indication the author even tried to depict that ratio in a realistic manner. He doesn't care about such things.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Most soldiers in Westeros are professional soldiers, even if only a small portion are full-time professionals. Also, presence of full-time professional soldiers would decrease the likelyhood of civilians getting military training, because they would a) be more reliant on military protection and b) have much less interaction with soldiers to begin with.

I'm not sure one can talk about soldiers in this world as such. There are no standing armies, so there are no soldiers, either. We do have warriors, and there are some whose trade is to be a warrior ... and those are the only professional guys.

The other people are peasants. Even men like Steelshanks Walton, in Jaime's view, who I'd not consider a conscripted man who had no training before war. But even this man who seems to be a professional of sorts is apparently a peasant by trade, not a professional warrior:

Quote

Steelshanks Walton commanded Jaime's escort; blunt, brusque, brutal, at heart a simple soldier. Jaime had served with his sort all his life. Men like Walton would kill at their lord's command, rape when their blood was up after battle, and plunder wherever they could, but once the war was done they would go back to their homes, trade their spears for hoes, wed their neighbors' daughters, and raise a pack of squalling children. Such men obeyed without question, but the deep malignant cruelty of the Brave Companions was not a part of their nature.

Note that this is also how Jaime sees things going in the West and all the other southern places he served during his career. Even the infantry commanders in an army aren't professional soldiers. They only fight in war, in peace they are seen as working with hoes ... which, in effect, could mean Walton might be a common fieldhand, not even a peasant with a farm. A man actually going to war as a professional soldier would likely never actually have to work with a hoe on the field. He would have men doing that work for him.

But not in Westeros, apparently.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:41 AM, Aldarion said:

Which only means that they are a) more numerous, b) more difficult to spot and c) less dangerous individually. Making them absolute hell to deal with for a standing army, but a perfect reason to raise peasant militia - unless doing so is not normal practice in Westeros.

If the wildlings were as shitty warriors as they are supposed to, then a couple of peasants with proper equipment and the necessary drill regimen they need to go through to fight in war should be enough to see them off. But apparently it is not.

And this is not just the case in the North but also in the much smaller, much more densely populated Vale of Arryn ... where clansmen raids are a considerable problem, too.

[Aldarion]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sigils painted on shields not only are the personal arms of any given knight, but actually should/have to be those, as Prince Baelor explains to Dunk in TMK ... just as Gormon Peake later assumes Dunk's personal sigil is the sigil on the shield he uses in TMK.

 

For nobles (which apparently include knights), yes. But I very much doubt that infantry is comprised of nobility which carries its own personal livery. They would wear the livery of the lord they serve.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You are trying to force your own view on the novels when the novels themselves do not give us an actual accurate picture of what's going on behind the scenes.

 

And as I have pointed out before, the most we can assume is "author doesn't care". In which case discussion makes no sense. But view that Westerosi armies primarily consist of untrained, underequipped peasants is not only not supported, but is in multiple places directly contradicted, by the books. All evidence we have for "conscripted rabble" either shows parts of armies (e.g. Green Fork) or individual soldiers. But armies themselves are trained, disciplined and relatively well-equipped: in other words, professional.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is actual an internal discrepancy. It makes no sense that men under arms who constantly train (the City Watches) should be worse soldiers than peasants in the countryside in the service of backwater lords.

By the time of FaB George seems to realize this - which is why during the Dance armies are raised from cities (Aemond's army, part of Borros Baratheon's later army) and the Hightowers are considered to be able to continue the war in part because they can raise more armies by conscripting Oldtowners ... even after they lost a lot of men at Tumbleton.

It would make sense if there is a difference between city watch and city militia... in which case city watch wouldn't be used in war in the first place. But yeah, considering that we are talking Middle Ages, City Watch is very definitely a military force.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Those were, what? Those 1,500 men Stannis got back to Dragonstone compared to the 20,000 he led to the Blackwater. Not every part of a breaking army has to break.

 

1 500 men Stannis got back to Dragonstone were, in fact, large portion of his Dragonstone army. Majority of his total army - some 15 000 of those 20 000, if not more - were Renly's troops. Stannis' own men numbered no more than 5 000, which means that he saved around a third of his loyal troops. For a defeat, that number is not bad at all, especially considering the circumstances.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is actual an internal discrepancy. It makes no sense that men under arms who constantly train (the City Watches) should be worse soldiers than peasants in the countryside in the service of backwater lords.

By the time of FaB George seems to realize this - which is why during the Dance armies are raised from cities (Aemond's army, part of Borros Baratheon's later army) and the Hightowers are considered to be able to continue the war in part because they can raise more armies by conscripting Oldtowners ... even after they lost a lot of men at Tumbleton.

If conscripted Westerosi peasants act like professional troops, then conscripted peasants are equal to professional troops, which means our discussion is somewhat pointless.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They were surprised. And, yes, Mance doesn't have a proper army as such ... but a considerable number of his men were professional warriors. They didn't have the time/opportunity to properly form. But if they had had time to prepare they would have crushed Stannis.

The wildlings lost because they panicked. They would have won had they realized how pitiful Stannis' forces actually were.

So were Stannis' men at Blackwater, yet they managed to put up much more effective resistance under much worse odds.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They were surprised. And, yes, Mance doesn't have a proper army as such ... but a considerable number of his men were professional warriors. They didn't have the time/opportunity to properly form. But if they had had time to prepare they would have crushed Stannis.

The wildlings lost because they panicked. They would have won had they realized how pitiful Stannis' forces actually were.

Now try applying that logic to Septon Meribald and other evidence you use for "Westerosi infantry are untrained peasant rabble"...

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You are just over-thinking this. The author doesn't care about giving us a concise depiction of how military stuff works in Westeros, and that's why people try to make this make sense ... when it doesn't really.

Tyrion is no military expert, nor did he walk around and double-check what kind of men this or that lord had brought to fight in his father's army. This is a general impression. And George R. R. Martin never gives us the impression that infantry men have to be well-trained or to be professional warriors. He doesn't care about how it is that such men are in an army or what they had to learn or do to get there. They are just there.

Robb's army was never 'a threat' to Tywin ... at least not the one at the Green Fork which had only 1/10 of the Northern cavalry left ... standing against what might be half the cavalry in the West.

I do not care what Martin cares about. I care about what he describes.

General impression is oftentimes enough. You do not need to be military expert to separate disordered lines from ordered ones, chaos from discipline, spearmen from pikemen, people using hunting bows from ones using longbows... yet such distinctions, which are in fact extremely obvious and easy to notice, tell us a world about nature of military itself.

I was talking about Robb's army in general. And Tywin clearly considered it a threat.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is just nonsense. You should go back and actually do check all the instances where numbers are given for the various armies ... which has been done to death on those boards in the past. At times there are numbers which are more reliable because they were taken over a longer amount of time. But at other times estimates are made by the number of fires burning in a camp, by people as, well, perceptive and smart as Theon-Reek 'counting' men riding in a column, etc.

For Renly's army ... and the subsequent size of the Tyrell portion of the Blackwater host we just never got any good number.

I have checked these numbers multiple times, and numbers - especially in relation to each other - only make sense if it is in fact only soldiers which are counted.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm not sure one can talk about soldiers in this world as such. There are no standing armies, so there are no soldiers, either. We do have warriors, and there are some whose trade is to be a warrior ... and those are the only professional guys.

The other people are peasants. Even men like Steelshanks Walton, in Jaime's view, who I'd not consider a conscripted man who had no training before war. But even this man who seems to be a professional of sorts is apparently a peasant by trade, not a professional warrior:

Note that this is also how Jaime sees things going in the West and all the other southern places he served during his career. Even the infantry commanders in an army aren't professional soldiers. They only fight in war, in peace they are seen as working with hoes ... which, in effect, could mean Walton might be a common fieldhand, not even a peasant with a farm. A man actually going to war as a professional soldier would likely never actually have to work with a hoe on the field. He would have men doing that work for him.

But not in Westeros, apparently.

For a millionth time, you do not need to have a standing army to have professional soldiers, much less to have soldiers. To explain you what I mean when I talk "standing army" and "professional soldiers":

• Byzantine Empire in 899. had 28 000 troops of Tagmata, 96 000 troops in Themata. This means that it had 124 000 professional soldiers, of which only 28 000 were in the standing army.
• Hungary under Matthias Corvinus had 28 000 troops in the Black Army, but total army numbered 106 000 soldiers. All of these soldiers were professional soldiers, majority raised under feudal banderial system, but only soldiers of Black Army were full-time professionals of a standing army.

And it is entirely possible for a person who is peasant by trade to also be a professional soldier - it just means that he has two parallel professions. It is not ideal, and such troops would not be as good as full-time professionals of a standing army, but they are still professional soldiers - very definitely not an untrained rabble. And whether a landowning soldier would need to work personally on a farm very much depends on his wealth - which would vary between roles. A mounted man-at-arms (that is, what Martin considers "knights") would not have to work on a farm at all. An infantryman however would have to, unless he happened to be a mercenary or a member of permanent garrison of a castle.

Now, Byzantine army is not feudal, but thematic troops were very much landowning soldiers, so this still applies - basics of economy and military support through land ownership are still the same, irrespective of top organization. And we see that infantrymen had to work their lands themselves, as their lands did not allow them to support farm hands which would work instead of them; only cavalrymen had that luxury. Despite that, infantrymen were still reasonably well-equipped, relatively well-drilled, and also received wages in cash - last fact definitely delineates them as professional soldiers irrespective of what standards you apply for the term. Feudal infantrymen would not receive wages except maybe on campaign, and served the lord instead of the state directly, but were in all other respects in identical situation to that of Byzantine thematic infantryman. So summa summarum: fact that soldiers in peace are field hands, blacksmiths... does not mean they were not professionals, at least under definition I use.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If the wildlings were as shitty warriors as they are supposed to, then a couple of peasants with proper equipment and the necessary drill regimen they need to go through to fight in war should be enough to see them off. But apparently it is not.

And this is not just the case in the North but also in the much smaller, much more densely populated Vale of Arryn ... where clansmen raids are a considerable problem, too.

And neither wildlings nor clansmen would be such a problem if arming peasants was a normal state of things. Which, again, actually argues in favour of professional soldiers - far superior to militia individually, but nowhere near numerous enough to counter raiders - being a normal state of affairs in Westeros.

[Universal Sword Donor]

18 hours ago, Aldarion said:

For nobles (which apparently include knights), yes. But I very much doubt that infantry is comprised of nobility which carries its own personal livery. They would wear the livery of the lord they serve.

That would be consistent with what we see from most of the infantry we see up close.

• Karstarks marching into WF
• Freys at the Inn and leaving the Twins
• Prisoners at HH (Karstarks, Frey, Cerwyn, Bolton)
• Piper archer after the RW

There are more in the chapters in the crownlands and riverlands, but in general infantry seems to wear their lord's livery and those lords don't seem to be any lower than direct vassals to LPs

18 hours ago, Aldarion said:

 

1 500 men Stannis got back to Dragonstone were, in fact, large portion of his Dragonstone army. Majority of his total army - some 15 000 of those 20 000, if not more - were Renly's troops. Stannis' own men numbered no more than 5 000, which means that he saved around a third of his loyal troops. For a defeat, that number is not bad at all, especially considering the circumstances.

Per Davos half of those men left were Florent men, so they would be from his post DS army.

18 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Now try applying that logic to Septon Meribald and other evidence you use for "Westerosi infantry are untrained peasant rabble"...

I do not care what Martin cares about. I care about what he describes.

General impression is oftentimes enough. You do not need to be military expert to separate disordered lines from ordered ones, chaos from discipline, spearmen from pikemen, people using hunting bows from ones using longbows... yet such distinctions, which are in fact extremely obvious and easy to notice, tell us a world about nature of military itself.

And we get lessons from Jon, Tyrion / Tywin, Qhorin, Asha / Theon, and even Magnar on how important discipline is in battle. A lot of those descriptions involve references to arms and armor too, which is something Meribald's group lacked completely.

18 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I was talking about Robb's army in general. And Tywin clearly considered it a threat.

Robb's army is definitely a threat to Tywin. Even opining that to be the case is just bonkers. Tywin's entire camp was set up over multiple leagues, fortified and manned by active groups of sentries and outriders. If Roose had rolled the dice and charged through the camp, he'd have stood a decent chance at routing Tywin's army while his men were asleep or arming themselves.