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duxbelisarius · 5 days ago

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Back to the Dance Part Two: Environment and Logistics in the Dance

Thank you to those that have read along thus far; here's Part One of this new series if you haven't had the chance to read it yet!

Now that we've covered the political background of the Seven Kingdoms and the lead up to the Dance, we can start discussing the war itself. The next four parts will cover aspects of warfare in this setting and our own history, starting with the environment and logistics; we'll touch on aspects of the plot where it intersects with the topic at hand, discussing what we know about warfare in the pre-modern world, the conduct of warfare in George's series, and where problems arise in the Dance in trying to reconcile the latter with the former. Covering the environment of Westeros and what we know about logistics there, ie how do people, goods, and services move from place to place, allows us to assess how these factors affect warfare during the Dance (or don't affect it). This is important for establishing what is militarily possible for the Blacks and Greens to achieve, before we even get to how the actually fight.

Assessing the role of the environment is necessary given that it generally determines or influences how one fights: the deserts of southern Dorne will require different equipment and approaches to campaigning than the open expanse of the North. We know from F&B that Rhaenyra's coronation most likely took place on the 12th day of the 3rd Moon (March 12th; we'll use our calendar hereafter) 129 AC, and that autumn was well advanced by the team Jace arrived at Winterfell. We thus know that it was autumn by the latter part of March and remained so until Maiden Day the following year, after which it was winter for the next 5-6 years, meaning that the entire Dance took place during autumn and winter. We'll get into some of the issues that years long seasons create for the setting, but the fact that the war was fought for more than two years entirely in the autumn and winter creates immediate problems.

It should be noted that the seasons have symbolic as well as literal meaning in the series for George, who speaks of summer as a time of "growth and plenty and joy" while winter is "a dark time where you have to struggle for survival." There's nothing necessarily wrong with this view of the seasons, but the affect of the seasons on warfare in our own history is something which does not appear to carry over into the books. The years long seasons in particular create problems for the setting given that the cyclical nature of our seasons had an affect historically on two human activities in particular: seafaring and military campaigning.

Written around the early 5th Century AD, Vegetius' De Re Militari identified which months of the year were deemed safe for navigation; while the climate of the Mediterranean is renowned for being temperate and ideal for habitation, the weather can be exceptionally dangerous even outside the expected autumn and winter months, as seen in 2022 when unexpectedly heavy weather blew an F/A-18 Hornet off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman in July. By our modern calendar, Vegetius deemed navigation permissible from May 27th to September 14th, with navigation becoming more dangerous due to severe weather from Sept. 14th to November 11th while Nov. 11th to March 10th was deemed too dangerous, and advising not to venture out before May 15th (DRM, 146). There is room for nuance in this picture however: per Oded Tammuz' investigation of ancient shipping accounts from the Eastern Mediterranean, the risks Vegetius attaches to winter weather (minimal daylight and long nights, dense cloud cover, fog, and violent winds) mainly applied to coastal vessels who risked shipwreck or foundering from taking on too much water, while ships on the open sea only really risked the latter fate. Michael McCormick made similar findings in Origins of the European Economy: Papal communications to France and Germany between AD 580 and 700 did not travel north in January, February or March when sea travel was used, but still took place even in October, November, and December (McCormick, Origins, 79-80). Sailing during autumn and winter was risky but it did take place, most likely on the open sea rather than along the coasts.

With regards to Planetos, the Narrow, Sunset, Summer, and Shivering seas are probably closer to the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean than the Mediterranean, with the latter three arguably being oceans in their own right. The books don't ignore the dangers of seasonal bad weather as autumn is repeatedly described as a dangerous season for ships, especially in Arya's ADWD POV "The Ugly Girl" when the Kindly Man sends her to kill the maritime insurer, while Stannis' fleet is scattered by a storm en route to Blackwater Bay in ACOK. Nonetheless, the risks posed by autumn and winter weather to naval activities should have dire implications for the plot of the Dance; we'll cover naval warfare in greater detail during Part Four, but suffice it to say that the Ironborn are screwed in this scenario. According to F&B, Dalton Greyjoy was able to seize 75% of the ships in Lannisport harbour and sink the rest before sacking the city; just so we're clear, using the distance scale on Atlas of Ice and Fire's map of Westeros gives us a distance of c.400 miles (c.644 km) as the crow flies between Pyke and Lannisport. Sailing around the Westerlands coast to avoid being spotted or wrecked by the weather would probably add half or even double that distance, and oared ships like the Ironborn longboats aren't quite seaworthy enough to handle such navigation as I discussed in the Velaryon Blockade post (more on this in Part Four!).

Shipping was seasonal and so to was warfare, for while George refers to summer as a time of 'growth and plenty,' this is exactly what one needs for waging war. In Logistics of the Roman Army at War, Jonathan Roth notes that the 'campaigning season' for armies in the classical world depended on when grain and fodder from the harvest became available to feed the armies and their animals, with armies preferring to spend the winter months of December, January, and February in 'winter quarters' near supply bases (Roth, Roman Army, 137, 177). Harvest times also varied from region to region; to quote Roth at length:

According to Greek sources, farmers sowed most of their grains in autumn, between October 20 and November 25; harvesting began in Greece in the middle of May and in southern Italy in late May. In the eastern Mediterranean, farmers planted wheat and barley in November and December, harvested barley in April and wheat in May. The Egyptian harvest took place during the months Pharmouthi and Pachon (March 27 to May 25). A fast-growing “three-month wheat” was sown in the spring, sometime in early March, and harvested in May or June; barley, millet, and panic could also be sown in the spring. Spring sowing had the advantage of furnishing a rapid early crop on fallow land, but could be used only on land rich enough to carry a crop every year. In the eastern Mediterranean, grapes were picked through the summer, from June through September although sometimes as late as October. Legumes, such as lentils, peas and vetch were harvested in April and May, chickpeas as late as June; figs gathered in August and September, and olives between September and November. (Roth, 136-137).

We thus have a Mediterranean campaign season which likely began around March or May and continued to November at the latest, meaning 7-9 months at best for largescale warfare and 3-5 months of 'winter quarters' in which this would be off limits or greatly curtailed, unless stores could be drawn upon or an army had no choice but to fight.

We know that Westeros has many different climate regions as according to George, "The Mountains of the Moon get quite a lot of snow, the Vale and the riverlands and the west rather less, but some. King's Landing gets snow infrequently, the Storm Lands and the Reach rarely, Oldtown and Dorne almost never." This should mean that limits on growing even during the winter should not be too severe outside of the North, but the problem this presents should be obvious nonetheless. Years long winters should see long periods in which warfare is drastically curtailed if not absent entirely from large parts of Westeros, owing to the need to carefully conserve existing stores and the harvest produce, save for a place like Dorne where greater rain and cooler temperatures would make warfare more viable. We also have to ask how warfare would function during years long springs, summers, and autumns; would the armies be forced to stop fighting for a time to allow grain and fodder to be planted and replenished? That certainly isn't the impression the books give us: Jaime II of AFFC mentions that 2000 men of the Lannister Army were retained to assault Dragonstone while the rest were dismissed to their homes, but this is due to the War of the Five Kings being all but over; in Catelyn V of ASOS, Robb expects to march on Moat Cailin with 12000 men once Edmure and Roslin are wed and plans to retake the North from the remaining Ironborn despite the inclement weather, sparse population, and economic disruption the North has experienced from the war. The importance of winter quarters to premodern armies is lost in the setting due to the seasons being thrown out of whack, and the logistical challenges that the armies should face are only treated haphazardly by the narrative.

The question of how harvests work in Westeros is another area where the environment's role in the story requires scrutiny, as their timing and frequency is unclear. As Roth's previous quote shows that the relationship of harvest times to the seasons is a complex one, since harvest time is determined by how long it takes for crops to germinate, grow, and ripen, while the climate and weather of a season often determines what can be grown/planted. I bring this up because the books make it clear that keeping track of the seasons is difficult: in Catelyn I of ACOK, Catelyn thinks with regard to autumn that "even the wisest man never knew whether his next harvest would be the last;" TWOIAF outright admits that the Citadel is unable to predict the length or the changing of the seasons, and the best they can do is mark the shortening or lengthening of the days to notify the realm that the change is taking place. With no one able to know the seasons are changing until it is already taking place, how can populations reliably plant and harvest crops in the first place? This should open the door for autumn rains to ruin summer crops and for winter snow and rain to destroy what was planted in autumn, depending on when the planting took place vis a vis the season changing.

The plot of the Dance doesn't help these issues by invoking the harvest as a plot device at opportune times: Jace arrives at Winterfell when Cregan Stark is already in the midst of his winter preparations, while TWOIAF claims the need to keep every man he could for harvesting prior to winter delayed Cregan's sending aid to Rhaenyra; when Aemond and Criston Cole abandon Harrenhal sometime after the 'Fish Feed,' Aemond and Vhagar attack Castle Darry in the midst of the harvest being brought in; the Hightower Army experiences desertion after First Tumbleton as men leave for 'home and harvest;' and finally, Rhaenyra's requests for aid while taking refuge at Duskendale are met with the response that Cregan Stark could not send men until they "bring in our last harvest."

Determining when these harvests took place is possible to an extent: the Battle of the Honeywine took place a fortnight after the end of the Battle of the Gullet, so January 20th 130 AC, and allowing a week for a raven to reach King's Landing means that Aemond's mustering of his forces would be complete by February 10th, while his 20 day march to Harrenhal would have brought him there the day after Criston Cole on March 2nd, meaning the 'Fish Feed' would have taken place some time after and the harvest in the Riverlands would be taking place in March or April; I suggested in Part 9 of the original series that Tumbleton likely fell on April 30th, though April 28th is probably a more accurate date, meaning the Reach harvest would be taking place some time in May or June; as for the North, if we take what TWOIAF says to be true that the riots in King's Landing began on May 22nd, then Rhaenyra would have fled two days later (I mistakenly suggested 5 days before) and probably arrived at Duskendale on June 1st, while her ravens would likely have reached Winterfell after a fortnight which means the northern harvest was ongoing in mid-June. So the Riverlands was harvesting in March and/or April, the Reach in May and/or June, while the North was harvesting in June and may have done so or continued to do so the previous or following months (May-July).

Based on the quotes from George and Jonathan Roth, this sequencing makes no sense: per Roth, the Egyptian harvest ran from late March to late May whereas Italy and Greece to the north and west began their harvests in mid-to-late May. Yet despite the Reach rarely receiving snow and having by far the warmest climate in Westeros outside Dorne, the harvest in the Reach is a month behind the more northerly Riverlands which have suffered considerable damage from the war already? The North is even worse however, as we were told that the snow was already deep around Winterfell when Jace arrived there in March 129 AC, but somehow the North is harvesting at the same time as the Reach or just a month later despite winter having officially arrived weeks before on Maiden Day? In essence the plot invokes harvest time not because it is important to the setting, which would lead to serious questions about how people are to be fed with a war going on, but because it ensures foreordained outcomes by keeping the North 'on pause' and weakening the Hightower Army at the right time.

Instead of the environment constantly affecting the plot even on a small scale, the narrative uses it for deus-ex-machina purposes which causes serious dissonance given the effect the environment has on ASOIAF. Asha and Theon's POVs in ADWD give us a front-row seat for how miserable it is to be fighting a war in the North during late autumn, let alone winter, via the actions of Roose Bolton and Stannis Baratheon's armies. In Arya IX of ASOS, Arya and the Hound find Lord Harroway's Town all but submerged by the flooding Trident, and Catelyn's later POV chapters highlight the struggles of Robb's forces to make progress with so many fords and bridges washed out by the rain. But aside from adding 3-4 days to Aemond and Cole's march on Harrenhal, the rain which we should expect to be affecting the Seven Kingdoms in a year long autumn and at the beginning of a 5-6 year winter has next to no affect whatsoever.

Having discussed the issues with the environment in the plot of the Dance, we can now assess the role of logistics; we will identify the logistical means available to the setting and the extent to which logistics actually influences the armies, or if logistics like the environment is not integrated into the narrative. For those who haven't read the Dorne analysis, my analysis of logistics in the pre-modern era is indebted to Hugh G. W. Davie, in particular his article discussing the economics and logistics of horse-drawn armies (I'll once again recommend checking out his blog if you have an interest in military logistics and the Eastern Front of WWII in particular). He provides a useful model for understanding the logistics of pre-modern armies, viewing them as 'micro-economies' that had to meet their demand with transport and supply inputs to output mobility.

Demand encompasses all the maintenance requirements of an army's personnel and animals, such as rations for humans, fodder for animals, water for both, alcohol for daily human consumption and to substitute water if safe sources are unavailable, fuel such as firewood for warmth, food preparation and operating forges, among numerous other items. We haven't even discussed the amounts of these items that might be required, but it should already be clear that the appetite of a pre-modern army could be voracious, although there were methods on the demand side that could be used to mitigate this. Temporarily reducing ration and fodder consumption or substituting with local forage and grazing the animals could preserve an army's stores and extend its range, forced marches could be used to cover great distance in a short amount of time with reduced consumption, unnecessary baggage, wagons, and carts might be abandoned to cut down on the number of camp followers who would otherwise add to the army's demand, and an army might be divided into separate hosts to disperse it's consumption of a region's supplies so as to avoid exhausting them (the maxim of 'march divided, fight united').

None of those methods save for the last two could be more than short term solutions, and mobility ultimately depended on meeting existing demand with supplies and transport. Supply sources will vary depending on the surrounding environment and enemy intervention, but Davie identifies three primary means with which an army can obtain supplies: Forage, gathered locally by one's troops; requisitions from the local population; and stores drawn from one's own magazines and conveyed to the army via transport. Forage is heavily dependent upon local population density, which is a rabbit hole I have no intention of going down in the context of ASOIAF; suffice it to say that gathering forage locally in this setting might be possible for a small and/or dispersed host, but larger armies would need to rely on requisitions and magazines for their needs. Requisition involves receiving stores directly from the local authorities, population, and markets, potentially by force but most often through purchase, while magazines involve stockpiling stores from one's own supplies along the army's lines of communication and transporting them where needed. A quote from Part Two of the Dornish Analysis should put in perspective the quantities of supplies needed:

Some idea of what these sources would have to yield for the Dornish can be gleaned from Jonathan Roth's excellent book The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 BC-AD 235), which analyzes the supply of the Roman Army from the early Republic until the Crisis of the Third Century. The Roman soldier's daily ration consisted of 1 to 1.3 kilograms (2-3 lbs) of grain and non-grain rations, and a minimum fluid requirement of 4 liters, half of which would be consumed via breathing and eating and the other half by drinking water, with another 4 liters or more required for daily operations in the form of water and alcohol (combat demands would certainly exceed 8 liters per day). Horses called for a 9.5 kg daily ration of hard and dry/green fodder, or 14 kg of pasturage, with 30 liters of water; pack animals like donkeys and mules required 7.5 kg, 11 kg and 20 liters respectively while oxen required 18 kg, 22 kg and 30 liters. To put those numbers into perspective, 1000 Dornish soldiers would need 1 tonne of food and 8 or more tonnes of water per day, with more needing to be stockpiled to support marches and combat. 100 Dornish knights with perhaps 2 horses each would need to furnish their mounts collectively with 2 tonnes of fodder and 6 tonnes of water daily.

This brings us to the third 'point' of the triangle, transport, without which an army's demand cannot be met and it's supplies are inaccessible. Despite being a fantasy setting, Westeros is in the same boat as our own world prior to the steam and internal combustion engines: moving people, goods, and services from one place to another requires some combination of water, wind, and muscle power. The former two involve seaborne and riverine transport, although oars were also utilized by watercraft in these situations as were poles and towing by draft animals for inland waterways. Land transport was entirely dependent on muscle power, with soldiers and/or porters carrying what they could manage or else depending on wagons, carts, and pack animals.

We'll discuss shipping in greater detail when covering naval warfare in Part Four, but suffice it to say that both factions have ample capacity for sealift within the setting. Oared and pure sailing vessels are utilized regularly in the books for moving goods and people throughout Westeros, while the ample coastlines of the Narrow and Sunset Seas possess numerous ports capable of serving both factions needs, weather permitting. An excellent example of what sealift could achieve comes from the Cretan Expedition of AD 911, launched by the Byzantine Empire against Muslim pirates stationed on that island; to meet this threat and that of other Arab pirates in the Levant, 15600 ground troops with equipment, supplies, and animals were provided transport by a fleet of 112 Dromons and 75 Pamphyloi (Dromons used for cargo transport) (Pryor and Jeffries, Age of the Dromon, 548-550). Westeros has access to larger ships than these for transport, so the main limits to what could be moved would be the availability of ships and port capacity. That being said, sealift would likely play more of a strategic role in war, moving troops and materiel around the periphery, with inland water and land transport being necessary to connect these to the interior.

I addressed inland water transport throughout the original analysis, but it warrants detailed discussion here for it's potential to connect armies in the field with supply centers that would be too distant to draw supplies from overland. Making effective use of riverine supply lines depends upon the navigability of the rivers themselves, ie the depth of the river, prevalence of debris and man-made obstacles such as mills, dams, and bridges, the strength of the current, etc. Fortunately for the setting, the regions where the bulk of the fighting takes place are home to three highly navigable rivers: the Trident, the Mander, and the Blackwater. Jaime I of ASOS states outright that the forks of the Trident are the easiest way to move goods and people throughout the Riverlands and TWOIAF confirms this, saying they "stimulate trade and travel during peace time, and serve as both roads and barriers in time of war."

The Mander's navigability is similarly high: although Victarion's AFFC POV "The Reaver" calls the Mander "wide and slow and treacherous with snags and sandbars," this mainly limits sea-going vessels to sailing no further than Highgarden, whereas Ironborn longboats can navigate as far as Bitterbridge and utilized all the vassal streams for raiding the Reach long ago. TWOIAF confirms this image, offering anecdotes of the Ironborn raiding up the Mander and of John Gardener "the Tall" who sailed his barge to the headwaters of the Mander and won the fealty of the local lords and petty kings of the region. The Blackfish's account of the Battle of the Blackwater in Catelyn II of ASOS provides further evidence of the Mander's navigability, as Tywin, Mathis Rowan, and Randyll Tarly travel to the battle from Tumbler's Falls on the Blackwater thanks to barges provided by Mace Tyrell. We know that Petyr Baelish negotiated the Tyrell-Baratheon alliance with Mace at Highgarden, so those barges would had to have come up the Mander with most if not all the troops that may have joined Mace, before they travelled overland to the Blackwater.

Our information on the Blackwater is much more scattered but indicates that it is also highly navigable; it certainly had to be for Tywin and Mace's forces to travel down river on those barges! The Blackwater is consistently described as deep and swift in the books with it's current being strongest where the river empties into Blackwater Bay; despite this, Imry Florent's ships were able to move upriver against the current when Stannis attacked King's Landing, and Cersei VI of AFFC notes that Margaery Tyrell is fond of sailing up and down the Blackwater Rush. We even hear from Sallador Saan in Davos II of ASOS that the galleys Ragged Jenna and Laughing Lord are said to be playing pirate on the Blackwater after having been far enough upriver to avoid the wildfire during Stannis' attack, suggesting even seafaring warships could venture far upriver to some extent. The river's high navigability is further indicated by the fact that ferries are the only means of crossing to King's Landing from the south based on Sansa IV of ACOK and Sansa II of ASOS, while Borros Baratheon's men fell trees to make rafts when they arrive at the Rush following the Moon of the Three Kings. The absence of a bridge over the lower Blackwater suggests that large vessels are expected to travel some ways up the lower river at least, as it's unlikely a bridge would be an obstacle if river traffic consisted only of smaller vessels capable of lowering their masts or those lacking one.

Regarding the capabilities of riverine transport, Jonathan Roth notes that the Romans possessed riverboats with a capacity of 34 tonnes, though most were smaller capacity craft of c. 9 tonnes. Even a 9 tonne boat could carry as much as 18 wagons or 72 pack animals, and with greater speed than land transport (Roth, 197). River transport also has the advantage of requiring less effort than land transport to move heavy loads, with a barge towed by a horse able to move 250 times the load the horse could carry on land. When the Roman Emperor Julian invaded the Sassanid Persian Empire in AD 363, he used a fleet of 1100 river vessels to carry siege engines, bridging equipment, and 6 months supplies for the bulk of his 65000 strong invasion force on its march from Callinicum (Raqqa) to Ctesiphon (Al-Mada'in), about 600 km (c.373 miles) as the crow flies. The main challenge facing this method is the rivers themselves, as the water level can rise or fall depending on the weather and render navigation difficult if not impossible.

This brings to land transport, the evidence for which in the books and which is in keeping with our knowledge of premodern methods. These include pack animals such as horses, donkeys, and mules, and wheeled transport in the form of two-wheeled carts and four-wheeled wagons (for goods) and carriages (for passengers), pulled most often by oxen and horses though donkeys and mules could also be used. The question of how important land transport was economically and it's efficiency compared to waterborne transport is complicated. The books tend to overestimate it: Catelyn II and III of ACOK provide us observations of Renly's host which imply the entire force of perhaps 100000 is moving by land, including "mangonels and trebuchets and rolling rams moved on wheels taller than a man on horseback." Upon learning of Stannis besieging Storm's End, Renly leaves behind "his wagons, carts, draft animals, and all his cumbersome siege machinery" with his foot soldiers and races to Storm's End. Catelyn notes that "he had outdistanced his supply lines, left food and forage days behind with all his wagons and mules and oxen. He must come to battle soon, or starve."

In reality, siege engines would be built on site of the siege as they were far too large to haul on the march, while such a large host should be relying on the Mander as a supply artery and drawing stores from friendly towns and holdfasts rather than foraging directly from the local region. That being said, if Renly's movements paint too rosy a picture of land transport in a premodern setting, it is also true that it is often discounted as too expensive and slow for anything beyond shortrange hauling. Reality was more complicated however, as Jonathan Roth notes that we have evidence of long distance land transport in Roman sources, such as pack trains carrying British tin through Gaul to the Mediterranean, a 640 km (c. 400 mile) journey which too over a month (Roth, 198). A common misconception was that Roman horse collars were inefficient and even harmful and that this limited the potential of land transport prior to the High Middle Ages; as Gail Brownigg notes in her article "The Origin of the Horse Collar," this misconception was based on faulty fitting of Roman collars to horses in modern experiments, and the fact that these were intended for pulling chariots and other light vehicles at speed while oxen were used for heavy hauling well into the Medieval era.

The limitations pre-modern and especially Medieval land transport faced were not technological but distance and infrastructure-based, as traveling great distances required providing rest and sustenance for the animals and their drivers, and depended on routes being able to support traffic since wheeled vehicles could be damaged if the state of the roads was poor. Cost was certainly a factor but it was far from insurmountable, as James Masschaele demonstrated using royal purveyance accounts in 1993; these record goods moved on behalf of the English crown for military purposes in the 13th and 14th century, and suggest that the ratio of land to river to sea transport in terms of cost was 8:4:1. Clearly there was an incentive to use waterborne over land transport, but on average the selling price of grain increased by only 4% for each mile it travelled, doubling for every 250 miles carried by land (Masschaele, "Transport Costs," 273-274). Although England is far smaller than most of the Seven Kingdoms, Masschaele notes that a ten mile trip would give most producers access to several markets, while the price of grain would be halved if the cargo could reach a river port and travel that way (Masschaele, 274). This last point is important for enabling land transport to meet army demand, since I pointed out in Part Three of the Dornish Analysis that land transport alone can only get one so far:

In Firearms: A Global History to 1700, Kenneth Chase gives some numbers for the transport requirements of a pre-modern army: An army of soldiers carrying 80 pounds of equipment and rations with no additional transport might march 12 miles a day for 10 days before running out; adding pack horses, carrying 250 pounds and consuming 10 pounds of fodder per day, might allow that army to make the round trip if supplies of grass, water and forage could be ensured. Supply wagons with a driver and two horses consuming 23 pounds per day and carrying 1400 pounds of supplies could each support 30 infantrymen enough for an army to march 200 miles, assuming 1 day of rest in 6 for the horses and favourable terrain. To double this range and allow the army to make a round trip of 400 miles, would require the number of wagons to increase from 1 per 30 men to 1 per 5 men, while removing abundant water and grass from the equation would cut the distance fivefold (400 miles to 80) (Firearms, pg. 17-18).

If the armies in this setting can establish magazines and hold markets at towns and holdfasts along their marching routes, and make use of the rivers to the greatest possible extent, their range of movement and thus mobility will be greatly extended. Larger teams of horses and oxen can be used to move heavier loads over shorter distances to these depots or river ports, allowing large stocks to be accumulated and moved via relays at the former or simply shipped greater distances via the latter. Moving armies and their supplies great distances would present issues, but these are manageable provided that land based supply chains and waterborne transport are combined effectively.

The question for the Dance is whether any of this actually matters in the plot, or if logistics is ignored like the environment in pursuit of predetermined outcomes. Fortunately the Blacks and the Greens each offer us an example of major operations being conducted, where at least 2 of the three transport methods we discussed could be used: the Riverlord armies and the Hightower army. The Riverlords conduct four major campaigns during the Dance: the first is led by Daemon against the Greens supporters in the Riverlands in 129 AC; the second begins after Daemon leaves for King's Landing in 130 AC, and sees them defeat the Lannister host and Ser Criston Cole before their army is annihilated at Tumbleton; the third is Second Tumbleton, which sees a newly raised host defeat the Hightower Army under Addam Velaryon; and the fourth and final campaign is in 131 AC when the Lads defeat Borros Baratheon at the Kingsroad.

In none of these campaigns do we get a sense that logistics affects the Blacks in any meaningful way, starting with how Daemon raises his army. Harrenhal is captured soon after Rhaenyra's coronation or c. March 13th, 129 AC, with Daemon securing the ruined castle and its wealth. We know that the initial supporters of Rhaenyra included the Freys, Mootons, Pipers, Darrys, Mallisters, the Rootes of Harroway, and the Vances of Wayfarer's Rest, with thousands of supporters supposedly flocking to Harrenhal in the days that followed. The only houses that we know supported Aegon II are the Brackens and the Vances of Atranta; when Stone Hedge surrenders, we're told that Aegon's supporters laid down their arms, suggesting there were other houses besides these two that supported him though none are ever mentioned. This is significant as Daemon's plan relies on amassing an army and presumably the supplies to maintain it at Harrenhal, a dilapidated half-ruin in the east of the Riverlands. The Trident, the God's Eye, and the roads would certainly facilitate these movements, but all the same I think HOTD actually got something right with the subplot of repairing Harrenhal, as the large quantities of men, animals and supplies would need to be kept safe from the elements (if the environment mattered that is).

Despite this, we have no indication of any Green houses interfering with this build up, either in the 'war of ravens' that followed Aegon and Rhaenyra's coronations or in the Stone Hedge campaign that began sometime after the murder of Prince Jaehaerys. We know from Jaehaerys' royal progress in 52 AC that Atranta is somewhere between Pinkmaiden and Stoney Sept, since the King travelled Harrenhal-Riverrun-Acorn Hall-Pinkmaiden-Atranta-Stoney Sept; despite this, neither the Pipers nor the Vances of Wayfarer's Rest are prevented from answering the call and the Pipers are even counted among Daemon's forces at Stone Hedge. Daemon manages to march his host, largely comprised of houses from the eastern Riverlands, from Harrenhal to Stone Hedge or c. 200 miles based on Atlas' map; this distance is entirely achievable for Daemon's host of unknown size, but it also relies on Daemon facing no interference on his march and arriving at Stone Hedge when the Brackens are absent.

When Daemon departs Harrenhal for King's Landing, the Riverlords abandon also the castle that was their primary base and depot for more than a year but there is no indication of any supplies be left behind sabotaged or otherwise that Aemond and Cole find, while rain only impedes the Green advance on Harrenhal and has no such affect on the larger Riverlord host. At almost 10000 strong including the Winterwolves, the Riverlord host has no apparent difficulties finding supplies nor is this an issue when the c.7000 strong army occupies Tumbleton in the lead up to the first battle. Even when this host is destroyed, Addam Velaryon raises another one in short order; this new 4000 strong host is raised from House Frey, Blackwood, Vypren, Piper, Smallwood, Deddings, Vance, and Darry, and allegedly includes forces of House Tully as well. Addam also manages this despite our knowing that all these houses save Tully, Vypren, and Deddings have suffered heavy losses in the past months, with the Darrys having seen their castle and lands burned by Vhagar. Distance seems not to be an issue either, even though Harrenhal alone is c.500 miles (c.805 km) from Tumbleton as the crow flies, and we know that Addam's forces attacked from the north and west. Unless they could move men and supplies down the Blackwater or draw upon local stores as they marched, even if they force marched for a time Addam's army would have collapsed before it ever reached Tumbleton. The same issues present themselves with the Lads march on King's Landing in 131 AC, where c.6000 men are raised at Riverrun by the Tullys, Freys, Blackwoods, Vances, Darrys, Mallisters, and Brackens. Between the Trident and the Riverroad the Lads should have had no issue reaching the Kingsroad at Harroway Town, but from there to King's Landing is a 375 mile (c.600 km) march; since they would be marching through hostile territory and could not count on requisitioning stores from towns and holdfasts along the way, the Lads would need to stick close to the God's Eye and the Blackwater in order to be supplied by watercraft, otherwise they're on a one-way trip.

It's often remarked upon especially by fans of the Greens that the Riverlords have infinite manpower, but as a Green fan myself I think this impression results from their logistics being ignored. Aegon's host at the Field of Fire was 11000 strong and drawn mainly from the Riverlands, while Edmure Tully's forces at the Battle of the Fords was some 12000 strong; I estimated in Part Four of the original analysis that the Riverlord host at the Fish Feed was c.7000 strong excluding the Winterwolves while the Lads army was c.6000 strong. Over 13000 men is in line with what we've seen elsewhere in the books, the problem is that the weather never affects their movements, the need for harvest labour never impedes their raising armies, and their armies never struggle with supplies and seem capable of appearing out of nowhere.

By contrast, the Hightower army runs into logistical problems even when it ought not to and largely at the convenience of the plot. Following Rook's Rest, Ormund Hightower sets out with a host of 1000 knights, 1000 archers, and 3000 men-at-arms, along with thousands of sellswords, freeriders, and camp followers, to subdue Rhaenyra's supporters in the Reach. I tried my hand in the previous analysis to estimate the size of this army but I think it's better to stick with the numbers we're given; even if the total host was 10000 strong with over half combatants, this would still require substantial land and riverine transport based on the Roseroad and Honeywine to support the initial march. Of the five houses that are bannermen to the Hightowers per the AFFC appendix, Costayne, Beesbury, and Mullendore all support Rhaenyra while Bulwer and Cuy never appear in the Dance, ensuring that maintaining secure supply lines would be difficult. Although we're told that the Caswells and Rowans raised a host similar to Ormund's in size, as with the Riverlords the Blacks in the Reach have no issues with Green supporters impeding their advance or threatening their supplies, since the Hightowers and Redwynes are the only houses we know of that support Aegon from the outset.

Ormund does have to contend with his supply lines being attacked, as the Costaynes fall upon his baggage train while the Beesburys and Tarlys burn fields and harass his forces. They manage this despite Three Towers being just under 150 miles (c.240 km) south of Oldtown, Honeyholt being just under 100 miles (c.160 km) to the north, and Horn Hill being 100 leagues/300 miles (c.483 km) to the northeast. No assistance or warning against these attacks is given from any of the other surrounding houses or the Hightower's own demenses, nor do Ormund's assailants have to worry about their own supplies. Under these circumstances, it's unclear why the Caswells and Rowans even needed to attack Ormund when the Tarlys, Beesburys, Costaynes, and Mullendores should have been able to keep Ormund bottled up in the Honeywine valley, leaving the Blacks in the Reach proper to attack the Greens elsewhere (more on this when we get to strategy in the Dance). Even if Ormund broke out of the valley, the Oakhearts and the Shield Islands are also supporters of Rhaenyra and are well placed to cut off the mouth of the Mander from the Sunset Sea, and Ormund cannot sustain an advance to King's Landing without the Hightower and Redwyne fleets moving supplies from the south up the Mander.

Following the defeat of the Black armies at the Honeywine on January 20th, 130 AC, the Hightower army sets it's sights on King's Landing. By the time of the 'Fish Feed' in March, Goldengrove, Old Oak, and the Shield Islands have submitted and the army lays siege to Longtable, eventually sacking Bitterbridge and taking Tumbleton by c. April 28th. The distance from Tumbleton to Brightwater Keep at the source of the Honeywine is just under 800 miles (c.1290 km), meaning the Hightower army covered that distance in almost 100 days between the Battle of the Honeywine and the First Battle of Tumbleton. That's a marching rate of c.8 miles per day, but when we consider the delays likely caused by the siege of Longtable, the sack of Bitterbridge, and the submission of the Oakhearts, Rowans, and Shield Islands, it's likely the marching rate was closer to the ideal 10-12 miles per day. This is significant, as according to Maester Munkun by the time the Hightower army crossed the Mander at Bitterbridge it numbered more than 20000 strong, with a tenth of them mounted knights.

If we take 20000 as our figure, this means the soldiers alone would have required 20 tonnes of rations and 160 tonnes of water each day; as for animals, if we assume each knight had two horses then we have 4000 warhorses in total, while giving the army one 2-horse wagon per five men would mean a total of 12000 horses. Excluding non-combatants, the Hightower army's total demand would be 20 tonnes of rations, 114 tonnes of fodder, and 520 tonnes of water per day. The amount of wagons and draft horses could be greatly reduced, as we suggested already, if the army utilized riverine transport and a magazine system for their supply chain. Establishing small garrisons at towns and holdfasts like Cider Hall, Longtable, and Bitterbridge to oversee the accumulation of stocks and allowing riverine and land transport to move stores up in relays should allow the army to maintain the over 8 mile per day pace we've calculated, by keeping the army's baggage to a minimum and allowing soldiers and pack animals to carry what supplies are needed on hand.

Unfortunately, the evidence F&B provides us suggests this is not at all how the Hightower army operates: when Longtable surrenders to Ormund, we're told he stripped the castle of it's wealth and every scrap of food, feeding his thousands on Lady Merryweather's grain; after the First Battle of Tumbleton, the man charged with the army's "baggage train", Ser Hobert Hightower, wishes to "fall back to the Reach to replenish their fast-dwindling supplies." Both anecdotes imply that the Hightower army supplies itself from forage on the move and carries with it what supplies it can, a remarkably ad hoc supply system that could not support a host of this size. Not only would it be impossible to meet the army's demand through foraging and carrying supplies via baggage train, we've already shown that this is unnecessary provided the army utilized riverine transport and established magazines as it advanced. With 5 men per wagon, the Hightower army could cover 400 miles before it ran out of supplies and was unable to turn back; adding the forces of local lords to his army as F&B claims Ormund did would only increase the logistical burden and offset any supplies obtained by plunder or forage. If the Hightower army functions as the narrative suggests, then it doesn't matter that Addam could not reach Tumbleton with his army, as Ormund's forces would never have made it past Bitterbridge.

Analyzing the Riverlords and the Hightower army shows that neither the environment nor logistics have more than a momentary effect on the plot of the Dance, influencing events here and there when it's convenient for the plot but otherwise being completely ignored. This negatively affects the story by removing stakes from the plot and making suspension of disbelief impossible. The worst part is that none of this was necessary, as there are fairly simple 'fix-its' that could be employed; for starters, have summer continue in 129 AC and autumn begin in 130 AC, with winter arriving in 131 AC. The fairer weather in summer and the earlier part of autumn would allow the armies of both sides to operate more freely, while allowing for more growing and harvesting of crops with which to feed said armies. As for logistics, having the armies operate more dispersed and/or stressing the importance of shipping, food storage, and magazines would show the armies are taking logistics seriously and place the writing on a better footing in that regard. I'll discuss this more and in greater detail when we cover strategy in the Dance, but these simple fix-its would go a long way to making the Dance better mechanically.

That wraps things up for Part Two; thank you for bearing with me through this fairly dry subject matter! Now that the 'board' is set up in terms of the Dance's political origins and the environment in which it was fought, we can start setting up the 'pieces' so-to-speak and look at how the Dance was fought on land, in the air, and at sea. Stay tuned for "Land Warfare in the Dance!"

#house of the dragon #hotd #asoiaf #asoiaf critical #grrm #grrm critical #fire and blood #fire and blood critical #daemon targaryen #ormund hightower #team black #team green

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