The Land's population (at various times)

[Forestal]

farseer, it maybe true that any country could support 2% of its population as an army for any time... but this isn't any country, this is the land, and the land was desperate... they needed a big army, for if they failed, they were allgoing to die... i suspect that the figure of 25% is far more likely... perhaps more, i know i'd rather join the army and fight foul than sit back and watch 2% of the total populace go at it and get brutally massacared.

[Skyweir]

Farseer":
That usually happens in countries that are quite homogeneous and geographically compact, and such armies are usually maintained for only one campaigning season. Also, the Warward was a full-time professional army, rigorously trained. Few countries have ever maintained a regular army larger than about 2% of the population.

its difficult to imagine conscription being a part of the recruitment drive in the Land .. I imagine those making up the warwards as being volunteers .. or chosen for their particular talents in organisation or leadership etc.

[Forestal]

but it does make sense considering the unusual dilema, does it not?

[Variol Farseer]

farseer, it maybe true that any country could support 2% of its population as an army for any time... but this isn't any country, this is the land, and the land was desperate... they needed a big army, for if they failed, they were allgoing to die... i suspect that the figure of 25% is far more likely... perhaps more, i know i'd rather join the army and fight foul than sit back and watch 2% of the total populace go at it and get brutally massacared.

As Skyweir says, it's clear that the Warward was strictly a volunteer force. Not only that, they were all extensively trained in the Sword, which was one of the branches of Kevin's Lore. It's clear from the structure of the Loresraat that the Sword and the Staff were considered complementary and more or less equal; each had its own Elder who reported directly to the Eldest of the Loresraat. We are really looking at something rather analogous to the present-day U.S. Army, where you have an all-volunteer, professional force, very few 'grunts' but a huge variety of 'special forces', all highly trained. You gain enormously in combat effectiveness, but you lose the ability to add recruits to your army quickly. This fits well with the fact that in seven years of all-out effort, Warmark Quaan was only able to rebuild the Warward from 4000 to about 10,000.

There is no instance in which a large country put 25% of its population into the regular armed forces, even temporarily; and the Land is a large country. The modern record is probably Nazi Germany, which had 13 million in the Wehrmacht out of a population of 80 million; but the Nazis had most of Europe to use for slave labour, so they didn't have to depend on their own civilians for production.

In ancient times you did see more of that. For instance, in the Second Punic War, when Hannibal marched on Rome, he destroyed three successive Roman armies, but the Romans were still able to muster 200,000 men (out of a citizen class of perhaps a million) for the last-ditch defence -- which was enough to deter Hannibal from attacking the city. But most of those were peasants and labourers, who could only serve at certain times of the year and could not march very far from their farms. Their crops and livestock needed tending, and their own labour was needed at home. Later on, when the Romans went out to conquer the Mediterranean world, they often called up men to serve in the legions for years on end, and those men's farms went to ruin and were bought up by big landowners who then worked the land with slaves. Long before Julius Caesar's time, the system broke down and the Romans had to reconstitute their army as a long-serving, professional force. At the height of the empire, Rome was defended by 28 legions plus auxiliaries, no more than 200,000 combat soldiers all told out of a population that was at least 40 million and may have been as big as 100 million. Yet it was a constant severe drain on the resources of the state to maintain that army in the field.

The bigger the country, the longer the campaigns an army has to serve for (if only because of the time it takes to march to the battlefield); and the more it must rely on a permanent professional army, which cannot be very large.

[Forestal]

i cant read that... too many facts and figures for this late at night...

but whatever you jsut said, i'll agree because it sounds so scientificaly based...

[Landwaster]

Yeah too long a post

But on the volunteer thing, yes it would have been a volunteer army. There would not have been conscription. But with the magnitude of the impending threat, and the at-oneness of the people with the Land, I doubt you'd have to push to hard to win anyone's services over.

Remember too that the warward was unisex ... which means that a far smaller portion of the Land's population was excluding from being eligible, whereas back here on Earth they're still having trouble accepting ladies into the armed forces.

[Mistweave]

Also Landwaster: someone in a different thread posted something about "less than a thousand giants stepped off their ships and made their home at Coeceri/Seareach giving up hope of ever finding their homeland. With that in mind his Caamora at the end of TWL must've taken a while as all the giants there were slain... except for four.

It was Foamfollower telling TC the tale of the Unhomed or summarising the history as he first spoke to the Lords. He also says that by the time of meeting Covenant their population had dwindled to 500 but that triplets had just been born.

[Landwaster]

Ahh I missed that comment from Foamy. Thanks for that answer ...

[Forestal]

yeah, those giants were really having a hard time weren't they..

come to think of it.. if the giants did send an army... how big would it be? if there were only like 500 giants in the land then surely it would b a really small army... (excuse the pun)

[Landwaster]

Yeah I'd be pretty small, though nearly every one of them would march ... but they're each worth a dozen me ... so all 500 of then would equate to 6000

[Forestal]

true, the giants would have been of incredable use to the warward...

[Landwaster]

Everybody was impressed with just imagining the Giants coming to help, so there must have been some real bite to their bark in a battle.

... an important strategic mood of Foul's to exterminate them.

[Forestal]

indeed, i mean just have a look at the first of the search... imagine 450 of her, lol

[Landwaster]

Please. I'd rather not.

[Forestal]

o-k then

[Landwaster]

oh c'mon ... think about it ...

"do the dishes" "make your bed" "mow the lawn" "ask for directions" "does my butt look big in this sark" ...

Nope, I'd rather think of spiders or something

[Forestal]

when did the 1st ever say any of those things?

[Landwaster]

She was saying it all the time. They edited it out.