Fine then. Boots. Weapons and ammo. Rations. Wallets. Timepieces. Wedding bands. Clothing. Make no mistake : looting’s a time honoured tradition. Battlefields have always been rich pickings for the discerning eye, especially when said eye belonged to a man who’d just had his livelihood blown or torched to smithereens. But naturally, the winning side’s soldiers had first dibs. Only fair, innit ?
Ugly maybe, but not moreso than war itself.
And… (non-gold) teeth :eek:
How many people were slaughtered when Quiggis, called in the West Genghis, Khan destroyed Central Asian cities, & slaughtered their entire populations?
Do the slaughtered civilians count?
The civilians are not really part of the picture. The OP is trying to imagine divisions or regiments or brigades or whatever moving across the field in masses and how that would look, both to an observer and to a participant.
For those curious about retreating soldiers being systematically shot: Barrier Troops. It doesn’t say anything about British sergeants, though.
I too was thinking along these lines, but couldn’t come up with any primordial (any myth) two-against-one battles
An estimated near-20k advanced and were repelled at Franklin in 1864: Battle of Franklin - Wikipedia.
Gaines’s Mill is indeed thought to be have been the biggest Confederate attack of the war.
Earlier thread: What was the largest pitched battle of all time?
Highlights from that thread:[ul]
[li]The Battle of Ecomus during the first punic war had 300,000 participants in a one-day battle. However, it was a sea battle.[/li][li]Some claim that 300,000 appeared for the Fall of Constantinople, but the numbers are widely disputed, and the timeline may put it out of the category of single pitched battles.[/li][li]Discussions about whether Kursk and the Battle of the Bulge count as “battles” for the purpose of the discussion.[/li][li] Ditto for the Battle of Stalingrad, which had 1.5-2 million casualties.[/li][li] Ditto for the Battle of Verdun.[/li][li] Discussions of the Battle of Cannae which indisputably meets the definition of “battle” but doesn’t have quite the impressive numbers of some other battles.[/li][*] The Battle of Leipzig was approximately a 3-day battle, and some say as many as 600,000 participated. [/ul]
John Beeler, in his book Warfare in Feudal Europe, 730-1200, estimates that William the Conqueror had a force of 7,000, including 2,000 knights, when he took England in 1066.
Beeler also discusses a list of heavy calvary units mustered for the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II in 980: 2,080-2,090 troops raised by two dukes, six counts, two margraves, twelve lesser nobles, four archbishops, fifteen bishops, and ten abbots from Franconia, Bavaria-Swabia, and Lotharingia. No infantry were raised (these units were intended to reinforce Otto’s forces in Italy; the infantry were probably already with him on the ground campaigning there). That should give you some idea of the heavy horse that a medieval German emperor could bring down on your head in those days.
The War On Drugs?
What a coincidence. I just reread Beeler’s book a couple of days ago.
The Battle of the Pellenor Fields.
By percentage of world population, Cain vs Abel.
See post 39… and next time try reading the whole thread.
The Battle of Red Cliffs circa 220AD China. Northern General Cao Cao allegedly had a ‘million man host’.