Alysanne's Decision to give the New Gift to the Watch was stupid

[Craving Peaches]

She must have been told by them that it would be a target for raids and that they wouldn't have the men to defend it all. The Watch also already had land. Giving them more land to defend when they don't have enough men to defend what they already have is just stupid. She also annoyed all the Northern Lords she took this land from. How is it even a gift when she's not giving them anything that belongs to her? And surprise surprise it doesn't work and now no one's happy.

[Lady Stonehearts Simp]

Yeah, I think a better way to help the Watch would’ve been to perhaps grant them a higher percentage of crop yields. If not from the north then from the Reach or Riverlands 

[Alden Rothack]

5 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

She must have been told by them that it would be a target for raids and that they wouldn't have the men to defend it all. The Watch also already had land. Giving them more land to defend when they don't have enough men to defend what they already have is just stupid. She also annoyed all the Northern Lords she took this land from. How is it even a gift when she's not giving them anything that belongs to her? And surprise surprise it doesn't work and now no one's happy.

Yup, honestly they should have done the opposite

resettle brandons gift with lords and soldiers to protect the villages, give sucessful officers in the watch command over them with the condition any sucesser has to be elected

we know the watches oath has been changed before

1 minute ago, Prince Rhaegar Targareyen said:

Yeah, I think a better way to help the Watch would’ve been to perhaps grant them a higher percentage of crop yields. If not from the north then from the Reach or Riverlands 

which arrive after five months as fertilizer and little else

[Lady Stonehearts Simp]

4 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:

Yup, honestly they should have done the opposite

resettle brandons gift with lords and soldiers to protect the villages, give sucessful officers in the watch command over them with the condition any sucesser has to be elected

we know the watches oath has been changed before

which arrive after five months as fertilizer and little else

There has to be ways to transport it and store it otherwise the realm would starve come winter

[Alden Rothack]

1 minute ago, Prince Rhaegar Targareyen said:

There has to be ways to transport it and store it otherwise the realm would starve come winter

Over that distance probably not

Thats why every region except the Iron Islands produces and stores enough food for its population

Even supplying the watch from the north required giving them lands of their own

[The hairy bear]

4 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

She must have been told by them that it would be a target for raids

The lands of the Gift would be a target for raids regardless of whether they owed allegiance to the Watch or to some Northern lord.

4 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Giving them more land to defend when they don't have enough men to defend what they already have is just stupid.

But they had enough men! The Watch was 10 thousand strong at the time of the Conquest, and by the time Alysanne went there the figure would not be much lower. You are assuming that the problems of the Wall on 58 AC were the same than at 300 AC. And it was a completely different situation.

At Alysanne's time the Watch had plenty of men and lacked funds. So giving them the still fairly populated Gift with its incomes, and financing the construction of an additional castle made plenty of sense. You can't blame Alysanne for not predicting that many decades later the Watch would lack men instead of funds (not even us have a clear picture of exactly why that happened).

For all we know, if Alysanne hadn't pressed her plan, the decline of the Watch would have been more drastic.

[SeanF]

The real problem with the Watch, I'd say, is the requirement of service for life, with a complete bar on marriage or fathering children.

That's a massive deterrent to joining, and ensures that eventually, it will only attract people who have no alternative, other than execution or starvation.

It's a completely stupid way of running a military organisation.

A much better system would be to allow people to enlist for a fixed term, with the option to re-enlist at the end of that term.  At the end of their term of service, like Roman soldiers, they could then be given land in the Gift.

[Craving Peaches]

18 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

The lands of the Gift would be a target for raids regardless of whether they owed allegiance to the Watch or to some Northern lord.

But they only become depopulated after the Watch gets them.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

by the time Alysanne went there the figure would not be much lower.

Yet they abandoned the Nightfort, the largest of the forts along the wall.

[Alden Rothack]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

The real problem with the Watch, I'd say, is the requirement of service for life, with a complete bar on marriage or fathering children.

That's a massive deterrent to joining, and ensures that eventually, it will only attract people who have no alternative, other than execution or starvation.

It's a completely stupid way of running a military organisation.

A much better system would be to allow people to enlist for a fixed term, with the option to re-enlist at the end of that term.  At the end of their term of service, like Roman soldiers, they could then be given land in the Gift.

Yup, you could even allow the lords to be elected from within the ranks of current and former members off the watch

because a large part of why the gift declined is that all the fighting men were at the wall several days travel from most of the villages, villages which were apparently lacking defences of their own, even something like a motte and bailey would stand off small groups of wildlings.

[SeanF]

13 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:

Yup, you could even allow the lords to be elected from within the ranks of current and former members off the watch

because a large part of why the gift declined is that all the fighting men were at the wall several days travel from most of the villages, villages which were apparently lacking defences of their own, even something like a motte and bailey would stand off small groups of wildlings.

The advantage of my system is that not only would you have a regular supply of recruits to the Wall, but the retired veterans would form a Reserve, quite capable of protecting the villages from raids. 

[Alden Rothack]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

The advantage of my system is that not only would you have a regular supply of recruits to the Wall, but the retired veterans would form a Reserve, quite capable of protecting the villages from raids. 

yes, some would remain useful after doing their service

[The hairy bear]

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

But they only become depopulated after the Watch gets them.

Yes, but there's not a causality here. If the Watch hadn't gotten them, they would have become depopulated too.

It could even be argued that if it wasn't for Alysanne's efforts to give more money and prestige to the Watch, the decline of the Watch would have been more pronounced, the number of recruits would have diminished earlier, the widling incursions would have become frequent at an earlier stage, and the lands would have been depopulated sooner.

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Yet they abandoned the Nightfort, the largest of the forts along the wall.

The reason they give for abandoning the Nightfort is that it was "grim", "ruinous" and "crumbling". A more modern and better placed Castle Black had been the main seat of the Watch for years. It was not abandoned for lack of men. In fact, they needed to built another castle (Deep Lake) as a substitute.

Bear in mind that with 10 thousand men, the Lord Commander was by far the most powerful lord in the area. The houses that owned the New Gift before (the Umbers, perhaps some mountain clans,...) could never hope to muster that figure. It seems to me that the inhabitants of the Gift were better protected by the Watch than by their previous overlords.

[Gilbert Green]

9 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

She must have been told by them that it would be a target for raids and that they wouldn't have the men to defend it all. The Watch also already had land. Giving them more land to defend when they don't have enough men to defend what they already have is just stupid. She also annoyed all the Northern Lords she took this land from. How is it even a gift when she's not giving them anything that belongs to her? And surprise surprise it doesn't work and now no one's happy.

But it "bolstered their flagging strength" ... for a while.  The problem, maybe, is that the Realm did not continue to bolster their strength, in the 200 years that followed.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Alden Rothack said:

yes, some would remain useful after doing their service

In a way, I think that the NW is based upon European military orders, but they had a religious basis.  In essence, they were monks who took up arms, and who were admired throughout Christendom. There's no religious basis to the NW. So, it needs to attract recruits on the basis of making military service appealing.

[Morte]

17 minutes ago, SeanF said:

In a way, I think that the NW is based upon European military orders, but they had a religious basis.  In essence, they were monks who took up arms, and who were admired throughout Christendom. There's no religious basis to the NW. So, it needs to attract recruits on the basis of making military service appealing.

Exactly.

One could add that the service for life wasn't something one did after a few months in a monastic order, whether military or civil. Before even becoming a novice, one had to go through the postulate first. And the old monastic orders even don't let you put on the vows for life immediately after the novitiate, one has to take a vow for three years first.

I also think it would have helped the Watch to combine your ideas above with the possibility to join for a year or two (so a very short term) the learn a craft or how to fight/hunt etc., too.

[Alden Rothack]

42 minutes ago, SeanF said:

In a way, I think that the NW is based upon European military orders, but they had a religious basis.  In essence, they were monks who took up arms, and who were admired throughout Christendom. There's no religious basis to the NW. So, it needs to attract recruits on the basis of making military service appealing.

indeed and making it valuable goes a long way to making it appealing

[frenin]

4 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

Yes, but there's not a causality here. If the Watch hadn't gotten them, they would have become depopulated too.

They would still be in the hands of the Lords better fit to defend them.

 

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

A much better system would be to allow people to enlist for a fixed term, with the option to re-enlist at the end of that term.  At the end of their term of service, like Roman soldiers, they could then be given land in the Gift.

Doesn't enlisting through a fixed term making it easier to be used for  political purposes, ensuring it falls quickly, and practically ends its status asthe ultimate penal colony... meaning there is little reason why it should be there?

There is a reason why this orders (Nightwatch, Maester, KG) are for life. You can trust these people otherwise, not that you can anyway. But if Roman soldiers are your model, they are one Sulla away to fuck it up-

 

 

 

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, frenin said:

They would still be in the hands of the Lords better fit to defend them.

 

Doesn't enlisting through a fixed term making it easier to be used for  political purposes, ensuring it falls quickly, and practically ends its status asthe ultimate penal colony... meaning there is little reason why it should be there?

There is a reason why this orders (Nightwatch, Maester, KG) are for life. You can trust these people otherwise, not that you can anyway. But if Roman soldiers are your model, they are one Sulla away to fuck it up-

 

 

 

Making it the ultimate penal colony destroys it as a useful military force.

i don’t doubt that most NW members would behave like Daeron, if they had the opportunity.  Why show loyalty to a society that views you as shit?

You can trust volunteers a lot better than you can trust criminals, starving peasants, condemned traitors, and unwanted children, all of them living under a suspended death sentence.

[sweetsunray]

9 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

At Alysanne's time the Watch had plenty of men and lacked funds.

They were already in decline, because they didn't have enough funds to repair the Nightfort, which was already down in numbers, for it was cheaper to build a completely new smaller fortress than repair the Nightfort.

[frenin]

17 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Making it the ultimate penal colony destroys it as a useful military force.

They had a pretty decent run of seven thousand years.

 

17 minutes ago, SeanF said:

You can trust volunteers a lot better than you can trust criminals, starving peasants, condemned traitors, and unwanted children, all of them living under a suspended death sentence.

You cannot tho. Volunteers are fickle and they may change their mind, imagine voluteers during the time of Westeros being full of petty kingdoms.  And the Watch ran out of Waymar Royces long time ago anyway.

The Watch would have collapsed within itself or become another earldom.

The reason why it survived for so long is because everyone knew it was neutral and that there was no coming back for it.

Obviously that opens a can of worms true enough but it's guaranteed to outlast your Roman style watch.