How to feed an Indian army?

[fernando]

I would guess that wood was not such a problem, in a Sub-Continent full of forests. More impressive is the number of people involved in these confrontations, even taking into account that some figures would be inflated by authors and that, battle casualties were not necessarily all soldiers, but civilians by colateral causes; you can read in chronicles that, when a leader won a battle after having been previously defeated, ordered his men to massacre all local civilians as a revenge bonus ... and also as a side effect during the loot.
I have read once (pity i don't recall where), that it took days (days) to cross the area where the laying dead stood, after a determined battle.
But despite these figures and scenes are astonishing, one ougth to believe in them. I have a book open in front of me where the author mentions that, comparing to the 'little' battles the Portuguese fought in India, in the wars for Delhi fought by local rulers, for one, casualties could be counted by the hundred thousand, even millions !!!. Each of the five times that Delhi was condemned to death, more human beings were slaugthered than those of Portugal period population.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Fernando, you would be right about the wood, as they had a lot of it in India - but newly felled wood would be no good in this case - as it would not be dry wood, and that is what you would need for burning so many people.
Hindus were known for burning their dead people, but what about the Muslims?
I agree with you that a lot of the slain people were not soldiers. If you believe only part of the numbers mentioned over three or four centiries, beling killed in wars the number it very big - and I think it may have ben even bigger as we dont know about all the wars going on, bigger and smaller - what we hear about is when the big rulers go to war.

[fernando]

I don't know Jens but, burning the dead after a battle is not properly a religious ritual, but a need to avoid epidemic situations. If rulers had some common sense, they would (both faiths) think of a practical solution. Maybe burying the dead was not an option to exclude; having so many men at disposal, there would be enough to be selected undertakers. Who knows whether there are period written descriptions on this subject ...

[Jens Nordlunde]

While reading Jonathan Scott's book quoting sources wirting about the history, but also about the present time - 15th - 16th century, I have seen mentioned no where, what they did with all the dead people.
Anyway we are now quite a bit away from the subject - my fault sorry.


Agriculture at the time was not so intensively done as now, so what they could get from each village must have been as a water drop on a hot stone. Their needs must have been brought from far away - corn, foot, hay, water and whatever.


A funny thing is, that when reading the book I have only once read about a Sultan keeping a part of the army in reserve should it be needed. I have earlier read that the Mughals did so, but I have never seen it mentioned more than once. There are mentions about who is leading the right wing, the left wing and the centre - but no mentioning about who is leading the reserve.


In one of my books I have the battle formation used by the Mughals.

[fernando]

From what i gather as implicit from reading chronicles, depending on how far or how intense is going to be the battle, the need to prepare things requires corresponding antecipation. We may be talking months... several of them, at times. And if a determined ruler leaves with a constant potential of engaging in war, he will surely keeps his (huge) barns full. Apart from perishable goods, he will amass tons of supplies proportional to his bellicist intentions. Same goes for his arsenal efforts; you know, big battle thoughts, big everything else.
I take it that men in charge of army reserves do not have such high rank as those leading battle wings; maybe this is why they are not mentioned. Although men 'doing nothing' are hard to keep with discipline, and their leaders, in a way, must be tough enough to keep them obedient, avoid their desertion and all that. And after all, those men need to be fed as those in action ... although maybe a bit less, as they are not consuming so much energy.
I realize that, something else that doesn't come (often ?) narrated in books, are the (staff) managers that rulers must have to handle all these logistics; you know, tons of food ingredients coming and going, improvised kitchens, hundreds (thousands) of recipients, queues for the meal (certainly organized by shifts), altercations among men and ... in the end ... whoo's going to feed the animals.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Fernando, yes it is true that the preparations took months. Sometimes up to three months.
This was not all about foot, but to gather an army took time, as you had to write to all your 'friends' and ask them to send whatever of armed men they had - wait for their answer or their arrival - sometimes without any luck.
Part of the army were veterans, but a lot of it did not have a clue about fighting, they turned up to get whatever money they could.


What I find frightening is, that the night before a battle, part of the army could either go home or go over to the enemy, which could also happen during a battle - so you could never be sure of how big your army was. Bribes were, of course, part of this, and a number of other things were also used like jealousy between the different parts of, especial the Mughal court, but also at other courts under Mughal control, as at least four groups tried to get control.

[shayde78]

Interesting conversation!

Here's an overview of how the dietary needs of soldiers were met over the ages. Very focused on the west, but some applicable practices to armies anywhere.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/p...ng-the-troops/