I don't know where this should go, it doesn't seem to fit here, but it also doesn't exactly fit anywhere else as far as I could discern.

Anyway, I'm wanting to think about what could prolong a war. Like, for a long time. Like, for 430 years.

I realize there are a lot of variables and factors that would have to be considered, some are probably unknown to me, but I'll give a few details: Most of the peoples in the war have a lifespan of 500 or more years, The Bad Guys have a huuuggee horde that they insist upon using.
...yeah, I'm sure I didn't give enough details. I can't think of what else to say as far as that, though. But I can explain a bit of what I'm thinking about the war.

It'll have several (many) lengthy "cold" segments, where mostly espionage and political/diplomatic matters will be attended to with the odd raid or assassination etc. and during these times the land and the nations will be recovering to the best of their ability (both as in military strength and health as nations/peoples).

There are five races participating in it (split up between sides), each with, oh...five thousand people (in the army) at first, I suppose, plus any animals that join their cause (and there'll be plenty), while The Bad Guys (consisting of anyone that joins them) number like 10,000 without the recruits from the other races (so 10,000 beasts, monsters, demons....), so The Bad Guys will be outnumbering The Good Guys.

So anyway...I'm wondering how I could make this work, what other details do I need to include to figure this out? Any advice, or questions?

I suggest looking at our own world's history. For example, the "Hundred Years' War" and the "Thirty Years' War". And the army numbers you cited look very large, so I suggest finding one of the several Web sites devoted to helping this area of fantasy worldbuilding be more plausible. (Like this one.)

I was hoping to get something like this, this is pretty much exactly what I needed. I tried to read it now, but I'm too tired I think, so I'll refer to it again later on. Thanks!

Yeah, it reminded me of the 100 Year's War. They'd need time to replenish supplies, repair weapons, for injuries to heal, time to work out logistics, and time to farm.

Yeah, that makes sense. It made me think of that war too, though I know hardly anything about it, I should go research it...thanks for the comment!

You're welcome.

An army of 5,000 men is certainly not "very large." It depends on the time period, of course, but here are some representative army sizes (using lower estimates) from major battles (not entire wars) in history:

Antiquity:

Battle of the Granicus, ~47,000 vs 24,500

Battle of Pharsalus: ~28,800 vs ~49,200

Middle Ages:

Battle of Agincourt:

~6,000 vs ~12,000

Battle of Crécy:

~16,000 vs ~38,000

Early Modern:

Battle of Cecora 1620: ~10,000 vs 13,000

Battle of the White Mountain: ~30,000 vs ~27,000

WWI:

Battle of Cer: 200,000 vs 180,000

Battle of Kolubara: 450,000 vs 250,000

WWII:

Battle of Wanjialing: 100,000 vs 30,000+

Battle of Stalingrad, Initial: 270,000+ vs 187,000+

Mmm. I'll grant that armies in the thousands and tens of thousands were certainly not unknown (as I could have gathered from the article I linked to). But realistically, an army is drawn from a population at least an order of magnitude or two larger, and tend to get expensive. The English side at Crecy and Agincourt was as large as it was, if I recall, because the King of England could draw on a trained yeoman militia---who then went home once their term of obligatory service was up; a standing army would have required a much larger economic base to sustain it. (And then there's what the army eats ... and horses eat even more than people do ...)
In any case, to me it still feels quite large, whether historically that's the case or not.
(Another source---which I just found---of historical data for background and comparison is this article on the history of the Roman army.)

Thanks for the input guys!

Yeah, I think I knew there were large armies...I just need to figure out the logistics of how that would work if/when I have them.

Thanks for the link, Jon, it looks interesting! I'll add it to my bookmarks relating to writing warfare, etc.

Bill Potter would be an excellent resource for anyone wanting to research warfare, weapons, strategies, and the likes. He's not only an expert; he's a historically accurate one.

I love his series Sabers, Spears, and Catapults.

He talks about war lengths at one point.

Okay, cool! Thank you, Airi! *goes to look up Bill Potter*

No problem. Providential Battles is by him, and very good. You could start there.

Awesome, I ordered it.

I know you will enjoy it.

Good. Thanks again for suggesting it, I love listening to audio stuff while I do laundry, and this will be perfect for that.

You are welcome.

The ability to sustain vast armies is based partly on economics, yes, but also partly on infrastructure. Infrastructure effects the quality of goods, ability to move goods, ability to acquire goods, ability to reimburse soldiers, etc.

An entire nation of shepherds is probably doomed going up against a single, but powerful, city state, if that city state has good infrastructure. (This is, incidentally, the reason city-states were the primary power-houses of ancient times, rather than populous rural areas.)

Rome conquered because it had a good infrastructure. It fell, not because it had a bad economy, but because its conquests extended well beyond its infrastructure's area of support.

Infrastructure also effects your ability to continue a war, for say, 50+ years. As long as you are careful to maintain your infrastructure, you could pursue a war for nearly indefinitely, as long as you have a somewhat significant population base.

Thanks for your input Neil!

Infrastructure... I'm guessing that means the ...um. The way they move resources/manpower around? The way they manage themselves?

Good point ... but, because warring nations tend to skimp on maintenance (because all the maintenance in the world can't save you if the war goes against you for other reasons), the infrastructure tends to deteriorate over the course of a long war.


Calling that "the reason" is going a bit far. I would say that having walls, and having resources to spare to build armies without starving everyone else, had something to do with it too ...


Indeed ... among other factors (a yeoman army, technological and tactical advances, etc.) But the Roman roads were a big factor in their ability to conquer and make their conquests stick.


Among other (complicated and interrelated) reasons ...


"All other things being equal," yes, but infrastructure advances are not a cure-all.

Infrastructure is defined as "basic organization" and "public services or systems". So yes, it is the way you move stuff around, and how you manage moving stuff around. So, for example, you need both good roads, and good shipping managers. But it's more than roads: it's also dams, waterways...anything that...moves stuff. And moves stuff efficiently. Horses, for example, will pull a carriage faster than, say, a turtle.



Agreed. I wasn't trying to say that wars are won and lost on infrastructure. What I was trying to say is that infrastructure is a primary factor in war length. Resources (people, as well as nature), the other primary factor in war length, can either be wasted or increased by infrastructure. Which makes infrastructure a controlling factor over resources.

Compare Alexander the Great's Greece to the Roman Empire. Alexander the Great conquered nearly as much a Rome, but his empire had zero infrastructure. Most people contribute the collapse of that empire to the power vacuum left after Alexander died, but the truth is that if the empire had been united by a solid infrastructure, a cunning leader could have taken over after Alexander and kept most of the empire.

Rome, on the other hand, maintained a vast Empire for years upon years, thanks in large part to the infrastructure. Rome was able to basically remain at war for the larger part of a century, because of infrastructure.

Though they sometimes are

Yes.


I would have phrased it as "Alexander conquered as much as he could as fast as he could, and held his army and his empire together by force of personality alone."


Yes. Though the maintaining-the-Empire and remaining-at-war are separate issues.

A suggestion for you, Wolf. In some of the missionary biographies I've read, people find these remote tribes engaged in a endless cycle of killing. If a family member is murdered, then someone from the opposing party must be killed in recompense, which leads to some being killed in recompense, which leads too....

I think you get the idea. Anyway, that's one way to keep a feud brewing, theoretically forever.

That is a good idea...philosophical patterns would keep a war going even when it wouldn't make sense for it to, like even if it was doing the offending country more harm than good. Thanks!

Okay, got it.

*is interested by the discussion*

*finally revisits thread* Ah, thanks for the reply, Balec. So that sounds like it was a bit of a...sort of cold war while the good guys were in hiding?

I think so, though I believe that some of the good guys said that the war ended with that attack.

I'm not sure, though - it's been a while since I've read those books.

Hasn't Ireland been at war for hundreds of years now?

I don't know how to make a war extend that long, but in my series the war goes for a couple of years and goes through three books. In the case of my enemy army coming in though, it takes them a while to advance because they're moving across the land and fighting as they go. Royal armies, townspeople... everyone is fighting them, and there are advances and retreats on both sides, and it takes the entire first book for the enemy army to advance past the first little piece of land where they land on the coast because they meet such resistance. After that resistance is demolished however, they're able to more easily spread across the land, at which point, their numbers in fighting groups are smaller as they're more spread out, so more small skirmishes are occurring rather than large all out battles until the end of book III.

I would think that with an ever growing supply of soldiers (if they live that long they're having kids yeah? No?), a good supply of food, and a willingness to fight and not let the conflict drop, then any war could last indefinitely. If however one side suddenly decides to give up, the people cry out for peace, or soldiers or supplies dwindle, then the war would slow down and possibly cease. Hope this helps.

It would be nearly impossible to have a war last indefinitely if it was on a scale smaller than a galactic war, I think. There's just not enough resources or people to fight for it to last that long. Every battle devastates the landscape, making it unusable for years, and the net population change will always be downwards. A world cant's support an indefinitely long war. Guerilla, or flashpoint wars, might last a really long time, but not a full out war that's so commonly depicted in fantasy.

Recently, in my stories (Sci-fi, still haven't gotten to that Fantasy project I've been talking about to some of you), I've had a few wars...One has been going on for 3+ years, but they haven't fought really for 2 years.

Another war went for 8 months, but only a few, yet devastating battles in between.

I haven't fleshed out the specifics for another sci-fi/some elements of fantasy mixed in story but that'll have 2 wars, one a civil war, the other by two foreign powers fighting each other.

Good thoughts, people, thank you.

I think the plan for mine is that it will be a very very long war--but I never meant by that an epic war with two huge armies that clash every day at 11:30 am-7:15 pm. At this point I'm thinking that it will, if it's even one big war, and I think there may be at least one like this, one of those wars that grows hot and cold at different times.

It isn't right now. (I live there.) I think Ireland has been at war 'constantly' only about as much as England and several other European nations have been. As in, they fight a lot, but it goes through periods. It's not a single war, or a continuous one.

If the opposite forces are equally powerful the chances to the war prolong itself are great (just like a trenches war, anyone can advance)

Isn't trench war also classified as little advancement on either side, but heavy casualties?

If you have a really big army those casualties are "okay" because the common soldiers can be replaced.

Well, the opposite forces didnt had to be in conflict all the time. Peace-and-war periods can be useful in that case too.

I have a 50yr war in the history of my world. Its made up of stages, starting as a civil war, which eventually calms into border skirmishes, then a revolt, which is put down. Then an original leader dies of old age and a new rebel tries to lead an uprising, but is pushed back. Two countries are upset at each other, though, and theres a kind of "cold war" during which the rebel regroups and tries to lead another revolt, but his people are sick of war by this point and he is assassinated by his own men. Viola, peace

So long wars, I think, go through phases, intense fighting, then both sides get tired and theres a kind of cease fire, then one side gets offended or a new leader picks up or a another country/race joins and the fighting starts up again, sometimes over a mistake or miscommunication.

Also, the 50yr long war kind of indirectly creates one of my countries: people who didn't want to be forced to be soldiers, people who's farms/livelihoods were destroyed, people who didn't agree with their leaders, or who were accused of treason- all these people fled to an uninhabited part of the world (an island) and built their own communities, turning into my only semi-democratic country.

Think through how the countries involved would be weakened by a long war: do they depend on trade? could their ships/caravans get through during the war? what professions were neglected and which boomed during wartime? did the government become stricter and more controlling? or did it begin to lose control? were the people emotionally supportive of the war? how did the women and elderly manage as the young men were gone? did the fighting take place on their own land, or the enemy's, or neutral territory(even at sea)? were the soldiers conscripted or did they volunteer?

hmm... I should start taking my own advise and think through all that lol

Thanks for all of those thoughts. I agree on the phases aspect of war...that should be very interesting to get into.

I will definitely be referring to this thread when I start developing this again, thank you!

(Ha! I know what you mean about following your own advice..)