Warfare: Brief History and Stratagem

Foreword
War is abysmal. Nobody should want war, or plan for war. But the best wars, and most successful wars, require much more preparation than imaginable. Historically speaking, war and humanity are as intertwined as life and death. We haven't reached a point yet where we can truly have no wars.

This book, is made to protect our family. This book, is a comprehensive book on how to carry out war.

Basics
There are five conditions to a battlefield. Loyalty, Weather, Terrain, Discipline, Division.

Loyalty is how devoted a soldier or the group of soldiers are to the cause. Weather is what happens above, the wind and water of the sky swirling the usual chaos we call our surroundings. Terrain is the environment, the flora and fauna, rocks, hills and water. Discipline is how well the soldiers follow orders. Division is how you have personally divided your army.

Loyalty
A Soldier who is loyal is willing to die for the cause. They may seek glory, riches, or home to fight to their best, but they are not beyond death. Religion, Trust, and good treatment will keep a soldier in line.

Weather
This applies to light and dark, sun and storm. Weather can be a keen advantage on the battlefield, as rain and darkness help aid stealth, light and sun help aid defense.

Terrain
There are many forms of terrain, but the best by far is high, dry, with a river to your back and the enemy to your front. With the River behind you, enemies will be loud and slow in approach, as well as in plain sight. With high ground upon a hill, vantage is offered to see your surroundings.

Discipline
Religion, certain victory, and punishment will unify soldiers and keep them in formation. They need to fear breaking the line, and remain organised. If they are not, punish the officer. The next one will be more willing to keep his soldiers in line.

When you make a law, ensure it is followed. Put the offender to death otherwise.

Division
Divide your soldiers in such a way as to mix them. They need a strong sense of pride not as the soldiers of Sarim or the soldiers of Burthorpe, but as soldiers of a Nation. Keep one of each type of officer under yourself. A wise one, a brave one, a covetous one, and a foolish one.

Conclusion
It is the General who plans longest who will win the fight. Every calculation, every detail must be covered. These five, while basic, have made some of the most fatal errors in warfare to date by being ignored.

How to Start a War
If you have a thousand fast cavalrymen, as many heavy wagons, and a hundred armour-clad soldiers, you should divide them so there are 75 Infantry to the Cavalier, and 25 Infantry to the Wagon. The Cavalry is vital to the attack, and the heavy wagon vital to barricades and defense. The Infantry should move with them, as to have more attackers than defenders. With good ground, this should not matter.

Each group should be divided so a heavy wagon, a Cavalier, and a hundred infantry move with them. There should be food enough to travel around 350 miles when you touch land.

Spending at home and abroad, from large events such as catering to allies who visit to small things such as nails and paint, to care of horses and armour, will cost roughly 1,000 silver ounces a day. This may not seem like much, until you consider how long a war will last. Just the Battle of Lumbridge alone spanned for three months. That is a hundred thousand pieces of silver gone, without considering the rebuilding effort. Let alone the fact that the war is not over. Perhaps a bit more generous than a war between immortals, the Misthalani war lasted for eight years. ((On a 1 month to a year timescale) To fight the war would have cost the Worshippers over 180,000 pounds of silver.

Time is the most valuable resource on the battlefield.

Weapons grow dull with time, and in a seige you will exhaust the troops. When your weapons are blunt, morale low, strength exhausted and money gone, nobody will be able to defend you. You will be helpless and defeated with ease.

So, while you should carefully plan each command you give, do not wait too long either. Once you have the army assembled, every day you waste is gold lost to the Abyss. This is best shown by the quick and sudden actions of the Kandarin Army under Drazker IV. By waiting long enough to form a strategy, but not so long as to devour the resources of the nation, battles may be won in quick succession. Even then, the long and drawn out conflicts and high spending of Vectis Vekon prove the opposite side of the wisdom. If you wait too long, your funds will be drained. It is the spending of Vectis Vekon that led to the economic collapse, which in turn left the Leroux who inherited the debt vulnerable to attack.

There is, however, no instance of an Nation benefitting from prolonged warfare. Only someone aware of how devastating war is to the economy of a nation can understand a profitable way to carry it out.

A Good Commander won't waste time waiting for reinforcements, or return home for more supplies. You must rush to the enemy line as quickly as possible in order to save your nation's coffers. Bring supplies with you from home, but rip your enemies' countryside barren in pursuit of supplies. It is cheaper to give supplies before the army leaves than after, but cheaper so to take them from the enemy. An army will drain the supply wherever it goes, forcing the price of food to go up. Do not linger longer than you must.

A government will likely spend two fifths of their income on war and war supplies, to repair damaged equipment and buy new animals both.

To kill an enemy, your soldiers must be pushed to anger or greed. They must feel there is a reward for killing their enemies, or even that their enemies are not human. When fighting with Religion, again, this can prove a good use of it. However, from the stance of a socially aware Druidess, hatred of your enemy can last for generations in the form of prejudice and racism, neither of which is good if you are ruling them, or if they move onto your land as peaceful and productive citizens. You are far better off to make your soldiers feel the reward will be great.

For every tenth horse you capture, give the one who captured it the first. Treat prisoners well and kindly, so they themselves will recognise you as human. This will make it harder for them to fight you if or when they walk free.

As a commander, it is you who determines whether your people are hungry or full, wealthy or poor. Do not disappoint your people.

How to Fight a War
In war, expenses are already very high, as mentioned prior. As a result, you will not want to damage what you can capture with ease. Again, we will turn to the Worshipper-Misthalani War. The Worshippers had captured Draynor and Lumbridge with little damage, and little blood lost. With Varrock also intact, they did not need to spend time, energy, or resources to rebuild them.

However, when Magus Concendo (though a dear friend to our family) attacked Lumbridge, he flooded it, destroying it in the waters of the Lum. People had to rebuild from damage, and the damage done cost much more money than fighting for the city would have.

Likewise, if you capture enemy soldiers, capture them and try not to kill any. If you are seeking conquest, they will soon be loyal to you and yours, and those are lives you don't want to waste. Because of this, you need to ruin their will to fight.

To ruin enemy morale, you need to consistently, time and time again destroy the plans of the Enemy Command, until they lose the ability to feel sure of themselves. They will grow rowdy and undisciplined, doubting their commander.

First and foremost, you must disconnect your enemy from their allies. This is a large part to any plan, and any way to halt them from uniting is best. This is followed by striking them in the field when they gather supplies, are moving from one locale to another, or otherwise not behind walls.

The last place you want to attack an enemy, is one holed up within a walled city or castle. The preperation of siege weapons of any kind will take time, as much as three months, and manually building a mound of dirt to scale the wall and march over will take three months more.

With this much time away, your officers will likely grow agitated and attack the walls in scattered formations, unprepared. You will likely lose a third of the men present, and not gain your city. Because of this, it is highly recommended to not fight unless you have to, and try to peacefully take the city. Make the people your own. Feed them, clothe them. Only harm the government, and make it your own.

If you outnumber your enemy ten to one, surround them. If you outnumber them five to one, attack them. If you outnumber them two to one, split yourself in half, one to attack them in the front and the other at their rear. If you have the same numbers, offer battle but do not initiate it. And if the enemy outnumbers you, avoid them.

There are three ways a King will ruin his own army. The First is ordering them to advance or retreat when they cannot. A King most focus on ruling from within, but a general needs to be outside of their army, in order to see where they can move. The Second is to show leniency to your troops, as you would your civilians. An army needs discipline, but no matter how loyal your soldiers are they will take advantage of any scrap of leniency you give them. Third and finally, you must be heavily cautious of your officers. They should not be used lightly. The Wise Officer seeks glory for his mind. The Brave Officer seeks to prove his courage. The Greedy Officer will take any opportunity he gets for an advantage, and the Foolish Officer will not fear death.

As a result, there are five more rules that will make or break a battle. 1) The Commander that will win, will know when to fight and when not to. 2) The Commander that will win, will know how to win even with a smaller force, through other advantages. 3) The Army will triumph who has high morale through all ranks, from the lowly camp blacksmith to the General themself. 4) The Commander who is prepared for everything will surely defeat a Commander who was not prepared for your command. 5) The Commander who will win will do so not because of the King's actions from afar, but their own actions at the battle. It is Kings who decide wars, but it is the Commander who has the say as to who will win a battle.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you will win every battle. If you don't know your enemy, you will lose as often as you win. If you don't know yourselves, you will suffer defeat time and time again.

Opportunity
As a strong commander, you need to recognise that it is not your strategy that defeats your enemy, but your enemies' lack of strategy that will defeat them. Worry about not being defeated, rather than worry about defeating your enemy. If you cannot fight your enemy and win, do not fight them. Wait for them to make themselves weak. Likewise, if the enemy doesn't move they are too weak to attack you or leave their position. A commander skilled with defenses will remain hidden and out of sight. Meanwhile, one who is ready to attack should be sudden, as to not give the enemy time to prepare otherwise.

This was perfected by the Ancient Arrenda, who from high in the mountains of the White Wolf secretly prowled, before charging down a hill with full force, screaming loud and disorientate their foes, giving no time to prepare. A sudden and quick attack from seemingly nowhere is beyond useful.

You have to be sure you will win before you even launch an attack. Equally so, it has to come easily to be a truly great commander. You do not want a reputation as someone wise, or as someone brave. This will bring too much question to any action you do as a Commander.

You also, cannot afford mistakes. A commander who is known to never make an error is one an enemy does not want to fight, and will refuse to fight. Because of this, you need a position that will make it impossible to defeat you, but possible to defeat an enemy should the opportunity rise.

To judge an opportunity, use distance to calculate the size of the enemy. Find out their condition, and discover their numbers. Then, compare this to your own. If the odds are heavily in your favour, strike.

An army that can obtain victory will gain far more morale than an army forced into retreat. But an army that does nothing is trapped qually between both.

Deception
There are, at the base of it all, two forms of attacking. There is the direct, and the indirect. Just as colours, tastes, and notes blend, blending you attacks and condition are vital to victory.

Your direct route will always be known and noticed, to lure an enemy to battle or join an enemy in battle. Your indirect attack, however, will be used to win it. By throwing a wrench in the works of your opponents' plans, your indirect attack will cause disorder among the ranks.

Pretending you are in chaos is the peak of being orderly. Pretending to be afraid is the greatest sign of courage. Pretending to be weak is the greatest sign of being strong. Changing how you appear will change your enemy's response, luring them into or deterring them from attack. With true manipulation, your enemy will move entirely based on the signs you willingly allow them to receive.

Bait will help keep you enemy moving in pursuit, so long as it is not obvious this is what you are doing. A good example may be found in the common practice of the Sicarius. Around two or three Sicarius, far less than their opponent and lightly armed, will lure a small group of enemies from their location by attacking, then feigning retreat. After running far enough, other Sicarius emerge from hiding and block escape, outnumbered and surprising their enemy. In this case, the smaller, direct attack had acted as bait for the larger, indirect attack.

To be Continued