I’m curious about the systems they had set up to deliver supplies to armies in the middle ages. Particularily stuff like supplying huge horde armies or cavalry armies. Were they self sufficient? Depended on nearby villages? Huge supply networks? Etc.
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> Particularily stuff like supplying huge horde armies or cavalry armies.
Steppe hordes didn’t need many supplies. Their horses were small and hardy enough that they could survive simply from grazing on the steppe, and the warriors could drink the horses’ milk.
Cavalry of agrarian societies on the other hand was very expensive because their horses were bred to be big and strong, and needed additional fodder apart from grazing. That fodder they would have to somehow procure from the peasants (buy, steal, extort, pillage… while this makes a huge difference to the peasants, it’s not that different for the army). That’s why European powers didn’t really have “cavalry armies”, instead their cavalry was a small elite troop supporting a way larger number of infantry (who would also have to get food from the peasants, but at least only for themselves, not for the horses too).
Huge supply networks really only became a thing with the invention of the railroad. It was also around that time that armies started to need such huge amounts of ammunition (which have to be externally supplied anyway) that food for the soldiers becomes kind of an afterthought.
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