"Availability of Mercenaries" Topic

Most campaign rules I've come across for the ancients through to renaissance periods have rules which restrict, or at least manage, the availability of mercenaries. This can add a fair bit of bookeeping to the campaign. I'm wondering, however, if this might be an unnecessary admin burden.

Finding the money to hire and keep mercenaries was always a challenge, but is anyone aware of any wars or campaigns where the availability of the men themselves was an issue for the monarch/commander?

Yes, plenty of wars saw warm and willing bodies in limited supply. One reason that mercenaries were often able to command such premium prices!

-Will

Limited available manpower doesn't attach to any of the known campaigns though. That's why there were campaigns, the otherwise feudal states had other resources and could wage protracted warfare. I believe it is axiomatic to refer to medieval armies as being small because of other resources, not because of a lack of manpower. The largest limiting factor was available money. Well, nothing has changed!…

At least there were attempts to try to control enemy access to mercenaries.

For example, in the early 16th century the Holy Roman Emperor tried to forbid Landsknechts from serving in the French armies. A lot of them abandoned French service, but some stayed all the way to Pavia (where many of them ended up getting cut down).

The French, on the other hand, managed to convince Swiss into a treaty where they would supply units of mercenaries only to the French (not that this prevented individual Swiss from serving in other places).

Recently I've been reading the histories of the Plantaganet Kings and was struck by just how often mercenaries were called upon – money seemed to be the deciding factor on the numbers and for how long they were used.

To me , the most difficult thing to manage in a campaign game would be those who ain't mercenaries but are necessary to keep economic afloat : those levied that cannot work the fields , build , craft and so on when they are at war or the gaps they leave behind if dead at war.
That would not only call for bookeeping but also for all sort of strange mathematical equations.

One of the biggest interest of mercenaries was to keep your own population alive and active while strangers paid the taxe of blood in conflict.

Later on it was also a way to keep money expenses low , as general-contractors would raise troop at their own expense and often ask for repay with lands and titles. But in case of failure and anihilation of their troops the contracting party would save both muster and pay all in one.

On swiss they included a part in all treaties that said no swiss troop shall be pitted one against the other if at service of opposing rulers.

Years back we played a DBA campaign set in 15th Century Italy. Each campaign year a couple mercenary units would be available, type determined by die roll. Players made secret bids in victory points, high bid gaining both units, 2 way ties splitting them. The mercenaries were hired for the campaign year. Simple but it worked.

Half the Carthaginian army of the Punic Wars were mercenaries of some kind IMHO.

Dux Brittaniarum has a very simple but effective rule for hiring merenaries.
1) they cost money
2) if you win they diminish your 'glory' level.
3) they can be tempted by your opponent to leave you.
4) there is always the possibility they take your money and don't show up.

Finding the money to hire and keep mercenaries was always a challenge, but is anyone aware of any wars or campaigns where the availability of the men themselves was an issue for the monarch/commander?

Yes. In the Spartan revolt of 331BC, Antipater had money sent to him so he could hire more mercenaries than the Persians could to augment the Spartans.

In the wars against the Successors there were Roman sanctions against the Cretan cities that supplied mercenaries to the Antigonids, but then the Romans also hired Cretans themselves… so everybody turned a blind eye to the sanctions until Romans landed in Crete.

Certain areas of Greece, such as Arcadia at times became underpopulated because so many men were serving as mercenaries.

So it is possible that high demand mercenaries can be used as limited resources, which could be outbid for on a market system.

Mercenaries…
getting men willing to fight was rarely a problem, though getting men worth their money often was.

Campaings where the availability of mercenaries was a problem probably never became campaigns, or are to be found among the losers of history.

When a well trained unit of mercenaries entered an area, the local rulers often had to consider wether their rivals would hire them, and make an offer first to avoid this. The sheer existence of able units created conflicts in areas that would otherwise remain quiet.

another story on mercenaries is what they become once you do not need them anymore .

Contrary to traditional troops , they rarely go back home and without another job at reach often turned upo to banditry.

On the other hand some marauding bandits were aswell turned into mercenary forces in order to take them away . It happened a few time during 100 years war , 15th and early 16th century.

The term "brigands" comes from the typical armour of mercenaries, and "gartende" Landsknechte were a problem all over Europe – some of the worst "robber" stories come from the 16th century.

After the battle of Hemmingstedt, where 6 companies of the "Grote Gard" (or Black Guard) where destroyed, the Danish king paid the remnant companies to recruit for a week or two and then march out of his territory in cohesion, rather then spare the money and get the survivors on the loose. The surviving companies gained some 1000 men in strength.
Another "Black guard", formed by the Duke of Saxony (and probably containing survivors of the desaster some 14 years before) was hired by the Duke of Geldern, when it was stranded in Friesland near his own lands after the local Feud ended – probably to keep it in cohesion and under control. He sent it to France (perhaps more to get rid of them then to aid Francois) and it would ultimately end up at Marignano, together with the (larger) band originally hired to invade England.

Mercenaries are more expensive than maintaining a "militia". Mercenaries can be formed into the first "regular" units of a "national" army.

But it doesn't have to be a complex mathematical problem. There is an old maxim which goes: "No state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness." (Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Folio Society, vol 1 page 113)….

Most campaign rules I've come across for the ancients through to renaissance periods have rules which restrict, or at least manage, the availability of mercenaries.

Curious, but what rules are these you're talking about?

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

Optional field, the rules I'm thinking of are some DBM rules that sound like a variation on the ones vtsaogames mentions. Also, off the top of my head, Tony Bath mentions tracking mercenary companies in 'Wargames Campaigns' and Phil Barker sets out numbers in 'Campaigns of Alexander'. I'm no historian, but this seems at odds with my reading that suggests that if one had the cash one could invariably find as many men as one wanted, be Hoplites, Condottieri knights or Landsknechts.

I definitely think there should be considerations in using mercenaries (not getting what you paid for, pay strikes, brigandage, etc), but the contractor not being able to find enough men should perhaps be a random event rather than a routine issue. An exception might be for situations such as JJartist mentions, where an opponent wants to spend money as a deliberate stratagem to reduce supply to his opponent.

Not finding enough manpower was a problem that usually arose when you had multiple recruiters competing in the same area. OR when the recruitment of one army left little in the way of surplus manpower.

Examples of this was the recruitment of German mercenaries by Sweden and Poland-Lithuania during the wars of the 1620's. The outbreak of the 30YW put a real strain on the areas where the Poles usually recruited their German units and by the time that recruitment moved to northern Germany in the mid 1620's recruiters working for Poland, Danzig, Wallenstein, Brandenburg and Sweden found themselves competing for recruits by means both fair and foul. Letters from the Swedish officers recruiting in 1626 contain frequent complaints about the harassment and troubles caused by other recruiters.

Another reason for not finding men was a poor reputation as a employer. At the start of the 1560's the King of Denmark enjoyed excellent connections with major German mercenary commanders and was well known as a good employer after the short Ditmarschen war. So the Danes were able to raise a huge army of Landsknechts and Reiters for their 1563 invasion of Sweden. However the Danes turned out to be unable to keep the troops properly supplied once in Sweden and they soon ran out of cash due to the huge cost of so many mercenaries. Disbanding units without paying them what they were owned proved a less than satisfactory solution as the Danish crown found itself stuck with lenghty legal battles as well as finding that their ready supply of Landsknechts and Reiters dried up. It proved hard to keep the units that had been kept in service up to strenght and the Danes resorted to hiring Scots as an emergency solution to their manpower problems.