Fighting is exhausting and battles usually went on for hours, did they really just hacked at each others without resting?

Hi there,

I was wondering why it was that armies in the Revolutionary and the Napoleonic period seem to go through the roof (with perhaps slightly less than a million effectives before 1800 in the French armies) but the total forces engaged in truly decisive battles is so low. For example:

Napoleon's Grand army contains nearly a quarter of a million men by the time of the battle of Austerlitz - but the battle itself has only 85,000 ish fighting on the french side.

Now, I understand that not all men in an army are actually fighting, and that you would have to withdraw some for the purposes of gathering the vast volumes of fodder for the cavalry arm etc but is this really whats eating up all that combat power? The invasion of Russia is even worse, with Half a million men marching in but about a fifth of them actually fighting in any signifigant enagement...what's going on here?

1. Are they providing a long wagon chain of fodder, additional food (to supplement local foraging of the units that will provide the combat power)?

2. Manning fortresses?

3. Concentrated for action elsewhere?

4. On sick lists?

5. Something else?

6. All of the above.

I mean, I just cant conceputalize that, in an age where armies still stripped the countryside for food and battles lasted a day, you need 4 out of every 5 men on supply detail, so I'm assuming it has to be MORE than that that's preventing these huge armies ever engaging with their full force. Or am I wrong, and that you really DO have to do that because the further the combat element marches (especially in poor / less intensively agriculturally developed areas) the more men you have to have relaying food up to the front line, given a lack of tinning technology etc.

In short: Educate me about the logisitics of pre industiral armies. Do the diminishing returns of size really bite of four fifths of the combat element in bad situations just from garrisioning and supply?

When an army or division surrenders to the enemy the soldiers get taken as POWs, but what happens to high ranking officers such as generals? Do they get send back or did they get imprisoned too?

I remember reading somewhere that in the early 18th century, warfare took a strange, almost WW1-like bent in terms of "fortified lines"; I'mnot sure what this means exactly but this didn't seem to be the case in the Napoleonic wars, so if its true, why the change in tactics?

I'm Canadian and when I was in high school a lot was made out of Canada's role in liberating the Netherlands during the Second World War, not much specifics were given but it was strongly implied that Canada played a very big role, at least proportionality. Is this actually true or is this just a sort of mythology that has arisen?

How exactly did spying and espionage in the late 30's early 40's work? For the prelude to WWII, there must have been lots of covert operations to spy on enemy nations. What type of technology did they use and how did they do it? ANY links would be very much appreciated.

New Carthage was established in Southern Spain. The Carthaginians used it as a base for years so that they could march to Rome since they couldn't cross the sea. Rome did own the seas at the time.

Is it possible that the Catheginians bred with the locals in Spain?

I have been watching several Netflix dramas about the war and a thought has crossed my mind - how did Germany maintain the support of its own citizens during the course of the war? Many videos show Hitler giving speeches to enthusiastic crowds. Did the people never get "war-weary?"

Retaking the Rhineland? I can see Germans supporting that. But occupying France? The bombing of the UK? The North Africa campaign? How did Hitler not lose the support of his own people?

On a broader note, how do other nations maintain citizen support when they are the aggressors? I can see how it would be easy to rally your citizens when you are the victim (as the US did with Pearl Harbor) but how does a Head of State justify aggression to his people? Not trying to be political here. I'm just interested in the home-front sociology.

Thanks for any responses.

In movies there is often a sgt. that is in his 50s fighting in combat. In The Pacific there is a character, Sgt. Elmo 'Gunny' Haney, who appears to be in his late 50s. In We Were Soldiers there was a similar character, Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, who also appeared around that age.
I'm assuming that these are either real people or characters based on real people. I'm just curious if this was a common thing or something that they added to movies for entertainment.

This might be passing into the realm of the philosophy of history or epistemology, but how do we know the events we study that we believed happened actually occurred.

Open to all opinions. Thanks y'all

i remember seeing a video about it a while back. I was reminded of it as i have been listening to the history of rome podcast. sad thing is i can't remember the name nor the episode it was mentioned on. any help would be great

I don't know anything about weapons. But muskets are slow to load and fire, and I learned from Wikipedia today that they had a useful range up to 50-75 yards, while an English longbow could have a useful range of up to 200 yards.

Clearly, muskets were one step on the way to much more powerful and effective firearms, but what advantages made them a more attractive weapon than bows?