Ancient army numbers

[Nikanor]

Hi Robert,

If you find difficult to believe that more than half a million Persians were moving around supported by many other, then I guess you actually deny the fact that Napoleon with more than half a million men invaded Russia and nearly ended up wrecking it before he wrecked totally his men and himself. Because by no means early 19th century land-based French warfare logistics were superior to land-based Persian warfare logistics. In fact they were inferior on most account and even inferior in military tactics and efficiency - any Napoleontian army would fail in front of an ancient army.

I really cannot find in which point you stuck.

Preparation:
"An operation of this size must have taken years to prepare. The logistics of it all must have been staggering. I mean, look at what was done before Normandy 1944! And that with only a tribal-based feudalist iron Age society,"

Napoleon lived in iron age too. Proper steel was first created in mid-1850s. Steel-like iron existed since at least 1300 B.C. through coal-folding techniques but was of course hyper-expensive. The logistics technology on land was identical: feet and animals. Food stocks should present the same amount of logistical headache for similar issues but then we should mention that much of Middle Eastern cuisine like pittas and bulgurs eaten in the region since prehistory (bulgur is chopped pre-heated wheat not to be confused with cous-cous, perhaps the first known "industrialised" instant meal) can be stored for longer periods than the average French bread or other meat/vegetables based cuisine not at all suitable for military campaigns. Based on that not only French had bigger logistics needs but also their soldiers ate what they would probably consider as depressive food while Persians were largely eating their everyday stuff.

Now if we state that French
- had no possibility of being supplied by ships
- no instant messaging with their own bordeline
- rudimentary post-office services only recently established
- were facing cold Russian winters into an enemy land with not a lot of local friends
- did cover enormous distances into enemy territory

while Persians
- had the luxury of ship supplies (Ukrainian and Egyptian wheat-paradises 5-6 days boat, of course they would have successive wharehouses in allied cities thus provisions would simple come "Monday morning asked, Tuesday evening arrived...". 1 small ship sufficed to bring 1 days wheat for 100,000 men. Do the maths.
- Persians had instant messaging facilities even into conaquered areas of Greece (and I have no need to guess they would not had used that all the way to Persepolis).
- Persians had developed road network from Middle East all along till Minor Asian coastline and had a long established post-office
- Persians had actual borders with their enemy Greeks, they did not travel to the other end of the continent
- Persians had lots of friends among local Greeks too thus not so much in hurry to loot to survive as French were.

So how long did it take Napoleon to plan his campaign to Russia? Persians had 10 years but my moderate guess is that anything more than 1 year of intense preparations was superficial. Persians did not have to re-invent the wheel, their Empire had already everything in place, they did not need to set up lots of things other than setting up a general plan on their maps.

Next, where do you put all those men? And how do you control all of them?

Do you imply that Napoleon was any better in controlling his men than Xerxes? Based on what?

But even in 3 or 4 groups, the strain on the countryside (friendly countryside) must have been enormous.

Not necessarily. Wheat from Black Sea and Egypt via completion by mid-stations in Minor Asia and Thrace, plus buying a 10% of local produce and bringing it using merely 100-150 ships going back and forth sufficed. Do the maths. They were an Enormous Empire with lots of tentacles. They could mobilise many channels of provisions and while they would indeed tax the local allies they would not have to starve them, unlike Napoleon had to do!

So do we have any indication where this could have taken place? Camps for hundreds of thousands of men?

Why do we have indications for Napoleon's camps that were set less than 200 yeas ago to have for Persian camps of more than 2000 years ago?

I think everybody will agree with me that supply lines over land would have been to long and would have needed too much transport to even contemplate them as feasible.

By all means, ships was the fastest way. Persian armies moved coastally for the most of it. Military ships followed in precise parallel protecting back the supply lines. They had even cut the Chalkidiki peninsula 3rd to avoid the danger of being caught at open sea which may point out to a coastal-Thrace-Black-Sea origin of much of their foodstocks (I
just hypothetise in this...).

Where would these fleets assemble? Or would we have to think of a great number of smaller fleets, each commanded separately?

Contrary to sail-based ships Oared-based ships could assemble in very cramped space, so cramped that actually people could put a bridge and pass from one ship to another. Oared ships were very much more manageable than sail-ships that need space to operate.

For both land and sea forces, the same problem would occur: how do you control them?

Money, and propaganda (serve the gretest leader of humanity, hope of getting rich, and then do not underestimate the pleasures of looting and raping - a constant motive for all invading armies). Same things that worked for Napoleon. Do you think French fought any national enemy in Russia? Of course not. What did Britons, Basques and Gascons have to do there? France was only a nascent 2-3 decades nation.

Persia was a feudalist state, I doubt very much that they would have been able to control each army and fleet from a central point, and I just do not see how an operation like this could have relied on commanders operating independently.

You are losing yourself in words. Rome was also a feudalist state in the sense that the real governance of the regions was for the most up to local oligarchies. Roman envoys and governors did little else than to supervise and flatter the local oligarchies and vice versa. 2nd most powerful man in the Empire in 100 AD was Herodes, descendant of the very oligarchs that ruled during Athenian... democracy.

Infrastructure
So I suppose that this was prepared in advance, by setting up storage facilities for food, water (especially water!), complete with live animals and their fodder.
Where are these facilities?

Out there, along with the rest of the remains of the 99,9999% of the ancient world waiting for someone to excavate and write an essay about it.

This is where many later armies failed. They could not get the supplies to the troops, even when organized far better than Xerxes. So how could he have managed where they all failed?

Frankly speaking, Persians had a much better army than most of later armies including the totality of all gunpowder armies till apparition of machine guns which would actualyl fell easy pray on all accounts - even tactical - to any of the Persian, Greek, Roman, Eastern Roman and Mongol armies.

Is there any evidence for storage facilities where the fleets could have picked up their loads? I mean, this was so huge (and see my point on command) that it’s almost impossible to expect each city, island and region to act independently as a supply base.

1 ship per day for 100,000 men, ok huge but alright but how to find remains of 1 ship arriving near coastline and men unloading it in small boats and onto land? Wharehouses existed near station-towns. This were simple buildings most often not built anti-seismically like some high-end expensive temples were, thus certainly destroyed in the first earthquake (in Greece you have 1 major per 10 years!).

Invasion
Next stop: Greece. Where did they put their supplies when in enemy territory?

The question is where French put their supplies? Cos Persian had the luxury to be supplied on a daily basis wherever they wanted!

How did the ships know where to head, as it would be impossible to communicate the advance of the troops to the fleets, apart from with a delay of days at best and probably weeks? The troops would have to starve or take all from the enemy.

A quite lengthy... fire email (!) would arrive at... Sardis in 1 hour. At Persepolis in 2-3 hours. French did not have such in Russia did they? A fire-message would arrive from Olympus to Byzantium in minutes. 50 ships feeding 100,000 men for 2 months could arrive in 3 days. Piece of cake you could do it if you had the money. Persians had the money!

Essentially, the army would have been able to gather enough supplies from the enemy, in case the fleets did not come through (storms, enemy action, logistical mistakes being quite to be expected).

By all means. But as it was, it was even feasible to cope well even only using own supplies!

Concluding, it’s these practical problems that to me make this theory impossible to put into practice.

Napoleon's effort in Russia was unfeasible but he tried it. The Persian campaign was a much more organised affair by a much more organised state that was the Persian Empire which was sensibly attacking its direct western neighbour. The failure of that campaign (for Persian propaganda partial-failure as they declared that their pseudo-reason was to punish Athens and Eretria!) came unexpectedly on those rare historical outcomes that do not arrive as often as people believe.


Nikos

PS: Sorry it got lengthy