How Big Were Classical vs Medieval Battles? ⚔️ Part 1 - England & France ⚔️(3D) Documentary

[@InvictaHistory]

Its a lot of work to put these video together but the results are hugely insightful. What areas/time periods should we explore next?

[@hereforthecommentsection_11]

Maybe Ancient Greek/Persian army sizes

[@lohengramm7798]

hispania is interesting, germania as well.

[@marcello7781]

If there will be a similar one for East Asia then the Chinese battles, particularly the ones of the An Lushan rebellion.

[@lohengramm7798]

@@marcello7781 oh yeah that's very interesting, there should be a similar comparison for east asia too.

[@arthurdowney2846]

Do an American culture like the Inca!

[@eagleofbrittany7231]

Rome losing 100,000 men: "Eh, we'll have another army this size in a year" Medieval kingdoms losing: 10,000 men: "I will never recover from this"

[@danielefabbro822]

Back in the days I make a count of how men at arms the Roman's had during Trahan kingdom. Counting legions, auxiliaries and navy with their Marines, it came out that they had 1.5 million men serving at the same time. I mean...

[@RealSaintB]

Kinda like how my grandparents could by a house on a single income and me and my wife debate whether we can financially recover from an extra pizza topping.

[@miliba]

Stalin: Meh, 10 million deaths is just a statistic

[@danielefabbro822]

@@miliba the Arbiter in Halo: I've slaughtered 300 billions of humans. But they are still thriving.

[@flackstar007]

@@RealSaintB Yep times change and things people took for granted become pipe dreams for future generations.

[@Kriegter]

The reason why medieval battles were so small is mainly due to decentralization. Monarchs can't just raise a massive army because there are limits to how much men vassals would provide for a campaign.

[@Warmaker01]

Yeah. All soldiers of a kingdom, under one central army led by the king was just as fantasy as knights killing dragons. Rebellions, whole regions changing sides even, was quite possible because the soldiers were loyal to their local lord, not the king. Even in feudal Japan it was like this. The armies in Japan were not the Shogun's, they all were divided up and led by their local lords.

[@LewisPulsipher]

When your transport capabilities are very poor, as in medieval times, you can't supply large armies (even accounting for foraging).

[@Nick-hi9gx]

Even with greater centralization, like say the Normans in southern Italy, the problem is feudalism. And bastard Feudalism.

[@Nick-hi9gx]

@@Warmaker01 True during the Sengoku Jidai, ~150 years total, but prior to that, and after that, feudal lords had direct obligation to the Ashikaga, Tokugawa, Fujiwara, briefly Minamoto. During the wars that led to the Fujiwara taking control, for instance, or during the very end of the Sengoku Jidai, there were armies where the daimyo of the leading clans acted effectively as kings; all political and military power flowed through Hideyoshi and Tokugawa and Fujiwara no Michigana, Minamoto no Yoritomo

[@RandomStuff-he7lu]

The reason was became Rome was a continent bestriding Empire and medieval kingdoms were not. Rome could bring to bear an absolute massive amount of resources and men. It'd be like asking why a single US state can't raise as large a military as the entire USA.

[@williamromine5715]

It's almost unimaginable the size of these armies when you consider the logistics involved. The reason Rome was so successful is probably because of its ability to maintain logistics, whereas the tribes it fought were more ad hoc and unable handle the logistical necessities involved. Very interesting video series. A suggestion is a description of how the armies handled the logistical problems associated with ancient wars.

[@Nick-hi9gx]

Additionally, Rome's endless manpower. Even when the Romans were defeated, they just gathered another army of Italian allies and Roman men, and sent it out in the field.

[@tonnuz87]

Romans had an Absolute ability in mobilization which has been unmatched through history until 18th century

[@Nick-hi9gx]

@@tonnuz87 The Chinese beat them, hands down. The final push, the last campaign of the Three Kingdoms period, when Shu had fallen and the Jin swept east on the Yangtze...my god, the logistics in that alone far outweigh anything the Romans ever did, or could do. I am a Roman historian, I LOVE the Romans, but the Chinese had logistics down to a level nobody surpassed until Napoleon, and even that is pushing it. I would say nobody surpassed the Tang at its height logistically until the Prussians of the late 19th century. If you want to see a logistical masterpiece, look to the War of the Heavenly Horses, of the Han dynasty and its later, more successful, campaigns under the early Tang. The fed, supplied, and resupplied with troops and horses major expeditions as far away from their capitals as Rome is from Baghdad. Difference is, they didn't have the Tigris and Euphrates to follow, nor the Mediterranean to sail and resupply. It would be the equivalent of the Romans sending an expedition to...maybe modern Nigeria. Across the desert. And then fighting numerous battles, and winning.

[@tonnuz87]

@@Nick-hi9gx ok i was talking about european and mediterranean area history.

[@Nick-hi9gx]

@@tonnuz87 That is fair. I would say that the Venetians in the 15th MIGHT compare logistically, but that isn't really fair to compare. They were a maritime trade power.

[@doubledouble4g379]

The army size prolly has a lot to do with the size of their economies - Rome had a REALLY developped economy for the time, so even though they're exaggerating their army size, I don't doubt that they could afford it.

[@Chinaball-fx7gi]

Still really expensive to maintain though

[@adamyoung6797]

In a way, they pay for themselves. The soldiers build the very roads of the trade networks that finance them. They destroy the bandits that plague economy. Later centuries were filled with bandits and lack globalization of Rome.

[@KalashVodka175]

@@Chinaball-fx7gi Economies of scale through standardization and mass production. Thats how roman maille and lorica segmentata became so common amongst legionnaires despite bring costly to produce by individual smiths: if you make 5000 smiths plus their apprentices focus solely on producing roman gear, costs will be lowered and production time as well since you can repeat the process ad finitum

[@ihl0700677525]

At the end of Roman time (or even during the Pax Romana), various invading "barbarians" (with no real economy or industry) also able to field massive armies against the Romans, like the Teutons, Goths, Huns, Vandals, etc. I'm highly skeptical of the true size of those armies. Perhaps Roman and Greek chroniclers count camp followers as well, not just soldiers, both on their side, and their opponent. Stark example of this can be found during the Opium war. IIRC Qing ministers reported to the emperor that they have like 100K+ men stationed around Nanking and Zhejiang against British 10K or so, but in reality (or according to the British), the Qing only field ~50K there. These kind of false reporting bs probably happen all the time during antiquity.

[@canadious6933]

@@ihl0700677525 It's a little more complicated than that. The "Invading" barbarians didn't outnumber Rome's manpower. I will sum up a lot as quickly as I can but the barbarian armies were mercenaries or even auxiliary units that were trained by Rome and fought for Rome that then betrayed rome. These tribes were no longer the same ones 400 or 500 years ago but were close trade partners with the Empire. They knew what they were doing. Secondly, the western roman empire by the 5th century did not replace their legions from the civil wars that were lost. People were dodging the draft for many reasons. And you had enormous inflation and terrible corruption that plagued the roman government at the worst time possible. That's why, over the span of 60 years, the invading barbarians, settled in Rome successfully. Oh and yeah, numbers are always blown out of proportion. While a full strength legion was 3k to 5k, most likely the average legion could have been half that if they were a back water province. No one can say for sure

[@magnemerstrand2289]

These 3d videos are quickly becoming my favorite of yours! Please keep em coming!

[@InvictaHistory]

Yay! The "True Size" series was intended to bring a new dimension to history and I think its been great for both opening up new topics as well as the ways we present them

[@magnemerstrand2289]

@@InvictaHistory It most certaintly has, I am definitely looking forward to seeing this series continue!

[@GothPaoki]

I like how Invicta deals so meticulously with different aspects of wars and battles instead of just narrating the events. It sets the channel apart from other historical ones which don't put forward such topics.

[@Blalack77]

How gnarly would that have been to be a commander leading troops to unknown places on the edge of your world to places surrounded by myth and legend? Like Julius Caesar and others into Britain or Alexander the Great in Asia... Watching about the troop numbers is so interesting I can't look away.

[@Nick-hi9gx]

The whole "Britain is a land of myth and mystery" thing with Julius Caesar is a myth. Romans had been going there for many, many decades on trade voyages. Caesar played up the "it is a land of ultimate mystery!" for propaganda effect back in Rome. They knew about the southern coast of Britain, they knew about the tribes in the area, Caesar had been sending emissaries pretty much as soon as he came in conflict with the Belgae.

[@game_boyd1644]

Pretty sure the greeks new considerably more about Asia than the romans knew about the british isles

[@Nick-hi9gx]

@@game_boyd1644 About Asia Minor and the Levant, yes. When he said Asia, I assumed he was talking about Central Asia, South Asia, the very ends of Alexander's expeditions. The Greeks didn't know China existed, they only knew India existed in that there was a land beyond the Indus, but they thought it was like...a little region, before a giant ocean. They thought India was like the size of, I dunno, coastal Egypt.

[@game_boyd1644]

@@Nick-hi9gx good point. Suppose I should have clarified. The greeks certainly thought India was a land of myth, specifically the mythological home of theor wine God Dionysus. The romans also knew quite a bit about the southern shores of Britannia by way of Greek and Phoenician merchants. But the average greek elite would have still known more about the eastern reaches Persian empire than the average roman elite knew about Caledonia. That's the point I was trying to make actually

[@Nick-hi9gx]

@@game_boyd1644 Yes, that is a totally fair point. And you are right about the Greek merchants, though I doubt any of the Phoenician merchants were sharing their knowledge with the Romans. They uhh...weren't fans.

[@Stiefschlaf]

Great video! I really hope it becomes a series. I can imagine the numbers of the Mongol invasion would be insane

[@allenlindsey1175]

Fairly certain that ghengis kahns biggest army was about 22 thousand. From what I membe he had 5 parts to his army and collectively his army in total was about 115 thousand strong

[@Nick-hi9gx]

@@allenlindsey1175 Yes and no. Genghis would often have something like 20-35k conscripts from the last place he conquered for use in sieges, to essentially run the enemy city out of arrows and weaken them with assaults without losing his own men. His actual army of Mongols and Turks at any given time was around 15-20k though, you are correct, and that is what he generally fought battles with, although sometimes Subutai or one of his sons would also be there with an additional chunk of 10k or so. Later Mongol armies were larger, especially in China and with the Il-khanate. He MAY be talking about those.

[@Aspiringamoeba1997]

I definitely want to see a Chinese battles comparison. You can probably see a massive jump from the spring and autumn to the warring states era as universal conscription and state run bureaucracy started funding armies in the hundreds of thousands.

[@louismtb1240]

ew chinese history is mid

[@Cruxispal]

@@louismtb1240 Even if we disregard the ridicolous notion that any country or nation's history, culture, and lore could be "mid" as though you were ranking video game characters, the mere suggestion that one of the world's most ancient and complex civilizations is "mid" is absurd.

[@sampatkalyan3103]

@@louismtb1240 nah western history is mid

[@kingtachalla6181]

@@Cruxispal still mid

[@louismtb1240]

@@Cruxispal I agree with what your suggesting, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Chinese history is not to my taste.

[@nomanor7987]

Dark Age armies were so small. The Muslims conquered Egypt and Spain with 22k and 6k respectively, the Byzantines invaded Italy under Heraclius with 24k, and William the Conqueror invaded England with 9k. Why the low numbers? Pandemic disease??

[@justinokraski3796]

Most people needed to work the farms. The Romans could import grain from highly fertile plantations in Sicily, N Africa, and Egypt (one giant plantation) so their population was freed up for war

[@raidang]

Feudalism

[@Anonymous07192]

@@justinokraski3796 I have a feeling Roman armies were massive by medieval standards even in The Republic days when they didn't own Egypt.

[@anblueboot5364]

Cause, until those invasions happening, there might have been no point in having such a big army. You can‘t forget that you must feed and pay them. Imagine a hungry, unpaid and hella well armored horde of a 20 thousand people strong in every major Kingdom. I like to believe that this would have cost a lot of stability and security. Europe was a lot more splittered. You look at central europe or the holy roman empire. They might have one banner but in reality every village with more people than cows is fighting for themself and it‘s own kingdom. Especialy that center part is stupidly splintered ofcourse all those individual armies will be a lot smaller and not every Landlord might want to support somebody fighting a war that has nothing to do with themself at first. Soooo the troops being gathered are a lot smaller. Than you look at the first crusade, giving everybody a reason to add a few numbers to a fight, and you get an army of 40 000 people strong.

[@tyrant-den884]

Greater understanding of economics.

[@XxKINGatLIFExX]

Another home run with this one, your level of curiosity is amazing how much detail you go to. Love it

[@Andy_Sidaris]

Thank you for letting us know that it is a graph. Hope you have a Merry Christmas

[@runningriot9814]

Great video! I would just like to say that it's great that passionate history nerds like yourself can explore these topics in ways that are both educational and entertaining. And for also further cementing my bias for classical antiquity over the middle ages xD Looking forward to part II!!!

[@douglaspkeatingjr]

I love this topic. I’ve ways thought about it. Especially considering the initial naval battles between Rome and Carthage

[@attilathegod]

This is honestly the best video you’ve put out in a while. Great analysis and awesome presentation. Looking forward to the next part in this series

[@aldrinmilespartosa1578]

Love if we can also compare it to other empires that rise and fall in that era, perhaps a comparison of Rome and china, the forces of alexander the great etc. Naval comparison would be nice too.

[@badgergaucho99]

It would be cool for a future video to deal with the 1500 till around 1875 period, as the Levée en Masse of the French Revolution really put the genie out of the bottle with regards to modern warfare

[@zerosands]

Loved this video. I wonder if it looks weird to keep the battalions the same scale? The scale adjustment is made to fit to the table but I wonder if you can make all of the the same size regardless of total solder count. At least for me its easier to picture 10,000 vs 50,000 or 100,000 if the battalions stayed the same size.

[@InvictaHistory]

In all cases we showed armies made up of the same 500 man blocks. However we were not always consistent with their relative scale and will fix that moving forwards

[@nyxknight7555]

@@InvictaHistory interesting lien that I get a community guideline before I comment guess I’ll be done doing that now I’m out

[@trevor3194]

@@nyxknight7555 I think it happens with most channels, it’s sorta there way of saying what they want in the comments. I’ve gotten it on many videos on channels I like to watch. Best not to overthink it.

[@milodelacher8584]

It would have been nice if you provided more reasons as to why the sizes could have shifted so much between antiquity and the medieval era as this is literally what most people wonder about and wanted to know from this video

[@Dr.Berrel]

I think that a large confounding factor in this study is the size of conflicts vs their number. Even from the data you presented, I can see that in the middle ages, although battles were smaller, on average, there were more battles in the middle ages than during antiquity. In a word, perhaps the middle ages did not field as vast armies as antiquity did, but instead featured many more smaller skirmishes, likely due to the decentralized nature of the middle ages.

[@kp-legacy-5477]

Definitely You also see more definitive battles in antiquity that decide dates of entire nations compared to the smaller yet more frequent middle age skirmishes

[@Ghall2708]

Exactly. I think the issue is size. After all no nation in the dark ages was the size of the Roman Empire.

[@luizucchetto2528]

Consolidation of power into larger populations seems to have two main effects according to the data presented. More peace, with larger numbers of men involved when battles do take place. Great video and i find the topic very interesting!

[@peatmoss4946]

Awesome.....great job just hints of the logistics that could be needed to feed these armies....and how this was sustained for each battle..... one the big cost savings afterwards

[@csteeves9419]

This is awesome

[@Slaaan]

Such a great video, thank you. I was wondering for a few weeks now why there seems to have been such a massive difference in army sizes in pivotal battles, this greatly visualizes what I had on my mind. Looking forward to you going into the "whys" - it is not really population but rather logicists? Anyway, looking forward to more vids :) As to where to go next: I think south-central europe is great as the base of rome to which to compare the other regions to, as well as central europe (which while battling with rome constantly was never under their control (not really anyway)).

[@diegomata1062]

amazing quality!!!!

[@ovidiuhtm]

Great stuff...Adding a lot of needed background that makes history such a relevant topic

[@joesanchez979]

Excellent video 👍

[@abhijeetvasishtha4627]

Eagerly awaiting for more of such videos!

[@christopherg2347]

This is very interesting data. Please continue. I particularly wonder how army sizes have developed in Egypt, with the Fertile Nile keeping large populations possible.

[@EerieV23]

It is important to consider that Rome was able to pull men from a continent sized empire vs. country. It is not until the 1800s that larger alliance are able to put together similar size armies.

[@janborak4424]

I always enjoy the soundtrack in your videos. It really makes your narration all the more interesting. Is there any site or playlist where these tracks can be accesed by others ?

[@Dantheman813]

Cool video idea hope the series continues!

[@ChihiroOfAstora]

Great video, South Europe next ^^

[@willb5590]

Incredibly well made video, very impressive!

[@thelemming54]

This is great. Good work

[@joesanchez979]

Great history 👍

[@MrCamerondavid]

really enjoyed the video!

[@daliusvinciunas5982]

Great video. Thanks. However you missed one of the biggest medieval battle called Grunwald in 1410 between polish, lithuanian and Teutonic order in which polish-lithuanian won and destroyed teutonic order and ended 250 years of crusades in Baltic lands. It varied between 60 000- 70 000 soldiers.

[@InvictaHistory]

We didn't cover that region in this episode but it will show up eventually when we cover Eastern Europe

[@LuisAldamiz]

Good job, quite impressive, but 14:30 Charles Martel was not "king" but Maior Domus (Chief of the House, often trasnlated as Major of the Palace or just Majordomo). Nominally the Merovingians were still kings: King Theuderic IV to be precise. There would be yet another Merovingian monarch even: Childeric III, whose Majordomo was Charles' son Pepin, who deposed him with Papal support. Charles was neve "king", he just ruled well above the King.

[@badgerz2587]

Was looking for this comment.

[@PortaTerzo]

14:35 "King Charles Martel" that's wrong. Charles was never a king, but a mayor of the place, his son Pepin would become the first Carolingian king.

[@nestcuni]

Beautiful.

[@In_Our_Timeline]

based videos thanks for making this i love learning these topic and compress videos are always fun to see

[@BryantMoore87]

in 1000 years historians will say "There's no way 600k people died in the battle of Stalingrad, contemporary accounts are lying"

[@robbabcock_]

Great video and an interesting way to look at warfare.⚔

[@ChRosmania]

This was interesting and valuable. Nice one.

[@Soul93Taker]

And to think it all started with two groups of ooga boogas chucking rocks at each other.

[@seanpoore2428]

I honestly don't see how that's all that different from today 😂

[@redberries8039]

@@seanpoore2428 the rocks and the language ...you're welcome

[@drk5orp-655]

How are we supposed to fight against aliens one day if we don't fight with eachother to train?

[@seanpoore2428]

@@redberries8039 guns are just fancy rock throwers lol and the language is....well its irrelevant isnt it

[@Soul93Taker]

@@drk5orp-655 everyone knows rocks beat laser guns, watch Return of the Jedi

[@alexanderrahl7034]

I played the Rome Total War demo so many times when I was younger, that every time I hear the name "Chalons" I always hear "Chalons, Gaul, 451AD" from the opening to the Chalons historical Battle from Atilla lol

[@TheDeadbone1961]

Well done - subscribed :)

[@braydenlovetere4545]

Always wondered this

[@luizrafael7939]

What a nice video, keep it going man! I have a suggestion: one thing that always kept my imagination wondering is how large were the american invasions? I mean, how many ships and how many men were deployed to cross the ocean and conquer the new world - especially in the south america, and to stablish the power there (I mean, control revolutions such as netherland and france invasion in portuguese territory and such). Thanks !

[@mohammedsaysrashid3587]

A wonderful historical explanation.

[@tyranitararmaldo]

AoE1 civs have better eco than AoE2 civs confirmed.

[@macgonzo]

It's likely that the Plague of Justinian, in the middle of the 6th century, had an impact on the size of battles in the generations following it.

[@1Stevencat]

Super interesting!

[@liamramsay9996]

Charles Martel was not a king. He was a mayor of the palace.

[@xallstatex2910]

Big Love and a comment for Algo....!! New sub, as well... kudos 👏

[@jankruger7551]

U should do such a summery for Italy

[@simontaylor2143]

I must admit I've always wondered about the small scale of post roman battles in Britain. While it makes sense that smaller feudal kingdoms didn't have the resources or logistics to muster roman sized armies, that doesn't adequately explain how boudicca's army even at lowest estimates had more men than both sides of any recorded dark age British battle My guess would be massive depopulation of the islands but I've no idea if that's right

[@joshuajohnson7767]

Very cool idea hope u do the rest of Europe

[@romaaugustus1694]

Sorry, but the 70,000 number of the Gauls at Alesia is bogus, it only comes from Hans Delbrück who in his attempt to correct inflated numbers in the sources very often severely underestimated them. There are still many modern historians who place the Gauls at a lot more than 100,000. I also don’t see how the battle-hardened and entrenched Romans should have any trouble repulsing an only slightly superior force, so you would have to question the whole account of the battle.

[@Dorkeus82]

Great vid like usual. Has waited until the end, courious whether battles of hundred years war would overshadow everything happenning nearby in late medieval, since Gaul/France cluster seems to contain everything west of Rhine/Alps on the map, I hoped encounters in Flanders, Lorraine and possibly western modern Switzerland would present themselves as blue dots.... "Battle of golden spurs" in 1302, and especially these of 1470s (i.e. Morat/Murten or Guinegate were rather sizeable for the period... and somewhat interesting and pivotal some way, too:)

[@MikeIsCannonFodder]

I've seen several channels that talk about Roman army units over time (maniple, cohort, etc). I haven't seen anybody go over similar things for medieval armies. Did they have solid units? When did modern-ish units start coming about?

[@Nick-hi9gx]

This is an incredibly difficult question to answer, because there was so little centralization. Think of the Middle Ages as 4 phases in warfare. The first phase is "we are still like the Romans, we swear". This is the Roman Empire, how the Goths and Vandals and Franks fought for awhile too. Close formations, use of long, slashing swords and spears both. mixed units if possible (the Romans did this a lot and did until the very end). This didn't last long, it takes a powerful kingdom to put together that sort of army. This is...say 400-600 or so. Next you have the "spears are king, fight in warbands". This is like...the Franks and Goths, the Lombards and eventually Angles and Vikings and the like. Spears and spears and spears galore. Mixed-unit armies almost cease to exist, except with the Roman Empire. This lasts until ~900 or so, but in some places lasts well past that (like in Eastern Europe) Then, from say 900 (up to 1100 in some places) you get the evolution towards almost semi-professional armies. They aren't people who do war for a living (mostly), but you are starting to really see that core, in the form of early knights. This lasts until maybe 1300 or so, slowly increasing how many men in armies are mercenaries, are men who are levies but go to war every season so they are well-trained levies (like the Romans during the Republic from 200-100BCE). You start to see the beginnings of the Infantry Revolution, you start to see things like polearms coming back (other than spears). You start to see much heavier armor, mail that is better and covers everywhere. You start to see fully closed helms again, and the VERY beginning of plate, and kingdoms begin paying to arm their soldiers some. This is a slow process, don't imagine that people were paying lots of men-at-arms in 943 or something, but by 1220, you will see them in armies for sure. Lastly we have the final phase, which is the Infantry/Foot Revolution really kicking up. You have guns starting to become more than a scare tactic. You have light cavalry again to deal with gunners and bowmen. You see the crossbowmen I forgot to mention above becoming a larger part of armies, professional teams of 2-3 people to have constant reloads ready. You start to see the pike formations get quite impressive, like the Scottish Schiltrom figuring out how to move (it is basically a giant, circular pike phalanx, that they figured out how to keep in formation while marching), you start to see the very beginning of mixing pike and shot, though at this period it is often pike and crossbow and gun together. Men-at-arms (professional soldiers, often as well-trained and well-equipped as knights, some knights were men-at-arms) become the norm for large portions of the large, powerful armies. Levies almost go away as the primary arm. This period, especially the later part like 1450-1550, is where we really see the change into "modern" warfare (meaning Early Modern Period). TL;DR: phase 1: attempting to be like Romans, only works for a little while until that training is too far in the past. Except for the Romans, they keep at it. c. 400-600 Phase2: small warbands, spears and shields like the Franks and Vikings, Angles and Slavs. Hundreds of people per side in battle, up to a few thousand. Romans are again an exception. As are the invading Steppe peoples. c. 500(600)-900(1100) Phase 3: the birth of knights, supremacy of heavy cavalry, increasingly protective armor (including the earliest plate), larger armies because of larger economies and kingdoms, beginning of semi-professional forces and in the later period some actual professional forces, and in the later period the VERY beginnings of the Infantry revolution. c900 (1100)-~1300 or so, maybe mid-13th Phase 4: heavy cavalry begins to lose its supremacy, though is still used a lot until the very end of the period. Lighter cavalry, early forms of proto-pike and shot, lots more polearms, lots more things like maces and war picks because plate armor takes over for a time, then begins to be put aside at the end of this period because guns start to propagate. Professional armies, or armies made up of like half professionals, is very normal. Even the levies tend to have much more training due to constant war and laws that make them train. At the end of the period, we begin to see the breakdown of the old Medieval styles of warfare. This is c. 1300-1500 or so, maybe up to 1550

[@MikeIsCannonFodder]

@@Nick-hi9gx So the units were more like "Sir so-and-so's men" and "The duke's men" and less like a formal defined unit? They didn't have Brigade #4 or Company #10 types of things?

[@Nick-hi9gx]

@@MikeIsCannonFodder Not until the VERY end of the Middle Ages, and even that that was only (as far as I am aware) for the "royal" household guard of some of the great German houses, and the Swiss. And even then it was still pretty loose for all but like the Swiss Guard (both the ones for the Pope and the ones of the Swiss Canton Guards). There were some individuals who drilled their men like this near the end of the Middle Ages, but they were still like...left flank cavalry commander by the Duke's brother, right flank commanded by the Duke, the levies and men-at-arms just commanded in their 3 battles (left, center, right commanders, essentially), and a reserve, or maybe a group of specialty units like crossbowmen or archers. It wasn't Brigade #4, but it was sometimes a group of knights and men-at-arms that drilled together to fight specifically on the left or right flank, or drilled specifically with the commander of a battle. But mostly it was men commander their own men, all under the command of the Duke, Baron, King, or whatever may be the case.

[@mrrodriguezHLP]

Medieval armies did not have the organization of Rome, its logistical abilities, or centralized power. If you are a medieval king and three dukes show up to aid your side with their men, you let the three dukes do whatever they want, because you'd be a foolish king to think those were YOUR men. Unit structure was based on whatever showed up, and it was not likely as professional as the Roman legions. As for army modernization, all credit goes to Napoleon on that one. His organizational innovations through the Corps System is the grandaddy modern armies look up to.

[@tommytuomaala9087]

This is exacly summaries ive been looking for. How abougt the first recorded war hittites vs egyp. Parthia vs rome sasanids vs bysantines and numbers in muslim expandsion. Cartagonroman martime war numbers? Why did armie sises vary, plagues or free choise to enlist or conduct plain trade commers.

[@Orthas1]

good stuff

[@DeRegelaar]

Fantastic

[@NClark-lp3bq]

This is soo military historian nerdy, I love it XD

[@elliotjohnson2715]

Why don’t you reference the music you use? Or am I missing it somewhere?

[@BBD1]

Amazing video Would like to also see the numbers in the eastern parts of the world, like persia

[@blockmasterscott]

Yeah, the size differential is amazing!

[@vander1773]

What truly baffles me is the number of people who fought in battles in ancient and medieval China compared to important European battles.

[@Napoleonic_S]

why, what do you mean by that?

[@vander1773]

Most European battles of Middle ages have around 30k soldiers max, and these were major battles, but if look at medieval China the number of soldiers in battle were 10 times that of Europe and some even reach upto 500k as well.

[@Napoleonic_S]

@@vander1773 First that numbers were exaggerated, 2ndly it's in accordance with what we know about the historical demographics of the area and of food science. Simply put, rice is a much more potent source for breeding humans than other agricultural products on the same scale, that's why eastern half of Asia (including India and SEA) have equal or slightly more population than the rest of the world combined.

[@viniciusdomenighi6439]

I can't imagine you didn't put the Battle of Lugdunum in the video...

[@solrubrum]

The cost per soldier also greatly increased due to technological advances during this time. This would obviously constrain the size of armies later on in history.

[@tonnuz87]

Not really. The point Is that in middle ages wars were a private buisness and only Warrior lords with their loyal Minions would fight in Battle. In antiquity wars were a matter of State and masses were mobilised and armed for that. And that came back in modern era.

[@solrubrum]

​@@tonnuz87 Yes, it was a factor. What you point out as well.

[@Book_Cloak]

looking for the comparison to the start of the bubonic plague to the decrease in the size of these armies.

[@-RONNIE]

Thanks for the video this was really interesting. I hope you, your family and friends all have a good holiday 🥃 Sláinte

[@cliffordjensen8725]

I think that the changing climate in Europe had a lot to do with this. The classical period was one of the warmer times in the last 10,000 years. Warmer weather means larger harvests, which supported higher populations and armies. I think that during the 3rd century AD the climate got cooler, harvests got smaller, and overall population started to fall. Things got even worse in the 6th century probably due to some massive volcanic events. It only started to get better during the high Middle Ages when it got somewhat warmer. But then the little age kicked in.

[@tonnuz87]

Not really. The point Is that in middle ages wars were a private buisness and only Warrior lords with their loyal Minions would fight in Battle. In antiquity wars were a matter of State and masses were mobilised and armed for that.

[@cliffordjensen8725]

@@tonnuz87 Good point. But it really does not apply to the Dark Age period of 450 t0 950 AD. There was a population collapse during this period, and feudalism had not been established yet. Most of the armies at this time are best described as common folk and not feudal levies. The Vikings, Magyar's, Franks, and Arabs come to mind.

[@tonnuz87]

@@cliffordjensen8725correct. But the population decreased not uniformly. Not in all Europe It decreased the same and in most of the continent It May have reached its previous levels by 8-9th century. In this time span war changed drastically. The Vikings were mainly raiders, but they are the good example of a people that still did not meet the "civilised" Europe where you Just would not let a villager take arms

[@tylerphelps4868]

What about large scale battle tactics of Antiquity vs Middle Ages? That could very interesting

[@romaatwar]

I feel like the reason armies were so large in the Romans time compared to the Medieval era has to do with a few things. The big one most likely is probably the cost of said armies, from their gear, weapons, training, food, and pay and how expensive that all is during that era. Other reason could be the recruitment pool and reward for military service, because as Rome grew more and more, it gained a larger recruitment pool, and the reward for service in the Roman military was Roman citizenship.

[@tonnuz87]

No. The point Is that in middle ages wars were a private buisness and only Warrior lords with their loyal Minions would fight in Battle. In antiquity wars were a matter of State and masses were mobilised and armed for that. And this system came back only in 18th century

[@romaatwar]

@@tonnuz87 I see. If that’s the case ok. My expertise is more in Ancient and Classical era history not in Medieval era history, however I don’t mind learning a thing or two about it every now and then since I don’t know as much about it.

[@tonnuz87]

@@romaatwar in middle Age 3000 elite cavalry would win a Kingdom. It was the time of elite Rich soldiers.

[@tonnuz87]

@@romaatwar in Roman times they would Need to face 50k soldiers. Not possibile. And the over all population of the continent was about the same.

[@MBP1918]

Nice video

[@markalvarado4450]

ive always wanted to know why the number of men per battle shrunk as time went on

[@jaybadayatherockmerchant9832]

If you're talking about medieval history ots due to the de-centralization of Europe

[@JayM409]

I suggest you compare sieges, which were more common than battles.

[@mystikast]

I've always wondered this

[@Warmaker01]

It makes sense with Rome getting into these large battles and massive armies. It was a large, more centralized power that can field such armies. Later kingdoms taking its place were smaller and could ill afford to push such ridiculous numbers. When the Roman Empire ceased to be an entity for Britain and Gaul, the powers replacing it were still smaller and fragmented, and fighting each other. Unification into one power was going to be a difficult thing.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

The roman republic {where rome got its legion after legion reputation} was anything but centralized

[@alejandrosakai1744]

For the next "Growing up" series: Ancient Egyptians. Athenians. Spartans. Celts. Han Chinese.

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

Modern armies had to relearn old knowledge and recuperate from the post-Roman shock.

[@MrConna6]

Just a heads up, I’m watching on phone and the labels for the graphs at the beginning are doing that weird thing where type that is displayed too small is glitchy or whatever, might be worth bumping them up a few pts for the next one

[@KimmoKM]

Unfortunately the answer to this question would elude our written sources as what might be considered raids and skirmishes are not recorded, but an interesting question would be the total amount of fighting and war-related deaths. It would stand to reason that there will be much fewer wars when there are consolidated states exercising their monopoly of violence to quell warfare at smaller scale, but when states do fight each other, their mere foraging parties might dwarf the armies of non-states/less consolidated states. What's the overall impact over time? My somewhat but far from perfectly informed guess would be that it's better to have states. Warfare in pre-Roman Gaul for instance appears to have been fairly endemic, Caesar being able to exploit ongoing rivalries for his conquest, and while Gallic wars were cataclysmic with many hundreds of thousands dead including non-combatants, they only lasted for a handful of years followed up by several centuries of relative peace. The same could be said about e.g. Carolingian consolidation and then increase in number of smaller wars as the realm started to fracture.

[@PilgrimBangs]

I would like to see a comparison of baseline of populations during these same periods. Then compare that graph to known temperature means during this period. Coming off the Great Roman Warm Period which occurred during the Pax Roma to the period during the collapse of Rome during a mini-ice-age. Also you can correlate the colder era with the change of wine consumption to beer in northern Europe. I recall reading that during and immediately after the fall of Rome Europe's population collapsed by some 70% and did not recover for 750 years. I do think this is a large contributing factor why you see such a drastic decrease in battle sizes.

[@CesarLuisAfonsoDias]

Yes, that defenitly had an huge role. P.e. some historians claim that ancient Greece before Alexander had a population around 10M, the same has today. So they could afford bigger wars. Rome, p.e. had at her peak in the 1st century around 1M people and the Middles the biggest cities in Italy had less than 150k. So economy and population had an huge role.

[@t.wcharles2171]

Large armies are hard to maintain without great quantities of organised labour in agriculture meaning less food to support an army of any great quantity.

[@LimpChickenDoodle]

The Reason why Medieval europe have lesser armies compared to the usual classical antique armies was due to the economy, Logistics but also Participation of the Lords/Vassals of the Monarch to which if you look at the first crusade which is composed of Various Lords but not king or emperor to which they were able to muster 40-80k Army. 3rd crusade was composed of 3 Monarchs English, French and German which was able to muster at a range of 30-120k albeit majority was the germans which died only around 30k+ was present in the campaign in Jerusalem. Looking back in English civil war of Rose coloring contest, the reason why the Battle of Towton had atleast 50k army was due to the Numerous Lords participating. Feudalism is not a bad structure in military as the borders could be guarded by Lords and not the Kings Army however in terms of mustering Point it is much smaller since the armies are only mustered in the domain of the king and not its vassals unless it is an obligation of the vassal to lend or participate in war. In my opinion Medieval Armies if The Vassals were to join their King in war basically Unity, They could Probably Muster an army that is equal to 2 Legions or more.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

Will I need to correct some misconceptions{and this is going to be big} , Roman military success in the third and second centuries B.C{in which Rome got its legion after legion reputation} . was a consequence of superior Roman mobilization systems rooted in Italian social institutions which expressed themselves in the form of a comprehensive mobilization advantage, both more men but also more expensive Traditionally, scholars have pointed to some of the tremendous and outsized Roman mobilizations (especially in 216-214) and thus argued that ‘manpower’ was the Roman secret: Rome had, in the words of Nicholas Sekunda, “horde after uncomplaining horde of Italian peasant manpower” to throw at its enemies.3 You can see this focus animating some of the important foundational works in Roman demography for instance - the assumption being that if we could count Italian peasants, we could understand Rome’s success.4 To put it kindly, this answer is not actually very helpful, because as we’ll see raw population - manpower in the most basic sense - was not the problem ancient states faced in mobilizing armies. The more sophisticated studies of this sort instead focus on mobilized manpower; Michael Taylor has noted that Rome’s ability to mobilize manpower seems largely unconnected to its relatively weak state finance, It isn’t that the Romans just had more surplus manpower because , the nature of ancient agriculture meant that everyone had lots of surplus manpower, or centralized administration as the republic infamously had no clerks and two thirds of its territory was under socci allies. the main constraint on raising armies were the costs of turning farmers into soldiers, but those costs were often not borne by the state. At Rome, for instance, the Roman state paid only for the wages of Roman soldiers and the food of allied soldiers. Roman soldiers had to pay for their food out of their wages and allied soldier’s wages were presumably paid by the community required to send them to Rome’s armies. Both sets of troops had to pay for all of their own equipment (which for the wealthy might include a horse) out of pocket. Consequently, as Taylor has demonstrated, measuring state finance isn’t a good way of getting at military power, because a lot of military spending wasn’t done by the state and so state expenditures are very poorly correlated to military strength or success. Very wealthy states often struggled to field top-rate armies that could compete with Rome.

[@hilebard]

The greek explorers that explored the britanis I'm quite certain had a measure of the numbers of the armies there too

[@davidnemoseck9007]

I had actually noticed this while watching documentaries on these battles, and wandered why armies were so big at first, like at Roman times, only to get smaller in the Middle Ages.

[@tonnuz87]

In antiquity wars were fought by the masses and organised by the State. In middle ages only Rich lords and their loyal Minions would fight and the wars were like private business.

[@davidnemoseck9007]

@@tonnuz87 Didn't they call upon their surfs in time of war? That's what I thought. And it didn't take much to equip them with a spear and shield. Maybe the central authority didn't have as much authority as it did during the Roman days, and no central army. Maybe that is why.

[@niksarass]

7:45 the troops were not "Normans". They were mainly French, Breton, Flemish, only one third was from Normandy.

[@rockaboujaoude399]

Wasn’t the battle of Lugdunum cited as one of the largest Roman V Roman battles in history? Something like 300,000 soldiers cited by Cassius Dio?

[@yaujj65]

I was wondering, were raids numbered around 1000 troops? I mean it is possible for sizable town but not for a small village unless they raid multiple villages.

[@MelkromisteinWeeb]

Central and Southern Europe with the Holy Roman Empire would interest me a lot.

[@CastledCard]

This is going to be used in Total War forums for years now lol

[@Beef1188]

It is little wonder that if people keep cracking each other's skulls for hundreds of years, there would be a noticeable effect on available manpower to tap.

[@Dadecorban]

not sure Wessex, Northumbria, and Mercia classify as “Petty Kingdoms”. They consist of land areas that would ater encompass multiple Duchies each. Petty kingdoms are generally those that are not powerful enough/large enough to justify kingship as they are often overlorded by actual kingdoms; Surrey and Kent being examples.