Celts - do you find it Gauling how rulesets treat them...

[Nick Harbud]

Many of the questions in recent posts were considered in my article on the Crusaders' approach to the Battle of Arsuf, including:

• How many days can a man survive on the food he can carry?
• What is the impact of non-combatants and remounts on the army's logistics?
• How does local supply and foraging affect logistical transport?
• What is the impact of cavalry on logistics?

I attach a copy of the article for those whose eyes glazed over the first time. 

[Erpingham]

It's probably very familiar to the classicists, but I found this article on Gallic numbers interesting.

[aligern]

In fact so interesting that I linked to it ten posts or so ago.  Its problem is that it compares expect a definitive  and contrasts the biases, methodologies and outcomes, but does not come to a conclusion. Now we wouldn't expect a definitive number , but a winnowing down to an order of magnitude would be useful.  After all. if the population of Gaul s two million then Caesar deserves a thorough Douging, if its ten million then his numbers are easily achieved . Either end of the spectrum would have consequences for military participation  levels.

Roy

[Andreas Johansson]

It's good thing Anthony repeated it, though, because I missed it the first time. (Repetition, after all, is the mother of all learning.)

Don't have time to more than glance at it right now, but I already like Ibn Taghribirdi.

[Jim Webster]

So we are back to discussing numbers.

Understand that it is possible that Gaul could support more men than the lands of Greece, Asia Minor and the Fertile Cresent combined but take Ipsus. The survivours of the Diadochi bring everything they can muster for the final confrontation. On one side you have the Antigonids, the other side the Seleucids, combined with the rulers of Macedon and Thrace. Even these great leaders cannot bring much more than 150,000 men to the battle BETWEEN THEM despite combining the resources of Macedon, Greece, the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Persian Empire. Do we really believe that the Gauls could on their own logistically support twice that many men in one place? At Wagram the combined armies of France, her Allies, and the Habsburgs totalled approximately 300,000 men. Napoleon and Berthier, probably the greatest general and the greatest staff officer combination ever, could not bring 200,000 men into one place. If Vercingetorix could get anything like 300,000 men armed and supplied in one place to fight the Romans, then Clauswitz should have been writing about how he conducted war.

I was also thinking of a comparison
Let us compare Gaul and Italy
Now France and Italy have similar populations 67 million to 60 million (not that that means a lot)

But in 225 Polybius gives an estimate of manpower for central and southern italy at 750,000

These figures have been discussed and debated and the feeling is that they are the pool to be drawn from.
Now in all candour Gaul, culturally and socially, probably wasn't that different from Italy. Fewer cities, more rural dwellers perhaps? So a figure for total Gallic manpower of a million, including Provence.

[DougM]

I finally got round to reading that piece, so thanks for providing the link.

I think the parallel between Italy and Gaul is a good one. One other consideration is the diet. So if you have a grain based diet you can have a much higher population density than a meat based diet. Then if Gaul also has a horse breeding culture, great tracts are set aside for that. In any case, it's all speculation. I will continue to disbelieve Ceasar et al. The numbers are simply not credible. If nothing else, the archaeology of a burial site or pyre for hundreds of thousands would sort be detectable.

[aligern]

If Central and Southern Ital is oroductive of 750,000 potential sokdiers, then I would go a bit higher than the Million fir Gaul as it is much more productive than the rather rocky South of Italy.  Italy's big populationon an agricultural basis is the Po valley , which is hugely fertile, a mini Nile  delta with all that alluvium.. I would be betting on a million or more excluding the Province? Either way we are looking at a Gallic population of 4-5 million. However, seem to be in agreement that if there is a mass army raised the quality and armament level of much of it will not be great..

In the levying of troops to relieve Alesia one of the tribes sends 2,000 rather than the hoped fir 10,000.  Would that give us a clue as to the ratio between men in a comitatus relationship with a lord abd the general levy of a  small tribe ?
Roy

[Imperial Dave]

I finally got round to reading that piece, so thanks for providing the link.

I think the parallel between Italy and Gaul is a good one. One other consideration is the diet. So if you have a grain based diet you can have a much higher population density than a meat based diet. Then if Gaul also has a horse breeding culture, great tracts are set aside for that. In any case, it's all speculation. I will continue to disbelieve Ceasar et al. The numbers are simply not credible. If nothing else, the archaeology of a burial site or pyre for hundreds of thousands would sort be detectable.

I have to agree with you Doug....I just dont believe the ability of disparate tribes raising, mobilising and feeding vast quantities of troops without a highly organised central authority and even then actually putting them in the field all at once.....

[DougM]

But again, you are taking those numbers from Caesar who we already know tells lies. And how was he to know what the commitment was? It could have been 20 men instead of a hundred. Or he could have just made the whole thing up.

[Erpingham]

Apologies Roy for not following your link - I assumed it was about gallic cavalry organisation and set it aside to read later.

Yes, it is annoying that no conclusion was made.  However, it bit of googling suggests that modern scholars are tending to see a figure in the range of 10-15 million more probable than 5 million.   But using my demographic rule of thumb as a minimum and Roy's as a maximum, this gives us a manpower pool of 2-4.5 million.  I don't think therefore the absolute figure is an issue in supply of armies terms.  Societal organisation becomes critical in determining how many men would be routinely put in the field and logistics governs how many could be moved a long way beyond their borders or concentrated in one place for any length of time (a moving army could live off the land more effectively than a static one, for obvious reasons).

[DougM]

Apologies Roy for not following your link - I assumed it was about gallic cavalry organisation and set it aside to read later.

Yes, it is annoying that no conclusion was made.  However, it bit of googling suggests that modern scholars are tending to see a figure in the range of 10-15 million more probable than 5 million.   But using my demographic rule of thumb as a minimum and Roy's as a maximum, this gives us a manpower pool of 2-4.5 million.  I don't think therefore the absolute figure is an issue in supply of armies terms.  Societal organisation becomes critical in determining how many men would be routinely put in the field and logistics governs how many could be moved a long way beyond their borders or concentrated in one place for any length of time (a moving army could live off the land more effectively than a static one, for obvious reasons).

I'd be interested to know how those modern scholars reached that opinion. Figures of 15 million seem very high to me. What is the evidence for settlement patterns and density? Or have they done as the linked article suggests and just multiplied out by tribes, Caesars numbers and a demographic multiplier?

[Erpingham]

It is hard to tell from just snippets of information - it would need some more in depth digging.  But revised estimations of numbers of settlements detected archaeologically seems to have pushed the numbers up.

[Jim Webster]

If Central and Southern Ital is oroductive of 750,000 potential sokdiers, then I would go a bit higher than the Million fir Gaul as it is much more productive than the rather rocky South of Italy.  Italy's big populationon an agricultural basis is the Po valley , which is hugely fertile, a mini Nile  delta with all that alluvium.. I would be betting on a million or more excluding the Province? Either way we are looking at a Gallic population of 4-5 million. However, seem to be in agreement that if there is a mass army raised the quality and armament level of much of it will not be great..

In the levying of troops to relieve Alesia one of the tribes sends 2,000 rather than the hoped fir 10,000.  Would that give us a clue as to the ratio between men in a comitatus relationship with a lord abd the general levy of a  small tribe ?
Roy

Italy's population could well have been kept up by grain imports. We know that Sardinia and Sicily became important

the 2000 to 10,000 might be a pointer, certainly is suggests a complexity in raising men that we don't know the details of.

But in other societies of this period, because fighting was something reserved for those wealthy enough to be able to afford it, I suspect the idea of massed levies is probably the wrong way to go.

[Andreas Johansson]

Agricultural history was never my strong point, but I seem to recall that in pre-medieval times, the tech wasn't there to realize the potential of the heavier soils of central Europe, and France/Gaul was effectively less fertile than Italy.

[Imperial Dave]

again...we go back to the logistics of maintaining a large army in the field (regardless of whether you could raise large numbers in the first place).