10-21-2006, 08:41 AM
Sean Manning\\n[quote]Aryaman, I think there are particular difficulties in judging the size of medieval armies which don't apply in the classical period. Forces tended to be small and irregular because of the variety of recruitment methods and the small size of the political units involved. Most methods of recruitment, like calling upon allies or calling out a feudal levy, got an unpredictable number of troops who might leave when their obligation to serve ran out or the political situation changed. Thus in many cases neither side's leadership was likely sure how many men it had, let alone how strong the enemy were beyond "few", "about our number", "many." The fact that many sources were written by people with little military experience didn't help matters. I also understand that often when we compare literary sources on major medieval campaigns we can usually find something reasonable, and that official records often have their own problems.
Classical armies usually had stabler and larger sources of recruitment, and if a city's contingent for some campaign had been drasticaly under the agreed upon strength we would likely hear of it. They were also better organized than all but a few medieval armies. In the case of Alexander or the Thirteen Thousand, we have sources (or sources who read sources) who were involved in the administration of the army and presumably had access to contemporary records. My understanding is that most Classicists feel we can trust reliable sources on the strength of ancient Greek armies, bearing in mind that losses to disease etc. may be ignored and units may be assumed to be at full strength when they were not to give round figures or make calculation easier. Obviously we must use historical comparisons and logistical consideratons to check any figure for plausability.
quote]
Very interesting comments
1) Yes, medieval armies tend to be small, to the factors you point I will add they were strong in cavalry. I talked about them because it is where my researched started, but the right point of comparison would be the armies of the 30 Years War, they had reasonably good organization but they still didn´t use supply lines. Large field armies were about 15.000-20.000. It is not a problem of raising recruits, but a problem of supplying them. For instance, in 1632 king Gustav Adolphus of Sweden commanded an army of 180.000 in Germany, but that was all spread in garrisons an small field armies, the main field army under his direct command was just 21.000. In a classic source, even if well documented, tipycally we would read that the King invaded Germany with an army of 180.000, without details of how it was divided in many small detachments, so that readers tend to asume the whole army was the field army. Other details, like that of sick of missing, are also lacking generally.
The big mislead is when we take classic sources and try to compare them with modern sources on the same level, they are not. We know much more details about modern sources, and because of that knowledge we can discard some wild claims of ancient authors. When you read the details, for instance, of moving an army of 40.000 in the XVIII century and you learn the enormous logistical effort it entails you understand that claims of armies hundreds of thousands strong are fairy tales.
Classical armies usually had stabler and larger sources of recruitment, and if a city's contingent for some campaign had been drasticaly under the agreed upon strength we would likely hear of it. They were also better organized than all but a few medieval armies. In the case of Alexander or the Thirteen Thousand, we have sources (or sources who read sources) who were involved in the administration of the army and presumably had access to contemporary records. My understanding is that most Classicists feel we can trust reliable sources on the strength of ancient Greek armies, bearing in mind that losses to disease etc. may be ignored and units may be assumed to be at full strength when they were not to give round figures or make calculation easier. Obviously we must use historical comparisons and logistical consideratons to check any figure for plausability.
quote]
Very interesting comments
1) Yes, medieval armies tend to be small, to the factors you point I will add they were strong in cavalry. I talked about them because it is where my researched started, but the right point of comparison would be the armies of the 30 Years War, they had reasonably good organization but they still didn´t use supply lines. Large field armies were about 15.000-20.000. It is not a problem of raising recruits, but a problem of supplying them. For instance, in 1632 king Gustav Adolphus of Sweden commanded an army of 180.000 in Germany, but that was all spread in garrisons an small field armies, the main field army under his direct command was just 21.000. In a classic source, even if well documented, tipycally we would read that the King invaded Germany with an army of 180.000, without details of how it was divided in many small detachments, so that readers tend to asume the whole army was the field army. Other details, like that of sick of missing, are also lacking generally.
The big mislead is when we take classic sources and try to compare them with modern sources on the same level, they are not. We know much more details about modern sources, and because of that knowledge we can discard some wild claims of ancient authors. When you read the details, for instance, of moving an army of 40.000 in the XVIII century and you learn the enormous logistical effort it entails you understand that claims of armies hundreds of thousands strong are fairy tales.
AKA Inaki
