Between attrition (lost in battle), needing to leave troops behind to control conquered territory, and longer supply lines, shouldn’t the armies have gotten significantly thinner and weaker.
In: 247
What sort of conquest are we talking here?
Let’s split wars into two broad types: Wars of two large countries, and wars of a large country invading a series of small ones.
In the first case, conquering land is good because you probably defeated your opponent to conquer it. Sure, you lost perhaps 10% of your forces, but the enemy lost like 20% of theirs. Then at the next battle, your enemy is less trained and weaker, so you lose less and they lose more. By the time you’ve conquered a lot of land, your equal opponent has fallen far, far behind. Maybe your opponent can pull in reinforcements or conscripts, maybe those factors you mentioned kick in, but maybe they don’t.
In the second case, having more land means more industry and more population. You can start fielding larger, better-equipped armies, who conquer more land, who give you more industry… This isn’t foolproof though. The Romans, for instance, eventually failed to conquer certain lands such as modern Germany and Scotland.
Latest Answers