I'm pulling this out of the Rome thread, because it is actually worthy of its own discussion. There are several folks who discussed this, but it started with this post.

Quote:

---

I'm currently watching a series about ancient Rome on the history channel. Something that amazes me is the descriptions of the battles that the Romans fought against the Gallic and Germanic tribes to their north. The documentary says that some of these battles resulted in more than 100,000 deaths.

That seems hard to believe. The decisive battle for American independence at Yorktown had only about 10,000 participants on both sides total if I recall correctly. And the battle of SanJacinto had way less than that. I'm pretty sure that none of the battles of the American civil war had anywhere near those kind numbers. Can what I'm hearing from that series be right?

---

So I think to understand this, let's get away from the idea that there was limited war in the past and total war in the 20th Century. In fact, throughout most history, there was total war, then it went on a hiatus with the development of specialized trained professional armies (of which Rome was the great early example), and then it came back later on.

I'll focus on the Gallic Wars, since I've read Caesar's Conquest of Gaul a few times, plus other things. From my many readings into Alexander the Great, I think much of the conclusions are the same.

In general, Eastern empires, like the Persians, were able to raise massive armies because of the way their state was built. Put simply, if you live in a semi desert, with need for great public works projects like canal building, you're going to have a very large vertically-aligned structure to your empire. The more precarious your society is (until the advent of firearms), you can't have a bunch of individualists. You have collectives. So Eastern empires could raise vast hosts because they simply translated the conscription of large masses of people for public work into the same for military purposes.

Now, a little about Caesar and what the Romans faced. Caesar was conquering Gaul (France) at a time that corresponded with the Volkerwanderung, or migration of peoples. Usually, you hear this in terms of the Germanic migrations that ended up sacking Rome, but it started much earlier. For reasons which we're not exactly sure (but which likely stemmed from Hunnic pressure on Eastern Europe), a lot of Germanic tribes began to move around. These weren't just armies of professionals, they were gigantic migrations of whole tribes, who moved en masse like big buffalo herds. They're looking for new lands and forcibly settling in areas owned by others.

Caesar comes across some of these on the fringes of Gaul and defeats several of them in battle, but it's really more like a wholesale slaughter of a population. This was the case of the Helvetii, which at the battle of Bibracte totaled 350,000 persons, only a third or so were able bodied men. Only about 100,000 survived, which means if Caesar killed all the able bodied men in arms, he still killed nearly that many in what we would today call civilians.

Quote:

---

Only about 100,000 survived, which means if Caesar killed all the able bodied men in arms, he still killed nearly that many in what we would today call civilians.

---

To make sure I understand, are you contending that there was no real distinction between "men at arms" and civilians since the tribes Caesar faced had made most if not all civilian men "men at arms"? In other words, all the men of fighting age within the tribe were men at arms?

Rome: Total War has been around since 2004.

Jokes aside, let's start with definitions.

Total war is the militarization / co-opting of all civilian resources for the pursuit of the war. It is a war where civilians and their resources become the targets of the war. A universal draft and government command of the economy are staples. Modern examples include The Civil War, The French Revolution, and WW 1 and 2.

Did Total War exist in ancient times? Yes, but not every society was equipped for it. For a nomadic tribe where every male was a warrior, every war was a total war. But for an empire like Rome with a professional standing army, very few, if any, wars were total wars. Even when Hannibal was marching all around Rome in the Punic wars, the city didn't do a full mobilization and fight him, it invented Fabian tactics and avoided fighting him until it could deal with him another way.
A total War for a Gaullic tribe might just be Tuesday for a Roman legion. Once your society can produce a significant enough food surplus, you can have professionalized classes and don't need to make all wars total wars anymore.

Battle of Changping. ~ 700K dead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping

Thank you for this information. The series I watched (The rise and fall of an empire: Rome) didn't really go into how such large armies were raised but it did tell that the Gallic armies were literally backed by entire populations. The soldier's wives and children were in support of them to the rear. I suppose they were considered combatants.

Quote:

---

Even in WWII, the number of people behind the lines in the US military was probably 10 times that of the frontline soldiers.

---

Taking this off on that tangent, you're absolutely correct, but the disparity was almost certainly even greater. In the Army, for example, 210,000 troops saw combat out of the 8 million that were in the Army, or at least so I've read.

As a sidenote from a skeptic, it was rare to meet a WWII veteran who said that they served in training in the US, or in Logistics, or any other non-combat role. I have met a few (one of my dad's cousins, for example, and my own granddad), but they are rare. But it was not rare, so my guess is that many veterans who were not in combat simply did not talk much about their experiences, and some may have even embellished their experiences.

Stive said:

---

That's interesting. My grandfather was proud to have served in WW2 and would proudly state he was a ground mechanic for bombers at the training sight in Grand Island Nebraska.

My wife's grandfather was the same way: he was a Seabee driving heavy construction equipment in the Pacific Theater.

I feel like I've had way more conversations with guys that didn't hesitate to tell you what their role was even though it typically didn't include intranet/armor combat.

Not saying you're wrong, just sharing that my experience with those conversations has been different.

---

Good point.

Jabin said:

---

Quote:

---

Even in WWII, the number of people behind the lines in the US military was probably 10 times that of the frontline soldiers.

---

Taking this off on that tangent, you're absolutely correct, but the disparity was almost certainly even greater. In the Army, for example, 210,000 troops saw combat out of the 8 million that were in the Army, or at least so I've read.

As a sidenote from a skeptic, it was rare to meet a WWII veteran who said that they served in training in the US, or in Logistics, or any other non-combat role. I have met a few (one of my dad's cousins, for example, and my own granddad), but they are rare. But it was not rare, so my guess is that many veterans who were not in combat simply did not talk much about their experiences, and some may have even embellished their experiences.

---

Not saying you're right or wrong but I could see it. No one wants to tell their grandson they shoveled **** in Louisiana but someone had to.

My dad's dad joined the 101st after Normandy and Mom's dad was a mail carrier in Korea so I've got one of each.

My dad was class of '48 but didn't graduate until '49 because he took a year off during the war to join the Marines. He was commissioned into the Regular Army after graduation and immediately sent to Germany where he served with a lot of combat veterans who had chosen to remain in for whatever reason. He also said that most of the combat veterans absolutely despised the rear-guard troops, particularly the quartermaster guys, because they were busy looting the German towns and selling off supplies to the German black market.

Ambrose writes about that problem. During the Battle of the Bulge thousands of canned turkeys were shipped to Europe so that the front-line troops could have a turkey dinner for Christmas. None of the turkeys actually made it to the front lines, again according to Ambrose. The quartermasters and senior officers in the rear intercepted them all, some for their own dinners but a lot for resale on the black market.

When talking about Rome, krep in mind the distinction between early/middle Republican Rome (no professional army), which includes the Punic/Carthaginian Wars and late Republic/Imperial Rome after the military changes of Gaius Marius that introduced the professional Roman military, ehich would include the Gallic Wars.

Early Rome had smaller numbers but was more inclined to fight in a mentality of Total War. Late Rome had a professional army, but a lot more conquered pupulations with which they could fill their ranks.

Not everybody can serve, of course, that's just the way it is. My grandfather was 40, ran a farm (considered essential) and had a son born 2 months before Pearl Harbor. No way he was going to be drafted. On the other side, my grandpa had bad eyesight.

As for my own experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, I spent a total of 2 years in combat zones but was never actually in combat. We got indirect fire frequently in Iraq (2-3 times per week) and much more rarely in Afghanistan. But it was like going to work in dangerous traffic - there is a slight chance you can die, but it's pretty much random.

That's just the way it is. I signed up ready to do anything and everything and they said, "this is where we need you" and that's what I did. I know I contributed, but I wasn't kicking in doors. Instead, I was basically telling guys which doors to actually kick in. Both jobs are needed, but I know who the true heroes were and it was not me.