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I was arguing this point on another forum about why Dorne from the Ice and Fire series could be conquered and they basically came back with “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” and it kept revolving around the idea that its simply impossible to gain victory over an opponent that refuses to give battle or that uses guerilla tactics. So it doesn’t matter how many cities get burnt or armies destroyed; so long as they keep to this strategy then Dorne can’t lose?

Is that right? Especially in the Middle Ages I would have thought letting an opponent rampage across your lands and only source of food is really bad. Plus how could you fight a guerilla war without preserved food, clean water and guns?

It’s a bit of a bug bear because I read another fantasy series, Wars of Light and Shadow, which did the same where one side uses this tactic and it makes them invincible.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I was arguing this point on another forum about why Dorne from the Ice and Fire series could be conquered and they basically came back with “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” and it kept revolving around the idea that its simply impossible to gain victory over an opponent that refuses to give battle or that uses guerilla tactics. So it doesn’t matter how many cities get burnt or armies destroyed; so long as they keep to this strategy then Dorne can’t lose?

Is that right? Especially in the Middle Ages I would have thought letting an opponent rampage across your lands and only source of food is really bad. Plus how could you fight a guerilla war without preserved food, clean water and guns?

It’s a bit of a bug bear because I read another fantasy series, Wars of Light and Shadow, which did the same where one side uses this tactic and it makes them invincible.

I guess in a theoretical sense, doing this with a "scorched earth" policy could work. . . Ie, we keep ahead of the enemy army, providing for our own while also denying them provisions along the way.

One thing that also bugs me about fantasy settings wherein someone uses guerrilla tactics is precisely how invincible they make the guerilla fighters. . . Ie, like the Aiel in the Wheel of Time series. Sure, they die, but you expect readers to believe that 10s of thousands of warriors could move perfectly silently AND invisibly, AND be the better of 4-5 "wetlanders" in pitched battle (when pitched battle does happen).

Being an Apache style guerilla band requires that pitched battle does not happen. In actual history we can see some instances of groups known for guerilla type tactics being beaten at the "home base" level, rather than in the field of battle (ie, opposition forces find/go after the "civilian" elements of that population, and take out/wreck the population centers)

There are definitely downsides to guerilla warfare. First off, you absolutely must have favorable terrain in the area in question. This terrain must be of a kind that limits the ability of a large army to maneuver, resupply, or generally catch you. Simultaneously, your own forces need to have some sort of ability to resupply without the enemy being able to find and cutoff your resupply routes.

The Vietcong in Vietnam were able to do this because the US couldn't cut off all of the resupply routes through the dense jungles.

Another downside to Guerilla warfare is that it only works against occupying forces that have rules of engagement and/or could have their morale whittled down to a point where there is no more will to keep fighting.

This last point is where I think a lot of fantasy examples of guerilla warfare fall short. The US is a government with elected officials where public sentiment has huge sway over political actions, plus as with all modern Western societies generally has no stomach for some of the more nasty atrocities that war can produce. Thus, we wouldn't/couldn't do the actions that would have countered the guerilla warfare of the Vietcong.

The fantasy governments that are usually depicted would however have no qualms about committing some of the extreme actions that would neuter guerilla warfare.

Dorne is one example of a guerilla war that should not have been successful. Or at least could very well not have been successful. If Aerys had used his dragon's efficiently, he could have beaten them into submission too. Namely by not just using them as a blunt instrument, but as a means of scouting. Unlike Vietnam, Dorne is a desert. Little cover from the air, and more importantly a reliance on water. Even if Aerys couldn't have found all the Dornish who were hiding in the hills, he could easily find all of the water sources in the desert they were hiding in. Then he could direct his army to hit the water sources, either poisoning or draining them, till there were none left. Then it doesn't matter if he can't find the Dornish hiding the desert caves. They'd be forced to expose themselves to get water or die of thirst. The same can be done with any farmland that might be hidden away at some oasis.

I am inclined to chalk this one up to Aerys simply not thinking of this strategy. He was used to just using the Dragons as a blunt object, and was incapable of seeing more subtle ways to use their abilities.

As for other examples of Guerilla warfare in fantasy. If you have a situation where the conflict is happening in a more temperate climate, then it becomes harder to have a successful campaign. Especially if the conquering enemy has no qualms with simply killing the civilians in the area where the resistance is operating can give them nowhere to hide. Rebels and resistance fighters rely on blending in with the citizens. If those citizens are being mowed down too, well its impossible to hide anymore. Note this only works if the location this is occurring is an occupied territory. It doesn't work if its a rebellion occurring in the homeland of a nation, as once a nation begins purging its own citizens is when it has already lost the war. But it is a viable strategy if its being directed at an occupied population.

IE: Evil Empire invades and takes over a small kingdom. Resistance groups in the occupied kingdom will have a difficult time if the evil empire decides to just purge the whole population, something an evil empire was probably going to do anyway and just bring in their own loyal citizens to replace the populace. Then the resistant basically has no choice but to fade into irrelevance as bandits in the hills.

However, if a rebellion begins to smoulder in the Evil Empire's own territory, then they cannot simply purge the civilian populace. Their own troops will resist the idea since they are also part of that population, they'd be attacking their own families and friends. This is the kind of rebellion that is almost guaranteed to succeed if they get enough momentum.

I think it's worth pointing out the Fabian strategy is distinct from guerilla warfare as a concept, though guerilla warfare is an obvious means of achieving a Fabian strategy.

The Mamluks used it to bait the Mongols into a favorable ground at the Battle of Ain Jalut (at which point they abandoned the strategy for a pitched battle). Modern historians have equated Liu Bei's victory in the Hanzong Campaign of the Three Kingdom's period to successful use of a Fabian Strategy (a rare case of it being used while on the offensive). Russia has throughout its history employed such means when invaded. Sam Houston used it to defeat the much large army of Santa Anna during the Texas Revolution.

The most obvious to us today is probably the strategy's namesake; Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the Dictator who employed the method against Hannibal Barca in the Second Punic War. This strategy worked for Fabius because, despite his elephants, Hannibal lacked the ability to siege large Roman settlements. He either lacked the means to breach the city walls, or didn't have the luxury of time to even try. If Hannibal were able to seize Roman cities, Fabius probably wouldn't have been able to conduct the war the way he did.

Which is a good example of the downside of the Fabian strategy. It's kind of dependent on certain luxuries; time, space to maneuver, and the enemy forces inability to directly force a confrontation. At that point, it kind of becomes a test of mettle more than anything.

George Washington also used a Fabian Strategy during the American Revolution, retreating from vital coastal cities into the American wilderness where it became much harder for the British Army to pin him down and force a battle.

Which is where you come into the other problem. Washington did not make friends employing this strategy. Many other Continentals thought him a coward or ill-suited to command during the roughest years of the Revolution. He dealt with numerous challenges to his plans, attempts to circumvent his authority, and petty insults right up until the point he won the damn war. Fabian Strategy isn't popular. It doesn't play well, because it isn't "glamorous." It's the most cynical form of conventional strategy and at times it seems like you're not doing anything.

Which is kind of what Grey is getting at.

Winning the kind of warfare the Fabian strategy puts you in becomes a war of wills. Eventually, one side is going to either feth up or give up. Theoretically, if you're fething stubborn enough you could win any conflict with a Fabian strategy, but maintaining moral and will for long period's of time is easier in fiction than reality.

Aye. Hannibal was is pretty bad situation overall. He could defeat any army in the field, but he was running out of supplies and manpower and had no real way of reinforcing his position. Had Carthage had total control of the seas, enough to freely resupply him in Italy, then it would have been different. But as it was, Hannibal effectively trapped himself and the Romans just needed to wait till he spent his strength.

 Grey Templar wrote:
There are definitely downsides to guerilla warfare. First off, you absolutely must have favorable terrain in the area in question. This terrain must be of a kind that limits the ability of a large army to maneuver, resupply, or generally catch you. Simultaneously, your own forces need to have some sort of ability to resupply without the enemy being able to find and cutoff your resupply routes.

The Vietcong in Vietnam were able to do this because the US couldn't cut off all of the resupply routes through the dense jungles.

Another downside to Guerilla warfare is that it only works against occupying forces that have rules of engagement and/or could have their morale whittled down to a point where there is no more will to keep fighting.

This last point is where I think a lot of fantasy examples of guerilla warfare fall short. The US is a government with elected officials where public sentiment has huge sway over political actions, plus as with all modern Western societies generally has no stomach for some of the more nasty atrocities that war can produce. Thus, we wouldn't/couldn't do the actions that would have countered the guerilla warfare of the Vietcong.

The fantasy governments that are usually depicted would however have no qualms about committing some of the extreme actions that would neuter guerilla warfare.

Dorne is one example of a guerilla war that should not have been successful. Or at least could very well not have been successful. If Aerys had used his dragon's efficiently, he could have beaten them into submission too. Namely by not just using them as a blunt instrument, but as a means of scouting. Unlike Vietnam, Dorne is a desert. Little cover from the air, and more importantly a reliance on water. Even if Aerys couldn't have found all the Dornish who were hiding in the hills, he could easily find all of the water sources in the desert they were hiding in. Then he could direct his army to hit the water sources, either poisoning or draining them, till there were none left. Then it doesn't matter if he can't find the Dornish hiding the desert caves. They'd be forced to expose themselves to get water or die of thirst. The same can be done with any farmland that might be hidden away at some oasis.

I am inclined to chalk this one up to Aerys simply not thinking of this strategy. He was used to just using the Dragons as a blunt object, and was incapable of seeing more subtle ways to use their abilities.

As for other examples of Guerilla warfare in fantasy. If you have a situation where the conflict is happening in a more temperate climate, then it becomes harder to have a successful campaign. Especially if the conquering enemy has no qualms with simply killing the civilians in the area where the resistance is operating can give them nowhere to hide. Rebels and resistance fighters rely on blending in with the citizens. If those citizens are being mowed down too, well its impossible to hide anymore. Note this only works if the location this is occurring is an occupied territory. It doesn't work if its a rebellion occurring in the homeland of a nation, as once a nation begins purging its own citizens is when it has already lost the war. But it is a viable strategy if its being directed at an occupied population.

IE: Evil Empire invades and takes over a small kingdom. Resistance groups in the occupied kingdom will have a difficult time if the evil empire decides to just purge the whole population, something an evil empire was probably going to do anyway and just bring in their own loyal citizens to replace the populace. Then the resistant basically has no choice but to fade into irrelevance as bandits in the hills.

However, if a rebellion begins to smoulder in the Evil Empire's own territory, then they cannot simply purge the civilian populace. Their own troops will resist the idea since they are also part of that population, they'd be attacking their own families and friends. This is the kind of rebellion that is almost guaranteed to succeed if they get enough momentum.

Well in Fire and Blood it’s brought up that Aegons army is confronted in the Mountain Passes and this leads to Orys Baratheon and the Stormlords being captured. For one dragons, and two Dorne has less soldiers than the Stormlands; but hey. Basically they’re constantly able to dictate the terms of battle and it feels like George decided he needed to have the dragons lose.

What got me is that, if you burnt every Egyptian city and occupied the river valleys it really shouldn’t avail the people of Medieval Egypt to flee into the desert. I think George implies the Dormish have all these hidden oasis and caves. The problem is when millions of people flee into them and it’s repeatedly said that the country was empty of people. This is like assuming that a resident of Cairo or Alexandria would do well in the Gobi desert. If you tried it, that should really be a total disaster. How would you feed and house these people?

Obviously because the insinuation in the text is that “if Dany tries to conquer Dorne” she’s going to have a rough time of it. But, same issue with the show, her losing has to actually make sense and not feel arbitrary. Given the historical examples I am not sure this goes much beyond “they have a desert and caves”.

TBF you have completely diffrent premises behind the scenarios and the strategies.

Fabian had to deal with 1 army and avoided pitched battles to wear it down in allied territory by stalking it. the goal is to gain an absolute favourable battle in the end.


Guerilla is allready in a occupied area. You avoid a pitched battle at all costs.

Admitting I'm not super versed in Game of Thrones background lore, my thought would be that Aerys didn't get to go full in on Dorne. He needed to maintain his control of the other Kingdoms he'd conquered, tying down a lot of his army. When one of his Dragons got killed against the Dornish, things only became more strained and he eventually elected to use the threat of what he could do to force a settlement. The Dornish didn't really win. They just lasted long enough not to completely lose.

Wouldn't a Fabien Strategy only work if you can reliably acquire enough supplies and reinforcements to outlast your opponents? It seems to me to be a fairly risky strategy to rely on. One wrong move, one failed supply raid, one failed recruitment drive, and you're screwed.

The Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken thing is just postering, imo. Aerys didn't go after them hard enough for the Dornish to truly use it.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Wouldn't a Fabien Strategy only work if you can reliably acquire enough supplies and reinforcements to outlast your opponents?

Yes, which is why I say that successfully employing it is dependent on luxuries not every commander is going to enjoy. It actually probably is a more viable strategy in a desert to be fair, for a few reasons. People who live in deserts tend to know how and where to find food and water. People who aren't from deserts (possibly invaders) do not. Heat wears down on armies pretty badly, especially when you can't supply enough water.

You're right though in that, in general, a Fabian Strategy is highly situational.

A Fabian Strategy isn't always about attrition per se though. Fa Zheng, the architect of Liu Bei's strategy in the Hongzong campaign, didn't play that game. He had Liu Bei's smaller army break up into contingents, and used terrain and mobility to continually deny Cao Cao's forces the chance to organize for a large battle. They attacked elements of the force only to seize strategic strong points, mountains or hills where a small number of troops could hold off a larger army to continually press and threaten the enemy force without ever actually engaging in a full fight. After losing Xiahou Yuan to am ambush, Cao Cao basically had enough said "feth it" and went home.

Geography mattered a lot. Hongzong is mountainous, and getting anywhere takes awhile. Smaller forces could achieve great mobility that denied pursuers the chance to catch them, and it was hard to track where small groups of soldiers were at any given time so ambushes were frequent. Simply retreating onto a mountaintop has the advantage of giving a strong defensive position and giving the conscripted peasants who made up most of the armies of the time nowhere to flee to (it was fight or die). This was probably the height of Liu Bei's military ability. He had an extremely talented strategist orchestrating the battle, and generals willing to do what that strategist said even when it didn't make sense. Fa Zheng, Ma Chao and Huang Zhong all died not long after the campaign and Shu-Han notably never won a lasting victory in enemy territory ever again.

Success in Hongzong was the definition of situational.

Guerilla warfare in fiction also tends to ignore that for it to work you have to be sitting in the middle of some sort of awful wilderness, whether it be marsh, mountain or forest, and the enemy gets to control the more productive open country.
The Irish hiding in the bogs and mountains were difficult for the Normans and later British to root out, but they also eked out a pretty miserable existence on the margins and relied on raiding the more productive areas for food.

Edit: And obviously, there is a downside to not engaging with an opponent if they are for example engaged in a genocide or something like it. We can all think of examples from history where an evil regime needed to be confronted and defeated militarily for ethical reasons rather than those of hard nosed military strategy or the pursuit of power.

As others have mentioned it is a matter of resources and morale. It takes a lot of food, supplies, and effort to continually provide for and direct the number of gorillas required. And that assumes the gorillas are well-trained. The upside is that they can beat up enemies pretty good and the psychological impact of being attacked by gorillas is pretty severe.

 LordofHats wrote:
Admitting I'm not super versed in Game of Thrones background lore, my thought would be that Aerys didn't get to go full in on Dorne. He needed to maintain his control of the other Kingdoms he'd conquered, tying down a lot of his army. When one of his Dragons got killed against the Dornish, things only became more strained and he eventually elected to use the threat of what he could do to force a settlement. The Dornish didn't really win. They just lasted long enough not to completely lose.

Isn;t there something about his favourite sister being captured and used as a bargenining chip?

Most successful Guerilla warfare campaigns also rely on the enemy of the invader supplying the defender/rebels.with logistical supportk, training, "advisors" - this tends to be ignored.

So the French in the US War of Revolution, Us and the US in Afganistan, Commuiists in Vietnam.

It also depends on how ruthless the invader is, if they are badly or well led, time constraints, money constraints etc.

However, if a rebellion begins to smoulder in the Evil Empire's own territory, then they cannot simply purge the civilian populace. Their own troops will resist the idea since they are also part of that population, they'd be attacking their own families and friends. This is the kind of rebellion that is almost guaranteed to succeed if they get enough momentum.

not sure thats true - Empires have done exactly that - from Rome to Stalins Russia?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Most successful Guerilla warfare campaigns also rely on the enemy of the invader supplying the defender/rebels.with logistical supportk, training, "advisors" - this tends to be ignored.

In the ancient and medieval worlds, a Fabian strategy depended greatly on terrain and circumstance. Not to mention talent, cause it's probably one of the hardest strategies to actually pull of. Insurgency and international support weren't very common things back then. Not in the form we think of them today.

And I still think it's really important to distinguish. Guerilla warfare and a Fabian strategy are not the same things. A Fabian strategy can be achieved with completely conventional tactics, and for most of history was. Modern guerilla warfare is different from the skirmishing of the ancient and medieval world, dependent on the advent of new communications and weapons technology. You probably couldn't pull off a Fabian strategy today as Fabius did. Jet bombs exist now, and precision-guided munitions. I suppose we could say that guerilla warfare today has supplanted the Fabian strategy as an option, but I still think one firmly fits in the realm of tactics while the other belongs to the realm of strategy. You could say the US navy used a Fabian strategy in the Pacific War, continually denying the Japanese Navy the decisive "big ship" battle it wanted. There was nothing unconventionally about this strategy. The US simply elected not to get bogged down in a conflict of naval supremacy and focused on achieving territorial gains (ironically achieving naval supremacy anyway because we build boats fast).

not sure thats true - Empires have done exactly that - from Rome to Stalins Russia?

It really depends on the circumstance. The idea that old-timey empires massacred their enemies is kind of later propaganda. You generally wanted the population alive because you wanted the labor. You may be removed people from the region to let your own people take the land, but it's a lot less common than people think to just massacre your opponent's peoples. Enslavement and forced migration were generally the more favored methods.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I was arguing this point on another forum about why Dorne from the Ice and Fire series could be conquered and they basically came back with “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” and it kept revolving around the idea that its simply impossible to gain victory over an opponent that refuses to give battle or that uses guerilla tactics. So it doesn’t matter how many cities get burnt or armies destroyed; so long as they keep to this strategy then Dorne can’t lose?

Is that right? Especially in the Middle Ages I would have thought letting an opponent rampage across your lands and only source of food is really bad. Plus how could you fight a guerilla war without preserved food, clean water and guns?

It’s a bit of a bug bear because I read another fantasy series, Wars of Light and Shadow, which did the same where one side uses this tactic and it makes them invincible.

It depends on how well your opponent is able to live off the land, far from their own supply lines, not knowing the land and terrain, taking casualties but unable to meaningfully strike back, while you are probably better at all of those locally. If you can avoid battle and withdraw to the hills and survive on what you find or take with you, and the remaining land cannot support and invading army, then the invader has problems. Yeah, it'll suck for you too, but you weren't gonna get out of it unscathed anyway.

It was rather common through history, it's still common today. If the invader can't bring the local population to a decisive battle they're gonna have a bad time unless they have both the ability and willingness to otherwise remove or extirpate the population. That's what the concentration camp was borne from, if you can't bring the enemy to battle, you round everyone up you can find, put them in a camp and keep them concentrated there and reliant on you for survival and food, then kill and destroy anyone and anything outside of that camp.

However you run the risk that by Implementation of concentration camps your own peoples willingness to fights suffers.
So you also need to "right" ideology to actually support such actions.

Not Online!!! wrote:
However you run the risk that by Implementation of concentration camps your own peoples willingness to fights suffers.
So you also need to "right" ideology to actually support such actions.

Sure, absolutely, though that's also an admittedly relatively modern concern that wasn't a huge issue in ancient/medieval cultures, especially when the bulk of the invader's population was far away and only heard what its rulers reported and were generally (by our standards) monstrously xenophobic, and the troops doing the dirty work generally had direct personal profit motives to engage in such activities. Even today, at the risk of getting political, we can see that a not insignificant chunk of people don't really seem to have a problem with such policies in a number of different nations.

 Vaktathi wrote:
we can see that a not insignificant chunk of people don't really seem to have a problem with such policies in a number of different nations.

People tend to care less when it's someone else's "problem."

 Vaktathi wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
However you run the risk that by Implementation of concentration camps your own peoples willingness to fights suffers.
So you also need to "right" ideology to actually support such actions.

Sure, absolutely, though that's also an admittedly relatively modern concern that wasn't a huge issue in ancient/medieval cultures, especially when the bulk of the invader's population was far away and only heard what its rulers reported and were generally (by our standards) monstrously xenophobic, and the troops doing the dirty work generally had direct personal profit motives to engage in such activities. Even today, at the risk of getting political, we can see that a not insignificant chunk of people don't really seem to have a problem with such policies in a number of different nations.

conventions of War span quite a bit back mate. School of salamanca f.e. Papal bulls etc.

Secondly the medieval age beeing xenophobic. No, just no any historian worth his salt will and can tell you that is utter bollocks.

Thirdly the mercenary age is distinct from the medieval age Mister. The times were swiss mercs started Burning down and genociding swabian aristocracy over an insult is in the rennaisance period in which mercenaries replace the levy. (1499 swabian war in this exemple)

Fourth, there is a difference between indifference between non beligerents and actual beligerents.
Counter exemple, congo colonies.

Not Online!!! wrote:
.Secondly the medieval age beeing xenophobic. No, just no any historian worth his salt will and can tell you that is utter bollocks.

*historian piping in*

Shall I explain the word barbarian? How about the history of the word vandal? Raider? Moor? Saracen? Frank (that word gets fun!)?

Xenophobia is prolific throughout the whole of human history. It ebbs and it wanes depending on the cultures and moods of different times and places to be sure, but the Medieval age being xenophobic being bullocks? That right there is bullocks. I'm actually baffled anyone would make that claim. There are entire words in the English language that you use regularly born of nothing more than xenophobia. Of course, to be far, being xenophobic back then was to be expected. Everyone was to some degree. Such were the times.

I think one of my favorite lines about Al-Andalus fits well here.

To say that the Muslims of Moorish Spain were "tolerant" is to engage in a historical pastiche. Tolerance as we know it did not exist in the Middle Ages. It was not conceptualized until the advent of the secular state during the Enlightenment. Moorish Spain was tolerant only in our eyes looking back. To the people who lived there in that time and place, the social order of things was not of tolerance but of a loose sense of responsibility and societal expectations common in "blending" zones where human cultures intermingled and Al-Andulus was not as unique as it is sometimes made out to be nor as "pleasant" as is sometimes said.

(Something like that).

Thirdly the mercenary age is distinct from the medieval age Mister. The times were swiss mercs started Burning down and genociding swabian aristicracy is in the rennaisance period in which mercenaries replace the levy.

This too honestly. People who fight explicitly for money are probably older than any other kind of soldier in some places. Mercenaries were pretty prolific at some points in the Medieval age. They had different names back then, but that's just splitting hairs.

When the Normans weren't getting around by Viking, they got around because someone wanted to hire some burly guys who loved axes to crack some heads... you know. Up until they realized they could just crack that guys head and name an entire part of France after themselves. The Abbasids built entire armies out of mercenaries, and then after getting tired of that backfiring, just decided to have slave armies instead (also backfired eventually). I'm not sure there's any point in the Middle Ages where anyone couldn't find someone willing to fight for money if they really wanted to honestly, it mostly depended on the state of wealth in a given domain and the availability of domestic manpower.

Hell, the word Mercenary descends from the latin word mercenarius, which itself comes from Marius. As in Gaius Marius, the guy who reformed the Roman Army on the basis of pay rather than civic duty/land entitlement (also also backfired).

Xenophobia is prolific throughout the whole of human history. It ebbs and it wanes depending on the cultures and moods of different times and places to be sure, but the Medieval age being xenophobic being bullocks? That right there is bullocks. I'm actually baffled anyone would make that claim. There are entire words in the English language that you use regularly born of nothing more than xenophobia. Of course, to be far, being xenophobic back then was to be expected. Everyone was to some degree. Such were the times.

Are we conveniently ignoring economic trade, even between the Muslims which by pope was prohibited and the rest of Europe? Or the slave trade? Running over the Krim torwards venice and pitstops along the cost of the ottomans?


I understand under xenophobia something completely diffrent lad like, completely justifyable genocide diffrent. To the point of active persecution and even that does not work considering that Religion itself was more of a drinving factor for society.

Not Online!!! wrote:


Are we conveniently ignoring economic trade, even between the Muslims which by pape was prohibited and

Are we pretending that people can't be highly phobic of each other and still engage in basic niceties and profit? Cause boy do I have a time and place for you! American, about 1492 to Right Now, though if you want to get really funky we can take that all the way back to 999 when Lief Erikson was beating Columbus to the punch and describing Native Americans as evil spirits (still traded with them tough).

I'm not sure there's any point in the Middle Ages where anyone couldn't find someone willing to fight for money if they really wanted to honestly, it mostly depended on the state of wealth in a given domain and the availability of domestic manpower.

Mercenaries work as an actual liked and often practiced Job is atleast in switzerland not really a thing before the plague went through. As to be expected actually same with the slave trade getting vastly more profitable after the plague.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:


Are we conveniently ignoring economic trade, even between the Muslims which by pape was prohibited and

Are we pretending that people can't be highly phobic of each other and still engage in basic niceties and profit? Cause boy do I have a time and place for you! American, about 1492 to Right Now, though if you want to get really funky we can take that all the way back to 999 when Lief Erikson was beating Columbus to the punch and describing Native Americans as evil spirits (still traded with them tough).

I refer to the school of salamanca.
The alliance between the Sultan and france.
It isn't a sign for xenophobia when you actually engage in propper diplomatic structures.
A sign of xenophobia is when you exactly avoid that. Via imposing your position as superior.

Etc.
As for leif, do we know he traded?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Mercenaries work as an actual liked and often practiced Job is atleast in switzerland not really a thing before the plague went through.

The Goths, Qing, Turks, Xiang-yu, Celts, Thracians, Sarmatians, Varangians/Normans, Franks, Germans, Mercians, Nubians, Rameses II for his entire reign, and the entire city-state of Carthage would beg to disagree. And those are just the cultures off the top of my head where being a mercenary was a way of living at some point in time.

Celts and Nubians in particular. Nubians fought for profit in foreign wars for rulers from Ancient Egypt to Crusades. The Celts were prolific mercenaries in early Antiquity, hired as far away as the Acherimeids to fight for someone who had the money and interest to hire some more guys who could use a pointy stick.

I'm actually really baffled about why you're choosing to define these words in such narrow contexts. I mean if you literally look for the word "mercenary" it's not that old in itself, but if you ignore the word and focus on what a mercenary "is" it's arguably a profession even older than prostitution (harhar!).

As for leif, do we know he traded?

Yes. He didn't just go to Vinland, remark on what a nice place it was, and then go home. Had to forage for supplies, did a little trading with the locals while he was there. To be fair I am being a bit pedantic. I'm not sure Lief ever came into any conflict with the Native Americans. The guy famous for getting into a fight with the "Skraelings" is Thorfinn Karlsefni. Guy got into one fight and abandoned the idea of settling any lands west/south of Greenland cause it didn't seem to be worth the effort of dealing with the people who were already there... Well according to the guy who wrote down his story about two/two-fifty hundred years later anyway.

 LordofHats wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Mercenaries work as an actual liked and often practiced Job is atleast in switzerland not really a thing before the plague went through.

The Goths, Qing, Turks, Xiang-yu, Celts, Thracians, Sarmatians, Varangians/Normans, Franks, Germans, Mercians, Nubians, Rameses II for his entire reign, and the entire city-state of Carthage would beg to disagree. And those are just the cultures off the top of my head where being a mercenary was a way of living at some point in time.

Celts and Nubians in particular. Nubians fought for profit in foreign wars for rulers from Ancient Egypt to Crusades. The Celts were prolific mercenaries in early Antiquity, hired as far away as the Acherimeids to fight for someone who had the money and interest to hire some more guys who could use a pointy stick.

I'm actually really baffled about why you're choosing to define these words in such narrow contexts. I mean if you literally look for the word "mercenary" it's not that old in itself, but if you ignore the word and focus on what a mercenary "is" it's arguably a profession even older than prostitution (harhar!).

I gave you a conditional regional statement.
Having army structures, btw most of these cultures using said army structure, beeing from antiquity would again further my point.

Secondly out of the following you have mostly picked groups that served commonly as mercenaries or auxillia, and are mostlikely in these cases either in contact or lived in a Region with comparativ economic stagnation and population surplus.

Mercenary work is quite frankly more dependant on socioeconomics of a Region than anything else.

Not Online!!! wrote:
I gave you a conditional regional statement.

I don't know what you're trying to say here.

Having army structures, btw most of these cultures using said army structure,

And I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

beeing from antiquity would again further my point.

Normans, Franks, Mercians, and Varangians were all active mercenary troops from the Medieval Age unless you're using some bizarre hyper-specific definition of medieval too. Nubians (under the name Berber or Libyan) were also still active as Mercenaries, fighting for Muslim rulers from the Abbasids to the Ottomans. We can go wider too if you want.

and if mostlikely of these cases either came in contact or lived in a Region with comparativ economic stagnation and population surplus.

How do you think they came into contact with a region and settled it in the first place? The Normans didn't just move to Sicily and Greece. They got hired by some guy, then got hired by some other guy, and then decided they could just run the place themselves so why were they getting hired in the first place?

Mercenary work is quite frankly more dependant on socioeconomics of a Region than anything else.

That's, basically what I said?

You stated that you basically at any point in the medieval age could hire someone to fight for you.

I stated that has more to do with the socioeconomic Factors involved. EG supply, demmand and in this case logistics.
You made a generalistic statement, i stated you should not do that.


The availability of the exemple groups you chose is the reason you see these even and ofcourse the relative wealth that their paymasters had. Especially in the case of the varangians.
Additionally the infrastructure also must be there.

Not Online!!! wrote:
You stated that you basically at any point in the medieval age could hire someone to fight for you.

You should read the entire sentence. Context is a thing. Don't cut a sentence in half, and declare it generalist without reading the other half of the sentence that is a long caveat basically reading "socioeconomic interest."

Additionally the infrastructure also must be there.

People have historically gone wherever it suits them when they have reason to go there. Infrastructure makes migration faster, not feasible to begin with.

I would imagine that the further back you go the greater part of an army would be comprised of land-workers. Therefore the longer you have to hold your army back from a fight, the greater the chance that not only will it start to risk falling apart, but that you might have to give up the army so that land can be worked and the harvest brought in.

I'm reminded of the Deverry series by Katharine Kerr, which is closer to earlier cletic periods rather than full medieval. In that many skirmishes and wars had to be over by the winter for food harvesting and for the bitter weather that made conducting war impractical.

A Fabian strategy in such a setting might work for a time, but you'd always be up against the timer of food and weather. This highlights the view that you need time on your hands for it to work because its basically a constant delaying tactic.


On the other hand I think it would also only ever work if you can actually chip away at the enemy. You can actually see this work sometimes (more often than I'd like honestly) in Total War games on the small scale. Certainly many of the AI up to Rome 2 will often run away during the 3D battles. Either reforming lines further away or just moving back all the while until its backed into a corner. Typically the AI does this when it thinks it will lose (or just to be annoying); however in many cases it has little strategy and plan and doesn't stage its retreats to use its artillery/ranged units to best effect.

Ergo continual avoidance only works if the small skirmishes can be effective to the opposing force.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
However you run the risk that by Implementation of concentration camps your own peoples willingness to fights suffers.
So you also need to "right" ideology to actually support such actions.

Sure, absolutely, though that's also an admittedly relatively modern concern that wasn't a huge issue in ancient/medieval cultures, especially when the bulk of the invader's population was far away and only heard what its rulers reported and were generally (by our standards) monstrously xenophobic, and the troops doing the dirty work generally had direct personal profit motives to engage in such activities. Even today, at the risk of getting political, we can see that a not insignificant chunk of people don't really seem to have a problem with such policies in a number of different nations.

conventions of War span quite a bit back mate. School of salamanca f.e. Papal bulls etc.

They do, however their scope, adherence, and relevance has been highly variable and usually short lived until relatively modern times. For instance, in the Longsword tradition, the thrust is usually a pretty important method of attack, but among German practitioners came to be seen as morally incorrect for various reasons, preferring to kill only with the cut, and as such thrusting someone with your sword became the equivalent of a martial crime. However, this only applied between good Germans and Bohemians, you could stab those filthy Italians in the face all you wanted (as they would certainly do to you as they do to each other after all! ), and nobody would have ever questioned it against someone even more foreign. The rules of Christendom in medieval europe, such as they were, did not necessarily extend to Steppe raiders, Vikings (depending on where you draw the line in the timeline), Muslims, etc, and vice versa, and the Mongols certainly themselves certainly never worried about being excessively violent during the medieval era.

Secondly the medieval age beeing xenophobic. No, just no any historian worth his salt will and can tell you that is utter bollocks.

I don't mean they're frothing at the mouth lunatics that want to kill every outsider on sight, but they're hardly going to riot over the fact that their army is being abusive to foreigners, particularly if they're significantly culturally distinct or have a history of antagonism, and especially if all they're hearing is what their rulers want them to hear because no other method of communication exists.

While not specifically medieval, we can go back to Julius Caesar's conquests of Gaul for a different take as well. They were basically blatantly illegal open wars of conquest and aggression, resulting in the death of a significant chunk of the celtic population and atrocities on wide scales (possibly as much as a third), and in Rome this was openly pointed out repeatedly over many years, it was no secret either in the Forum or in the Streets. But when Caesar just kept winning, came back with loads of booty and soldiers dripping with plunder, and uncountable numbers of human slaves, nobody cared enough to not award him a Triumph.

Thirdly the mercenary age is distinct from the medieval age Mister. The times were swiss mercs started Burning down and genociding swabian aristocracy over an insult is in the rennaisance period in which mercenaries replace the levy. (1499 swabian war in this exemple)

Plunder has always been an expected and understood part of any soldier's pay in an invasion force in every age until the modern era (and even in the modern era this isn't ironclad). Medieval troops absolutely engaged in plunder as an understood part of their pay, particularly if they're having to live off the land as an invading force, and while not the same as Swiss mercenaries, soldiering was a much more mercenary profession in general in such times, and there would have been none of the shame heaped upon a deserter upon coming home if they failed to get paid that a modern soldier would get in most instances.

Fourth, there is a difference between indifference between non beligerents and actual beligerents.
Counter exemple, congo colonies.

Sure, but in what way do you mean here...?