when all the fighting's done and you tell everyone to pack up and go home two things one is i imagine a decent amount might not make it home secondly you've depleted your serfs so you can't get as much serf work done
Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals study logistics. An army cannot fight hungry, without weapons, no gold to keep them motivated and no horses to move supplies.
That's why most medieval armies up until the modern period lived off the land they marched through. The armies that cared about not antagonizing the local population gave out orders that they had to pay for what they took and punished plundering. In times that were more dire, when the armies knew they would not get enough food, they just plundered the local population. Yes there were baggage trains, but hardly ever enough to really feed an army and much of what it carried was locally sourced.
Cool video! One thing you need to consider concerning the home trip tho, is loses. You're definitely not going back with as many soldiers as you had to begin with due to combat casualties, desertion, and of course deaths from starvation, disease, etc. I'm also not sure sellswords necessarily return with their employer's host after war has ended - at the very least it would seem a bit overly generous to pay and feed them for a further +60 days without them actually having a job to do. The tradition seems to be just letting them run amok in the Riverlands.
One thing to remember is they need to get to your army and need protection. So they slow down your army or at least part of it or you have to let your army stop to wait for supplies which also adds supplies.
This is oversimpliefied and underestimated. 1. A soldier needs 2 pounds of grain, but also a pound of meat and 2 liters of ale/beer/wine. 2. There is multidude of unaccounted horses. Term "men-at-arms" refers to a soldier fighting on horseback while not beeing knighted. So here we have additional 3k horses. Also every selfrespecting knight would have a horse only for riding plus at least one warhorse for battle. 3. 24 km per day is a top speed for 20k army. It's more likely that average marching speed would be around 20 km/day. Plus rest days should be every 4 days. That is not only for the sake of the soldiers, but more so for the sake of the horses, and most of all for the carts - wooden axles tend to break very often. 4. You have not even touched the subject of buying weapons, armour, siege engines, scorpions, camping equipment, tools, etc. I understand that those costs are more to do with creating an army then with maintaining it, but they should also be included in the overall costs of the campaign. Logistics is complicated.
Thanks for the feedback! You're absolutely right, logistics in war are incredibly complicated, and there are a lot of factors to consider beyond just grain. While I focused on the basics like feeding the army, it's true that soldiers in Westeros, much like in feudal societies, were often expected to bring their own armor and equipment. This reduced the direct cost on the lords, though there were still significant expenses for things like siege engines, scorpions, and maintaining camp. As for the extra horses, especially for men-at-arms and knights, that's a great point! I could definitely expand on the number of horses and the costs involved in keeping them. Marching speed and rest days were another area where I simplified for clarity, but you're right-those axles would break more often than we'd like to think!
Much of the cost of the knights would be carried by the knights themselves as part of their service to their lord, this including the numbers of archers and infantry they take with them as their retinues. This is one of the advantages of the feudal army as it spreads the economic drain of war over your vassals, whom have their lands and titles just exactly for this reason.
I mean, the lord in question shouldn't be responsible for monetarily paying for arms and armor as levies in this type of system should be required to purchase and maintain that sort of gear themselves or otherwise be provided it by their immediate superiors as part of their obligations as peasants and vassals of the crown... but that's less an issue with your analysis than with GRRM's fundamental misunderstanding of how feudal economics and logistics worked historically. The same applies to most of the foodstuffs aswell, as much of that is what "taxes" look like in feudal systems. The peasants are allowed to work and manage the land and have a stable life primarily in exchange for a portion of the food produced and fighting men in times of crisis. There were taxes that collected money directly, but they weren't the norm. At least not in England. "Geld taxes," were usually reserved for emergency funds after the 12th Century and were rarely in effect to any substantial degree. There were also many ways of becoming exempt from them entirely, including military service. They were the exception rather than the rule. So while that is the "worth" of the supplies needed, the actual amount of money being spent would be pretty minimal. You're only really paying out of pocket if you need mercenaries (which given the politics on display I think are a little overrepresented, but that's the least of our worries). Plus, if the crown is ever hurting for soldiers and can't afford mercenaries, they can usually find a workaround by providing extra incentives such as land grants or extra tax exemptions for the peasantry. Historically this worked pretty well. We don't see war being as heavily dependent on gold and silver as it is in ASOIAF until the Napoleonic era. The reasons for this are A: feudalism died and the interconnected responsibilities of the different strata of society went with it, and B: war got really expensive and progressively more dependent on mass manufacturing. This is both due to professional armies becoming the norm rather than the exception and the rise of gunpowder. Which given the looming threat the Iron Bank seems to pose to what should be a remarkably stable and self sufficient war economy in Westeros are both curiously absent. But again, GRRM either doesn't seem to get the difference and/or why this sort of economy doesn't make sense in his setting, or he doesn't care. So yeah, they are mostly paying out of pocket. Which leads to lovely writing decisions such as levying a tax on the number of beds in inns and entry and exit fees for King's Landing... in the middle of a civil war... when the city is in imminent danger of being put under siege... which somehow worked to replenish the treasury... Yeah... Sorry for the rant, but for someone who puts so much emphasis on this in his worldbuilding, I find it odd that GRRM consistently gets feudal economies wrong.
To add a bit og context, the amount theorised for buying food isn't that ruinous for a wealthy house like the Hightowers, given the fact that we know from the Jaime chapters in Storm of Swords that 300 gold dragons is a respectable ransom for a knight.
Yay, im so glad that you made this video after i made my comment that the dragons are probably cheaper than maintaing a professional standing army. We didnt even include the pay for the soldiers. Thank you and great video
I was just looking for this comment! Yes many knights would contribute to the upkeep of the army and quite many man-at-arms would be their vassals and hence work for no pay or very little, but there's still a significant portion of any army that isn't just peasants who would be expecting a steady salary, however small and it might be paid in salt like some of the Romans did instead of coins, but still.
This was an excellent video, and I appreciate someone diving into all the logistics of running an army. One thing I think is often overlooked however is casualties, not just through battle but through desertion, sickness, and plain accidents, I think many of those casualties made it slightly more bearable for the Lord's coffers
Love the details you go through cant wait for more. Though maybe one thing that could factor into the carts is who is giving the food, they could have supply depots ahead of them of they march in allied territory/everyone is scared of the 20k army marching past their castle so hands their grain over.
One issue is that levy troops are drawn from the peasant farmers. Particularly from the age group that provides the bulk of be the heavy labor. In long campaigns this as will effect agriculture production.
This gives us a good sense for why historical lords often were expected to supplement or substitute their contributions of warriors with money and supplies. Medieval England had a whole system where kings would expect money and supplies when they called the banners, then used those resources to outfit a smaller, more professional and flexible military force. They reasoned a smaller force of trained knights and mercenaries was far superior to a larger mix of knights and levies, and they could keep them in the field far longer. Also shows why ransoming and plundering were so necessary to medieval troops. They needed to get out of the hole this damned battle put them in.
@@ProbablyTrueTales it was called scutage. It was especially common In the early and mid medieval period (King Henry 1-Henry 3) but started to die at as the Magna Carta and parliament made more regular taxes that could provide the king with income.
There's an old adage, often attributed to Napoleon and Fedrick the Great, (two of the Greatest Western Military leaders of their time" that “an army marches on its stomach” showing how well they understood the cost of war and maintaining an effective army
So a few points that occur to me. First, ASOIAF and its associated stories are mudpunk, not medieval fantasy. The armies cost whatever is convenient for the plot and exist in the numbers needed for said plot. Everything must be taken with a grain of salt. Second, levies are not - just - untrained conscripts. These men are probably reasonably well trained and equipped in the sense they're part time soldiers providing a semi regular kit. Thirdly, mercenaries are most definitely not secondary to knights. Professional soldiers often brought skills, a vast set of utility options, and often simple experience that could provide a very high quality backbone. Fourth, horses are too valuable and expensive to use hauling baggage. They'd use mules or donkeys, oxen, and even dogs before them, though some horses would and could be used. But it's just not really economical to have either expensive farm implements or expensive military assets stuck dragging wagons. Fifth, each knight would likely have two horses minimum, plus a squire, and, depending on their wealth and status, about two servants. For a minimum of three horses and up to eight. The servants could also be men-at-arms (though only rarely, for the wealthiest knights) and would have two horses each, along with a spare for the squire if the boy was old enough to see direct combat.
and from whom are they buying all this grain? i wonder how agriculture was affected during the Dance of The Dragons, considering that the two most productive regions of the kingdom, the riverlands and the reach, are deeply involved in the conflict. Also, the Westerlands were torn down by the ironborn and Dorne is not famous by its endless resources. Only the north and the vale can support some supply chains and at higher costs
Great point! The Dance of the Dragons would've crushed agriculture in key regions like the Riverlands and the Reach. With raids, battles, and destruction everywhere, securing supplies from places like the North and the Vale would’ve been tough and costly. Logistics in wartime was no joke! Probably why starving armies just ended up eating their horses.
This issue would become more and more an problem as the war drags along, but in the initial phases it seems that both sides did not do much to destroy each others economies or food productions, probably due to reasons of legitimacy and retaining good will among those lords and other major players still biding their time on the sidelines. Less burning fields and sacked villages and more draining the local granaries...
Baggage train is orders of magnitude greater than that size. Thats the number of carts you need rolling into camp EVERY day, but they have to make the trip to your army as well, and then the trip back for more. Worst case an at the end of the campaign they have to go back to Oldtown for supplies meaning you need 120 times that number of carts (60 days there, 60 days back) plus the additional fodder for the trip. Even if you have supply depots stages, which you definitely would have if you were even marginally intelligent, then you are still looking at a supply depot every...10 days? No that's too much for comfort. Lets say one every 5 days. Oh and we are going to need men to guard these supply posts so enemy raiders don't burn them. Which is exactly what they are going to be trying. Oh and someone has to guard the supply convos, so add in mouths for that...oh and they have to make the trip back and forth as well as even empty carts are still a great target for enemies....
What do YOU think is the most overlooked part of maintaining an army? And thanks for watching everyone!
the logi and training
Oh yes training is a big one.
when all the fighting's done and you tell everyone to pack up and go home two things
one is i imagine a decent amount might not make it home
secondly you've depleted your serfs so you can't get as much serf work done
@emilianorios4761 Yes this is a great mention👌🏻 one could also imagine that many would not have a home to go to also.
Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals study logistics. An army cannot fight hungry, without weapons, no gold to keep them motivated and no horses to move supplies.
Well said my good fellow!
That's why most medieval armies up until the modern period lived off the land they marched through. The armies that cared about not antagonizing the local population gave out orders that they had to pay for what they took and punished plundering. In times that were more dire, when the armies knew they would not get enough food, they just plundered the local population. Yes there were baggage trains, but hardly ever enough to really feed an army and much of what it carried was locally sourced.
Being a university graduate of supply chain management and being a fan of history. This video is absolute bliss
Wow thanks🎉 glad you enjoyed it!
The Amount Of Effort Bro Spends For Each Video Is Insane .
Thanks man👌🏻🎉
Cool video! One thing you need to consider concerning the home trip tho, is loses. You're definitely not going back with as many soldiers as you had to begin with due to combat casualties, desertion, and of course deaths from starvation, disease, etc. I'm also not sure sellswords necessarily return with their employer's host after war has ended - at the very least it would seem a bit overly generous to pay and feed them for a further +60 days without them actually having a job to do. The tradition seems to be just letting them run amok in the Riverlands.
Very true, thanks for the extra thoughts👌🏻
One thing to remember is they need to get to your army and need protection. So they slow down your army or at least part of it or you have to let your army stop to wait for supplies which also adds supplies.
This is oversimpliefied and underestimated.
1. A soldier needs 2 pounds of grain, but also a pound of meat and 2 liters of ale/beer/wine.
2. There is multidude of unaccounted horses. Term "men-at-arms" refers to a soldier fighting on horseback while not beeing knighted. So here we have additional 3k horses. Also every selfrespecting knight would have a horse only for riding plus at least one warhorse for battle.
3. 24 km per day is a top speed for 20k army. It's more likely that average marching speed would be around 20 km/day. Plus rest days should be every 4 days. That is not only for the sake of the soldiers, but more so for the sake of the horses, and most of all for the carts - wooden axles tend to break very often.
4. You have not even touched the subject of buying weapons, armour, siege engines, scorpions, camping equipment, tools, etc. I understand that those costs are more to do with creating an army then with maintaining it, but they should also be included in the overall costs of the campaign.
Logistics is complicated.
Thanks for the feedback! You're absolutely right, logistics in war are incredibly complicated, and there are a lot of factors to consider beyond just grain. While I focused on the basics like feeding the army, it's true that soldiers in Westeros, much like in feudal societies, were often expected to bring their own armor and equipment. This reduced the direct cost on the lords, though there were still significant expenses for things like siege engines, scorpions, and maintaining camp.
As for the extra horses, especially for men-at-arms and knights, that's a great point! I could definitely expand on the number of horses and the costs involved in keeping them. Marching speed and rest days were another area where I simplified for clarity, but you're right-those axles would break more often than we'd like to think!
Much of the cost of the knights would be carried by the knights themselves as part of their service to their lord, this including the numbers of archers and infantry they take with them as their retinues. This is one of the advantages of the feudal army as it spreads the economic drain of war over your vassals, whom have their lands and titles just exactly for this reason.
I mean, the lord in question shouldn't be responsible for monetarily paying for arms and armor as levies in this type of system should be required to purchase and maintain that sort of gear themselves or otherwise be provided it by their immediate superiors as part of their obligations as peasants and vassals of the crown... but that's less an issue with your analysis than with GRRM's fundamental misunderstanding of how feudal economics and logistics worked historically.
The same applies to most of the foodstuffs aswell, as much of that is what "taxes" look like in feudal systems. The peasants are allowed to work and manage the land and have a stable life primarily in exchange for a portion of the food produced and fighting men in times of crisis.
There were taxes that collected money directly, but they weren't the norm. At least not in England. "Geld taxes," were usually reserved for emergency funds after the 12th Century and were rarely in effect to any substantial degree. There were also many ways of becoming exempt from them entirely, including military service. They were the exception rather than the rule.
So while that is the "worth" of the supplies needed, the actual amount of money being spent would be pretty minimal. You're only really paying out of pocket if you need mercenaries (which given the politics on display I think are a little overrepresented, but that's the least of our worries). Plus, if the crown is ever hurting for soldiers and can't afford mercenaries, they can usually find a workaround by providing extra incentives such as land grants or extra tax exemptions for the peasantry. Historically this worked pretty well.
We don't see war being as heavily dependent on gold and silver as it is in ASOIAF until the Napoleonic era. The reasons for this are A: feudalism died and the interconnected responsibilities of the different strata of society went with it, and B: war got really expensive and progressively more dependent on mass manufacturing. This is both due to professional armies becoming the norm rather than the exception and the rise of gunpowder. Which given the looming threat the Iron Bank seems to pose to what should be a remarkably stable and self sufficient war economy in Westeros are both curiously absent.
But again, GRRM either doesn't seem to get the difference and/or why this sort of economy doesn't make sense in his setting, or he doesn't care. So yeah, they are mostly paying out of pocket. Which leads to lovely writing decisions such as levying a tax on the number of beds in inns and entry and exit fees for King's Landing... in the middle of a civil war... when the city is in imminent danger of being put under siege... which somehow worked to replenish the treasury... Yeah...
Sorry for the rant, but for someone who puts so much emphasis on this in his worldbuilding, I find it odd that GRRM consistently gets feudal economies wrong.
The Golden Company is the best professional army.
Great video once again.
Hey hey hey, no advertising around these parts buddy👉🏻😂
@@ProbablyTrueTales it's not just advertising it's the truth😄
Name one Pretender you managed to out on the throne🤔👉🏻👈🏻
@ProbablyTrueTales We only didn't succeed because of dishonor and cowards
Your Videos are so high quality, cant wait for more videos❤❤❤❤
Thank you so much!!
To add a bit og context, the amount theorised for buying food isn't that ruinous for a wealthy house like the Hightowers, given the fact that we know from the Jaime chapters in Storm of Swords that 300 gold dragons is a respectable ransom for a knight.
Yay, im so glad that you made this video after i made my comment that the dragons are probably cheaper than maintaing a professional standing army. We didnt even include the pay for the soldiers. Thank you and great video
Thank you for making the suggestion, I’m so glad you enjoyed the video, and stuck around to watch it🎉
@@ProbablyTrueTales you got yourself a lifetime subscriber!
I was just looking for this comment! Yes many knights would contribute to the upkeep of the army and quite many man-at-arms would be their vassals and hence work for no pay or very little, but there's still a significant portion of any army that isn't just peasants who would be expecting a steady salary, however small and it might be paid in salt like some of the Romans did instead of coins, but still.
And then there's bobby b making the crown drown 7 million in debt
That’s the king I want. Not there for a long time but a fun time🎉
@@ProbablyTrueTales not really he rulled for 14 yrs that's pretty long for westeros standards
This was an excellent video, and I appreciate someone diving into all the logistics of running an army. One thing I think is often overlooked however is casualties, not just through battle but through desertion, sickness, and plain accidents, I think many of those casualties made it slightly more bearable for the Lord's coffers
I think at some point they probably wanted a few people dead😂
Love the details you go through cant wait for more. Though maybe one thing that could factor into the carts is who is giving the food, they could have supply depots ahead of them of they march in allied territory/everyone is scared of the 20k army marching past their castle so hands their grain over.
SO cool video ! may be somthing abut the ships and navy ?
Thanks for the suggestion!
Btw most knights had multiple remounts so the grain demands would be even greater.
Nice observation! Yes this is true, and also most had a backup horse that was fast to run away in the case of a route.
I love the art and writing is great too!
Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoyed it🎉
Hi my brother from another mother amazing video keep it going my brother big love from Libya
Thanks for sending the love, glad you enjoyed👌🏻🎉
Then why didn't Ormund Hightower just buy a fully decked out JAS 39 Gripen (which is more than a match to a dragon), is he stupid?
No one knows, and perhaps no one wil ever know.
One issue is that levy troops are drawn from the peasant farmers. Particularly from the age group that provides the bulk of be the heavy labor. In long campaigns this as will effect agriculture production.
Love your Videos ❤❤❤❤ Keep Grinding
Appreciate it🎉
This video is great! Please make more asoiaf videos like this
Glad you enjoyed🎉 be sure to stick around, more interesting topics are on its way👌🏻
amazing channel
11:12 I'm so f*kin dead xDD thank you : D
I love all you’re asoiaf videos
Glad you enjoyed🎉
This is why Tyrells are powerful.
True!
You can of course also just eat the horse, happens plenty in the books! 😂
Valid option😂
This gives us a good sense for why historical lords often were expected to supplement or substitute their contributions of warriors with money and supplies. Medieval England had a whole system where kings would expect money and supplies when they called the banners, then used those resources to outfit a smaller, more professional and flexible military force. They reasoned a smaller force of trained knights and mercenaries was far superior to a larger mix of knights and levies, and they could keep them in the field far longer.
Also shows why ransoming and plundering were so necessary to medieval troops. They needed to get out of the hole this damned battle put them in.
Thanks for the extra info, this was a very good read👌🏻
@@ProbablyTrueTales it was called scutage. It was especially common In the early and mid medieval period (King Henry 1-Henry 3) but started to die at as the Magna Carta and parliament made more regular taxes that could provide the king with income.
There's an old adage, often attributed to Napoleon and Fedrick the Great, (two of the Greatest Western Military leaders of their time" that “an army marches on its stomach” showing how well they understood the cost of war and maintaining an effective army
Nice👌🏻, I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to be the one managing all this logistics I can tell you that much.
That is, a lot of money. Great video.
I liked it pretty much 😊
Great, UA-camr have discovered logistics.
So a few points that occur to me.
First, ASOIAF and its associated stories are mudpunk, not medieval fantasy. The armies cost whatever is convenient for the plot and exist in the numbers needed for said plot. Everything must be taken with a grain of salt.
Second, levies are not - just - untrained conscripts. These men are probably reasonably well trained and equipped in the sense they're part time soldiers providing a semi regular kit.
Thirdly, mercenaries are most definitely not secondary to knights. Professional soldiers often brought skills, a vast set of utility options, and often simple experience that could provide a very high quality backbone.
Fourth, horses are too valuable and expensive to use hauling baggage. They'd use mules or donkeys, oxen, and even dogs before them, though some horses would and could be used. But it's just not really economical to have either expensive farm implements or expensive military assets stuck dragging wagons.
Fifth, each knight would likely have two horses minimum, plus a squire, and, depending on their wealth and status, about two servants. For a minimum of three horses and up to eight. The servants could also be men-at-arms (though only rarely, for the wealthiest knights) and would have two horses each, along with a spare for the squire if the boy was old enough to see direct combat.
and from whom are they buying all this grain? i wonder how agriculture was affected during the Dance of The Dragons, considering that the two most productive regions of the kingdom, the riverlands and the reach, are deeply involved in the conflict. Also, the Westerlands were torn down by the ironborn and Dorne is not famous by its endless resources. Only the north and the vale can support some supply chains and at higher costs
Great point! The Dance of the Dragons would've crushed agriculture in key regions like the Riverlands and the Reach. With raids, battles, and destruction everywhere, securing supplies from places like the North and the Vale would’ve been tough and costly. Logistics in wartime was no joke! Probably why starving armies just ended up eating their horses.
This issue would become more and more an problem as the war drags along, but in the initial phases it seems that both sides did not do much to destroy each others economies or food productions, probably due to reasons of legitimacy and retaining good will among those lords and other major players still biding their time on the sidelines. Less burning fields and sacked villages and more draining the local granaries...
"Amateurs talk swords professionals talk bread"
(Yes yes, I'm smrt!-))
An army marches on its stomach
You can say that again😂
Baggage train is orders of magnitude greater than that size. Thats the number of carts you need rolling into camp EVERY day, but they have to make the trip to your army as well, and then the trip back for more. Worst case an at the end of the campaign they have to go back to Oldtown for supplies meaning you need 120 times that number of carts (60 days there, 60 days back) plus the additional fodder for the trip. Even if you have supply depots stages, which you definitely would have if you were even marginally intelligent, then you are still looking at a supply depot every...10 days? No that's too much for comfort. Lets say one every 5 days. Oh and we are going to need men to guard these supply posts so enemy raiders don't burn them. Which is exactly what they are going to be trying. Oh and someone has to guard the supply convos, so add in mouths for that...oh and they have to make the trip back and forth as well as even empty carts are still a great target for enemies....
Ah, the one thing G.R.R.M. understands the least, but talks about the most in his writing: Feudal economics.
Aint that the truth🎉
You forgot about the camp wives 😜😜😜
Feeding a Army is like Feeding a Army 😂😂😂
Minecraft is full of still water 💀
This is where CK3 falls flat for me. There's no actual military strategy, just dynasty management
Maybe a new dlc in 3years or a mod would complete the experience. One could only hope.
Frist
Thanks for rushing😂