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Roman logistics
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Message 1.Β
Posted by -OOPSIE- (U248494) on Thursday, 22nd January 2009
I've just been reading a little bit about Caesar's battles in the Gallic wars and I got to wondering how the logistics of all this worked back then.
Thousands of people marching hundreds of miles far from home.
How were they all kept fed, watered and supplied?
I'm assuming most of the water could come from rivers, streams and maybe wells? Since Europe is pretty wet.
But food? Did they maybe buy it, steal it, bring it all with them, maybe have supply chains? A mix?
I read about baggage trains being attacked, so they definitely had some supplies with them, but how much? Could they go just days without resupply? Weeks? Maybe a month?
As a quick guestimate. I think a Legion would consume about 120 Tonnes of food per week.
How about the Gauls? I somehow find it harder to imagine Gauls having long supply chains of carts moving supplies up to where their huge armies were. Or is that just me falling into the trap of thinking the Gauls were more primitive?
Any info would be appreciated. -
Message 2
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 25th January 2009
Hmmm, it was not as tragically difficult as you might think.
The water and food question was mainly a question for those self-supported armies like Alexander the Great's and Jenkis Han's that crossed half the globe into unknown for them lands habiteted by more enemies than friends... all that when in todays industrialised western and eastern countries when tourists change a few latitudes cannot eat or drink outside 5 star hotels... just to give you an idea.
Romans never really moved that far from their centers (and that was not just Rome). They had expanded their Empire not in 10 years like Alexander and not in 30 years like Jenkis. Not even in 100 years not even in 200 years. It took hem 300 years to reach an Empire-like size and on the overall 400 years for the people living inside that space to realise that they where part of that Empire (cos many of them thought still they were just allies for much longer than we think...). Add on the top of that that they never fought a war along as Romans but alongside an endless string of allies. When they conquered Gaul actually half Gauls were allied to them, when they had attacked Greeks, 80% of them were allied to them against the other 20% of Greeks (mainly the Macedonians, Epirots and a bit later Corinthians) now how many logistic problems could Romans face? And what armies to move when half of their soldiers were recruited locally by means of having allies or hiring mercenaries.
For the most of it their armies bought food from allied states and cities. That also explains why Romans were popular among the high-class local people that made enormous money out of their armies and why lower classes suffered (with all that increase in food prices and such...). Now when they had to pass through enemy lands, on the one hand they would certainly carry along with them their food. Each soldier, in his sac, dry food, enough for 3-5 days while on their carts they would carry more food, say the equivalent of 15-20 days or more. Take notice that food carried was not any luxury food (lamb meat or something!), it was mainly grain and dried fruits, easy to carry and feed a lot of people. There were small quantities of luxury food of course for the celebrations and such so as to motivate soldiers. However, all that quantity could not feed the army for more than 1 month. Hence, they would not wait till food stocks are depleted. In the first chance they would buy from local colaborating tribes or they would steal from those enemy tribes. As simple as that.
One has to note that buying and stealing was always something relative since the passing of say 100,000 soldiers would mean a nice negotiation tool for any Roman leader to get prices down. By buying - even in ridiculusly low prices - they had the justification that they were friendly and avoided further trouble. However for the local population it was always a problem as that meant a year of near-hunger with food prices being sky-rocketed and had to sustain themselves till the harvest of next year. -
Message 3
Posted by Nickiow (U13798335) on Monday, 26th January 2009
You can find out about logistics in the ancient world by a quick internet search, it will direct you to works like, hannibal mules, Alexander the great and the logistics of the Macedonian army by engels, which covers pretty much what your after as it uses comparative methods, citeing Greek rom,and ACW muscle logistics.
Muscle logistics is what we had before engines took over, if you look at a war College reading list, the more general works have something in general on logistics, Crevelds logistics from wallenstein to Patton starts with some intresting historical back ground on horse and grazing, ie x horses require y acres of fodder, wagons of the day can carry x amount and so on. There are also specialized online mil logistics sites, US in particular.
Otoh hand primary sources tell us what the standar ration was, and why barely was substituted as a punishment for instance, so Livy/polbios etc are also worth reading.
120 tons comes for 5000k is around 3lbs a day, and does not corespond to Roman issue of food per day but if you look at Roman logistics by Roth, you can get the maths for a number of temporal periods to get wjhat your intrested in. -
Message 4
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Monday, 26th January 2009
When the Persian army invaded Greece in 490 and 481 BC it had to live off the country through which it passed, or carry in its invading fleet the supplies which were needed.
Alexander the Great in the same century , with a much larger force , required a much greater support system. Both elephants and camels were used during his 4,000 mile march from Egypt through Persia to India.
Hannibal's march from Spain , across the Alps into Italy, was similarly a masterpiece of logistic planning wherein the use of elephants for the purposes of transporting supplies played an integral part.
The Roman legions stationed throughout the widespread Roman Empire were supplied well and efficiently mainly because of the excellent network of roads built by the army, and the intermediate storehouses located at key points along the main routes.
The Mongolian cavalry armies of Genghis Khan and Sabutai travelled fast and effectively by using so called system of 'three extra horses'to each man.
One provided milk to feed him, the other two were spare charges enabling him to maintain speed and , in case of need, could be eaten.
When the army approached its objective , the spare horses would be discarded. Using this system , Sabutai in 1241 covered 180 miles in three days during his invasion of Hungary, surprising and annihilating the Hungarian army on the Damube. -
Message 5
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Monday, 26th January 2009
'Each soldier, in his sac, dry food, enough for 3-5 days while on their carts they would carry more food, say the equivalent of 15-20 days or more.'
Yes, it was the subsequent growth in the size of armies, and the resultant increase in the ammount of equipment and supplies which needed to be transported, that caused one of the major problems of logistics in warfare.
The army was no longer able to survive on what it could carry with it or what it could forage 'en route'.
An army marches on its stomach and, as the size of the army continued to grow, it became necessary for armies more and more territory in order to find resources neccessary for survival.
The problem got worse. During the Swedish incursions into Germany from 1630 onwards, Gustavus Adolphus' army exceeded 100,000 men. It became impossible to supply them from the land they were conquering and use had to be made of water transport via rivers Elbe and Oder. -
Message 6
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 26th January 2009
Now that you mentioned armies of 100,000 size, it was there the problem. With an army of 20,000 you could always find some interim solutions but 100,000 men could be the 10% of the overall population of the greater area around you. Finding food for them locally would not be an easy task.
We can imagine that Roman soldiers like any other were also trained in keeping their spirits up while eating less than average, and eating basic staple food. Hence, do not imagine that they carried along with them food to eat full breakfast, lunch and dinner! Now that is my supposition here, but I do not think that they ate 2 large meals per day... it would rather be one large meal, say lunch and before and after small snacks when stantioned and when marching one rather full in the morning and one rather good one in the evening... well you get the idea, it all depended on the commander but then these soldiers would not eat to get fat but only enough to sustain them in good condition. Eating for pleasure, they would do it after victory. However, in the case of long-term garissons across the borders, I think they were having a good time consuming the local products or even producing themselves just like in monasteries later... you know nice wine, some nice cheese and such...
I think something that would be very usefull for these ancient armies would be bulgur - a Minor Asian recipe that is actually smashed wheat, half-cooked and then dried which can be stored for relatively long time. To eat it is very simple, you just have to pour in hot water and stir it for a couple of minutes and you are ready. No chef is required for that and every soldier can make his own by taking hot water from a pot. Soldiers could carry easily 2-3 kilos of it (considering the 20 kilos of armour they were carrying...) and that could feed them for quite some days - bulgur playing the same role that pre-cooked lunch packs play for today's hard working people at offices. -
Message 7
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 26th January 2009
It struck to my mind the case of Alexander the Great. His army was an especially trained one and endured the worst of conditions during campaign. However, when they had reached Persepolis and conquered it (and burned it by soldiers' will to the disappointment of Alexander), Alexander had seen that from his bottom ranks up to the higher command ranks all people got... "fat". Ok fat is relative here but then of course, people were eating for pleasure and gaining visible weight to the point that for Alexander it became obvious that these people would not be fit for another campaign. Hence he ordered everyone to get out of the city and go live in the military camps and get back to "normal campaign conditions", i.e. eating rations and such.
One might think that Alexander just did not want "fat" soldiers around (as he often said for Olympic wrestlers) but then I think the greatest problem is not fat (reasonably fat soldiers for a phalanx are not necessarily so bad if they maintain some reasonable training of course, since they will have more force than thin ones). However the biggest problem is that fat soldiers are hungry more often and tend to eat unecessarily more and are tired more quickly during a campaign especially when there is not a lot of food. So poor soldiers went back to "normal conditions" to continue to the most difficult part of their campaign (the conquest of Afganistan and western indian regions.
Similarly Roman soldiers would had been quite hardened to endure famine and quite ressourceful in finding food but then Roman army rarely let things to reach the limits, there was always some supply center nearby set to provide the army.
A nice example is the campaign in Dacia. Romans had put a lot of money in it, and some more than 100,000 soldiers, certain that their investement would pay off by means of the Dacian gold (Dacians were not any poor people!). So, in order to attack into the Dacian heartland, they did not even want to use boat and such... they actually constructed a large bridge over the danube to move certainly their armies but mainly to move provisions for all those numerous forces and not let them lose time searching for food and such in the enemy land - something that caused a lot of time lost for all armies.
The problem of providing armies with provisions was nicely described by Sun Tzu (who always likes to talk about armies off more than 100,000 - for him any less was not even an army! So chinese!). -
Message 8
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Monday, 26th January 2009
Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:10 GMT, in reply to E_Nikolaos_E in message 6
Nik, you are right about the difference between meals on the march and in a permanent camp. The staple of the Roman Army was corn. On the march, rations would often be carried in the form of a type of bread called bucellatum (often translated as 'hard tack'). This could be eaten as a 'biscuit', or ground down into a form of flour which could then be turned into porridge of sorts. IIRC, a piece of graffiti has been found in Germany recording that "We're all up with hard tack." They would probably get something a bit more substantial, some sort of stew with veg and maybe a bit of meat in it, in the evening once they had dug in for the night. As with soldiers through the ages, given the opportunity they may well have 'acquired' additional rations on the march. Although we have no records of it (unsurprisingly - the day to day life of squaddies was not something which tended to concern ancient historians) modern re-enactors have found that pila make excellent makeshift spits for cooking fowl on!
Permanent bases were much better equipped, with large granaries and storehouses. The precise arrangements for cooking are not certain, but the archaeological evidence suggests a diet that included lamb, beef and some pork on a regular basis. -
Message 9
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Tuesday, 27th January 2009
During the Thirty Year's War two Frenchmen ( Le Tellier and Louvois ) introduced a Magazine system . It derives from the practice of setting up magazines at strategic locations where provisions could be for emergency supply and owed a debt to the Roman practice. The system relied upon the availability of local transportation to keep the magazines replenished and this meant requisitioning the transport, a practice which survives in one or another to this day. But it reduced the mobility of armies and restricted the speed and scope of military operations.
The system was subjected to a number of changes. Less than a century later, in 1704, the Duke of Marlborough with an army 40,000 strong, marched from the Rhine to the Danube. A masterly piece of logistic planning enabled him to avoid the use of magazines by buying provisions, hiring the means of their transportation and making them available at every stage of the 400-mile march. -
Message 10
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Tuesday, 27th January 2009
Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:07 GMT, in reply to Anglo-Norman in message 8
"We're all up with hard tack."Β
Oops! "We're all FED up with hard tack" -
Message 11
Posted by Nickiow (U13798335) on Tuesday, 27th January 2009
"Hence, do not imagine that they carried along with them food to eat full breakfast, lunch and dinner!"
Fyi breakfast lunch and dinner comes from the Roman military who ate at 3 set periods of the day, and is where we get the concept from, although entomylogy means we call it lunch in the 1500s. Just as 3 square meals a day comes from Uk naval meals being provided on square plates that dont roll around on a ship and were easier to store etc. -
Message 12
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 27th January 2009
Hmm, yes but then two of these meals would be very basic snack-like and only one the main meal of the day. Normally for people of that age that were used to a farmer's programme they would get up very early, eating just a bit so they can move on, then work till 2-3 o clock, make a pause and eat lunch (main meal of the day) and then perhaps some light snack in the evening before going to bed.
However, during march this could probably change to a better breakfast, then a long march, then a light lunch so as to digest quickly then after the pause march again till evening, then eat the main course of the day before going to rest. This is all a guess of mine of course, and certainly the programme would vary depending the programme of the campaign (some days you had to march 30 kilometers, others 15, it is not the same of course). What I cannot imagine easily is soldiers marching and eating more than 1 large meal. Most certainly they would lose time as well as depleting more quickly their stocks.
However, before a battle they would eat quite better to have energy (ot in a last meal before death atmosphere... hehehe). -
Message 13
This posting has been hidden during moderation because it broke the in some way.
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Message 14
Posted by Nickiow (U13798335) on Tuesday, 27th January 2009
Incorrect we know, because these details are provided for us by writers that mid day was the principle meal of the Roman mil. If you look at the books i already listed you would not have to guess, as its already arrived at as fact from primaty sources so no need to guess.
heres the intake of the meals.
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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