From Civilian to Soldier: Recruitment, Logistics & Home Sickness | Soldiers‘ Lives
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In the pike and shot era, wars were increasingly fought far away from the homelands of most soldiers. A soldier from Spain, for example, could move as far away as to Italy, France, the Netherlands or Germany, and even overseas to the Americas. The recruitment process and the long marches that were required to reach these distant theaters of war became more and more complex in terms of recruitment, administrative organization and logistics. In this video, we will have a look at how modern historiography explains how an early modern soldier made his way to the field of battle.
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Chapters:
00:00-03:28 Moving into War
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04:59-18:58 Moving into War
Bibliography:
Baumann, Reinhard, Landsknechte, Ihre Geschichte und Kultur vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Dreissigjährigen Krieg, München 1994.
Fiedler, Siegfried, Kriegswesen und Kriegführung im Zeitalter der Landsknechte (Heerwesen der Neuzeit, Abt. 1, Bd. 2) Koblenz 1985.
Fiedler, Siegfried, Landsknechte. Waffe und Waffengebrauch (Heerwesen der Neuzeit, Abt. 1, Bd. 1) Koblenz 1984.
Showalter, D., Astore, W. J., Soldier’s Lives through History. The Early Modern World, 2007.
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Pike and shot naval life? Sailors and such.
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 I'm interested in that too! For an example, how were the crews of ships like the _Vasa_ put together?
This was a very fun and informative video. I would love to see more like this.
please Can you make the next video a battle about the battle of Tours
I really love your videos. why don't you make a video talking about how a general commanded an army on the battlefield, I searched about this topic and the results were unsatisfactory
I still remember my recruitment. Literally got a salmon dinner. 3 months later I was sitting in a damp hole on night guard shift. Amazing how nothing has changed.
Lol! As a Swede born in 1984, I just recived a written order in the mail to show up at a specified date and time at a local regiment for service evaluation tests. After a day of physical, medical and cognitive tests, there was two interviews, one with a psychologist and one with an evaluation and duty assignment officer who issued me the written orders of where and when to report to start my 300days long conscript training to become a fire control comms specialist in a heavy mortar platoon. In February, the following year, my unit had done it's last training day on our nearest training field before the final exercise in a different part of the country, our CO decided we deserved to celebrate the occation... By having us unload our day packs from the trucks, have the trucks drive ahead to the base and an NCO return the drivers and have us all march the 20km back to base on foot through up to a foot of old snow at -2°C, and of course, we comms specialists has to carry the two 12kg field radios in addition to our day packs and full combat gear... When we all made it back, the two mortar platoons were given two magnum bottles ~2×1.2L of champaigne-style soda to share... between roughly 45 soldiers to a platoon... X/ Edit: the order papers also informed me that disobeying those orders is a felony and carries jail time... At the time, the conscription was compulsory for men, but open for women to volounteer. The year after I served, a girl who had volounteered interest changed her mind and failed to grasp that once you are listed, the only legal way out is to get rejected at the evaluation. She was sentenced to one week in prison. After a hiatus and reactivation in 2014 as a reaction to Russian agression in Europe, it's nowdays compulsory for all genders.
@@SonsOfLorgar - Do you still have conscription in Sweden? It was abolished in most of Europe largely because we Basques (and to lesser extent Catalans) didn't want to serve that stupid Cold War (or any other war that was not revolutionary). Also some argued that recruit armies were way too obsolete and inefficient, what was arguably demonstrated by the Iraqi wars (Iraq had arguably the largest army on Earth or second largest after China's maybe ... it was totally worthless). There's no Russian aggression anywhere. You guys are being brainwashed. We won't fight your silly wars.
@@LuisAldamiz you might want to talk with people from Poland or The Baltic States about why you did not want Communist occupation before you write "stupid cold war". Afterwards you can talk to them and Ukrainians about whether there is Russian aggression or not. Also comparing Iraqi conscripts fighting for a dictator and not being warriors, to Scandinavians fighting for their freedom, shows how little you know BTW, the Wehrmacht was a conscript army; were they soft, ineffective and surrendered easily?
@@PalleRasmussen - Fundamentalist anti-communist Talibans from Poland and the Maidan SS? No, thanks. I'm all for breaking all ties with Poland and possibly Lithuania as well. Sweden is next in line (how could the Olof Palme nation fall so low?) but the pandemic strategy saves face... so far. Mind you that Sweden was neutral in the Cold War and Poland was the enemy (part of it anyhow). Be a bit less arrogant, I was growing up in NATO back in those days and we have it very clear: no to NATO, no to the Warsaw Pact: the Olof Palme or Yugoslavia (or even Albania for some) way was the way to go.
What the fk is this about
Pike and Shot Era is so underrated.
It's not.
@@samuelwurster2899 In comparison to medieval knights there are.
@@theicepickthatkilledtrotsk658 dig deeper. The reason it's "underrated ' because from the transition to napoleonic Era something happend called mudflood and tartaria. They delete that part of history
@@samuelwurster2899 it really is. everybody just look at knights and ww1, nobody is interested in the 17th century. But it was one of the most interesting periods ever, both in terms of military but also cultural change like globalism, capitalism and so on.
@@clintmoor422 medieval era was cool because people fight with swords not guns. the musket era feels weird, even stupid for people in the machine gun era.
Ok, now I'm eagerly waiting for the "camp life with markets and brothels" video.
Visit any reenactment camp.
Half the video will be about the different kinds of STDs, what they were called back then, percieved causes and perceived cures.
Hahaha
Me too, I need it for a novel I plan on writing
@@ianbatres2044 Army encampments were muddy places. Unlike reenactment camps.
I love how the animation looks like a moving pop-up book.
Captain: I don't understand why the soldiers want to go home so badly. Soldier: *shits his heart out*
Ahh yes, the ol' heart slippin out your asshole...
Crazy how more men died from their butts betraying them then from bullet or stab wounds in many wars
Bosses never change.
There's a Spanish expression that relates quite well to the content of this video: "To put a pike in Flanders" or "to get a pike to Flanders" ("Poner una pica en Flandes"). It means "to achieve something with great difficulty", and the origin of the expression comes from the huge logistical effort that was getting soldiers to Flanders.
Interesting!
"Italy promised a mild climate, strong wine, *and easy women.* " Well damn it, the situation sure changed...
Rome is a cesspool even for italians, those who live there do not have the greatest reputation
@Hernando Malinche because the EU will never allow one of the major European economies to experience nation-breaking, simple as it
Rome, like other Western cities, probably doesn't have all that many actual locals in it any more. And certainly not in the tourist areas where you can get four "souvenir peddlers" for every person.
@Hernando Malinche Is there a conflict between south and north in Italy? Can you elaborate, please?
@@IronMan-fi3xz Yes there is. The conflict began when south italy refused to pee pee poo poo
"mild climate" 😂 In Denmark during the Napoleonic wars, Spanish and French troops were stationed in my region at the castle Koldinghus. The Scandinavian climate typically being somewhat colder than that of Spain and France reportedly resulted in much activity around the furnaces and stoves to the extent of even furniture being set alight. This combined with the unusually large number of people concentrated in the castle may have been contributing factors to the fire which erupted in the early hours of a winter night. The fire was discovered all too late to salvage the main buildings. 😫
@Belagerungsmörser the Sheep ROFLMAO XD
@Belagerungsmörser the Sheep bwahaha
I'm a spaniard who has spent some spring days at Copenhagen... and god damn it. I really wished you had some mountains here and there or slightly less straight and wide avenues to at least partially stop that chilling wind xD I can't comprehend how can you comfortably ride your vast army of bycicles under that constant gale.
@@rotciv1492 You just hope that the wind is in your back and if it isn't you complain about it the entire time in your own mind and drink another cup of coffee at work/school to get over it.
Northern Spain is considerably colder than Denmark, I lived in both places and even though Denmark is farther north it is at sea level while some towns in Spain are close to 1000m
Become a soldier! Benefits: not getting paid, homesickness, become an alcoholic, die of dysentery or many other diseases, catch the pox and/or the clap, be horribly mutilated, see exotic places & be stalked by death at every opportunity. Come home alive & regale you friends with many tales. Its a great life in the army until its not.
construction life is similar lol
@@Radbot776 Funnily enough carpenters or Zimmermänner in Germany are more likely to die on the job than cops or soldiers.
@@TheBuilderize like in the USA, you're more likely to die as a truck driver than as a fireman/firefighter.
But what if you come from a family of five sons an don't get to inherit (indivisible farmstead can only be inherited by one) nor feel like becoming priest/monk or sailor nor be your brother's manservant for life and never marry? Well, son, then why not pursue a career in the army?, there's a lot to loot out there...
@@LuisAldamiz Most peasants in this time though wouldn't have owned their land or really any real property, they worked for a lord and usually the entire village would tend to the fields together. Staying at home didn't mean you'd never get to marry or anything because having the entire family in one house was the norm. Unless the family had so many adult sons that there were too many for the work being done you wouldn't really lose anything by being the last son. However that doesn't mean that being a soldier didn't have benefits, peasants rarely had access to money at all so any kind of pay at all would be amazing and could possibly let you climb the ranks in society.
Thanks to Brilliant, I formed my own military battalion.
The spanish road to the Netherlands was indeed such a huge logistic display, that even today, in Spain, when we want to say that something is very dificult and hard to achieve, we say that it is like "nailing a pike in Flanders" (clavar una pica en Flandes) ,refering how costly and dangerous it was to get a pikeman to this theatre of war
Logistics, organisation and the human everyday of military life can often be just as fascinating as warfare 😁
I keep saying that logistics determine wars long before enemy contact...
@@edi9892 I kEeP sAyInG
@@edi9892 "Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics and sustainability in warfare" H. Barrow, US General XD
@@Kyoptic Nay, it should be professional talks about strategy, tactics, logistics and sustainability in warfare.
@@rajenderchhetri2051 Talk to Gen. Barrow, I didn't make up the saying X) (Though I expect neither did he)
In Switzerland the first railroad was called the Spanisch-Brötli bahn" ("Spanish bun railway") because the Zürich gentry sent their servants by train to Baden to buy these buns in order to impress clients. Although the first mention of these breads are from 1701 I wonder if the spanish brought them along their march and thats how they got so polupar.
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" - Desiderius Erasmus
"They say in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king, well in the land of the skunk the man with half a nose is king." - Chris Farley, *Dirty Work* (1998)
There aren't many movies about this era that adapts this style of combat, In can only think in "Cromwell" and "Alatriste" 🎬
Yeah, and Alatriste has a big name star like Viggo Mortensen. Those battle scenes were an eye opener to me in how pike and shots were fought. Formations slowly crashing into each other like two massive ships, then you have battles happening within the battles of pikes itself with infiltrators going through the forests of pikes and gunfire on both ends.
@@dingliedangliedoodle9261 He really pull it out as spaniard because he grew up in Argentina but specially because he met his special lady in that movie ;)
There is also The Last Valley.
@@PalleRasmussen Thank you gentleman, something else to wtach ;)
@@dingliedangliedoodle9261 I really enjoyed that film. But some pike and shot scholars doubt that the infiltration of the opposing pike squares by guys with short swords or daggers was a big part of the clash of pikes. Chances are that if it had been, the infiltrators would have been met with "counter infiltrators" armed with short blades just like themselves
If you want to read about the real life of a Spanish soldier, read "The life of Captain Alonso Contreras", wrote by himself in the XVII century.
A book written by A white cis male? Eww no thanks
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 Spanish people are POC
@@RodrrdoR no
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 most likely the majority of books you have ever read in your life were written by white cis men.
@@jackcooksey3224 nope. I only read books by strong POC trans
Excellent video! It would be great to see one delving in more detail into the "companion system" under which the "banners' of the cavalry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (not only the famous hussars) were recruited and organized, as we saw a quick glance of it here around 7:10.
@@Avatrass so, just an early modern system? Why would it be considered medieval?
Reminds me of French Compagne D'Ordonnance.
@@Avatrass It kinda was. The (mostly) noble volunteers known as companions (towarzysze) were equipping themselves and several retainers called pocztowi at their own cost. However, the soldiers and their equipment were expected to met certain standards and requirements, were signing contracts, receiving pay and so on. At the same time the actual feudal levy/noble's militia, known as "pospolite ruszenie" still lingered on, being called upon from time to time, although its value and effectiveness was declining, as you can imagine
@@Artur_M. Pospolite Ruszenie was Usefull if they have Charismatic leader who limit them Alcohol😉 beouse they have two modes first mode :we deafeat anyone and 2mode :We all gonna die!.In Swedish Deluge they at first they Get Humilated under Ujśćie but later prove wery usefull in partisant war.
España mi natura, Italia mi ventura, Flandia mi sepultura.
*Flandes (according to google translate :D ) greetings from "Flandia".
@@DeFraans I would wager that regular pronunciation wasn't as well heeded by the Spaniards in the construction of these rhymes. It certainly is called "Flandes" *now*, and by the same token "natura" does not exist as a word. However- with how Spanish functioned as a language, it is not hard to believe that they would have fudged the words to get a more catchy rhyme.
@@DeFraans - It is indeed Flandes but Flandria (rather than Flandia) does exist too I believe. After all it's about how you transliterate "Vlaanderen" to Romance, usually via neighboring French "Flandre", which also produces English "Flanders").
@@Santiago_Nyczka - As I said before Flandes and Flandria both exist but Flandes is much more common, for example in the expression "poner una pica en Flandes" ("to put a pike in Flanders", meaning to accomplish something maybe worth epic praise but also of dubious utility).
PS - Checked in the Wikipedia (various languages) and "Flandria" seems to be the Basque form. Maybe that's why I thought it was valid, as my Spanish is oddly spiced with plenty Basque words and expressions. However all Spanish is (to a lesser degree than Basque Spanish variants of course), so it may have been used widely. I still think "Flandria" makes better sense than "Flandia" but pronunciation may be confused or just smoothened to get rid of that inconvenient extra "r", a bit hard to pronounce. "Flandia" sounds to me like the "country of flans" (custards).
Criminals, drifters and drunken bravos, unhappy militias and improvised levies. With all that, how did the Thirty Years War go so wrong ?
kzhead.info/sun/gqyQcdSlgnaVnWw/bejne.html How did you find this video, I'd be happy if you comment it.?
This is exactly what I needed for researching the military aspects of my current writing project. Thank you!
Never miss an upload. Thanks for the outstanding work guys!
kzhead.info/sun/gqyQcdSlgnaVnWw/bejne.html How did you find this video, I'd be happy if you comment it. ./
I'm glad you mentioned east Europe. I'd love to see videos about muscovy or the Commonwealth
Yes! This is pure historical gold! You really capture and beautifully conway the hopes, dreams and going abouts of the man from the early modern period. Extremely interesting and enjoyable content!
I really don't know if I want to get drunk and wake up in the service of the King of Spain but such is our lot in life
Finally! Ive been waiting for another sandrhoman vid!
Sandrhoman uploads, i instantly click. This channel delivers really good content again and again - thank you for your hard work!
This is one of my favorite series. War has always been fought by far more everyday normal people than the number of who’s commanding them, trained or not. Exploring how it was for 90% of the army is extremely interesting, and something often overlooked on other vids from other channels. Awesome stuff guys.
Always so interesting and informative, keep up the good work!
The topic of this video is very interesting. I readed a lot of the logistic and recruitment in the Spanish Tercio, around these centuries. The feat of mobilize all the armies from Italy to Netherlands were the best example about military organization since the Roman Empire. I suggest you to make a video about the conquer and supply of Spanish fortifications in North Africa, because is an example of difficults to maintaining a military base on enemies territories with continusly attacks of the Turks and the Barbary Pirates in those centuries.
As always amazing work!
Im a simple man, I see the notification, I click on it
This was a brilliant video guys, good work. I loved it.
Good stuff as always Sand Roman! Keep it up.
What's going on with southwest England and Wales on your map of Europe at 17:40?
Looking forward to the next vid
This channel really is great
Intresting video like always can’t wait for more
Great video mate, very nice to see such good informations on that topic. I will use that for my own purpose if you are okay ith that.
the stark difference between the organizational potential of a centralized power like Western Rome vs an early modern European monarchy is staggering, this a couple of hundreds of years after the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire. Really puts into perspective the scaling issues feudalism and the early modern governments that supplanted them
Always appreciate the source citations
The art is so good!
15:22 we portuguese dont sufer that way. The feeling we call saudade is a kind of homesickness and the aceptance of the reallity of no coming back, because thats what saudade is, you miss your family, home, friends, motherland, but you accept the fact that you may not return so that you dont sufer constantly
These vids are very well made.
Great video, thanks mate.
Really interesting stuff. Thanks
GREAT VIDEO MY FRIEND !!!!
Loveee your videos!
Well, this puts the whole thirty year war, in an entirely new light. Its a miracle it lasted only 30years with that type of soldiers.
The Italian hand gesture guy never gets old.
One of the guys I worked with years ago did that. Not always when he was angry, but when he was making a point. But, the more emotional he was, you could tell by how white his fingertips were. At work, we always wore leather faced gloves. One day I took my right glove and screwed the fingertips together so they made a point. He had made a minor mistake, and I went over to him and said "Tony, what the hell is going on?" all the while holding out my gloved hand with the screwed up to a point finger tips. We laughed until we cried.
16:30 Love the Italian hands
Can you give us what music you are using in your videos? I really love it, especially the violin at 5:40 that you often use in dramatic siege moments :)
Cazino yes I love the cazino 4:03
I liked this video!
The EYYY hand was great
Pike and shot, please more!!!!!
This chanell is very underrated.
Fantastic chanel
Gosh, can't believe I learned so much. I'm not hugely interested in this time period of warfare per se, but there's a LOT to think about that's perfectly applicable to other periods.
This👆🏽 specific video is *serendipitous helpful* for my current endeavor of writing a series short stories(( meant as prelude to a prospective, full-fledged novel )) _!!!Thank You!!!_
15:34 Homesickness or nostalgia was called "Schweizer Krankheit" (> Swiss disease) in the German-speaking countries. Today it is called "Heimweh" in German, which, if directly transcribed would mean something like "home pain".
actually it was called La Maladie des Suisses in France on French court , because the Royal Swiss Guards missed their Alpine valleys, the word disease should be replaced with Sickness in your text=Swiss Sickness and not disease, also when using Heim-Weh its not pain its suffering its always used with "I am suffiering from Home Sickness", exactly as in German ich leide under Heimweh or in French je souffre de la maladie du pays....
2:24 what a beautiful photo
please Can you make the next video a battle about the battle of Tours
When you said raising an army from scratch I immediately thought of Wallenstein! :D
Really interesting video! One thing I got really curious about though, you don't mention anything about battle training or aquiring equipment? From the video, it appears as if you had to show up with equipment at the mustering? Were the men expected to buy it beforehand themselves? What determined whether you ended up being a musket gunner or a pikeman?
As far as I know you had to bring the equipment yourself and your pay was based on the equipment you brought along.
He has another video on training already. IIRC it was really very quick - a process of about a week to 10 days for pikemen, and 2 weeks for musketeers during this period!
@@Kyoptic Also you would be training on the march as much as you could I believe.
Can I make a vid about the samnite wars. That time had with the samnites on the Italian peninsula
BTW, this recruitment system was why for the longest of time it was possible to buy rank in many European armies.
In a lot of SR's videos about battles and sieges, we hear about one army or another being weakened due to desertion. Sure, that sounds like a normal thing that can happen, but now I understand why it may have been more common than I expected. A combination of being "tricked" into it, homesickness, and, potentially, the lack of a cause to fight for (like a nation) all lead to despondence and apathy. Add in the fear of death and potential issues with starvation or disease and... yeah, it must've sucked.
Still got a numb toe from my military marches...
Very good video. Where do you get the illustrations from ?
6:57 i think main motivation for Polish levy was a chance for getting "minor nobility" promotion in war efforts
Would soldiers be provides with certain pieces of equipment? Or were they expected to bring all they needed themselves?
A bit of both I think. Militia troops and mercenaries probably had to bring their own, but like the aforementioned artillery companies, many standing troops and probably royal guards had equipment provided.
@@righteousviking but what if people had neither guns, swords nor armor? I bet most that needed the money more than their lives were short on these things...
@@edi9892 They usually flattened scythes into spears. Axes, pitchforks etc. If all else fails i think they could borrow equipment as well for a fee.
That makes sense, similar to how my company will provide tools to those who don't have any but you can pay for them with weekly paycheck deductions.
@@VojislavMoranic The Poles have a long and proud history of murdering people with scythes, to the point it became a symbol of peasant revolt. There's an expression that goes along the lines of of "straightening their scythes," to describe unrest.
''Is it the kings shilling ? '' ''Its someone shilling ''
anyone got audio issues at 3:38? Great vid otherwise, really like seeing logistical videos
I wonder how does this compare to the standing armies recruiting of empires from ancient times
Hey Sandrhoman, im searching the song that is played in 14:09 for a long time. Im also a patreon of you since the start of the year. Would you be so kind to tell me whats the name of this song is? Can you find it on YT?
Hey man, that's viking by Aakash Gandhi. should be available via youtube audio library.
@@SandRhomanHistory Man, you saved me, god damn i am searching this song for so long now. I LOVE YOU, thank you for coming back to me and being an awesome history channel.
@@wladyslawderstreiter9078 no problem man. hit me up on patreon or twitter; it's more likely that i see that message / comment. On KZhead there are so many comments that sometimes lack the time to read them all unfortunately.
I have 1 question. Why most of European state could only mustered small troop, 10.000-20.000, 50 thousand at maximum when the Ottomans could easily assemble 70 - 100 thousand ?
money, money, money... even if put all medieval european countries together under one budget, they were poorer than Ottoman Empire
Why was that?
@@Paveway-chan becouse the ottomans controled the most lucrative trade routes. this gave them a lot of central income, and the fact that they concouqerd the highly urbanized byzintine empire
Ottomans ruled much larger lands and controlled valuable trade, plus they had vassals
Money. There is a reason why European armies went from small scale from between the post Roman age all the way up to the 16th to 17th century, to massive in scale in the 18th and 19th centruries: Because a soldiers equipment became cheaper and more standardised and the states became richer and richer with their global expansion of trade
I feel like the ad integration is becoming more and more egregious. I can deal with an ad at the beginning but not four minutes into the video.
The militias were ineffective largely because they were perceived as ineffective. When they were called up it was at the literal last minute and all they could do was grab any weapon on hand and fight generally with no organization or training. This is why Machiavelli always wanted to form a reservist system as he didn't like mercs.
Thats why cities like Berne, Zurich and Basle were so NOT feared because their milices were so ineffetective and that why German knight armies fled the battle fields when the ineffective Swiss milices from Berne, Zurich and Basle arrived onto the battlefield, worse even the Swiss peasant and cow-herders which had massacred Charles the Bolds 3 Knight Armies in battles Grandson, Morat and Nancy, were also totally ineffective lol
@SandRhoman History How much did U spent on ART&Animations per 1 video? Cause quality are superb.
Hmm, hard to say, I'm doing a lot of it myself (composition, not drawing the characters) in photoshop; so I don't actually know how much we spend per video.
make video about, "to soldier to general in 16th century"
Soldiers on the march issues sound very relevant for today's issues as well to a large extent, is it war that never change or man?
Imagine if military commanders from the early modern era had a Brilliant account
One serious blunder : Never were flintlock and matchlock musquets used in meantime (minute 5:49)
I'm not an expert on firing mechanisms (there are many types of flintlocks and the model showing is taken from an illustration that depicts a soldier around 1700, so you're criticism is certainly valid), but some flintlock mechanisms were for sure used at the same time as matchlocks (some early variants arguably as early as ~1550s). There are contemporary paintings that show this as well. More importantly, what most people call "true flintlock" (so not snap hance etc.) was developed in the early 17th century in France. Many name Marin le Bourgeoys as inventor, although this is controversial as far as I know. Common widsom usually states that by 1704 the flintlock had largly replaced the matchlock which implies that at some point it must have been used at the same time, otherwise I'm misunderstanding some of the terminology I think; if so please elaborate!
Man you guys have really stepped it up a level. I thought kings and generals was good. You are better.
Interesting
How about retirement from soldier to civilian?
6:58 Poland Konigsberg Pomerania sure
so the next video will be all about brothels?
0:10 - cannon and carriage in a box wagon?!?
Recruitment in Russian Empire had the form of compulsory conscription and for a long time serfs were conscripted "for life", after a century their reduced it to 25 and then 20 years. Only in late 19 century the term came down to a something resembling a sensible time. For peasant families, sons "taken inyo soldiers" were as good as lost. Those who survive 20 years of service in poor conditions often became beggars and drifters afterwards, to the point that barbers were obligated to give veterans free service because unkempt, unshaven dirty veterans became such a blight on the image of the Russian Imperial Army.
I love how everyone knew that smugglers didn't really do anything that bad to deserve jail when it came to their "type of person" since they really didn't do any harm, but they still got sent to jail lmao
Did the recruiters or the recruited have to ask permission of or pay their lord or master to get permission to join a mercenary company?
wtf did you do to the map of the british isles?
It the das of antiquity Levies were the way to fight. So a civilian was often a man at arms.
What was the average lifespan of a soldier?
A rather strange map of SW England and Wales.
are those guys twins at 11:27?
16:54 xd
So funny 😂😂🤣
6:44 (Virgin Professional Troopers VS Chad Militiamen.)