Some Thoughts upon Economic and Magical Strategic War
by Silas van Hoepenkak di Sarvos
Captain League Light Company
Commander Bellamarina Salvatores 2nd Brigade, The Swordfish
& Deputy Master of Mercenaries for the Carta Bellamarina
Dedicated to the Imperial Logistics Corps.
It strikes me once again what a marvel of organisation and efficacy is the Imperial Logistics Corps. I write this in Holberg, a city under brutal siege for years, during the winter of 378. My men and I are subject to the usual vicissitudes of war and yet we are shod, we are clothed, we are sheltered, we are supplied with ammunition and, most of all, we are fed. Though the country for miles around is ravaged we are supplied from across the Empire. I have certainty, born from experience, that this happy state will be maintained when we once again take the field beyond these walls.
We do this for forces numbering in the tens of thousands. It is a vast undertaking and an expensive one. Just ask the Master of the Mint!
It is one advantage that barbarians simply cannot match, be they ever so fierce, numerous or even cunning. To be sure they have supply lines stretching back to firmly held regions but these lines are less robust and less capacious. They have difficulty keeping up with their fighters in a war of manoeuvre. In short, even the best organised barbarian army must live off the country in which they fight.
I think it no coincidence that, with a long term curse on the the production of the territory and unrest in the Barrens threatening supply from afar, three of the four Druj armies recently withdrew from Reikos.
What can we do to exploit our advantage? It is already standard practice to curse any barbarian held territory our ritualists can reach. I propose that we go further and curse the production of territories still under imperial control if they are contested by large numbers of barbarians. It can be done from Anvil. Our armies will not be weakened but theirs will. It will be hard on the civilian populations but the summit just passed has shown we can provide relief.
In territories where we pursue such a strategy we should promote and subsidise the use of such rituals as Conclave of Trees and Shadows and Carve the Crystal Guardian to make military units out of personal economic resources.
The value of this is threefold: setting such supernatural units to raiding will provide more wealth to the owner than operating the resource normally under a curse; it denies the enemy a raiding target where they may find strategic materials; the units can raid barbarian supply, further piling on the hardship, or support an imperial army. Mothballing resources for which there is no such enchantment to raise troops from the workers is similarly valuable.
The current opportunity to pursue this policy is in the northern campaigns against the Thule. Happily, they make a very suitable target. There has always and obviously been an economic motivation behind their attacks on our Empire. Otkodov is not particularly fertile and supply lines from there to our lands must go over mountains. They are not proud, they will not hesitate to withdraw armies that cost too much to keep over here.
We do not hold enough of Karsk to curse it from Anvil. We will and we should then take the opportunity to do so.
Our current strategy in the north is one of holding rather than offensive action. That gives hunger time to work. Raiding may even be more valuable to the Empire than attachment to an army in this theatre of war. It inflicts fewer casualties but we are not after bloodshed there at present. Live enemies need to eat.
I come now to the question of which curses are best to cast when the Sentinel Gate allows us access to enemy hinterlands. In terms of sheer economic disruption Winter's Ghosts is best and most efficient though Thunderous Deluge does as much harm when we consider only the ability to feed large numbers of troops. The choice between them will not, however, be a matter of efficacy but of whether it is a regio aligned with the realm of Winter or of Spring where we have the opportunity.
There is currently no ritual in Imperial lore to shut down a mithril mine, weirwood grove or white granite quarry. As the Empire is gaining intelligence on such of these sites as are in the control of barbarians, I suggest that it is well worth our while researching methods to impact these vital enemy resources, by magic or otherwise.
Then there is the Spring ritual Thunderous Tread of the Trees. At first glance this is a directly offensive spell, inflicting casualties in an indiscriminate and expensive way. It's real value, however, is as an attack on our foes' logistics in territories where our armies cannot yet campaign in person. The constant vegetable harassment that denies them free movement, recovery and the building of fortifications is worth more to us than the relatively few soldiers who actually get caught by angry trees.
The damage this spell does to fortifications makes it seem tempting as a way to weaken the Jotun without violating the current truce. Sadly, the Vallorn in Liath's Heart makes this a very bad idea.
How else may we put pressure on the Jotun? The obvious answer is to support those foreign nations who also share borders with them but have no truce. The traditional manner would be to bribe them with significant quantities of Bourse materials but the Empire has more urgent need of those same materials. There is another option.
The Dance of Navarr and Thorn has recently been added to Imperial Lore. While I am sure it is correct that new Trod networks in Faraden and the Lasombrian Hills will have little effect on the Vallorn without a population of Navarri making thorough use of them and will fade after a few years they could still have value as a bribe. Trods make travel easier. Trade will increase, both internally and with us. Communications will be faster and so will small scale military movement.
In short, the foreigners may not use the Trods properly but they will use them. The Faraden in particular are great overland traders. They will be richer and better able to fight the Jotun and they will have the Empire to thank for it. And if they want to keep their Trods it will be to the Empire they must turn.
The central principle in these thoughts is this: war is costly therefore by influencing who gets wealth one influences military outcomes. It is usually less glorious work than taking to the battlefield oneself but it is effective. The principle holds true within our own Imperial economy as it does within those of foreigners and barbarians though its application must be careful of the constitution and the rights of citizens. To defeat the barbarians yet cease to be the Empire is not victory.
I would make two points. Firstly: even in time of war we must not neglect to invest in the civilian economy and particularly the production and distribution of food.
Secondly: participation in war is expensive for private interests also. I have mentioned subsidising those on whom the burden falls when we employ a starvation strategy in disputed territories. Those of us who make war our full time business deserve proper compensation as well. It is costly paying skilled individuals not merely to fight but to submit to discipline and spend time in drill and practice so as to provide a unit that is more than the sum of its parts. It is costly to shoot wains of arrows at barbarians.
It is costly to maintain and replace the best equipment on those who will use it well. It is costly for a citizen to forego more lucrative personal economic resources to keep a military unit supporting an Imperial army.
Mercenaries represent excellent value, more so when well resourced, and it is a false economy to underpay them.
I will conclude my remarks here. I do not pretend that these ideas are new, not even those which I had not previously heard myself. No doubt most of them have received consideration and in some cases action. I do hope, however, that by presenting them together as a coherent whole I will commend this line of thinking to those of you with the power to act on it for the good of our Empire and the dismay of our enemies.
