HFQ Official Snippet #8

Highjohn wrote:

lyonheart wrote:
Given the standing IHA was so small before the jihad [473K], and even with the nobility's matching it, the total force was less than 1/200 of the population, so Desnar's standing army might be smaller than we've been projecting, the same ratio as Harchong implying under 722,000 active troops for Desnar, which seems low for controlling roughly 6 million square miles of territory and 148 million people, let alone conduct any offensive operations.

I predict a army size of over 1 million for Desnar. That is my estimate for the permanent standing army, discounting any levies or militia. My reason for this is simple. Desnar must have an army which was comparable to Sidarmark's.

Also Harchong has several special circumstances which cause its small army size.

First it has significant borders with rival powers. Look at the map. Desnar, is based its eastern coast(see location of Ithria and the capital) so Desnar's borders ae unimportant. Plus, Desnar's border is with South Harchong. While north Harchong borders the temple lands.

Second, rampant corruption. No explanation needed.

Third, Harchong has two power groups at the national level. The nobles and the bureaucracy, the standing army belongs to the bureaucracy. Which threatens the nobles with the possibility of a coup. So they will try to limit the standing army's size.

I just want to comment on the size of Dohlar's army. In snippet 7 Thirsk notes that Ahlvarez had over half of the Dohlaian Army under his command at the beginning of the campaign. Wo know that he crossed into Siddarmark with 95,000 men. Logically that would mean that about 185,000 total for the Dohlarian with about 90,000 left behind. Allowing Thirsk's estimate that about a third of Ahlvarez's men make it home, call it 30,000 men, that would make about 120,000 men under arms for Dohlar at the end of the campaign.

How does this compare with the impressions the rest of you have?

Don

Hi HighJohn,

Thanks for an excellent response.

You could well be right, given the simple population figure, over a million men in the standing army feels much more likely, but there may be countervailing cultural aspects that we have yet to learn, just we did with Harchong.

The pre-jihad 722,000 figure might be considered the low end of the guesstimate range, and doesn't include any more of the CoGA paid for infantry regiments created just for the jihad.

Your points about Harchong not needing a large army, having no external threats are very well taken, including the internal power struggle; however with the exception of South Harchong, as evidenced by Fraihan's Wall [on the map, still with no textev explanation or detail], Desnar has no external threats either.

Sodar and Delferahk are so poor, they'd cost more invading and ruling than any evident return, at least at the moment.

Silkiah as a buffer zone would have meant any new war against Siddarmark required seizing and controlling the canals and population, over the huge protests of the temple [the end to CoGA subsidies?], NTM the anticipated logistic snafus before even reaching the border, so I doubt anyone in Desnar before the jihad planned any further wars with the republic.

I've previously suggested that figuring a day's march of 40 mile radius for a cavalry or infantry regiment or two would mean something around 1200 such posts or stations for Desnar, for just under 1.7 million total if all have 2 regiments [either one or both cavalry and infantry etc], or barely 1.143% of the population.

Presumably we'll find out more in HFQ.

L

Highjohn wrote:

lyonheart wrote:
Given the standing IHA was so small before the jihad [473K], and even with the nobility's matching it, the total force was less than 1/200 of the population, so Desnar's standing army might be smaller than we've been projecting, the same ratio as Harchong implying under 722,000 active troops for Desnar, which seems low for controlling roughly 6 million square miles of territory and 148 million people, let alone conduct any offensive operations.

I predict a army size of over 1 million for Desnar. That is my estimate for the permanent standing army, discounting any levies or militia. My reason for this is simple. Desnar must have an army which was comparable to Sidarmark's.

Also Harchong has several special circumstances which cause its small army size.

First it has significant borders with rival powers. Look at the map. Desnar, is based its eastern coast(see location of Ithria and the capital) so Desnar's borders ae unimportant. Plus, Desnar's border is with South Harchong. While north Harchong borders the temple lands.

Second, rampant corruption. No explanation needed.

Third, Harchong has two power groups at the national level. The nobles and the bureaucracy, the standing army belongs to the bureaucracy. Which threatens the nobles with the possibility of a coup. So they will try to limit the standing army's size.

Hi Don,

That appears to be a good ballpark guesstimate.

In MTaT, Rychtyr had around 43,000 men (2/3 cavalry), or 10 infantry regiments [14K], and 43 cavalry regiments [27,778 troopers] plus artillery; while Ahlverez had ~55,000 men including 30 infantry regiments [42,030 men] and around 20 cavalry [12.920 troopers] for something over 98,000 men total before Rychtyr was reinforced at Trevyr with several thousand men with more rifles after his earlier losses, then detached again at Thesmar, while Ahlverez received almost 20,000 more men at Fort Tairys while suffering only ~5% losses on the march, but apparently the majority of the several thousand infantry assault casualties.

So Ahlverez could have had something over 100,000 men including his artillery when he got to Thesmar, lost 5-10,000 up to Fort Tairys, then added almost 20,000 more, before trying to figure how much was detached with Rychtyr again.

If the fresh troops weren't raised for the jihad, I'd assume ~200,000 troops total for the standing Dohlar Army appears to be in the ballpark, although that's barely 1/500 of the population.

Which might be an indication of how much [actually how little] King Rahnyhld or the nobility trusts his own people to defend his realm.

Which might mean the people especially the serfs will be more welcoming of the alliance than some posters might expect.

L

n7axw wrote:

Highjohn wrote:*quote="lyonheart"*

Given the standing IHA was so small before the jihad [473K], and even with the nobility's matching it, the total force was less than 1/200 of the population, so Desnar's standing army might be smaller than we've been projecting, the same ratio as Harchong implying under 722,000 active troops for Desnar, which seems low for controlling roughly 6 million square miles of territory and 148 million people, let alone conduct any offensive operations.

*quote*

I predict a army size of over 1 million for Desnar. That is my estimate for the permanent standing army, discounting any levies or militia. My reason for this is simple. Desnar must have an army which was comparable to Sidarmark's.

Also Harchong has several special circumstances which cause its small army size.

First it has significant borders with rival powers. Look at the map. Desnar, is based its eastern coast(see location of Ithria and the capital) so Desnar's borders ae unimportant. Plus, Desnar's border is with South Harchong. While north Harchong borders the temple lands.

Second, rampant corruption. No explanation needed.

Third, Harchong has two power groups at the national level. The nobles and the bureaucracy, the standing army belongs to the bureaucracy. Which threatens the nobles with the possibility of a coup. So they will try to limit the standing army's size.

I just want to comment on the size of Dohlar's army. In snippet 7 Thirsk notes that Ahlvarez had over half of the Dohlaian Army under his command at the beginning of the campaign. Wo know that he crossed into Siddarmark with 95,000 men. Logically that would mean that about 185,000 total for the Dohlarian with about 90,000 left behind. Allowing Thirsk's estimate that about a third of Ahlvarez's men make it home, call it 30,000 men, that would make about 120,000 men under arms for Dohlar at the end of the campaign.

How does this compare with the impressions the rest of you have?

Don

Just for comparison, at the end of Frederick Williams the 1st Prussian reign (1713-1740) the army consisted of ~80,000 soldiers out of a population of 2.5 millions, ie. ~3.2%. To pay for that army 71% of the total state budget was allocated (~5 million thalers out of ~7 million thalers).

That's quite a hefty chunk of money and as I understand it, on Safehold the CoGA has subsidized the armies as not to break the economy of the states participating in the holy war. The above figures of the Prussian army doesn't translate directly to the situation on Safehold but I don't think they are very far off either.

We know that the CoGA has been feeling the money crunch since they have had to raise taxes among other things, but I wonder how long they really can sustain the current campaign if their economic situation doesn't improve soon. Wasn't there a GO4 meeting where this was discussed? I don't recall the details, anyone care to enlighten me?

Joat42 wrote:Just for comparison, at the end of Frederick Williams the 1st Prussian reign (1713-1740) the army consisted of ~80,000 soldiers out of a population of 2.5 millions, ie. ~3.2%. To pay for that army 71% of the total state budget was allocated (~5 million thalers out of ~7 million thalers).

That's quite a hefty chunk of money and as I understand it, on Safehold the CoGA has subsidized the armies as not to break the economy of the states participating in the holy war. The above figures of the Prussian army doesn't translate directly to the situation on Safehold but I don't think they are very far off either.

We know that the CoGA has been feeling the money crunch since they have had to raise taxes among other things, but I wonder how long they really can sustain the current campaign if their economic situation doesn't improve soon. Wasn't there a GO4 meeting where this was discussed? I don't recall the details, anyone care to enlighten me?

Duchairn wanted to impose more taxes, essentially. Only the forms differed. The most painful discussed was a mandated purchase of CoGA War Bonds. Not what they called it but effectively the same thing. The amounts companies and individuals were forced to buy depended on the average tithe over the past 5(?iirc) years. That will suck a boatload and a half out of the economies of the jihadi states. Many won't have the cash to purchase the bonds. They will have to sell assets. Yet who will have excess cash to buy the distressed assets? Everyone will be spending their cash on buying the war bonds.

Sure the money will filter down to workers and those at the base of the economy. That's not too bad a thing. The problem is that the less flexible economies of the jihadists nations don't really have good ways of aggregating wealth from the average Zhoe Qhue Phubhlic. Those banks are organized around serving a relatively few wealthy clients, not many modest ones. Given the lack of legal protection beyond the EoC and Siddermark, what individual of modest means would trust their life savings to a bank that may or may not take their money with impunity? Not many, I'd guess.

What that suggests to me is that once the aggregated wealth has been broken up, it will take quite a bit of time to re-aggregate that wealth into few enough hands to fund investments. That is unless there are changes in those societies.

This brings up a very interesting bit of speculation. Duchairn MUST know that his proposals are going to shatter many of the institutions that have maintained the system ante-bellum not only in the CoGA but in all of Safehold. How much of his revenue schemes are designed more to destroy those institutions rather than simply raise money effectively? My suspicion is that he wants to destroy as much of those institutions that sustain the CoGA's corruption as possible. If he succeeds in breaking the collected wealth groupings as they exist in 896, he can also guide how those funds will be re-aggregated. Even if he doesn't think he can control the re-aggregation completely, he might believe that God can guide the process that would result in a less corrupt CoGA.

If my suspicion is correct, then the CoGA will liquidate whatever they can of their supporting nation's assets to fund the jihad. Clyntahn will want to assert his power, while Duchairn will want to destroy old powerbases of aggregated wealth. They can support not only this campaign, but the jihad for years to come. The longer they are forced to fight, the more of the old collections of wealth will be destroyed to fund the war. Both Clyntahn and Duchairn will have incentives to continue.

I gotta hand it to Duchairn, if this logic is accurate. He will be doing everything Clyntahn demands of him while undercutting Clyntahn's support at each step. Should the moneyed classes rebel, it will be Clyntahn that receives the blame and Duchairn they look to for leadership to rebuild.

PeterZ wrote:This brings up a very interesting bit of speculation. Duchairn MUST know that his proposals are going to shatter many of the institutions that have maintained the system ante-bellum not only in the CoGA but in all of Safehold. How much of his revenue schemes are designed more to destroy those institutions rather than simply raise money effectively? My suspicion is that he wants to destroy as much of those institutions that sustain the CoGA's corruption as possible. If he succeeds in breaking the collected wealth groupings as they exist in 896, he can also guide how those funds will be re-aggregated. Even if he doesn't think he can control the re-aggregation completely, he might believe that God can guide the process that would result in a less corrupt CoGA.

If my suspicion is correct, then the CoGA will liquidate whatever they can of their supporting nation's assets to fund the jihad. Clyntahn will want to assert his power, while Duchairn will want to destroy old powerbases of aggregated wealth. They can support not only this campaign, but the jihad for years to come. The longer they are forced to fight, the more of the old collections of wealth will be destroyed to fund the war. Both Clyntahn and Duchairn will have incentives to continue.

I gotta hand it to Duchairn, if this logic is accurate. He will be doing everything Clyntahn demands of him while undercutting Clyntahn's support at each step. Should the moneyed classes rebel, it will be Clyntahn that receives the blame and Duchairn they look to for leadership to rebuild.

I'm not so sure Duchairn understand all the implications yet but it is a clear possibility. But if it unfolds as you speculate there is a good chance that the only place in the near future that has viable economic institutions will be in EoC.

This makes me wonder what will happen when a state/kingdom can't afford to pay their soldiers anymore, will they desert their duty and rebel together with the moneyed class and topple their government?

Hi Joat42,

Yup, but much of that huge army was subsidized by various other kings, including those of France and Russia, who were willing to pay large annual retainers to hire large numbers of these Prussians whenever war broke out, partly in order to avoid having them be used against them; it was a system his grandfather had cleverly arranged, considerably reducing his own annual costs.

I believe you're thinking of Duchairn and Trynair talking, not a Go4 conference, early in MTaT, when it was February or March 896.

Sorry I don't have time to look it up.

L

Joat42 wrote:Just for comparison, at the end of Frederick Williams the 1st Prussian reign (1713-1740) the army consisted of ~80,000 soldiers out of a population of 2.5 millions, ie. ~3.2%. To pay for that army 71% of the total state budget was allocated (~5 million thalers out of ~7 million thalers).

That's quite a hefty chunk of money and as I understand it, on Safehold the CoGA has subsidized the armies as not to break the economy of the states participating in the holy war. The above figures of the Prussian army doesn't translate directly to the situation on Safehold but I don't think they are very far off either.

We know that the CoGA has been feeling the money crunch since they have had to raise taxes among other things, but I wonder how long they really can sustain the current campaign if their economic situation doesn't improve soon. Wasn't there a GO4 meeting where this was discussed? I don't recall the details, anyone care to enlighten me?

PeterZ wrote:

Well, Don, the Desnari don't have to out build Charis. The simply have to build faster than Charis can destroy those cities and facilities. It is that process which will teach them how to improve their techniques. I doubt the Desnari will succeed enough to actually out pace the ICN's ability to destroy what they build. The process will provide incentives to improve their processes. Lord knows the backward, inbred, aristocratic bigots need all the incentives to improve they can get.

Where are the Desnarians getting a cadre of sailors to run the ships? Maybe Charis did make a mistake by not taking all the captured sailors and dropping them in an isolated POW camp somewhere.

-- Bob G

BobG wrote:PeterZ wrote:

Well, Don, the Desnari don't have to out build Charis. The simply have to build faster than Charis can destroy those cities and facilities. It is that process which will teach them how to improve their techniques. I doubt the Desnari will succeed enough to actually out pace the ICN's ability to destroy what they build. The process will provide incentives to improve their processes. Lord knows the backward, inbred, aristocratic bigots need all the incentives to improve they can get.

Where are the Desnarians getting a cadre of sailors to run the ships? Maybe Charis did make a mistake by not taking all the captured sailors and dropping them in an isolated POW camp somewhere.

-- Bob G

I suspect that you've hit the nail on the head. Those sailors probably did come from the men Rock Point captured and released at Ithyria. Of course there are those fishing fleets mentioned in the snippet. But then, if I had been in charge of drafting people to man Jahras's fleet, that would have been the first place I would have looked... So who knows for sure?

Don

It is a sad excuse for a country that views its army primarily as an occupying garrison for itself. Also, the approach is likely to encounter challenges, notably that if you launch pacification campaigns against yourself your tax base tends to go down the drain.

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

Given the standing IHA was so small before the jihad [473K], and even with the nobility's matching it, the total force was less than 1/200 of the population, so Desnar's standing army might be smaller than we've been projecting, the same ratio as Harchong implying under 722,000 active troops for Desnar, which seems low for controlling roughly 6 million square miles of territory and 148 million people, let alone conduct any offensive operations.

So the regular IDA might total something much nearer 500,000 than I'd previously thought likely, and now is quite short handed despite CoGA subsidies.

Perhaps one reason Siddarmark was so feared by the CoGA was because its 1.2 million man standing army was so much bigger than its neighbors, mainly because infantry is so much cheaper than cavalry, before the 1.8 million militia was added to the equation.

The vicarate knew what it or the empires would do if it had such a powerful army, but not having much experience with republics in general, it didn't know Machiavelli's dictum that 'republics rarely start wars, but they often finish them', and realised it was much safer to have just left it alone.

Supporting the Desnari schooner commerce destroyers seems to be mainly Clyntahn's idea, and despite the construction costs, an effective one, at least at the moment.

I don't think Merlin considers Desnar learning how to build obsolete ships faster as that worthwhile an improvement in new or useful technology, while leaving the rest of the IDN alone in Geyra and Desnar seemed odd in HFaF, but RFC has his reasons, we know not yet why.

L

PeterZ wrote:Well, Don, the Desnari don't have to out build Charis. The simply have to build faster than Charis can destroy those cities and facilities. It is that process which will teach them how to improve their techniques. I doubt the Desnari will succeed enough to actually out pace the ICN's ability to destroy what they build. The process will provide incentives to improve their processes. Lord knows the backward, inbred, aristocratic bigots need all the incentives to improve they can get.