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Post by tbw on Jan 23, 2012 8:25:46 GMT -5
Some years ago I was reading some old text about a battle in ancient Britain and they had said that there was something like 100,000 enemy there at that battle. And forgive me I don't remember the battle any more, but it was one of the more famous battles and it might have been Stirling Bridge, like I said, don't remember. Anyway that estimate in that old book was then discussed. And they said way back then, again don't recall the age of the book, but this was some years ago and that book had a lot of age then, that back then they usually went by word of mouth or as told by the bards. One thing that stuck out to them was that in that day and age it would have been impossible for them to have fielded an army of 100,000 men anywhere. But that was all they had to go on. They said that there was a general rule of thumb when it came to figuring the actual number of men involved. And that number, they said, was 1/10th the size of the original number. That made the number of the enemy 10,000, not 100,000 as was recorded by the bards. That this was done in the past, is without question, even in what was called civilized societies. Suddenly today 900 warriors in 1876 becomes 9000, or 2300 becomes 23,000, seems like that same 1/10th still works. Doesn't it?
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Post by strange on Jan 25, 2012 13:26:47 GMT -5
100,000 on which side?
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Post by joewiggs on Jan 28, 2012 18:29:42 GMT -5
T.W.B., I read something similar but, for the life of me, can't remember where. I recall a reference to the "scribes" (who actually recorded the information) as wanting to enhance the prestige of the winning sovereign by inflating the number of the "enemy" bested by him.
Apparently armies as vast as 100,000 simply did not exist during these eras and where much smaller than actually portrayedby the scribes. When I get some time I'm going to research the battle you referred to!
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Post by strange on Jan 28, 2012 21:12:33 GMT -5
T.W.B., I read something similar but, for the life of me, can't remember where. I recall a reference to the "scribes" (who actually recorded the information) as wanting to enhance the prestige of the winning sovereign by inflating the number of the "enemy" bested by him. Apparently armies as vast as 100,000 simply did not exist during these eras and where much smaller than actually portrayedby the scribes. When I get some time I'm going to research the battle you referred to! I may be going a couple eras in the past, but I think those numbers did get organized by people like Genghis Khan and a lot of Asiatic armies. That is generally the strategy of the asians to try and push people around with vast numbers, and it is still being done... it is the reason why we afraid to attack Russia or China, even today! Years later, around 1800s, Shaka Zu Lu also had pretty dan big armies. I really don't trust this "tenth" strategy, but to be fair... we're talking about the little old island of england here. 100,000 men organizing and losing in one place, just by struggling around a bridge? Hard sell. |
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Post by joewiggs on Jan 29, 2012 12:50:07 GMT -5
The Battle of Stirling Bridge occurred on 9/11/1297 (can you believe that date?) between the combined forces of Andrew Moray and William Wallace which defeated the combined English forces of John DE Warren and Hugh DE Cressingham.
The exploits of this battle were immortalized by a poet with the inexplicable sobriquet, Blind Harry the minstrel.
harry broke the forces down to:
English - fifty thousand made for the place of battle, the remainder abiding at the castle;
Hugh Cressingham - "Leads on the vanguard with twenty thousand likely men to see";
Earl of Warren - "Thirty thousand the Earl of Warren had."
The battle of Stirling Bridge was portrayed in the movie "Braveheart" although no bridge nor river was shown mainly because of the difficulties of filming around a bridge.
I can not help but feel that the exploits of this historical event were ratcheted up a bit to enhance an already spectacular victory by the Scots over the hated English by a Minstrel.
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Post by tbw on Jan 29, 2012 13:05:58 GMT -5
It was impossible to not just field that many men, but to have logistically supplied them as well. We're not talking about an era of Bonaparte, but 500 years earlier when such a notion of just trying to gather that many men and then the logistical chain of supply to have sustained such an effort? No way. And that's what they were saying in that book. We are talking of a time when it would have taken years just to have prepared for such an expedition, just because of the sheer volume of food stores needed to feed that many men and fodder stores to have fed the horses that pulled the carts. It would have been bad enough to have sustained an army of 10,000 in that era without a scorched earth policy, and even then, most farms weren't all that geared up to sustain any more people than what lived on the land.
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Post by strange on Jan 29, 2012 22:36:34 GMT -5
It was impossible to not just field that many men, but to have logistically supplied them as well. We're not talking about an era of Bonaparte, but 500 years earlier when such a notion of just trying to gather that many men and then the logistical chain of supply to have sustained such an effort? No way. And that's what they were saying in that book. We are talking of a time when it would have taken years just to have prepared for such an expedition, just because of the sheer volume of food stores needed to feed that many men and fodder stores to have fed the horses that pulled the carts. It would have been bad enough to have sustained an army of 10,000 in that era without a scorched earth policy, and even then, most farms weren't all that geared up to sustain any more people than what lived on the land. Well, to be fair, this would be an "expedition" not too far from home, so they might have that advantage. England and Scotland are not necessarily very large places. I'm not knocking your numbers or anything, simply pointing that out. Also another perk is that Scotland and England have very friendly climate and geography.... it never usually gets terribly hot and I think they have water sources all over the place, but maybe I could just be drawing a romanticized picture up in my head. I like this discussion, I haven't gotten this far into the technical aspects of Wallace. If the 100,000 estimate came from the scots, then its probably a little too high. Any time you're trying to find technical details like this, it is better to go to the more literate of the two armies, which would be England. England wrote a lot of stuff down but I heard a lot of important stuff about Wallace and these times went down with a sinking vessel somewhere and were destroyed. And to Wiggs (and maybe also to you, T.B.W. because we're still on the same topic), I'd just like to poke in and remind everybody that there were about three big battles that I can think about and some of these armies really enjoyed to melee' (if I spell that right). Of the three big battles I can think of, 2 battles seemed to have really knocked the scottish to bare bones and they even lost a lot of people at Sterling Bride I think I recall. What I mean to say is that I think the numbers present at these battles may have really been high if they were enough to almost deplete the scots to a bear minimum. Again though, I'm talking out my rear end and just hoping I can hit on something and you guys will roll e along further, thats my style at figuring things. I'm trying to get it in my perspective and talk it out. I found recently that the merkel board is calling me a blubberer for this habit of mine, but my good friends understand the Strange one better! ;D Strange |
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Post by joewiggs on Jan 31, 2012 9:44:59 GMT -5
I can think of no better way to reach a conclusion of thought than to banter an idea around until all aspects are encountered, discussed, and conclusions drawn. I commend you for being a "blubberer" and intend upon being more of the same myself. Kicking an idea around is good for the soul and great for gathering a significant amount of information for any subject.
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Post by joewiggs on Jan 31, 2012 9:59:46 GMT -5
Your last post prompted me to look up the battle of Thermopylae where it was once believed that a million Persians were held off by Leonidas and company for about seven days. Scholars now believe that the numbers of Persians involved in this battle were any where from 100,000 to 300,000 men!
Like T.B.W., I too felt that the logistics for supporting such a preponderance amount of men would rendered any town, hamlet, city, village (etc.) they passed through desolate. In fact I would have posted that idea but T.B.W. beat me to the punch!
I'm going to do further research in hopes of discovering how such a massive movement of men and livestock was accomplished!
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Post by tbw on Jan 31, 2012 22:21:25 GMT -5
Sorry Joe, I'll leave the next one for you. ;D
Back then they didn't have the Geneva Convention to tell them how to fight. There was no such distinction between civilian and soldier and they primarily fought by pillaging and devastating destruction. They pillaged the land they attacked because they didn't have. or carry with them, sufficient supplies. The process hadn't been perfected then and it was a slow, costly process and by no means certain.
If a soldier back then lets say ate two of our standard loafs of bread each day [abt. 1 lb.] as the only food he had to eat, and a pack animal could carry abt. 300 lbs. , then to feed a force of just 3,000 men you would need abt. 150 pack animals. This doesn't take into account the food for the horses and the pack animals to carry their food. Back then they didn't try to figure all that out, they just resorted to thieving and pillaging to survive. So even to have maintained a 10,000 man army would have been a daunting task. A 100,000 a virtual impossibility.
I too have read of Thermopylae, in fact it was one of the first war battles that I ever came into contact with. I doubt very much that Xerxes had a million man army. And with this thought that 300 lonely Spartans could have held them as long as they did at a narrow pass because the sheer mass tells us different. So I'm not even impressed with the 100,000 figure there either. The logistics to have supplied them wouldn't have been there along the way to have supplied them. There wouldn't have been enough wheat concentrated in their area of march to have sustained them. And they didn't have the King Ranch as a bonus.
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Post by strange on Feb 1, 2012 10:57:06 GMT -5
Sorry Joe, I'll leave the next one for you. ;D Back then they didn't have the Geneva Convention to tell them how to fight. There was no such distinction between civilian and soldier and they primarily fought by pillaging and devastating destruction. They pillaged the land they attacked because they didn't have. or carry with them, sufficient supplies. The process hadn't been perfected then and it was a slow, costly process and by no means certain. If a soldier back then lets say ate two of our standard loafs of bread each day [abt. 1 lb.] as the only food he had to eat, and a pack animal could carry abt. 300 lbs. , then to feed a force of just 3,000 men you would need abt. 150 pack animals. This doesn't take into account the food for the horses and the pack animals to carry their food. Back then they didn't try to figure all that out, they just resorted to thieving and pillaging to survive. So even to have maintained a 10,000 man army would have been a daunting task. A 100,000 a virtual impossibility. I too have read of Thermopylae, in fact it was one of the first war battles that I ever came into contact with. I doubt very much that Xerxes had a million man army. And with this thought that 300 lonely Spartans could have held them as long as they did at a narrow pass because the sheer mass tells us different. So I'm not even impressed with the 100,000 figure there either. The logistics to have supplied them wouldn't have been there along the way to have supplied them. There wouldn't have been enough wheat concentrated in their area of march to have sustained them. And they didn't have the King Ranch as a bonus. There was a children's book I use to read called "How Much is a Million" if I recall the title right, and it goes into how much physical time it takes to count to a thousand, a million, a billion and onward. Granted, such a feat is easier accomplished if you set out multiple people to count with you.... but aside from counting, lets ask ourselves how much time it would take for 300 men, fighting with primitive weapons, to work their way through a million man army. That would be a neat sequel to the book, Can You Kill To A Million? Strange |
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Post by whitebull on Feb 4, 2012 18:00:44 GMT -5
What amazes me about armies of the past is that they must have been in amazing shape! Marching for miles in heavy gear than, hand to hand combat when you arrived. I get tire pushing a mop for over five minutes a pop.
I don't know for sure but I bet that surrendering was a problem to. It was probably kill or be killed. Getting enough food had to be a problem also. I would imagine that the villages and towns that were near a moving army also had soldiers who were none to happy about giving up their goods peacefully.
All in all, I'm sure happy to be a contented member of the twentieth century!
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