"Pike shortening" Topic
17 Posts
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Father Grigori | 03 Jan 2021 5:13 a.m. PST |
Just a whimsical wondering on a cold winter's evening, why did soldiers shorten their pikes? The usual answer is to make them handier. They are clumsy ans awkward to handle. A shorter weapon is handier, lighter and easier – generally more convenient. However, I wondered if there might be another reason – firewood. Lopping, say six inches off a sixteen foot pike doesn't provide much, but if a company of 50 or 100 men all did the same, then there might be enough fuel to cook a soup or stew for the company, and it would certainly be a good addition to any other firewood. And a soldier might figure that just six inches shorter wouldn't make much difference. It tends to be veteran or more experienced units that are guilty of shortening their pikes, along with troops like Scots covenanters who have a large number of experienced officers. So I'm just wondering if food and warmth are as responsible for the the habit as convenience. |
robert piepenbrink | 03 Jan 2021 5:25 a.m. PST |
Don't know, but I have a suggestion for pursuing it: do known instances of pike-shortening correspond with areas where wood was difficult to obtain? The "veteran" business doesn't speak directly to motive. In both the Civil War and World War II, I get comments that it was the more experienced soldier who was most interested in lightening his load. I understand there is also some controversy as to how pikes were carried on the march which might have bearing. |
4DJones | 03 Jan 2021 6:01 a.m. PST |
So you could have a month's worth of fires before you had no pikes? |
Herkybird | 03 Jan 2021 6:08 a.m. PST |
I doubt the firewood theory holds much water! England in the 17th Century was far more wooded than today, so firewood would not be a problem except for an army staying in one place for an extended period. I personally feel they were shortened to reduce the weight and make them less flexible, and hence easier to be used on the march and in combat. |
martin goddard | 03 Jan 2021 6:19 a.m. PST |
The Scots were noted for shortening pikes. They also marched a long way. Maybe a correlation?? martin |
KeepYourPowderDry | 03 Jan 2021 7:34 a.m. PST |
It wasn't really in a soldier's interest to shorten their pikes as having shorter pikes could be disastrous – for example at the Battle of Benburb 1646,the Irish Confederates defeated a Scots Covenanter army primarily because the Covenanters had shortened their pikes. Pike length varied: 1639 Directions for Muster specified pikes should be 17 feet in total; January 1643 King's Oxford army took delivery of pikes 15 feet in length from Thomas Hill; December 1645 John Thacker supplied NMA with 400 pikes 16 feet in length. So whilst pike shortening certainly did take place (Monck specifically complained about it), probably not as prevalent as some would have you believe, as some soldiers hadn't really got the room to play with so to speak. There is no known correlation of pike shortening and the veteran status of troops. In fact taking the Benburb example, I would imagine veteran soldiers would be the ones with longer pikes. The only contemporary references to pike shortening are the general complaints of the likes of Monck. Pikes were produced centrally, rather than locally, shafts were preferably made from ash. There is some evidence that the individual parts were produced in separate locations and then assembled elsewhere. Pikes were tapered to aid their balance (hence the need for langets upto 6 feet in length), shortening may well have been self defeating and made the pike even more unwieldly. The firewood notion is as Herkybird states, why cut down a weapon for firewood when firewood is readily available? You'd have to be in pretty dire straights for that to be the reasoning for your pike shortening. The most likely reason for shortening is weight reduction /manoeuvrability, pretty much the same reason why tassets were discarded. |
robert piepenbrink | 03 Jan 2021 7:47 a.m. PST |
Good points, Keep, except that a soldier's interest varies. Yes, it could make for a bad day on the battlefield. But battles tend to be rare and marches common. Those Scots at Benburb had been marching for--what, three years?--but I think Benburb was their first full-dress battle. You get the same thing with body armor, at least pre-modern. The less often people fight, the less inclined they are to lug around something heavy which they MIGHT need some day. |
KeepYourPowderDry | 03 Jan 2021 8:19 a.m. PST |
Agreed Robert. As Martin mentioned the Scots were known for having short pikes, which one can only assume is because of the length of their marches. Also as I mentioned the same reasoning why tassets were discarded. The various English armies during the First Civil War marched much shorter distances in comparison to the Scots. |
Grelber | 03 Jan 2021 11:34 a.m. PST |
OK, admittedly Napoleonics isn't my era, and I'm just going on something that I read long ago, still here's the story I remember. During the retreat after the battles at Jena and Auerstedt, some of the Prussian troops froze, or more likely developed frostbite rather than violate regulations and disassemble a nearby fence for firewood. So, while there might have been wood available, it might not have been useable, depending on the attitudes of the command. Just another thought. Gelber |
Unlucky General | 03 Jan 2021 12:56 p.m. PST |
This is just a question for which I have no answer but what might the punishments have been in the ECW or similar period armies for damaging their weapons? I presume most of the pikes were supplied by a colonel proprietor or some such? I know the Kings law at the time seemed to enjoy cutting off body parts (ears, noses etc) or worse for saying or printing nasty things so would this consideration have affected matters in the ranks? |
KeepYourPowderDry | 03 Jan 2021 4:53 p.m. PST |
I'm pretty sure that ear/nose mutilation owes more to Hollywood than history. A practice that died out in Tudor times. Despite the Stuart's many failings as monarchs they did continue the justice reforms that started under Elizabeth. Punishments tended to be public spectacles – public apologies, fines, birchings, imprisonment, branding, scold's bridles, pillories and stocks for minor crimes. Then there are also ducking stools, burning (not England) of witches, transportation (and servitude), and of course executions for more serious crimes. The justice system was beginning to utilise juries, and circuit judges. Sentencing was made publicly, and appeals could be lodged. Military field justice might have been different. Deserters from The King's Army had both palms branded – the National Civil War Centre in Newark has a branding iron on loan from the Wellcome Foundation – the royal cipher and crown would have been branded into the middle of the palm, with a series of spikes branding dots along the outline of the hand (as though you drew around a hand shape with a series of dots rather than a constant line). The iron looks like it would be very painful even if applied to the hand cold! Soldiers were issued their equipment by their colonel (or in some cases centrally), but invariably paid for their clothing and equipment by deductions from their pay. Loss of equipment = a charge for replacement? I don't know of any evidence for replacement charging, so pure supposition. Don't forget that the Trained Bands were supposed to provide their own equipment (and more often than not clothing too). So again I'm guessing that it is up to individuals what they did with their own belongings. Interesting story about the Prussians Grelber, thank you for sharing. The 'rules' of war were very different to those of 150 years later during the Napoleonic Wars. In some cases killing none combatants (i.e. murder), raping, looting and burning was deemed acceptable (in sieges if a town/house fell without surrender then everything was fair game, if it surrendered it wasn't ). Certainly Princes Rupert and Maurice did little to reign in soldiers under their command – pretty much taking what they wanted when on campaign (at least one Royalist general resigned his commission in protest at the behaviour of Maurice's Western Army). So taking firewood probably wouldn't raise any eyebrows (also not many wooden fences at the time, enclosure tended to be hedgerows or dry stone walls, smaller animal enclosures would be wicker hurdles). |
Unlucky General | 04 Jan 2021 12:37 a.m. PST |
Thanks for that response. Without wanting to hijack this thread, was the branding of deserter's palms also employed during wartime? |
KeepYourPowderDry | 04 Jan 2021 2:03 a.m. PST |
There were no standing armies in the three kingdoms at the time, the 'army'was based upon the trained bands (part time militias). So you couldn't really desert from them. Branding of deserters is from the war time periods. |
Father Grigori | 04 Jan 2021 2:45 a.m. PST |
Interesting responses. As I said, it was just in a moment of whimsy, and on a cold evening. I did wonder if a pike represented dry(ish) wood it could be used to get a fire going if other fuel was damp. As people have pointed out marches and sieges were more common than battles, and after reading books like Englund's 'Poltava' or accounts of Napoleon's retreat in 1812 I wondered whether the soldiers' priority was a little warmth now or a better weapon in a future battle which may not happen. |
Swampster | 11 Jan 2021 12:56 a.m. PST |
"I doubt the firewood theory holds much water! England in the 17th Century was far more wooded than today, so firewood would not be a problem except for an army staying in one place for an extended period." Not actually true. In the mid 17th century, woodland was approximately 8%. Today it is approximately 10%. What is different is the pattern of woodland and other tree cover. For instance, many ancient hedgerows are gone. But it often isn't easy to say what was once open and what was wooded. For instance, within walking distance of me are areas of woodland which have had trees for several centuries but up to the 17th century they were farm and small scale industrial land. A few miles beyond that are areas of ancient woodland that have been wooded for about 1000 years but in the iron age they were farmed. |
KeepYourPowderDry | 11 Jan 2021 4:47 a.m. PST |
I don't think you can really compare the two sets of data. Firstly the question of what is classed as 'woodland'? The term relates to acreage predominantly covered with continuous (more or less) tree cover. Data doesn't take into account individual trees or tiny areas of cultivated trees of less than 1/3 of an acre. Tree species grown differs considerably too: C17th would be what we'd now describe as native hardwood and softwood species, C21th we have a lot of softwood plantations planted on or at the end of the First World War (plus a large % of modern coverage is in the upland areas of the UK where C17th population was much less sparse than it is in the C21st) How we use woodland and trees in general gives us the biggest clues: in C17th firewood was the predominant heating and cooking fuel – coppicing was incredibly important, often done on small parcels of land that wouldn't be classed as 'woodland' in the data. Management of woodland was incredibly important, without the charcoal industry would grind to a halt. Every home would have some sort of wood pile – even if the local woods are a mile away, firewood is going to be available and soldiers are going to take it (they had no qualms about taking whatever they wanted). Modern woodland is very different – managed pine woods are pretty sterile places, not far from where I sit and type is a massive forest, which is a British Telecoms telegraph pole plantation. There's nothing else on that land, nothing under the dark canopy of those trees – certainly not a place to go foraging for firewood. So whilst the claim that Britain does have the largest % of land acreage under tree cover since the 11th-12th centuries is correct, it doesn't give the whole picture. Firewood was almost certainly more readily available in the C17th despite the data telling us that there are more acres of trees in the C21st. Certainly not that much of a an issue that pikes would be shortened on a regular basis to provide firewood. As previously discussed, shortened would most likely be to reduce carried weight and improve portability. |
Griefbringer | 12 Jan 2021 7:04 a.m. PST |
In case occasional shortages of firewood would be expected, the easiest approach might be to keep a limited supply at the back of a supply wagon, presuming that the space allows. This requires a little bit of discipline and advance planning, but is preferable to chopping up pikes – and having a stash of readily available fuel means that cooking fires can be set up faster when making camp, without needing to wait for the foraging parties to return. That said, I could imagine that a defeated and demoralised unit retreating after losing a battle (and most of the baggage wagons) might consider some more irregular approaches, assuming they would still be packing an axe or other tool for chopping the shafts (trying to do that with issue swords might take a while). __________________________________________________________ Firewood is still being used by some modern armies, too. For example, the Finnish military is well stocked with wood-heated stoves (for keeping tents warm) and field kitchens (though modern ones can probably use other fuels, too). When I was serving in this military, on exercises we usually carried a pile of dry firewood at the back of the truck, rather than spend time on foraging (trees usually being readily present). That said, the logs we were usually issued were too large for the stoves, and thus needed to be chopped into smaller pieces – an activity that would keep you warm on a winter afternoon. However, on one exercise near a military airport I went to investigate a local bunker, and found out that the previous occupants had left it well stocked with finely chopped firewood, excellent for our stove. So rather than spend time with chopping, we ended up "foraging" this bunker to fill our firewood needs. As regards foraging, it is good to remember that good firewood should be at least partically dry – freshly cut wood, or dead wood that has been on damp spot, does not burn well and smokes a lot. In that sense, a stack of dry firewood behind a local countryhouse is likely to provide a better (and easier) source of firewood than local forests. |
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