un paio di cosette su
numeri (fonte https://books.google.it/books?id=bM57BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=medieval+warfare+numbers&source=bl&ots=Xy9ikGncGt&sig=S7FaFXSveEzsqhG-wNVVxhS76-8&hl=it&sa=X&ved=0CG8Q6AEwDmoVChMI9dLL56LTxwIVw4wsCh0_6AvC#v=onepage&q&f=true )
logistica (fonte http://www.medievalwarfare.info/#logistics )
[QUOTE]The usual method for solving logistical problems for smaller armies was foraging or “living off the land” - effectively stealing whatever was needed: animals, crops, wood and so on.
The normal “campaign season” corresponded to the seasons of the year when there would be food on the ground and relatively good weather. This season was usually from spring to autumn. Soldiers were rarely full-time and often needed to attend to their own land at home. In many European countries peasants were obliged to perform around 45 days of military service per year without pay, usually during this campaign season when they were not required for agriculture. By early-spring all the crops would be planted, freeing the male population for warfare until they were needed for harvest time in late-autumn.
Plunder in itself was often an objective of military campaigns, to either pay mercenary forces, seize resources, reduce the fighting capacity of enemy forces, or even just as a public insult to the enemy ruler.
With the advent of castle-building and the extended siege, supply problems became much greater, as armies had to stay in one spot for months, or even years.
Supply trains are as much a feature of Medieval warfare as they are of ancient and modern warfare. Due to the impossibility of maintaining a real front in pre-modern warfare, supplies had to be carried with the army or transported to it while under guard. However, a supply source moving with the army was necessary for any large-scale army to operate. Medieval supply trains are often found in illuminations and even poems of the period.
River and sea travel often provided the easiest way to transport supplies. During his invasion of the Levant, Richard I of England was forced to supply his army as it was marching through a barren desert. By marching his army along the shore, Richard was regularly re-supplied by ships travelling along the coast. Likewise, as in Roman Imperial times, armies would frequently follow rivers while their supplies were being carried by barges. Supplying armies by mass land-transport would not become practical until the invention of rail transport and the internal combustion engine.
The baggage train provided an alternative supply method that was not dependent on access to a water-way. However, it was often a tactical liability. Supply chains forced armies to travel more slowly than a light skirmishing force and were typically centrally placed in the army, protected by the infantry and outriders. Attacks on an enemy’s baggage when it was unprotected — as for instance the French attack on the English train at Agincourt, highlighted in the play Henry V—could cripple an army’s ability to continue a campaign. This was particularly true in the case of sieges, when large amounts of supplies had to be provided for the besieging army. To refill its supply train, an army would forage extensively as well as re-supply itself in cities or supply points - border castles were frequently stocked with supplies for this purpose.
A failure in logistics often resulted in famine and disease for a medieval army, with corresponding deaths and loss of morale. A besieging force could starve while waiting for the same to happen to the besieged, which meant the siege had to be lifted. With the advent of the great castles of high medieval Europe however, this problem was typically something commanders prepared for on both sides, so sieges could be long, drawn-out affairs.
Epidemics of diseases such as smallpox, cholera, typhoid, and dysentery often swept through medieval armies, especially when poorly supplied or sedentary. In a famous example, in 1347 the bubonic plague erupted in the besieging Mongol army outside the walls of Caffa, Crimea where the disease then spread throughout Europe as the Black Death.
For the inhabitants of a contested area, famine often followed protracted periods of warfare, because foraging armies ate any food stores they could find, reducing or depleting reserve stores. In addition, the overland routes taken by armies on the move could easily destroy a carefully planted field, preventing a crop the following season. Moreover, the death toll in war hit the farming labour pool particularly hard, making it even more difficult to recoup losses.[/QUOTE]
