Proof that Westerosi armies are professionals

[Lord Varys]

19 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.

And the feudal system of Westeros means that infanty serve whatever landed knight and petty lord they actually are serving ... meaning very few people raised via the feudal levy system should actually wear Frey or Stark or Lannister livery.

This is why it stands to reason that those famous Frey levies there were actually not raised by the bannermen and vassals of House Frey but rather were permanently in their service or raised from lands under direct control of the Freys.

19 hours ago, Aldarion said:

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.

They are what they are ... the problem I have starts when you come up with ideas what those men do in their spare time and what they have to do to be professionals. Especially if this involves ideas about how troops are actually raised in Westeros.

And to be sure: I always said the (possibly) large contingent of any army should include castle men who constantly train at arms. That alone should be enough for an army to conduct itself professionally even if not all are professionals.

19 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.

As has been said, in ASoS it is said most of the men Stannis was able to get back were Florent men ... which then are nowhere to be seen in ADwD which was very odd. None of the men in Stannis', Selyse's, or Melisandre's service in ADwD seem to be Reach men or sworn swords/household knights formerly in service of Lord Alester Florent.

Most of Stannis original men - the men sworn to the Lords of the Narrow Sea - bent the knee to Joffrey.

The idea there is that Stannis men were able to hold the enemy off long enough for Stannis and those men who got away to get back on the ships - which should have been a longer process.

We have a similar thing for the wildlings who got away from Stannis by the thousands and tens of thousands. As things stand, chances are pretty good that the Weeper will soon be back with core elements of Mance's army. The wildlings are not done yet.

19 hours ago, Aldarion said:

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

I never much cared about the conduct of those men. I only care about how those men are raised and how those men are seen by the author.

19 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.

They are untrained in the sense that they don't train at arms the way the men in castles do. And they do not train for war back at home, either. They are drafted and do learn their trade in the army. Whether this is realistic is irrelevant. This is fantasy literature, not reality. There are no blanks there to be filled by speculation because nothing happens offscreen. Especially not in parts the author doesn't care about to flesh out.

19 hours ago, Aldarion said:

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

Yes, in general Robb was a threat. But the Bolton-led army was no real threat.

19 hours ago, Aldarion said:

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.

Well, in light of the fact we have no clue who does the counting nor how it is done I don't give those numbers much credit ... and we are not supposed to. Those numbers are at best to establish who has the bigger army in a given conflict, nothing more.

19 hours ago, Aldarion said:

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.

Again, the examples you choose to talk about here have nothing to with Westeros. At all. We are not in a world of constant warfare there. I mean, yes, perhaps Hungary or Byzantium could be good parallels for, say, the Marcher men during a long period of constant warfare with Dorne. But then, George would then likely point out that the actual parallels there are the Welsh Marches and the constant fighting that took place there.

If you want to cite parallels with real world history, do look for such things where such parallels are actually intended. And look for that in the material the author is actually known to be familiar with.

In a region/period of constant warfare where people are settled or live knowing they are the backbone of the military that is going to defend their homes when the mortal enemy that is your neighbor attacks then, well, you would have great professional peasant soldiers. Because those people would be soldier-peasants.

Thinking about that, perhaps we can view the Shield Islanders in such a fashion, too. They were settled there as the martial defenders of the Reach by the Gardener kings and presumably they have a longstanding martial tradition and are still preparing for any Ironborn attack centuries after the Conquest.

But that is not the rule for the people of Westeros. Most people don't live in a setting of perpetual war ... nor are they haunted by the prospect that war could break out tomorrow.

Byzantium and Westeros have essentially nothing in common. Westeros is a primitive Western European feudal state modelled on England and France. It has nothing to do with a state which is a continuation of the Roman Empire.

19 hours ago, Aldarion said:

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.

It indicates that there are no professional armed soldiers living among the peasants and that martial traditions among peasants are not really in existence.

[Aldarion]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They are what they are ... the problem I have starts when you come up with ideas what those men do in their spare time and what they have to do to be professionals. Especially if this involves ideas about how troops are actually raised in Westeros.

And to be sure: I always said the (possibly) large contingent of any army should include castle men who constantly train at arms. That alone should be enough for an army to conduct itself professionally even if not all are professionals.

I "come up with ideas" because you have unnecessarily exclusive view of what "professional" is. What I am doing is looking at actual evidence in the books and comparing it to real world to figure out how Westerosi armies function. And if I remember it right, not too long ago you were arguing that majority if not entirety of Westerosi infantry were conscripted peasants akin to Septon Meribald and his ilk - which simply cannot be true.

 

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

As has been said, in ASoS it is said most of the men Stannis was able to get back were Florent men ... which then are nowhere to be seen in ADwD which was very odd. None of the men in Stannis', Selyse's, or Melisandre's service in ADwD seem to be Reach men or sworn swords/household knights formerly in service of Lord Alester Florent.

Most of Stannis original men - the men sworn to the Lords of the Narrow Sea - bent the knee to Joffrey.

The idea there is that Stannis men were able to hold the enemy off long enough for Stannis and those men who got away to get back on the ships - which should have been a longer process.

We have a similar thing for the wildlings who got away from Stannis by the thousands and tens of thousands. As things stand, chances are pretty good that the Weeper will soon be back with core elements of Mance's army. The wildlings are not done yet.

Difference here is that Stannis' army was smaller, surprised, outflanked and hemmed in against the sea. By comparison, Wildling host was much larger than Stannis' force. And that changes everything. Where Lannister goal was to destroy Stannis' army (which meant forcing a battle), Stannis' goal was to disperse wildlings with minimal engagement (because at such massive odds, if Wildlings had been forced to fight, Stannis' army would have been defeated).

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I never much cared about the conduct of those men. I only care about how those men are raised and how those men are seen by the author.

 

In other words, you do not care about very thing which defines army's effectiveness and capabilities.

And author in fact never tells us how these men are raised. All we know is that a) some of army are unprofessional draftees (as we see with Tywin at Green Fork, and Septon Meribald), b) most of soldiers have profession in addition to soldiering and they are socially peasants. And then you go and combine these unconnected pieces of evidence into completely arbitrary conclusion that most of Westerosi soldiers are unprofessional conscripts who are given a weapon, maybe a crash training course and sent off to march and die for their lord. Which is never said, nor does it automatically follow from the evidence we do have.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

As has been said, in ASoS it is said most of the men Stannis was able to get back were Florent men ... which then are nowhere to be seen in ADwD which was very odd. None of the men in Stannis', Selyse's, or Melisandre's service in ADwD seem to be Reach men or sworn swords/household knights formerly in service of Lord Alester Florent.

Most of Stannis original men - the men sworn to the Lords of the Narrow Sea - bent the knee to Joffrey.

The idea there is that Stannis men were able to hold the enemy off long enough for Stannis and those men who got away to get back on the ships - which should have been a longer process.

We have a similar thing for the wildlings who got away from Stannis by the thousands and tens of thousands. As things stand, chances are pretty good that the Weeper will soon be back with core elements of Mance's army. The wildlings are not done yet.

Except that is not what we see, at all. In fact, every time we see major battles, Westerosi armies show significant discipline and tactical flexibility. That is not something untrained men can do. At worst, these men are members of militia - meaning, equipped, trained and with regular drill which allows them to maintain said training. And we see Lannisters training new recruits at Oxcross before even thinking about deploying them to combat, so your statement that they "learn their trade in the army" is simply wrong, unless you mean "army organizes training" in a way similar to how recruits today learn their job in the army (but are not considered combat-ready until they are at least out of the basic).

Yes, I am aware that this is a fantasy literature. But it is based on reality - and we know exactly which portions of reality - and what is seen within is actually in accord with that, at least to an extent (again, Tywin has new recruits trained for months before thinking about deploying them).

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Again, the examples you choose to talk about here have nothing to with Westeros. At all. We are not in a world of constant warfare there. I mean, yes, perhaps Hungary or Byzantium could be good parallels for, say, the Marcher men during a long period of constant warfare with Dorne. But then, George would then likely point out that the actual parallels there are the Welsh Marches and the constant fighting that took place there.

If you want to cite parallels with real world history, do look for such things where such parallels are actually intended. And look for that in the material the author is actually known to be familiar with.

Material the author is familiar with is in large part related to Wars of the Roses, which means armies that are very definitely professional.

You might also want to look at answers here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2jlhcx/what_would_a_lancastrian_army_in_the_war_of_the/

In short: no conscripted rabble in sight.

https://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/Secondary/History/14-16_for_Edexcel/EdexcelGCSEHistory91/Samples/Sample-chapters-for-Edexcel-GCSE-9-1-History/Sample-chapter-for-Warfare-through-time,-c1250-present,-Student-Book.pdf

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Training New recruitment methods after 1250 led to better training. But there is no record that any new books of military tactics were produced in England in the period 1250–1500. It seems that the command and organisation of troops remained very simple. Feudal troops were only summoned for war. Knights practised combat at tournaments. But there was no training for groups of knights. There was no peacetime training for feudal infantry at all. The Assize of Arms made troops slightly better prepared for war. • At the annual array of arms, men mustered for inspection by the king’s Commissioner of Array. This was a chance to check the quality of weapons and equipment and practise using those weapons. • In 1285, Edward I’s Statute of Winchester insisted that archery targets were set up in every town. • In 1363, Edward III ordered that there should be archery practice on all feast days and holidays. Paid troops were better trained. By the 1400s, they were the troops kings preferred for campaigning. • They were experienced men, fighting in fixed groups and with the same commanders. Paid archers were trained by centanaurs, leaders of 100 men, to fire volleys (large groups) of arrows onto targets. • Kings often insisted on regular musters to inspect paid troops – so that they could be sure that they were getting good value for money 

And also this:

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/medieval/8-ways-soldiers-recruited-medieval-england.html

The reason I am using Hungary and Byzantium is because I am more familiar with them than with Wars of the Roses armies. Some aspects of warfare remain constant, since in all three cases (Westeros, Hungary, Byzantium) we are talking about a primarily rural societies where majority of wealth is in land as opposed to financial wealth or trade, so it doesn't really matter what exactly I am using as an example.

Even Dark Age armies did not consist of conscripted peasants, much less Wars of the Roses ones. Assuming Martin has done any research at all, where would he had gotten idea that they did? (This is good short overview of Dark Age armies I found if you want to read more on the topic).

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

In a region/period of constant warfare where people are settled or live knowing they are the backbone of the military that is going to defend their homes when the mortal enemy that is your neighbor attacks then, well, you would have great professional peasant soldiers. Because those people would be soldier-peasants.

Thinking about that, perhaps we can view the Shield Islanders in such a fashion, too. They were settled there as the martial defenders of the Reach by the Gardener kings and presumably they have a longstanding martial tradition and are still preparing for any Ironborn attack centuries after the Conquest.

Yes, Shield Islanders are almost definitely such.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But that is not the rule for the people of Westeros. Most people don't live in a setting of perpetual war ... nor are they haunted by the prospect that war could break out tomorrow.

Byzantium and Westeros have essentially nothing in common. Westeros is a primitive Western European feudal state modelled on England and France. It has nothing to do with a state which is a continuation of the Roman Empire.

Except they do have a lot in common. Byzantium I am talking about is Dark Ages Byzantium, the one from 7th to 11th centuries. What that means is:

• high degree of militarization
• predominantly rural economy
• reduced level of monetization - partial fallback to barter economy
• reduced level of trade
• high degree of illiteracy

With the exception of "militarization" part (and the whole feudalism thing - Byzantium was lot more centralized than that), Westeros checks all the boxes.

Besides, the fact that King's Landing apparently has a population of half a million (and rules what is essentially a continent) means that Westeros is not as primitive as it appears to be.

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It indicates that there are no professional armed soldiers living among the peasants and that martial traditions among peasants are not really in existence.

Except professional armed soldiers would not be anywhere as numerous as necessary to counter wildlings regardless of whether they lived among peasants or not. Even Byzantine Empire - a state much more militarized and better organized than Westeros (or anything in ASoIaF really) - only managed to reach between 1,5% and 2,5% of populace in the military (depending on the period). For a feudal state, normal proportion is around 1% for professional troops, though it could go much higher - or much lower. And "martial traditions among peasants are not really in existence" is actually a good argument against assumption that Westerosi armies rely on large masses of conscripted peasants for combat purposes, as such a situation would actually help (if not ensure) appearance of said martial traditions among peasants. Byzantine Empire didn't have martial traditions among its propulace precisely because it had a professional army. And ignroing Byzantium, it is a fact that in general, increased professionalization of the army = reduced martial traditions among populace.

What you need to counter raiders is a) good intelligence system and b) good fast-reaction (that is, cavalry) force. But Westerosi intelligence system is in shambles, and most of army is infantry (so a slow reaction force). In such conditions, only other possible solution is that every single inhabited place is fortified and defended by local militia. Which is why I say that, against Wildlings, "peasant conscripts as a basis of army" would actually be advantageous for Westeros.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

I "come up with ideas" because you have unnecessarily exclusive view of what "professional" is. What I am doing is looking at actual evidence in the books and comparing it to real world to figure out how Westerosi armies function. And if I remember it right, not too long ago you were arguing that majority if not entirety of Westerosi infantry were conscripted peasants akin to Septon Meribald and his ilk - which simply cannot be true.

No, my point always was that the men that are actually raised among the peasants are amateurs. We have no way to figure out how many infantry/men-at-arms are what I describe as 'castle men' and how many are drawn from villages. The author doesn't give us any numbers in that department.

But if you look at how much the Starks and Karstarks depleted themselves during the War of the Five Kings, apparently pretty much emptying out their castles (confirmed for Winterfell where Rodrik has to train new men in ACoK, and also sort of by the amount of men Cregan Karstark can use to hunt Alys).

If the bulk of infantry in the first host raised in a given region - say, 60-80 percent or so - are such castle men then there is really no problem. But that wouldn't be the kind of conscription we see going on in TSS or with Meribald where a lord/landed knight actually calls on his peasantry to accompany him to war.

It would make sense that there is little to no training necessary for such an army to fight professionally. And most of the armies we saw during the main series were armies raised very quickly, involving mostly, I'd assume, men living and training in castles.

But we do know that Tywin and Rhaegar had (their people) train new recruits for a considerable time when they raised a second/third army.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Difference here is that Stannis' army was smaller, surprised, outflanked and hemmed in against the sea. By comparison, Wildling host was much larger than Stannis' force. And that changes everything. Where Lannister goal was to destroy Stannis' army (which meant forcing a battle), Stannis' goal was to disperse wildlings with minimal engagement (because at such massive odds, if Wildlings had been forced to fight, Stannis' army would have been defeated).

The wildling army was no proper army as such. They had families and animals with them, and were not organized as a proper army/camp. My point was that if Mance had properly organized the organized portions of his army - Thenns, the various professional raiders and warriors among his men - and if he had had reports about Stannis' movements and his attack, then chances are pretty good that he would have crushed him. He may even have been able to decide where the battle would take place, etc.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

And author in fact never tells us how these men are raised. All we know is that a) some of army are unprofessional draftees (as we see with Tywin at Green Fork, and Septon Meribald), b) most of soldiers have profession in addition to soldiering and they are socially peasants. And then you go and combine these unconnected pieces of evidence into completely arbitrary conclusion that most of Westerosi soldiers are unprofessional conscripts who are given a weapon, maybe a crash training course and sent off to march and die for their lord. Which is never said, nor does it automatically follow from the evidence we do have.

The problem here is that we only have the narrative of unprofessionals being drafted (and that is a narrative that is repeated throughout the series), nothing about professionals being drafted. That is noteworthy. We cannot imagine there being a peasant-soldier class when those people are never actually shown.

The only way I see to make sense of that without pushing my own concepts into the story is to go with those castle men making up the bulk of the infantry.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Except that is not what we see, at all. In fact, every time we see major battles, Westerosi armies show significant discipline and tactical flexibility. That is not something untrained men can do. At worst, these men are members of militia - meaning, equipped, trained and with regular drill which allows them to maintain said training. And we see Lannisters training new recruits at Oxcross before even thinking about deploying them to combat, so your statement that they "learn their trade in the army" is simply wrong, unless you mean "army organizes training" in a way similar to how recruits today learn their job in the army (but are not considered combat-ready until they are at least out of the basic).

Well, to be honest, the idea the author seems to have there is that those men all have competent leaders who tell them what to do. How all that works is not George's concern. In fact, he wants it to be obscure just as he originally wanted the maps and distances and the amount of time that passed between key events to be more or less obscure.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Material the author is familiar with is in large part related to Wars of the Roses, which means armies that are very definitely professional.

You cannot make that comparison. The Wars of the Roses influenced names and plot details and characters but decidedly not the setting as such. That is late middle ages. The stuff actually shaping Martinworld to a very large degree would be Druon and Costain, and that is early 14th century and, the time from the Anarchy to the Wars of the Roses (Costain) with a strong focus on the earlier time.

The military/political setting during the Wars of the Roses clearly has nothing to do with Westeros as presented to us.

And George feudalism is pretty much his own creation. That kind of thing never existed in that fashion anywhere in the real world.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

The reason I am using Hungary and Byzantium is because I am more familiar with them than with Wars of the Roses armies. Some aspects of warfare remain constant, since in all three cases (Westeros, Hungary, Byzantium) we are talking about a primarily rural societies where majority of wealth is in land as opposed to financial wealth or trade, so it doesn't really matter what exactly I am using as an example.

I get that, but it doesn't strike me as very productive to compare Westeros to real world stuff the author wasn't that familiar with. Mind you, it can be productive for general comparisons, but considering that we know the author build his world deliberately on certain real world examples and drew material from history books he actually read it strikes as more productive to look at those.

And there actually are very real parallels to be found there.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Except they do have a lot in common. Byzantium I am talking about is Dark Ages Byzantium, the one from 7th to 11th centuries. What that means is:

• high degree of militarization
• predominantly rural economy
• reduced level of monetization - partial fallback to barter economy
• reduced level of trade
• high degree of illiteracy

With the exception of "militarization" part (and the whole feudalism thing - Byzantium was lot more centralized than that), Westeros checks all the boxes.

Byzantium was a military empire, the continuation of the Roman Empire, a state completely different from Westeros. And the kind of military prowess Byzantium showed up to the 11th century or so certainly is well beyond anything one could expect from Westeros. Of course, Westeros is much larger, etc. but it is quite primitive on a state level.

Not to mention the fact that Westeros has no outside enemies, no empire, no provinces, no outside enemies, etc. to deal with.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Besides, the fact that King's Landing apparently has a population of half a million (and rules what is essentially a continent) means that Westeros is not as primitive as it appears to be.

It is big, of course, but not very well-developed. And with the author passing on the opportunity to properly flesh out Westerosi society in TWoIaF and FaB (which didn't even expand on the royal court much!) it no longer makes sense to assume that there is a lot of crucial stuff going on behind the scenes.

[Aldarion]

On 9/9/2020 at 1:07 AM, Lord Varys said:

No, my point always was that the men that are actually raised among the peasants are amateurs. We have no way to figure out how many infantry/men-at-arms are what I describe as 'castle men' and how many are drawn from villages. The author doesn't give us any numbers in that department.

But if you look at how much the Starks and Karstarks depleted themselves during the War of the Five Kings, apparently pretty much emptying out their castles (confirmed for Winterfell where Rodrik has to train new men in ACoK, and also sort of by the amount of men Cregan Karstark can use to hunt Alys).

If the bulk of infantry in the first host raised in a given region - say, 60-80 percent or so - are such castle men then there is really no problem. But that wouldn't be the kind of conscription we see going on in TSS or with Meribald where a lord/landed knight actually calls on his peasantry to accompany him to war.

It would make sense that there is little to no training necessary for such an army to fight professionally. And most of the armies we saw during the main series were armies raised very quickly, involving mostly, I'd assume, men living and training in castles.

But we do know that Tywin and Rhaegar had (their people) train new recruits for a considerable time when they raised a second/third army.

If Westerosi infantry truly are amateurs all along, then the first call-up would require just as much training before being sent to battle as the second and third call-up. But the fact that it doesn't means that they are professionals. But once professional pool (the first call-up) gets depleted, you need to call up untrained men - who then have to be trained. Romans solved that issue by calling up veterans instead, but I do not think Westeros has such a system.

And infantry cannot all be just from castles. There are too many of them for that.

RE: Meribald and TTS, I already adressed that. I never argued that entirety of infantry - or the army in general - are professionals. Obviously you get some rabble, as seen with Tywin when he faced Roose. But it is obviously wrong to assume that such peasant rabble forms majority of the army.

On 9/9/2020 at 1:07 AM, Lord Varys said:

No, my point always was that the men that are actually raised among the peasants are amateurs. We have no way to figure out how many infantry/men-at-arms are what I describe as 'castle men' and how many are drawn from villages. The author doesn't give us any numbers in that department.

But if you look at how much the Starks and Karstarks depleted themselves during the War of the Five Kings, apparently pretty much emptying out their castles (confirmed for Winterfell where Rodrik has to train new men in ACoK, and also sort of by the amount of men Cregan Karstark can use to hunt Alys).

If the bulk of infantry in the first host raised in a given region - say, 60-80 percent or so - are such castle men then there is really no problem. But that wouldn't be the kind of conscription we see going on in TSS or with Meribald where a lord/landed knight actually calls on his peasantry to accompany him to war.

It would make sense that there is little to no training necessary for such an army to fight professionally. And most of the armies we saw during the main series were armies raised very quickly, involving mostly, I'd assume, men living and training in castles.

But we do know that Tywin and Rhaegar had (their people) train new recruits for a considerable time when they raised a second/third army.

I have never argued against that.

On 9/9/2020 at 1:07 AM, Lord Varys said:

The problem here is that we only have the narrative of unprofessionals being drafted (and that is a narrative that is repeated throughout the series), nothing about professionals being drafted. That is noteworthy. We cannot imagine there being a peasant-soldier class when those people are never actually shown.

The only way I see to make sense of that without pushing my own concepts into the story is to go with those castle men making up the bulk of the infantry.

Professionals are shown - in every single battle we witness. And "narrative of unprofessionals being drafted" does not need to contradict that: any army needs logistical support, and considering how small Westerosi armies are relative to size of the continent and its likely populace, it makes much more sense to assume that draftees are actually camp followers and people used for menial labour, rather than soldiers. And professionals, by definition, are not "drafted" - full-time professionals are already present in castles, while part-time soldiers are called up when calling the banners. And while there is some evidence that draftees also serve as combat troops, there are problems with that as I outline below (in reference to Catelyn's thoughts).

Now, as you point out, question is where do these people come from. It is possible that they all come from castle garrisons (which would explain Winterfell being depleted). But there is a problem with that: castles are, in a pre-gunpowder era, ridiculously easy to defend. Which means that they had ridiculously small peacetime garrisons. Majority of the wartime garrison - nevermind the field army - would have come from the kind of soldiers I am talking about, the part-time professionals raised among the peasants. But then again, this is fantasy, so...

In any case, we do have indications of unprofessionals being drafted for combat troops. But I have to question whether the talk of "green boys" and "fieldhands" is actually factor of unreliable narrator and nobility posing. It kinda reminds me of Spartan king Agesilaus II (taken from here):

Quote

Moreover, the allies of the Lacedaemonians were  p75 offended at Agesilaüs, because, as they said, it was not upon any public ground of complaint, but by reason of some passionate resentment of his own, that he sought to destroy the Thebans. 4 Accordingly, they said they had no wish to be dragged hither and thither to destruction every year, they themselves so many, and the Lacedaemonians, with whom they followed, so few. It was at this time, we are told, that Agesilaüs, wishing to refute their argument from numbers, devised the following scheme. He ordered all the allies to sit down by themselves promiscuously, the Lacedaemonians apart by themselves. 5 Then his herald called upon the potters to stand up first, and after them the smiths, next, the carpenters in their turn, and the builders, and so on through all the handicrafts. In response, almost all the allies rose up, but not a man of the Lacedaemonians; 611for they were forbidden to learn or practise a manual art.64 Then Agesilaüs said with a laugh: "You see, O men, how many more soldiers than you we are sending out."

Mind you, this is in the contex of a war which Sparta will eventually lose for the lack of allies. But it clearly shows how easily full-time warrior caste (such as Spartiates, or knights) can grow to underestimate and maybe even despise their part-time colleagues as "undisciplined rabble" when in reality they are anything but. Compare the above to Catelyn's own thoughts:

Quote

This host her son had assembled was not a standing army such as the Free Cities were accustomed to maintain, nor a force of guardsmen paid in coin. Most of them were smallfolk: crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of innkeeps and traders and tanners, leavened with a smattering of sellswords and freeriders hungry for plunder.

Pattern is the same. Meaning that the above doesn't mean that said troops are conscripts who only saw weapons for the first time when they were called up. But they are not full-time professionals.

Overall, you need to remember that we do not see world from third person omniscient narrator, or even third person limited view. We see it through the eyes of select characters, with all the subjectivity it implies. Most of these characters are nobles, and all of them have an agenda.

On 9/9/2020 at 1:07 AM, Lord Varys said:

This host her son had assembled was not a standing army such as the Free Cities were accustomed to maintain, nor a force of guardsmen paid in coin. Most of them were smallfolk: crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of innkeeps and traders and tanners, leavened with a smattering of sellswords and freeriders hungry for plunder.

That I can agree with. But if we simply accept his attempts to obscure stuff, we won't have much beyond the events to discuss.

On 9/9/2020 at 1:07 AM, Lord Varys said:

I get that, but it doesn't strike me as very productive to compare Westeros to real world stuff the author wasn't that familiar with. Mind you, it can be productive for general comparisons, but considering that we know the author build his world deliberately on certain real world examples and drew material from history books he actually read it strikes as more productive to look at those.

And there actually are very real parallels to be found there.

Problem here is that assumption that Westerosi armies have only a minority of professional soldiers backed up by masses peasant levies is simply not supported by... well, anything I am aware of. Now, it is true that I am most familiar with Byzantine Empire and 15th century Hungary, which is why I use them when I need to give specific examples for how military systems have functioned. It is also true I have not read the specific books Martin may have read. But in all military systems I have studied in any kind of detail - Anglo-Saxon fyrd, Merovingian and Carolingean military, Byzantine army, armies of Holy Roman Empire, 14th and 15th century Hungary (and also 15th century England and France, though I am not as familiar with them as I am with previous) - soldiers were professionals. Some were full-time professionals, vast majority were part-time professionals (which is what feudal levies will have been), but they were professionals. Conscripted rabble of peasants did appear on occasion, but it was always a move of desperation - and always when one was fighting a defensive campaign. So I consider it rather unlikely that it would just so happen that there would be a period when armies consisted of conscripted peasants and that Martin would have just so happened to use precisely that period for inspiration. And all of the mentioned systems functioned on a similar basis when it came to recruiting troops - there is very little difference between Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, Byzantine or Hungarian systems when it comes to basic recruitment. In all cases, soldiers were financed from either a plot of land or a group of houses/families (which basically comes down to the same thing, only terminology is different). In all cases, soldiers were professionals, but only cavalrymen could afford to be full-time professionals where infantrymen had to have a "day job" (be it work on a farm or something else) as their lands will not have been enough to avoid working themselves. Differences between systems were massive, but in all cases, they were on a strictly organizational level - manner in which troops were recruited was fairly similar.

So again, I consider it rather unlikely that whatever Martin has used as inspiration somehow, someway, breaks this pattern. Of course, unless we manage to find said books, it is impossible to know for sure.

On 9/9/2020 at 1:07 AM, Lord Varys said:

Byzantium was a military empire, the continuation of the Roman Empire, a state completely different from Westeros. And the kind of military prowess Byzantium showed up to the 11th century or so certainly is well beyond anything one could expect from Westeros. Of course, Westeros is much larger, etc. but it is quite primitive on a state level.

Not to mention the fact that Westeros has no outside enemies, no empire, no provinces, no outside enemies, etc. to deal with.

That is true, to an extent. But as I described above, differences would have been obvious only on administrative level: political organization, military organization, logistics. Even so, the fact that Westerosi are running around with field armies numbering in multiple tens of thousands shows that their organizational and administrative capabilities are not as inferior to Byzantium as you appear to assume.

On 9/9/2020 at 1:07 AM, Lord Varys said:

It is big, of course, but not very well-developed. And with the author passing on the opportunity to properly flesh out Westerosi society in TWoIaF and FaB (which didn't even expand on the royal court much!) it no longer makes sense to assume that there is a lot of crucial stuff going on behind the scenes.

Size matters. If Westeros truly were a purely feudal society, with limited to no administrative capacities, everybody in King's Landing would have starved to death several times over. Look at how complex were the logistics of supplying ancient Rome, or Constantinople (latter of which was actually smaller than King's Landing).

[Lord Varys]

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

If Westerosi infantry truly are amateurs all along, then the first call-up would require just as much training before being sent to battle as the second and third call-up. But the fact that it doesn't means that they are professionals. But once professional pool (the first call-up) gets depleted, you need to call up untrained men - who then have to be trained. Romans solved that issue by calling up veterans instead, but I do not think Westeros has such a system.

Well, the castle men do constantly train at arms. That is confirmed. Not only that, they are also the people who constantly are under arms, guarding castles, accompany their highborn masters on their travels, etc.

In the villages and such where a lord would go to call in his peasant levies there simply are no trained men that we saw in eight books so far.

Veterans would be men who go to war in Westeros, too, one assumes. But then - there simply aren't any considering there are pretty much no major wars.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And infantry cannot all be just from castles. There are too many of them for that.

That is the point we actually don't know. We don't know how many castles there are in any given regions and where exactly all the men they brought to war came from.

I'm with you that it wouldn't be all of them, of course. But if it would be 60-80% or so for a first army, then this army would conduct itself pretty professionally even if there were some green amateurs among them.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

RE: Meribald and TTS, I already adressed that. I never argued that entirety of infantry - or the army in general - are professionals. Obviously you get some rabble, as seen with Tywin when he faced Roose. But it is obviously wrong to assume that such peasant rabble forms majority of the army.

That wasn't the point. The point was the the majority of the feudal levies called in by their lords would be amateurs. But that's not necessarily the majority of the infantry of a given army.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Professionals are shown - in every single battle we witness. And "narrative of unprofessionals being drafted" does not need to contradict that: any army needs logistical support, and considering how small Westerosi armies are relative to size of the continent and its likely populace, it makes much more sense to assume that draftees are actually camp followers and people used for menial labour, rather than soldiers. And professionals, by definition, are not "drafted" - full-time professionals are already present in castles, while part-time soldiers are called up when calling the banners. And while there is some evidence that draftees also serve as combat troops, there are problems with that as I outline below (in reference to Catelyn's thoughts).

But that completely clashes with the TSS scenario. There we have men who are obviously amateurs who are called in by their knightly master for war. Just as Eustace called the same people in back during the First Blackfyre Rebellion. Sure, it doesn't mean that all peasants to have to suck as much as Eustace's recruits, but the message of that story is clear: Those men are the people the lords of Westeros make to fight their wars.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Now, as you point out, question is where do these people come from. It is possible that they all come from castle garrisons (which would explain Winterfell being depleted). But there is a problem with that: castles are, in a pre-gunpowder era, ridiculously easy to defend. Which means that they had ridiculously small peacetime garrisons. Majority of the wartime garrison - nevermind the field army - would have come from the kind of soldiers I am talking about, the part-time professionals raised among the peasants. But then again, this is fantasy, so...

We do know that Winterfell has a peacetime garrison size of a couple of hundred men. The Lannisters likewise at court, and one imagines a similar back at the Rock and in Lannisport.

Of course we have no idea how large garrisons the smaller castles can maintain, but we also do know that even small castles do have men-at-arms in their service.

Castles in Westeros are not real world castles. They are not military fortresses, but rather the Westerosi equivalents to towns and cities.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

In any case, we do have indications of unprofessionals being drafted for combat troops. But I have to question whether the talk of "green boys" and "fieldhands" is actually factor of unreliable narrator and nobility posing. It kinda reminds me of Spartan king Agesilaus II (taken from here).

Oh, the green boys thing comes again and again, just as the greybeard thing. And as we see with the Umber troops in ADwD the point with those green boys is that they are actually very young.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Pattern is the same. Meaning that the above doesn't mean that said troops are conscripts who only saw weapons for the first time when they were called up. But they are not full-time professionals.

Again, we have no indication that such men actually do train. Even a man like Steelshanks Walton is more a peasant than a warrior. Which means George's view on military matters is that you learn the business as you go by it.

That's also Meribald's view, reinterated by Bennis: You go to war without proper equipment and then rob the dead.

We also had that issue with the Faith Militant Uprising thing:

If there were a considerable number of professional soldiers in the countryside not under the direct thumb of their lords (because they were actually in their direct employ) then we would have seen more such men with the Poor Fellows ... because they were a popular uprising.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Problem here is that assumption that Westerosi armies have only a minority of professional soldiers backed up by masses peasant levies is simply not supported by... well, anything I am aware of. Now, it is true that I am most familiar with Byzantine Empire and 15th century Hungary, which is why I use them when I need to give specific examples for how military systems have functioned. It is also true I have not read the specific books Martin may have read. But in all military systems I have studied in any kind of detail - Anglo-Saxon fyrd, Merovingian and Carolingean military, Byzantine army, armies of Holy Roman Empire, 14th and 15th century Hungary (and also 15th century England and France, though I am not as familiar with them as I am with previous) - soldiers were professionals. Some were full-time professionals, vast majority were part-time professionals (which is what feudal levies will have been), but they were professionals. Conscripted rabble of peasants did appear on occasion, but it was always a move of desperation - and always when one was fighting a defensive campaign. So I consider it rather unlikely that it would just so happen that there would be a period when armies consisted of conscripted peasants and that Martin would have just so happened to use precisely that period for inspiration. And all of the mentioned systems functioned on a similar basis when it came to recruiting troops - there is very little difference between Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, Byzantine or Hungarian systems when it comes to basic recruitment. In all cases, soldiers were financed from either a plot of land or a group of houses/families (which basically comes down to the same thing, only terminology is different). In all cases, soldiers were professionals, but only cavalrymen could afford to be full-time professionals where infantrymen had to have a "day job" (be it work on a farm or something else) as their lands will not have been enough to avoid working themselves. Differences between systems were massive, but in all cases, they were on a strictly organizational level - manner in which troops were recruited was fairly similar.

Oh, I'm aware that things are different in the real world there. But we can only use real world stuff with a fantasy series insofar as we have good reason to expect that there are intended parallels. This works pretty good with plot and characters and stuff with George ... and surprisingly well with some military details like the free companies.

But it is quite clear that the entire feudal aspect of the story is completely his own creation ... and not something that is very realistic. Both on the political and the military level.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That is true, to an extent. But as I described above, differences would have been obvious only on administrative level: political organization, military organization, logistics. Even so, the fact that Westerosi are running around with field armies numbering in multiple tens of thousands shows that their organizational and administrative capabilities are not as inferior to Byzantium as you appear to assume.

Oh, but that is just George's gigantism. Just think of the impossible castle of Harrenhal, the Wall, people having the means to build pointless giant castle ... and building only those, never towns or cities. The world is vast and big and larger than life, but there is no realistic world-building explaining how this all works.

This is best shown with the whole freak seasons thing - there everything breaks down - but the feudal system and military system don't work, either.

I mean, George actually seems to think the king and the various great lords actually do hear all petitions brought to them and sit in judgment over everything laid before them (with the king having the Hand to step in when he is incapacitated, of course). That alone is ridiculous, and he never made any attempt to correct that impression.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Size matters. If Westeros truly were a purely feudal society, with limited to no administrative capacities, everybody in King's Landing would have starved to death several times over. Look at how complex were the logistics of supplying ancient Rome, or Constantinople (latter of which was actually smaller than King's Landing).

Oh, that is another issue nobody really cares anything about. Although I'd have to say that food imports to KL, being a coastal city, would mostly come from the Flatlands or other places in Essos and from the Crownlands. KL grew so fast during the reign of the Conqueror that, prior to Jaehaerys I's roads, there wouldn't have been the infrastructure necessary to enable massive food deliveries from the Reach.

KL only starts to sort of starve in ACoK because the city is caught up from Essos (due to Stannis closing Blackwater Bay), the Reach/Stormlands (Renly), and the Riverlands (fighting there).

In a normal situation the food from everywhere would be brought to KL because it is the capital and biggest city, the place you can make the most money with your food. Not because the city is dependent on such imports for their survival.

[Aldarion]

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, the castle men do constantly train at arms. That is confirmed. Not only that, they are also the people who constantly are under arms, guarding castles, accompany their highborn masters on their travels, etc.

In the villages and such where a lord would go to call in his peasant levies there simply are no trained men that we saw in eight books so far.

Veterans would be men who go to war in Westeros, too, one assumes. But then - there simply aren't any considering there are pretty much no major wars.

Problem with all of them being castle men is, how many castles there are, and would it allow for armies we see in the series? Few good descriptions of armies suggest that majority of combat troops are professionals; peasants would be auxilliaries and logistics (camp followers). Could North truly raise close to 18 000 professionals (well, 15 000 professionals and 3 000 peasants, if we go by Tywin's numbers) just from castles?

What I meant was that Romans had organized system of retirement, which meant that veterans could be called up when number of active-duty soldiers got depleted. "Veteran" here means basically "retired soldier", irrespective of his combat experience (or lack thereof).

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is the point we actually don't know. We don't know how many castles there are in any given regions and where exactly all the men they brought to war came from.

I'm with you that it wouldn't be all of them, of course. But if it would be 60-80% or so for a first army, then this army would conduct itself pretty professionally even if there were some green amateurs among them.

Well, yeah. And I guess it also depends on definition of a castle - if a fortified home is a castle (which is actually the case; question though is how GRRM is using the term), then each knight / man at arms could well have a castle for his retinue.

And yes, majority of first callup are professionals. As I have mentioned, Tywin's army as described in the first book is 85% professionals and 15% conscripts. Weird thing here is that conscripts are all cavalry. There is no evidence of untrained rabble anywhere among infantry. Of course, it could be that there were armed camp followers, and that Tywin left them behind to guard camp / baggage train; but such men would not be counted in army numbers anyway, they are part of logistics train (which for a 20 000 strong army would number between 20 000 and 80 000 men).

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That wasn't the point. The point was the the majority of the feudal levies called in by their lords would be amateurs. But that's not necessarily the majority of the infantry of a given army.

Cavalry (in real world at least) are much less likely to be amateurs than infantry. But from what we see in the books, majority (though not entirety) of every army for which we have even a halfway-usable description are professionals. There is very little evidence for conscripts being used en masse in set-piece battles.

Of course, some people would consider troops who have a day job and only train on certain days of the week to be amateurs, so YMMV. By that definition, majority of feudal levies would indeed be amateurs - but that is what I mean by "part-time professionals".

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That wasn't the point. The point was the the majority of the feudal levies called in by their lords would be amateurs. But that's not necessarily the majority of the infantry of a given army.

Problem with TSS scenario is that Ser Eustace is hardly representative of majority of knights, let alone majority of nobility. He is a pretty much disinherited outcast who had lost majority of his lands. Most of resources he has left go towards maintaining his own status. If you want a typical noble force, Lady Eustace is far more representative.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We do know that Winterfell has a peacetime garrison size of a couple of hundred men. The Lannisters likewise at court, and one imagines a similar back at the Rock and in Lannisport.

Of course we have no idea how large garrisons the smaller castles can maintain, but we also do know that even small castles do have men-at-arms in their service.

Castles in Westeros are not real world castles. They are not military fortresses, but rather the Westerosi equivalents to towns and cities.

Those castles are also ridiculously large, so couple hundred men is actually reasonable for Winterfell. I mean, as you point out, Winterfell is a self-contained town.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We do know that Winterfell has a peacetime garrison size of a couple of hundred men. The Lannisters likewise at court, and one imagines a similar back at the Rock and in Lannisport.

Of course we have no idea how large garrisons the smaller castles can maintain, but we also do know that even small castles do have men-at-arms in their service.

Castles in Westeros are not real world castles. They are not military fortresses, but rather the Westerosi equivalents to towns and cities.

True, but that is the second callup. Basically remnants of the remnants of the warrior class.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Again, we have no indication that such men actually do train. Even a man like Steelshanks Walton is more a peasant than a warrior. Which means George's view on military matters is that you learn the business as you go by it.

That's also Meribald's view, reinterated by Bennis: You go to war without proper equipment and then rob the dead.

We also had that issue with the Faith Militant Uprising thing:

If there were a considerable number of professional soldiers in the countryside not under the direct thumb of their lords (because they were actually in their direct employ) then we would have seen more such men with the Poor Fellows ... because they were a popular uprising.

Meribald however was not a regular soldier. He was either a camp follower, or a member of those 15% of rabble I have mentioned. But as I mentioned, majority of soldiers we actually see throughout the books are well-equipped and well-trained. They are definitely not conscripts picked up from the fields and told to "do or die".

That being said, considering the size of castles, I could actually agree that majority of soldiers would come from those castles and not the countryside.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, I'm aware that things are different in the real world there. But we can only use real world stuff with a fantasy series insofar as we have good reason to expect that there are intended parallels. This works pretty good with plot and characters and stuff with George ... and surprisingly well with some military details like the free companies.

But it is quite clear that the entire feudal aspect of the story is completely his own creation ... and not something that is very realistic. Both on the political and the military level.

Thing is, his military system is inconsistent. When we see soldiers in battle, vast majority of them behave and are equipped as professionals. But character statements often point to the opposite (Septon Meribald, Lady Catlyn etc.). So rather than throwing out one piece of evidence or another, I rather believe that such statements about conscripted peasants in fact refer to the camp followers and a small proportion of actual troops (Tywin did use rabble at Green Fork, after all), while most of troops are relatively well-trained and well-equipped.

That being said:

1) there are also character statements which point to a trained and well-equipped (semi)professional being the norm. Tyrion as I mentioned is shocked that Tywin would even employ rabble he employs in the battle.

2) there are examples of rabble being used (Ser Eustace, as you mention)

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, but that is just George's gigantism. Just think of the impossible castle of Harrenhal, the Wall, people having the means to build pointless giant castle ... and building only those, never towns or cities. The world is vast and big and larger than life, but there is no realistic world-building explaining how this all works.

This is best shown with the whole freak seasons thing - there everything breaks down - but the feudal system and military system don't work, either.

I mean, George actually seems to think the king and the various great lords actually do hear all petitions brought to them and sit in judgment over everything laid before them (with the king having the Hand to step in when he is incapacitated, of course). That alone is ridiculous, and he never made any attempt to correct that impression.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, that is another issue nobody really cares anything about. Although I'd have to say that food imports to KL, being a coastal city, would mostly come from the Flatlands or other places in Essos and from the Crownlands. KL grew so fast during the reign of the Conqueror that, prior to Jaehaerys I's roads, there wouldn't have been the infrastructure necessary to enable massive food deliveries from the Reach.

KL only starts to sort of starve in ACoK because the city is caught up from Essos (due to Stannis closing Blackwater Bay), the Reach/Stormlands (Renly), and the Riverlands (fighting there).

In a normal situation the food from everywhere would be brought to KL because it is the capital and biggest city, the place you can make the most money with your food. Not because the city is dependent on such imports for their survival.

Agreed. But George wrote what George wrote, and we shouldn't dismiss it unless there is no other way.

[Universal Sword Donor]

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, the castle men do constantly train at arms. That is confirmed. Not only that, they are also the people who constantly are under arms, guarding castles, accompany their highborn masters on their travels, etc.

In the villages and such where a lord would go to call in his peasant levies there simply are no trained men that we saw in eight books so far.

Steelshanks Walton doesn't exist then? Roose would make this guy a captain even though he never trains at arms? 

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Veterans would be men who go to war in Westeros, too, one assumes. But then - there simply aren't any considering there are pretty much no major wars.

There has been two major wars and campaign to put down guerrilla warfare near the capital in the last twenty years, ignoring the current Wo5K. There are plenty of veterans.

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That wasn't the point. The point was the the majority of the feudal levies called in by their lords would be amateurs. But that's not necessarily the majority of the infantry of a given army.

Amateurs with training, experience, and expensive arms and armor.

 

[Loose Bolt]

51 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Steelshanks Walton doesn't exist then? Roose would make this guy a captain even though he never trains at arms? 

I assume that he is a nobleman. In fact it should be impossible for anyone to have officer role in medieval army without having right pedigree. After all in Westeros pedigree matters and so it would be unlikely that any nobles would follow orders of anyone who is not one. So I think that he belongs to house that is Bolton version of Cassels and Pooles. Or minor house sworn to Dreadfort.

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Problem with all of them being castle men is, how many castles there are, and would it allow for armies we see in the series? Few good descriptions of armies suggest that majority of combat troops are professionals; peasants would be auxilliaries and logistics (camp followers). Could North truly raise close to 18 000 professionals (well, 15 000 professionals and 3 000 peasants, if we go by Tywin's numbers) just from castles?

Well, the North is kind of a different animal in the sense that it is a less developed and wilder region than the others. The clansmen would count as soldier-peasants in my book. They are not proper nobility and seem to be peasants under arms, basically. A similar thing seems to be going on with the Umbers. The way I imagine most of the North would be an empty land of very few proper settlements and there being many an isolated farm or a handful of farms whose denizens all do have to be martial to a point to survive.

But they all also are needed for farming and bringing in the harvest - as has been repeatedly mentioned - so they clearly cannot play in the same league as castle men.

For the North we can say that the countryside was depleted of men of fighting age by Robb, meaning that men were called in from outside the castles.

But in the end - the professional conduct of Roose's men at the Green Fork is easily explained by Roose being smart to use his professional men for the atack. They were attacking, so if the good men did the attacking this explains why they didn't behave like rabble.

And it is a similar thing with Tywin - Tyrion only gets a good look on the men he is serving with, he doesn't know exactly how great the other men are.

Also, you have to keep in mind Tywin raised two armies - one his own, the other the men with Jaime. He certainly could have decided to take the best men with him and leave Jaime with less quality men ... which could also help explain why they were outmaneuvered as easily as they were at the Whispering Wood and at Riverrun.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

What I meant was that Romans had organized system of retirement, which meant that veterans could be called up when number of active-duty soldiers got depleted. "Veteran" here means basically "retired soldier", irrespective of his combat experience (or lack thereof).

Westeros doesn't have a proper army, so that kind of thing would never work there. Any lord would be responsible for his own men-at-arms, just as any lord would be responsible to get the best support out of the bannermen and vassals sworn to him. The ways to wiggle out of this system must be endless.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Well, yeah. And I guess it also depends on definition of a castle - if a fortified home is a castle (which is actually the case; question though is how GRRM is using the term), then each knight / man at arms could well have a castle for his retinue.

Landed knights can have castles and keeps. Technically, even Eustace Osgrey has two proper sworn swords he could bring into battle. Three if Egg was a little bit older. But landed knights like the Fossoways and Conningtons and Templetons would bring vast armies. Others would be in-between. And it is certainly imaginable that a knight living at tower house/keep in a village or a small town - think Pennytree, for instance - would keep a dozen or a score of men-at-arms constantly under arms, and would perhaps train with even more of his people on a regular basis.

But the men in the countryside away from the castles and keeps of their lords and knights - like Osgreys peasants - wouldn't have as easy access to training and arms.

How easy it is to train at arms in castles is also shown by Rolly Duckfield - a man of humble birth who, due to be raised in a castle, could train at arms with his highborn masters.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And yes, majority of first callup are professionals. As I have mentioned, Tywin's army as described in the first book is 85% professionals and 15% conscripts. Weird thing here is that conscripts are all cavalry. There is no evidence of untrained rabble anywhere among infantry. Of course, it could be that there were armed camp followers, and that Tywin left them behind to guard camp / baggage train; but such men would not be counted in army numbers anyway, they are part of logistics train (which for a 20 000 strong army would number between 20 000 and 80 000 men).

Oh, the infantry thing there is something you have to take with a grain of salt. The West should have the most professional cavalry of all Westeros - or as professional a cavalry as the Reach - simply because they are the richest lords, and thus those who can afford the most/best horses.

It is similar with the cavalry-infantry ratio of Robb's army at Winterfell. That is best dealt with, in my opinion, by assuming a lot of landed knights/cavalry sworn to White Harbor came directly the Winterfell because the place lies closer or they wanted to suck up to the Starks directly than to assume the loyal Manderlys sent so few troops.

But, to be sure, we have no canonical talk how great the reserves of the West actually are. Tywin could have taken only/mainly first class people. Stafford's third army is raised around Lannisport, i.e. from Lannister heartlands. He didn't seem to call on the other Westermen to raise that host - a difficult thing, anyway, with most lords being with either Jaime or Tywin in the field.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Cavalry (in real world at least) are much less likely to be amateurs than infantry. But from what we see in the books, majority (though not entirety) of every army for which we have even a halfway-usable description are professionals. There is very little evidence for conscripts being used en masse in set-piece battles.

Well, conscripts wouldn't exist in a real way, anyway. Men are obliged to fight for their lord, they are not hired or drafted or paid for services they are owed their masters. Feudal levies are not hired soldiers like sworn swords, household knights, sellswords, etc.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Of course, some people would consider troops who have a day job and only train on certain days of the week to be amateurs, so YMMV. By that definition, majority of feudal levies would indeed be amateurs - but that is what I mean by "part-time professionals".

That is where those real world parallels break down. Westeros cannot be compared to a European medieval country constantly at war with powerful neighbors.

The only fighting of note in Westeros since the Conquest are occasional short civil wars/rebellions.

We see this with Renly's 'summer knights' not being seen as proper warriors despite the fact that they definitely are professionals. But unbloodied men - as most of Renly's men are - are not exactly in high standing. This would have been much during the long eras of peace like the reigns of Jaehaerys I and Viserys I.

The idea that men in those eras would constantly train at arms when their grandfathers or great-grandfathers were the last ones who actually had to fight in a war is not exactly very convincing.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Problem with TSS scenario is that Ser Eustace is hardly representative of majority of knights, let alone majority of nobility. He is a pretty much disinherited outcast who had lost majority of his lands. Most of resources he has left go towards maintaining his own status. If you want a typical noble force, Lady Eustace is far more representative.

Oh, no, he is only at the end of the rope in TSS, but we do learn in that story that the recruiting Dunk and Bennis do happened pretty much the same way when Eustace was still somebody ... back when he raised his levies and took them to fight and die with the Black Dragon in 196 AC.

Lady Webber doesn't have to raise any levies because she does have a garrison of her own. Men she takes with her to battle when she meets with Osgreys men at the river. She doesn't have to call on her villagers and peasants for this ... but one assumes she would if she was actually be forced to go to war at the command of her liege lord or the king. Because then she would be obliged to not show up with her castle men but the men sitting on her lands.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Those castles are also ridiculously large, so couple hundred men is actually reasonable for Winterfell. I mean, as you point out, Winterfell is a self-contained town.

Yes, and that is an important difference to the real world. You also see that with 'castle-forged steel' actually be a term being used again and again. Which also means proper weaponry involving steel is only be the had at castles ... or at least is produced at castles and reaches the countryside only from there.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

True, but that is the second callup. Basically remnants of the remnants of the warrior class.

Not necessarily. It could also be the remnants of the amateurs that were drafted. I mean, they would take able-bodied men of fighting age first, and only call on old men and young boys when they have no other choice.

The core fighting class - nobility, knights, men-at-arms in castles, etc. - would predominantly go with the first batch.

I mean, in the North that's pretty clear. People up there suck as much as they do because most of the warriors and most of the generals are gone.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Meribald however was not a regular soldier. He was either a camp follower, or a member of those 15% of rabble I have mentioned. But as I mentioned, majority of soldiers we actually see throughout the books are well-equipped and well-trained. They are definitely not conscripts picked up from the fields and told to "do or die".

But that kind of thing apparently also happens. I'm not saying men who show up aren't there, I'm saying disciplined, well-equipped men among the infantry are not necessarily representative of all the infantry.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That being said, considering the size of castles, I could actually agree that majority of soldiers would come from those castles and not the countryside.

See above. There would be regional differences and stuff, but all the well-equipped, well-armed, competent men should be castle men - and that would include townsfolk and villagers living in the vicinity of castles/big keeps where there are ample opportunities to train at arms.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Thing is, his military system is inconsistent. When we see soldiers in battle, vast majority of them behave and are equipped as professionals. But character statements often point to the opposite (Septon Meribald, Lady Catlyn etc.). So rather than throwing out one piece of evidence or another, I rather believe that such statements about conscripted peasants in fact refer to the camp followers and a small proportion of actual troops (Tywin did use rabble at Green Fork, after all), while most of troops are relatively well-trained and well-equipped.

That would only make sense if people like Cat and Meribald would actually talk about camp followers ... which they don't.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Steelshanks Walton doesn't exist then? Roose would make this guy a captain even though he never trains at arms? 

We don't know anything about Walton as such. But Jaime thinks he is the kind of man who works with a hoe and is no professional warrior. If that's how things are done in the West and wherever Jaime served during his career then captains in feudal armies are indeed just peasants and fieldhands.

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

There has been two major wars and campaign to put down guerrilla warfare near the capital in the last twenty years, ignoring the current Wo5K. There are plenty of veterans.

None that we meet. Or do you recall any veterans from the two Rebellions being mentioned?

[Aldarion]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, the North is kind of a different animal in the sense that it is a less developed and wilder region than the others. The clansmen would count as soldier-peasants in my book. They are not proper nobility and seem to be peasants under arms, basically. A similar thing seems to be going on with the Umbers. The way I imagine most of the North would be an empty land of very few proper settlements and there being many an isolated farm or a handful of farms whose denizens all do have to be martial to a point to survive.

But they all also are needed for farming and bringing in the harvest - as has been repeatedly mentioned - so they clearly cannot play in the same league as castle men.

For the North we can say that the countryside was depleted of men of fighting age by Robb, meaning that men were called in from outside the castles.

But in the end - the professional conduct of Roose's men at the Green Fork is easily explained by Roose being smart to use his professional men for the atack. They were attacking, so if the good men did the attacking this explains why they didn't behave like rabble.

And it is a similar thing with Tywin - Tyrion only gets a good look on the men he is serving with, he doesn't know exactly how great the other men are.

Also, you have to keep in mind Tywin raised two armies - one his own, the other the men with Jaime. He certainly could have decided to take the best men with him and leave Jaime with less quality men ... which could also help explain why they were outmaneuvered as easily as they were at the Whispering Wood and at Riverrun.

Thing is, we have multiple mentions of men going home "for one last harvest", and it is not limited just to North:

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q="one+last+harvest"&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=tmk&scope[]=acok&scope[]=twow&scope[]=twoiaf&scope[]=asos&scope[]=thk&scope[]=trp&scope[]=affc&scope[]=tss&scope[]=tpatq

On the other hand, there are all the descriptions which clearly show soliders (including Northmen) as professionals. So there are only two possible solutions I see which allow us to integrate both:

1. Most of infantry are part-time professionals akin to Byzantine thematic infantry (or other historical peasant-soldiers), and thus work on their own fields in addition to soldiering job (and some part of infantry clearly are rabble)
2. "Going home for harvest" refers primarily to the camp followers, but since army cannot function without them, army has to disband as well

As for descriptions, Roose's army can be explained that way, but we actually do get a good look at Tywin's army - the entire army. And vast majority are clearly disciplined, professional-level troops, though Martin does insert some peasant rabble which has no business being there, presumably for grimdark value. Stannis' army has no peasants in it, before or after he takes Renly's men.

I do not recall any peasants mentioned with Jamie's men either, but then we do not really see composition of his army. Still, Jamie's army is only 1/5 or even just 1/7 cavalry, so it appears to be given less importance than Tywin's host and thus may be of lower quality - or it might be that he simply has more infantry because he is expected to carry out a siege. But reason why Jamie was so easily outmaneuvered lies primarily in him being a shitty commander. He would have ended the same way regardless of whether he commanded an army of Matija Gubec's peasants or Matthias Corvinus' Black Army.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, the North is kind of a different animal in the sense that it is a less developed and wilder region than the others. The clansmen would count as soldier-peasants in my book. They are not proper nobility and seem to be peasants under arms, basically. A similar thing seems to be going on with the Umbers. The way I imagine most of the North would be an empty land of very few proper settlements and there being many an isolated farm or a handful of farms whose denizens all do have to be martial to a point to survive.

But they all also are needed for farming and bringing in the harvest - as has been repeatedly mentioned - so they clearly cannot play in the same league as castle men.

For the North we can say that the countryside was depleted of men of fighting age by Robb, meaning that men were called in from outside the castles.

But in the end - the professional conduct of Roose's men at the Green Fork is easily explained by Roose being smart to use his professional men for the atack. They were attacking, so if the good men did the attacking this explains why they didn't behave like rabble.

And it is a similar thing with Tywin - Tyrion only gets a good look on the men he is serving with, he doesn't know exactly how great the other men are.

Also, you have to keep in mind Tywin raised two armies - one his own, the other the men with Jaime. He certainly could have decided to take the best men with him and leave Jaime with less quality men ... which could also help explain why they were outmaneuvered as easily as they were at the Whispering Wood and at Riverrun.

Depends on how you define a "proper army". Westerosi armies do not appear to be much worse than any historic feudal army (with exceptions being armies that were explicitly not founded on feudal model despite being utilized by feudal states - again, the Black Army and Compagnies d'Ordonnance come to mind). They are not bureocratic state armies of Roman, Byzantine or Ottoman model, but the very fact that you have tens of thousands of men traipsing around in coherent hosts means that they have to have very developed organization and bureocracy. And that means that "ways to wiggle out" would actually be much more limited than what you appear to assume (though still relatively numerous - again, we are not dealing with state armies here).

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Landed knights can have castles and keeps. Technically, even Eustace Osgrey has two proper sworn swords he could bring into battle. Three if Egg was a little bit older. But landed knights like the Fossoways and Conningtons and Templetons would bring vast armies. Others would be in-between. And it is certainly imaginable that a knight living at tower house/keep in a village or a small town - think Pennytree, for instance - would keep a dozen or a score of men-at-arms constantly under arms, and would perhaps train with even more of his people on a regular basis.

But the men in the countryside away from the castles and keeps of their lords and knights - like Osgreys peasants - wouldn't have as easy access to training and arms.

How easy it is to train at arms in castles is also shown by Rolly Duckfield - a man of humble birth who, due to be raised in a castle, could train at arms with his highborn masters.

Agreed. This then would mean that, within the castle at least, a noble would have access to much greater number of potentially trained soldiers than what he would maintain on a personal basis. Now, in historical feudalism, this difference between peacetime garrison of full-time professionals and wartime army would be filled in by part-time troops raised from the lands surrounding the castle (which would be well-trained and equipped), but I definitely can imagine the system you are proposing here.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, the infantry thing there is something you have to take with a grain of salt. The West should have the most professional cavalry of all Westeros - or as professional a cavalry as the Reach - simply because they are the richest lords, and thus those who can afford the most/best horses.

It is similar with the cavalry-infantry ratio of Robb's army at Winterfell. That is best dealt with, in my opinion, by assuming a lot of landed knights/cavalry sworn to White Harbor came directly the Winterfell because the place lies closer or they wanted to suck up to the Starks directly than to assume the loyal Manderlys sent so few troops.

But, to be sure, we have no canonical talk how great the reserves of the West actually are. Tywin could have taken only/mainly first class people. Stafford's third army is raised around Lannisport, i.e. from Lannister heartlands. He didn't seem to call on the other Westermen to raise that host - a difficult thing, anyway, with most lords being with either Jaime or Tywin in the field.

As I have mentioned - we see no untrained rabble among infantry in Tywin's army, but the left wing - which is mounted - is largely rabble.

Do we know Stafford's army was raised from lands around Lannisport, or Lannisport was merely a final mustering site?

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, the infantry thing there is something you have to take with a grain of salt. The West should have the most professional cavalry of all Westeros - or as professional a cavalry as the Reach - simply because they are the richest lords, and thus those who can afford the most/best horses.

It is similar with the cavalry-infantry ratio of Robb's army at Winterfell. That is best dealt with, in my opinion, by assuming a lot of landed knights/cavalry sworn to White Harbor came directly the Winterfell because the place lies closer or they wanted to suck up to the Starks directly than to assume the loyal Manderlys sent so few troops.

But, to be sure, we have no canonical talk how great the reserves of the West actually are. Tywin could have taken only/mainly first class people. Stafford's third army is raised around Lannisport, i.e. from Lannister heartlands. He didn't seem to call on the other Westermen to raise that host - a difficult thing, anyway, with most lords being with either Jaime or Tywin in the field.

Feudal levies would be trained soldiers - part time professionals, as I mentioned. Fact is, if you equip someone with a sword and armour, you want to ensure said person knows how to use it. A full suit of plate armour would IIRC be about as expensive in Medieval term as a car is nowadays, and mail wasn't that much cheaper (though it was easier to maintain). So as soon as you see someone wearing a metal armour, you can be certain person is a professional. In fact, even part-time professional soldiers might not have been able to afford metal armour, depending on the time and place - Byzantine thematic infantry typically used quilted armour, and oftentimes even used quilted or leather caps instead of metal helmets.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is where those real world parallels break down. Westeros cannot be compared to a European medieval country constantly at war with powerful neighbors.

The only fighting of note in Westeros since the Conquest are occasional short civil wars/rebellions.

We see this with Renly's 'summer knights' not being seen as proper warriors despite the fact that they definitely are professionals. But unbloodied men - as most of Renly's men are - are not exactly in high standing. This would have been much during the long eras of peace like the reigns of Jaehaerys I and Viserys I.

The idea that men in those eras would constantly train at arms when their grandfathers or great-grandfathers were the last ones who actually had to fight in a war is not exactly very convincing.

Actually, it can. European feudal states were much more often at war with their neighbours than Westeros is, true. But typical feudal warfare were technically-civil-wars between nobles and lords. Interstate warfare, wars between kings, were an exception, not the norm. So even if Westeros does not have any external enemies, Westerosi soldiers and armies should still have significant combat experience. That is just the consequence of the fact that Westeros is a feudal society. And if there are, in fact, no such wars, or if they are rare, then it would mean that somebody - king or Lords Paramount - had gotten tired of nobles **** and raised standing armies of full-time professional soldiers to put an end to chaos. So either you have armies of full-time professionals, or you have feudal armies with significant combat experience.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, no, he is only at the end of the rope in TSS, but we do learn in that story that the recruiting Dunk and Bennis do happened pretty much the same way when Eustace was still somebody ... back when he raised his levies and took them to fight and die with the Black Dragon in 196 AC.

Lady Webber doesn't have to raise any levies because she does have a garrison of her own. Men she takes with her to battle when she meets with Osgreys men at the river. She doesn't have to call on her villagers and peasants for this ... but one assumes she would if she was actually be forced to go to war at the command of her liege lord or the king. Because then she would be obliged to not show up with her castle men but the men sitting on her lands.

True, but I still find it unlikely that such men form majority of troops. I mean, their mere presence is stretching believability to the breaking point, especially since we are talking about feudal society (yes, there were societies which had peasant soldiers - none of them feudal). Only time they would reasonably get raised is if kingdom faced a very much mortal threat.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yes, and that is an important difference to the real world. You also see that with 'castle-forged steel' actually be a term being used again and again. Which also means proper weaponry involving steel is only be the had at castles ... or at least is produced at castles and reaches the countryside only from there.

 

But that would actually support the idea that armies are primarily comprised of professionals, as it would lead to much more centralized administration and increased lords' ability to oversee his subjects.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But that kind of thing apparently also happens. I'm not saying men who show up aren't there, I'm saying disciplined, well-equipped men among the infantry are not necessarily representative of all the infantry.

 

Agreed. I just think that rabble form a minority of the army.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, no, he is only at the end of the rope in TSS, but we do learn in that story that the recruiting Dunk and Bennis do happened pretty much the same way when Eustace was still somebody ... back when he raised his levies and took them to fight and die with the Black Dragon in 196 AC.

Lady Webber doesn't have to raise any levies because she does have a garrison of her own. Men she takes with her to battle when she meets with Osgreys men at the river. She doesn't have to call on her villagers and peasants for this ... but one assumes she would if she was actually be forced to go to war at the command of her liege lord or the king. Because then she would be obliged to not show up with her castle men but the men sitting on her lands.

Agreed.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That would only make sense if people like Cat and Meribald would actually talk about camp followers ... which they don't.

Meribald very likely does talk about camp followers, considering how he mentions he and his friends were basically unarmed. As for Catelyn, take a note of wording:

Quote

This host her son had assembled was not a standing
army such as the Free Cities were accustomed to maintain, nor a force of guardsmen paid in
coin. Most of them were smallfolk: crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of
innkeeps and traders and tanners, leavened with a smattering of sellswords and freeriders hungry
for plunder. When their lords called, they came... but not forever.

She only really mentions their social standing, and that army is not "standing army". Nowhere does she indicate that men are untrained or undisciplined, and all the occupations she listed would fit with the idea of part-time professionals / well-trained militia.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Not necessarily. It could also be the remnants of the amateurs that were drafted. I mean, they would take able-bodied men of fighting age first, and only call on old men and young boys when they have no other choice.

The core fighting class - nobility, knights, men-at-arms in castles, etc. - would predominantly go with the first batch.

I mean, in the North that's pretty clear. People up there suck as much as they do because most of the warriors and most of the generals are gone.

But if it is remnants of the amateurs that were drafted, it would mean that North does not have the population density to be a viable kingdom. When you compare army sizes to geography of Westeros and potential population, going "peasant conscripts" route would mean that there are too few people to maintain a workable society.

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Thing is, we have multiple mentions of men going home "for one last harvest", and it is not limited just to North:

Sure, but only in the North we see the extreme example of the Glovers being unable to bring in the crops planted right outside their castle. Their very own peasants went away to war. And it seems to be similarly with the Karstarks.

In the Riverlands crops are burned on the fields and provisions are destroyed and stolen, but nobody says anything about this or that lord being able to harvest crops still in the field because he lacks workers.

There is a difference there, as is with the fact that the Northmen really cannot afford to go to war in autumn. Robb ruins the North with his campaign as becomes clear. Cregan Stark did not during the Dance. He was smart enough to wait and only send a large army to war when the last harvest was brought in.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

On the other hand, there are all the descriptions which clearly show soliders (including Northmen) as professionals. So there are only two possible solutions I see which allow us to integrate both:

I'd rather imagine the Northmen as rougher people overall, with there not being a clear difference of profession between soldiers and peasants because the lands are as wild and dangerous as they are. I'd also assume that this is a more feudal society, so to speak, where the men called upon for service in war actually are more prepared for that duty than elsewhere because they have to to a point.

But then - we see how shitty they conduct themselves at the Stony Shore and later with the Ironborn. There are people there who have no clue how to do battle.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

As for descriptions, Roose's army can be explained that way, but we actually do get a good look at Tywin's army - the entire army. And vast majority are clearly disciplined, professional-level troops, though Martin does insert some peasant rabble which has no business being there, presumably for grimdark value. Stannis' army has no peasants in it, before or after he takes Renly's men.

We see how they march and how they assemble, not really how they perform in battle in detail, aside from Tyrion's limited perspective.

I mean, if you take a look at the wildling attack at the Wall - all that organized arrow-shooting, for instance, the attack on the gate, Mance's army also seems to perform professionally, no? The same goes for the attack on Castle Black.

But when Stannis attacks they break immediately. In the end, the plot dictates how those people behave.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I do not recall any peasants mentioned with Jamie's men either, but then we do not really see composition of his army. Still, Jamie's army is only 1/5 or even just 1/7 cavalry, so it appears to be given less importance than Tywin's host and thus may be of lower quality - or it might be that he simply has more infantry because he is expected to carry out a siege. But reason why Jamie was so easily outmaneuvered lies primarily in him being a shitty commander. He would have ended the same way regardless of whether he commanded an army of Matija Gubec's peasants or Matthias Corvinus' Black Army.

I'm not just thinking of the Whispering Wood but also the Battle of the Camps afterwards, with Jaime already in custody. Sure, the terrain was a problem for the Westermen there, but it is certainly possible that Robb had as much success as he did because the men he was facing weren't all that good/well-trained.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Depends on how you define a "proper army". Westerosi armies do not appear to be much worse than any historic feudal army (with exceptions being armies that were explicitly not founded on feudal model despite being utilized by feudal states - again, the Black Army and Compagnies d'Ordonnance come to mind). They are not bureocratic state armies of Roman, Byzantine or Ottoman model, but the very fact that you have tens of thousands of men traipsing around in coherent hosts means that they have to have very developed organization and bureocracy. And that means that "ways to wiggle out" would actually be much more limited than what you appear to assume (though still relatively numerous - again, we are not dealing with state armies here).

Oh, I just thought how Lord Walder said he tried to come on time but didn't make it, and nobody could do anything about it.

It is quite clear that only the local lord knows how many men he can lead to war. He is the one ruling over them directly, with no oversight from the Crown or his own liege lord.

And you have to keep in mind that men are only raised, perhaps, once or twice a century in the Targaryen era. Meaning nobody would have any new information on the population of a given region - which would fluctuate considerable depending how bad the last winter, plague, drought, etc. was.

Overall, one would also have to imagine an army as many armies under the commands of the various lords and their representatives. How quickly oder in such an army breaks down can be seen during the Dance at Tumbleton and, to a lesser degree, with the Westermen host after the death of Lord Jason.

As long as the big guy in charge is still there - the king or the great lord of the region all men in the army are beholden to in peace and war, anyway - things are fine. But if he is gone then such an army has no cohesion whatsoever.

That is why the Northmen cannot mount a proper campaign against the Ironborn in ACoK and ASoS. Cassel tries, but he is just a castellan, not the regent of the North. He has no real authority to command the lords of the North.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Agreed. This then would mean that, within the castle at least, a noble would have access to much greater number of potentially trained soldiers than what he would maintain on a personal basis. Now, in historical feudalism, this difference between peacetime garrison of full-time professionals and wartime army would be filled in by part-time troops raised from the lands surrounding the castle (which would be well-trained and equipped), but I definitely can imagine the system you are proposing here.

I'd imagine that there core troops of any given great house have to be such people, too. Think of the Tully example from FaB that their lands are smaller and poorer than those of their most powerful bannermen, unlike with the other great houses. That would mean that the Starks, Lannisters, Arryns, Tyrells, etc. would control the bulk of their men directly, not through any lordly bannermen and vassals. Else their own power to counter rebellions in their lands quickly would be pretty much nonexistent.

But then - the problem with that is the especially the lands of Winterfell are pretty much empty around the castle as far as we have seen so far. But that doesn't have to be the case for Highgarden, Oldtown, the Gates of the Moon, Casterly Rock, etc.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

As I have mentioned - we see no untrained rabble among infantry in Tywin's army, but the left wing - which is mounted - is largely rabble.

That is the only part of the army which we seen in detail. The others we just get a casual glance.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Do we know Stafford's army was raised from lands around Lannisport, or Lannisport was merely a final mustering site?

We don't know any details about that, but those new recruits seem to be from Lannisport. The failure there is mostly that they had no proper camp/scouts/outriders because they didn't expect an attack from enemies where they were.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Feudal levies would be trained soldiers - part time professionals, as I mentioned. Fact is, if you equip someone with a sword and armour, you want to ensure said person knows how to use it. A full suit of plate armour would IIRC be about as expensive in Medieval term as a car is nowadays, and mail wasn't that much cheaper (though it was easier to maintain). So as soon as you see someone wearing a metal armour, you can be certain person is a professional. In fact, even part-time professional soldiers might not have been able to afford metal armour, depending on the time and place - Byzantine thematic infantry typically used quilted armour, and oftentimes even used quilted or leather caps instead of metal helmets.

Oh, plate armor and swords are not infantry weapons in Westeros. Infantry are mostly spearmen and archers and axemen. Swords are weapons for the nobility. Just as armor is limited to the nobility. Those Frey men wearing steel armor and stuff would be men in their permanent service, not men living in the countryside.

I'd also expect Steelshanks Walton to be a man living at the Dreadfort or very close to it, explaining how he as a peasant (if Jaime is right there) could be as trusted a man in Roose's service as he clearly is.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Actually, it can. European feudal states were much more often at war with their neighbours than Westeros is, true. But typical feudal warfare were technically-civil-wars between nobles and lords. Interstate warfare, wars between kings, were an exception, not the norm. So even if Westeros does not have any external enemies, Westerosi soldiers and armies should still have significant combat experience. That is just the consequence of the fact that Westeros is a feudal society. And if there are, in fact, no such wars, or if they are rare, then it would mean that somebody - king or Lords Paramount - had gotten tired of nobles **** and raised standing armies of full-time professional soldiers to put an end to chaos. So either you have armies of full-time professionals, or you have feudal armies with significant combat experience.

There are no wars between the Westerosi nobility since the Conquest. That kind of thing is over. It is not tolerated anymore.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

True, but I still find it unlikely that such men form majority of troops. I mean, their mere presence is stretching believability to the breaking point, especially since we are talking about feudal society (yes, there were societies which had peasant soldiers - none of them feudal). Only time they would reasonably get raised is if kingdom faced a very much mortal threat.

We would not hear anything about this kind of thing if lords could make due with their own men. And it is not that this thing is properly organized. A nobleman/vassal has a legal obligation to show up with a certain number of soldiers when the banners are called. His liege lords and the king don't care where he finds those men, meaning they will do their best to do what's asked of them.

Rich lords could hire sworn swords and freeriders and sellswords, can afford to train their men-at-arms, and have the coin to equip and arm them. Poor lords don't have that luxury. They will have to make due with what they have - like Ser Eustace tries to do.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

She only really mentions their social standing, and that army is not "standing army". Nowhere does she indicate that men are untrained or undisciplined, and all the occupations she listed would fit with the idea of part-time professionals / well-trained militia.

But we can expect the standing armies and free companies of Essos to be better fighters, all things considered, since they are actual professional soldiers who are in constant wars with the various Free Cities - unlike the Westerosi, who ride in tourneys and short and relatively bloodless wars.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

But if it is remnants of the amateurs that were drafted, it would mean that North does not have the population density to be a viable kingdom. When you compare army sizes to geography of Westeros and potential population, going "peasant conscripts" route would mean that there are too few people to maintain a workable society.

Really not my problem. I mean, again, the Karstarks and Glovers are down to be being unable to do harvests right out their home castles. That doesn't really work if their economy was shaped to actually feed and maintain a lot of professional warriors for (constant) warfare.

After all, the Seven Kingdoms did constantly war prior to the Conquest - and they also had constant civil wars and private wars within the kingdoms - and back then there were fewer people in Westeros and, most likely, less proper bureaucracy.

[Aldarion]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, but only in the North we see the extreme example of the Glovers being unable to bring in the crops planted right outside their castle. Their very own peasants went away to war. And it seems to be similarly with the Karstarks.

In the Riverlands crops are burned on the fields and provisions are destroyed and stolen, but nobody says anything about this or that lord being able to harvest crops still in the field because he lacks workers.

There is a difference there, as is with the fact that the Northmen really cannot afford to go to war in autumn. Robb ruins the North with his campaign as becomes clear. Cregan Stark did not during the Dance. He was smart enough to wait and only send a large army to war when the last harvest was brought in.

Agreed. Though, if it weren't for the mentions of harvest getting, well, unharvested, there would be another possibility (and far more logical one): that North is simply poor. During 15th century, Hungary typically mounted campaigns in late autumn or even winter despite all the difficulties, because they had to wait for the harvest to come in to be able to afford a major campaign. So I have to wonder whether Martin found something like that, and misinterpreted it into harvest literally not getting harvested.

In any case, we also have Cersei's thoughts here: "The rest of the westermen had gone back to their wives and children, to rebuild their homes, plant their fields, and bring in one last harvest.". I do have to question how reliable of a source she is, but it does suggest that Westerland army also relies on peasants for at least some of its needs (be it camp followers, combat troops or both - personally, I lean towards the first choice).

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'd rather imagine the Northmen as rougher people overall, with there not being a clear difference of profession between soldiers and peasants because the lands are as wild and dangerous as they are. I'd also assume that this is a more feudal society, so to speak, where the men called upon for service in war actually are more prepared for that duty than elsewhere because they have to to a point.

But then - we see how shitty they conduct themselves at the Stony Shore and later with the Ironborn. There are people there who have no clue how to do battle.

If you are talking about Wild Hares, that is true. But it comes down largely to two factors:

1) they are all way too young - there is literally not a single experienced soldier present to help stiffen them

2) their commander is an idiot

We have examples of Roman and Byzantine armies getting defeated because commander was an idiot and failed to arrange scouting / fortify camp / etc. - basic mistakes, but they still got made, and commanders paid for them with their lives (and those of their soldiers). To give just a few:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carrhae

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pliska#Battle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Gates_of_Trajan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kantakouzenos_(Caesar)

So overall, I would not take that as indictment against Northern armies, or Westerosi armies in general. And that is why I disagree with Connington's assessment of Strickland's abilities: whatever the man's flaws, he maintained discipline as evidenced by the camp Golden Company built. Now, Golden Company is definitely far more disciplined and organized than average army, in either Westeros or Essos; but we see some Westerosi armies fortifying their camps as well (Lannister army under Tywin is the only one I can recall right now, though).

But yeah, as far as North goes, it is indeed likely that society as such is far more militarized than in rest of the Westeros.

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We see how they march and how they assemble, not really how they perform in battle in detail, aside from Tyrion's limited perspective.

I mean, if you take a look at the wildling attack at the Wall - all that organized arrow-shooting, for instance, the attack on the gate, Mance's army also seems to perform professionally, no? The same goes for the attack on Castle Black.

But when Stannis attacks they break immediately. In the end, the plot dictates how those people behave.

No, Mance's army doesn't behave professionaly at all, either during or after attack on the Wall. They have no scouts (Stannis had but were neutralized by the Mountain Clans, even Renly had some), they did not fortify the camp (Tywin fortified his camp, Jamie's camp at Riverrun was also fortified), they show no notion of combined-arms assault (they do not try to suppress the Night's Watch before moving to close quarters - see how they behave at Castle Black). Even their approach to the Wall at dawn is disorganized, though some semblance of organization is there - probably what Mance, being a Night's Watch deserter, managed to beat into th. The ram is uncovered, and archers are undisciplined.

And when we are at the Wall, this is what Jon thinks about "normal soldier":

Three-quarters of the village had taken Jon’s warning to heart and come to Castle Black for refuge. Noye had decreed that every man still spry enough to hold a spear or swing an axe would help defend the barricade, else they could damn well go home and take their chances with the Therms. He had emptied the armory to put good steel in their hands; big double-bladed axes, razor-sharp daggers, longswords, maces, spiked morningstars. Clad in studded leather jerkins and mail hauberks, with greaves for their legs and gorgets to keep their heads on their shoulders, a few of them even looked like soldiers. In a bad light. If you squint.

It is quite clear that he does not consider "untrained peasant rabble" as normal for Westerosi soldiers. Compare to his thoughts about Wildlings:

The wildling archers shot as they advanced; they would dash forward, stop, loose, then run another ten yards. There were so many that the air was constantly full of arrows, all falling woefully short. A waste, Jon thought. Their want of discipline is showing. The smaller horn-and- wood bows of the free folk were outranged by the great yew longbows of the Night’s Watch, and the wildlings were trying to shoot at men seven hundred feet above them.

It is Wildlings who are an undisciplined rabble, and in fact Jon focuses on their want of discipline as a very important factor.

And now look at how Wildlings react to an attack by Night's Watch and Stannis' men:

Elsewhere around the camp, Jon saw people running at cross purposes, some men forming up as if to storm the Wall while others slipped into the woods, women driving dog carts east, mammoths wandering west. He reached back over his shoulder and drew Longclaw just as a thin line of rangers emerged from the fringes of the wood three hundred yards away. They wore black mail, black halfhelms, and black cloaks. (...)

Slow as honey on a cold morning, the rangers swept down on the wildling camp, picking their way through clumps of gorse and stands of trees, over roots and rocks. Wildlings flew to meet them, shouting warcries and waving clubs and bronze swords and axes made of flint, galloping headlong at their ancient enemies. A shout, a slash, and a fine brave death, Jon had heard brothers say of the free folk’s way of fighting.

(...)

The raiders screamed and hacked and chased the men in black back into the trees. But there were more men coming from the wood, a column of horse. Knights on heavy horse, Jon saw. Harma had to regroup and wheel to meet them, but half of her men had raced too far ahead. (...)

Trumpets were blowing all around, loud and brazen. The wildlings have no trumpets, only warhorns. They knew that as well as he did; the sound sent free folk running in confusion, some toward the fighting, others away. A mammoth was stomping through a flock of sheep that three men were trying to herd off west. The drums were beating as the wildlings ran to form squares and lines, but they were too late, too disorganized, too slow. The enemy was emerging from the forest, from the east, the northeast, the north; three great columns of heavy horse, all dark glinting steel and bright wool surcoats. Not the men of Eastwatch, those had been no more than a line of scouts. An army. The king? Jon was as confused as the wildlings. Could Robb have returned? Had the boy on the iron Throne finally bestirred himself ? (...)

Across the field one column had washed over Harma Dogshead. Another smashed into the flank of Tormund’s spearmen as he and his sons desperately tried to turn them. The giants were climbing onto their mammoths, though, and the knights on their barded horses did not like that at all; he could see how the coursers and destriers screamed and scattered at the sight of those lumbering mountains. But there was fear on the wildling side as well, hundreds of women and children rushing away from the battle, some of them blundering right under the hooves of garrons. He saw an old woman’s dog cart veer into the path of three chariots, to send them crashing into each other.

He had lost sight of Mance but now he found him again, cutting his way through a knot of mounted men. The mammoths had shattered the center column, but the other two were closing like pincers. On the eastern edge of the camps, some archers were loosing fire arrows at the tents. He saw a mammoth pluck a knight from his saddle and fling him forty feet with a flick of its trunk. Wildlings streamed past, women and children running from the battle, some with men hurrying them along. A few of them gave Jon dark looks but Longclaw was in his hand, and no one troubled him. Even Varamyr fled, crawling off on his hands and knees.

More and more men were pouring from the trees, not only knights now but freeriders and mounted bowmen and men-at-arms in jacks and kettle helms, dozens of men, hundreds of men. A blaze of banners flew above them. The wind was whipping them too wildly for Jon to see the sigils, but he glimpsed a seahorse, a field of birds, a ring of flowers. And yellow, so much yellow, yellow banners with a red device, whose arms were those?

East and north and northeast, he saw bands of wildlings trying to stand and fight, but the attackers rode right over them. The free folk still had the numbers, but the attackers had steel armor and heavy horses. in the thickest part of the fray, Jon saw Mance standing tall in his stirrups. His red-and-black cloak and raven-winged helm made him easy to pick out. He had his sword raised and men were rallying to him when a wedge of knights smashed into them with lance and sword and longaxe. Mance’s mare went up on her hind legs, kicking, and a spear took her through the breast. Then the steel tide washed over him.

It’s done, Jon thought, they’re breaking. The wildlings were running, throwing down their weapons, Hornfoot men and cave dwellers and Therns 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.

That is not a disciplined army. It is not even an army, it is an armed mob, and you can see this fact throughout the entire attack on the Wall. Fact that Stannis breaks them so easily is not surprising, it is expected: his men are professionals, well-trained, well-disciplined and well-equipped. By comparison, Wildlings are undisciplined, confused and behave randomly. They can show some semblance of discipline as long as things are going smoothly (which can indeed fool reader - it fooled you - into believing they are an actually disciplined and organized force), but as soon as they hit a roadbump, they fall apart. They are in the end no different from Saruman's army in Lord of the Rings - all gleam but no substance.

Now, I do not think Martin understands military matters anywhere close as well as Tolkien did, but again - Mance's army is same as Saruman's army. It is just well-equipped and organized enough to fool unattentive reader into believing that it is actually a well-trained and well-organized (and in Saruman's case, professional) force, but in reality, that impression is hollow. Neither army has anything that real army requires to succeed - no discipline, only superficial organization, and no clear chain of command.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We see how they march and how they assemble, not really how they perform in battle in detail, aside from Tyrion's limited perspective.

I mean, if you take a look at the wildling attack at the Wall - all that organized arrow-shooting, for instance, the attack on the gate, Mance's army also seems to perform professionally, no? The same goes for the attack on Castle Black.

But when Stannis attacks they break immediately. In the end, the plot dictates how those people behave.

Jamie is directly responsible for both Whispering Wood and Battle of the Camps. He was the commander, and my comment pertained to both of these battles. In fact, it is precisely Battle of the Camps that I was primarily talking about.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, I just thought how Lord Walder said he tried to come on time but didn't make it, and nobody could do anything about it.

 

But he was a commander of a fairly significant force. Unless someone had direct proof he was lying, there was nothing anybody could have done about it. And again, professional armies had the same problem - Battle of Manzikert was lost primarily because Doukas, who commanded the reserve, betrayed the emperor by prematurily withdrawing. Had he supported Romanos, Byzantines would have won the battle. Lord Walder's political BS is just that - political bull****erry.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is quite clear that only the local lord knows how many men he can lead to war. He is the one ruling over them directly, with no oversight from the Crown or his own liege lord.

And you have to keep in mind that men are only raised, perhaps, once or twice a century in the Targaryen era. Meaning nobody would have any new information on the population of a given region - which would fluctuate considerable depending how bad the last winter, plague, drought, etc. was.

Overall, one would also have to imagine an army as many armies under the commands of the various lords and their representatives. How quickly oder in such an army breaks down can be seen during the Dance at Tumbleton and, to a lesser degree, with the Westermen host after the death of Lord Jason.

As long as the big guy in charge is still there - the king or the great lord of the region all men in the army are beholden to in peace and war, anyway - things are fine. But if he is gone then such an army has no cohesion whatsoever.

That is why the Northmen cannot mount a proper campaign against the Ironborn in ACoK and ASoS. Cassel tries, but he is just a castellan, not the regent of the North. He has no real authority to command the lords of the North.

That is precisely what feudal armies are. But that does not mean they cannot be well-organized and disciplined. What it does mean however is that how such an army would perform will depend - more than usual - on personality and influence of its overall commander. Tywin is well-respected and feared, and as such can marshal all resources of Westerlands. On the other hand, most lords simply decided to ignore Edmure. But that doesn't mean that Edmure's army is inherently inferior, less-disciplined, less trained or less well-equipped than Tywin's; it is, again, an issue of political leadership.

But at any rate, it is in the interest of every single lord and noble to maintain a competent and professional force, because that is what is authority and power depend on: the ability to protect his peasants (or force their obedience if necessary). In such environment, conscripting peasants to serve in the army makes no sense, either politically or militarily.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'd imagine that there core troops of any given great house have to be such people, too. Think of the Tully example from FaB that their lands are smaller and poorer than those of their most powerful bannermen, unlike with the other great houses. That would mean that the Starks, Lannisters, Arryns, Tyrells, etc. would control the bulk of their men directly, not through any lordly bannermen and vassals. Else their own power to counter rebellions in their lands quickly would be pretty much nonexistent.

But then - the problem with that is the especially the lands of Winterfell are pretty much empty around the castle as far as we have seen so far. But that doesn't have to be the case for Highgarden, Oldtown, the Gates of the Moon, Casterly Rock, etc.

They can't be empty around the castle if castle is to exist. It might be that it simply isn't mentioned: Martin appears to not care about the peasants unless he wants to wax political.

And administrative nature of feudal society means that Lords Paramount would definitely not be able to control most of their men directly. They pretty much depend on their vassals - and loyalty of same - not only to raise armies, but to govern their lands in the first place. This is feudal France:

https://acoupdotblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/france-map.png

And keep in mind that all these big blobs would be further subdivided. It is the nature of feudal system.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'd imagine that there core troops of any given great house have to be such people, too. Think of the Tully example from FaB that their lands are smaller and poorer than those of their most powerful bannermen, unlike with the other great houses. That would mean that the Starks, Lannisters, Arryns, Tyrells, etc. would control the bulk of their men directly, not through any lordly bannermen and vassals. Else their own power to counter rebellions in their lands quickly would be pretty much nonexistent.

But then - the problem with that is the especially the lands of Winterfell are pretty much empty around the castle as far as we have seen so far. But that doesn't have to be the case for Highgarden, Oldtown, the Gates of the Moon, Casterly Rock, etc.

Actually, no. We have pretty much same level of detail about the entire army present there. It is just that the left wing is much more heterogenous and thus requires more words to describe that can form the impression it is somehow given more attention.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, plate armor and swords are not infantry weapons in Westeros. Infantry are mostly spearmen and archers and axemen. Swords are weapons for the nobility. Just as armor is limited to the nobility. Those Frey men wearing steel armor and stuff would be men in their permanent service, not men living in the countryside.

I'd also expect Steelshanks Walton to be a man living at the Dreadfort or very close to it, explaining how he as a peasant (if Jaime is right there) could be as trusted a man in Roose's service as he clearly is.

No, but infantry uses mail, which is why I pointed out that mail, too, is expensive. Now, mail hauberk would not be as expensive as a full suit of plate, but it would still be too expensive for your average peasant to afford. Although not all infantry appears to use mail, but exceptions I recall are mostly Stannis' men.

And technically, sword should not be anyone's primary weapon. It is a backup weapon, which means that it shouldn't really get much mention. But most recruits in Night's Watch seem to have swords, which indicates that they are fairly widespread - and thus definitely not just weapons for nobility.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, plate armor and swords are not infantry weapons in Westeros. Infantry are mostly spearmen and archers and axemen. Swords are weapons for the nobility. Just as armor is limited to the nobility. Those Frey men wearing steel armor and stuff would be men in their permanent service, not men living in the countryside.

I'd also expect Steelshanks Walton to be a man living at the Dreadfort or very close to it, explaining how he as a peasant (if Jaime is right there) could be as trusted a man in Roose's service as he clearly is.

And who is going to stop it?

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We would not hear anything about this kind of thing if lords could make due with their own men. And it is not that this thing is properly organized. A nobleman/vassal has a legal obligation to show up with a certain number of soldiers when the banners are called. His liege lords and the king don't care where he finds those men, meaning they will do their best to do what's asked of them.

Rich lords could hire sworn swords and freeriders and sellswords, can afford to train their men-at-arms, and have the coin to equip and arm them. Poor lords don't have that luxury. They will have to make due with what they have - like Ser Eustace tries to do.

If there is any kind of organization (and there has to be) then it means the requirements would be based on available resources. So the only way a noble would be asked to bring more men than he can is if records are out of the date - like, half his peasants deserted / died of plague / got eaten by chimeras. Or maybe his lord hates him.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We would not hear anything about this kind of thing if lords could make due with their own men. And it is not that this thing is properly organized. A nobleman/vassal has a legal obligation to show up with a certain number of soldiers when the banners are called. His liege lords and the king don't care where he finds those men, meaning they will do their best to do what's asked of them.

Rich lords could hire sworn swords and freeriders and sellswords, can afford to train their men-at-arms, and have the coin to equip and arm them. Poor lords don't have that luxury. They will have to make due with what they have - like Ser Eustace tries to do.

Most likely true, as long as it is not Slaver's Bay or Dothraki who are being used for comparison.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Really not my problem. I mean, again, the Karstarks and Glovers are down to be being unable to do harvests right out their home castles. That doesn't really work if their economy was shaped to actually feed and maintain a lot of professional warriors for (constant) warfare.

After all, the Seven Kingdoms did constantly war prior to the Conquest - and they also had constant civil wars and private wars within the kingdoms - and back then there were fewer people in Westeros and, most likely, less proper bureaucracy.

It is a problem if we are to discuss how armies in Westeros are organized.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 9/11/2020 at 3:46 PM, Lord Varys said:

We don't know anything about Walton as such. But Jaime thinks he is the kind of man who works with a hoe and is no professional warrior. If that's how things are done in the West and wherever Jaime served during his career then captains in feudal armies are indeed just peasants and fieldhands.

A farmer can be more than a man who just who trades a spear for a hoe. The historical precedent that GRRM draws upon would have Steelshanks listed as a fairly well-to-do land owner or someone equipped by that person. 

On 9/11/2020 at 3:46 PM, Lord Varys said:

None that we meet. Or do you recall any veterans from the two Rebellions being mentioned?

No but this story is driven almost entirely from the noble perspective. We know plenty of people who participated in RR, Greyjoy Rebellion or the Stepstones and participated in a war 10-20 years later. It would strain credulity to believe that the infantry, with the valuable arms and armor they own, would not also be called back up or or even possibly train on a semi regular basis. The arms and armor in Westeros are based on a sliding scale of advancement through the centuries per GRRM, so him basing feudal levies on something like any of the Assize of Arms is not only reasonable but pretty common sensical given the weight he places on conducting research.