Midst Toil And Tribulation – Snippet 16
Cayleb grunted unhappily. The instinctive understanding of the huge logistical advantages conferred by oceanic transport was bred into the blood and bone of any Charisian monarch. The notion of sending an army or large amounts of freight overland instead of by sea was as foreign and unnatural to them as trying to breathe water, and all of those Ahrmahk instincts were insisting that it had to make far more sense to send any expeditionary force from Chisholm to Siddarmark aboard ship. They were persistent and clamorous, those instincts, and usually they would have been right. Unfortunately, the situation wasn’t exactly “usual.”
A well conditioned infantry army could make perhaps forty miles a day marching overland, assuming it didn’t have to stop for niggling little details like, oh, foraging for food or allowing its draft animals to graze. Of course, grazing in Chisholm or Raven’s Land in winter wouldn’t have been very practical, even if it wouldn’t have subtracted several hours a day from the army’s marching time. Since grazing wouldn’t be practical, an army with an overland supply route could count on adding its draft animals’ starvation to all of the other minor inconveniences it confronted. A transport galleon, on the other hand, under average conditions, could make between two hundred and three hundred miles a day, up to seven times the distance that army could cover on its own feet, and without losing the dragons and horses and mules its transport would depend upon once it reached its objective to starvation and sickness.
But Eastshare had very few transports available in Chisholm. In fact, he couldn’t have squeezed more than a very few thousand men aboard the ships he had, and he couldn’t put even that many of them aboard ship until he collected those ships in one spot. And that spot would have to be on the east coast of Chisholm, so even after he put the troops aboard, he’d still be over twelve thousand miles — and forty-seven days — from Siddar City.
He could probably commandeer a few more transports from Corisande, but not very many. Certainly not enough to make any real difference. The only place he could get the amounts of troop lift he required would be to request it from Old Charis, and even with the most favorable winds imaginable, it would take a dispatch vessel over a month to reach Tellesberg from Maikelberg. Even after it did, it would take Cayleb and Sharleyan several five-days just to divert ships from the Siddarmarkian relief efforts and get them gathered together. Given how dire conditions in the Republic were, they couldn’t possibly justify pulling galleons out of the relief convoys until they’d been officially asked for, since there was no way even monarchs with their reputation for foresight could know Eastshare was going to need them. And, on top of all that, it would take at least a month and a half — more probably two months — for those galleons to reach Chisholm once they’d been collected and ordered to sail.
Those unpalatable facts had left Eastshare and Green Valley with very few options for moving troops rapidly into Siddarmark, and it was the duke, not the baron, who’d come up with the most radical solution. Green Valley had been prepared to suggest it if necessary, but that hadn’t been necessary, which said some truly remarkable things about Eastshare’s mental flexibility.
He didn’t have the troop lift to move a worthwhile number of men, but he did have enough sealift to move quite a lot of supplies, especially food and fodder, and those two commodities were the Achilles heel of pre-industrial armies. An army which had to forage for food — and fodder — as it went (even assuming the season and agricultural productivity made that possible) did well to make ten miles a day, and it wreaked havoc on any civilian population in its path simply because it stripped the land bare as it went. But without that requirement, and with the ability to feed draft animals on grain and prepared fodder rather than requiring them to graze on grass, an army was limited only by the hours of daylight it had in which to march and the quality of the roads before it.
So Eastshare had sent off his dispatches to Tellesberg and begun concentrating the garrisons stationed throughout western Chisholm on Ahlysberg, the military city which had been built to support The Fence, the fortified frontier between the Western Crown Demesne and Raven’s Land. It was the westernmost of Chisholm’s true seaports, and its magazines and storehouses were well stocked with food, boots, winter clothing, and food. The galleons he’d been able to lay hands on in Cherayth and Port Royal were already loading additional food and supplies in Chisholm’s eastern ports; within no more than another five-day or so, they’d be setting sail for Ahlys Bay. And from there, theoretically, at least, they would be available to leapfrog along the southern coast of Raven’s Land, supplying a fast-moving army as it marched west overland.
The Chisholmian Royal Army had always emphasized physical conditioning and training in every sort of weather. It wasn’t unusual for an Army battalion to find itself ordered, with no previous warning , to fall in with full field packs and two days’ iron rations for a sixty mile march through February snows — or, conversely, June heat — and the Imperial Charisian Army hadn’t changed in that respect. Assuming the Raven Lords were as amenable as usual to subsidies (it would never do to call them “bribes”), and that Bishop Trahvys Shulmyn couldn’t convince them otherwise, Eastshare and Green Valley could theoretically have marched clear to Iron Cape, probably making good their forty miles per day, despite the narrow, snowy roads. Of course, it would have taken them several months, given the distances involved, but it was only forty days’ march from The Fence to the city of Marisahl (the nearest thing the Raven Lords had to a capital), on Ramsgate Bay, while another twenty days’ march would take them to Malphyra Bay, eight hundred miles farther west. That was still a long way from the Republic, but the voyage time from Tellesberg to Marisahl was less than half that of the time from Tellesberg to Maikelberg, and from Marisahl to Rollings Province by sea was only fifteen days. From Malphyra to Rollings was under ten days.
So if Eastshare was truly prepared to put his troops into motion as soon as possible, without direct orders from Sharleyan and Cayleb, and when he had no way to be certain his request for transports to be dispatched to Raven’s Land despite winter storms and ice floes, would be honored by the monarchs with whom he hadn’t even discussed moving troops to invade a sovereign realm in the middle of winter, he could cut a minimum of two months from the transit loop. He’d have enough shipping to keep his men supplied as they marched along the coastal roads, but he wouldn’t have enough troop lift to move them across the Passage of Storms. On the other hand, by reducing the total length of the sea passage by how far west his men could come on their own feet, he’d effectively reduce the number of transports needed for the voyage simply because they could make the round trip with half his men, then return for the other half, far more quickly than they could make the voyage clear from Chisholm.
If Eastshare was willing to take that gamble, the Imperial Charisian Army could have upwards of sixty thousand men — possibly as many as seventy-five thousand — in Siddarmark long before Clyntahn or Maigwair would have believed was possible. Perhaps not soon enough to stymie the general assault everyone knew was coming, but certainly earlier than anyone on the other side could have anticipated.
“Ruhsyl will do it,” Sharleyan said almost serenely, her eyes as confident as Cayleb’s had been when he was analyzing Rahnyld of Dohlar’s motives and actions.
“Are you sure?” Cayleb’s tone wasn’t a challenge, only a question. “I know he’s sent his message to Mairisahl and he’s already got the first divisions on the march, but he hasn’t said a word to any of his generals about moving anywhere beyond Ahlysberg. I’d say it’s pretty clear he’s still thinking at least as much in terms of making the entire trip by sea.”
@49 Drak – yeah, I’m gonna be brave. ;) Father Paityr has clearly given official approval to the steam engine, since at the end of HFaF in the conversation between Merlin, Cayleb, and Sharleyan, Merlin said “And then there’s Ehdwyrd’s first steam engine. That’s going to be a game-changer, especially since we won’t have to waste all that time tinkering and experimenting to improve it into a working proposition like they did back on Old Terra.â€
@50 Ehdwyrd Howsmyn has probably ALREADY built a fully-functional steam engine, which is happily chugging away, dragging heavy loads at his steel works. Come to think of it, he’s going to want a bunch of those. I can’t WAIT for Charis to build a railroad from Tellesberg to the western coast, since that will cut down shipping times by weeks and distance by a couple of thousand miles. It’s also faster than shipping by canal would have been – assuming that the terraforming team had built one there.
I suspect we’ll see steam engines in wider use in MTaT than we expected. We all know that Howsmyn doesn’t think small. He’ll put them to use wherever he has a need – first where he can’t get enough water power, then wherever they’ll be more efficient than what he’s using, like replacing draft dragons, since the only thing a steam engine eats is coal and a steel mill is awash in that stuff! Bleek!
@51 Nimitz13:
I would more expect a RR connecting Howell Bay to the-Cauldron/Westrock-Reach (possibly also connecting to Howsmyn’s new works) than Tellesburg to the Cauldron (which would give an enemy a direct line of attack on your capitol).
And another RR in the north splitting to connect Howell Bay to both the Cauldron and Margaret Bay.
(IMO the Throat is sufficient for now to the east for Old Charis)
One in Tarot connecting Tranjyr to Brankyr.
and one in Chisholm connecting Ahlisberg to Chisholm Bight.
(and eventually one connecting Chisholm Bight to Chisholm’s east or south coast)
The rest of the EoC (including the bulk of Old Charis) is IMO already well served by water-routes!!
/Rob
Ahlysberg not Ahlisberg
@52 Rob, all those potential refugees from the war, escaped/liberated slaves from the Harchongese forces and POWs need gainful employment. Building railroads would kill two birds with one stone; 1) improve Charisian infrastructure and 2) spread technology around without immediately harming Charis’ tech advantage.
Unless the mainland improves their steel making capacity, they can’t make enough railroads to make a difference and all the other steel weapons and tools they need. As it is railroads will stretch Charisian steel production to the limit.
@54, RE: amount of steel required for RRs. If you check out the history of RRs you’ll find that in the 19th century the steel/iron requirements were less than you might think. Aside from the locomotives & rails (aoviding the strap rails argument) wood works perfectly fine for most needs. Wood cars, with a few steel parts such as wheels, were the rule until well into the 20th century. The shift to steel was driven by a need for longer, heavier cars and, in the passenger stock, some over-stated safety arguments. In fact some isolated systems wich didn’t have to interchange cars (for ex: Denver & Rio Grande Western’s 3′ gauge lines in Colorado) ran into the 1960’s with such rolling stock.
@52 I agree with your locations for railroads, but I don’t share your worry that a railroad from Tellesberg to the Cauldron poses an invasion route. Unlike a canal, you can’t sail a fleet of ships small enough to fit on a railroad and use it to invade!
I can guarantee the port they build there would be the most heavily defended in the entire EoC. (For this discussion, assume any attack would happen at least three years in the future with the technological advances that implies.) Fixed cannon placed there could accurately shoot thousands of yards, far, far beyond the reach of any NoG galleon, probably as far as (correct me here experts!) a WWI+ battleship. Floating mines whose locations are changed on a regular basis require EVERY ship to have a tugboat tow it in to port, so even if you capture the port, you can’t get your ships into it to use its unloading facilities. You can’t take the port by sea, which doesn’t mean you can’t land up the coast and dump off thousands of troops – who are about to face EoC machine guns, mortars, bazookas, etc. (3 years from now, remember!)
Realistically you’d have to capture the railyards on the coast intact, including several trains to carry your troops and munitions. (And I can GUARANTEE there wouldn’t be a single train there to capture!) Even if there were and you captured some, long before your trains arrived at Tellesberg the tracks would have been vandalized in many, many places as a semaphore or telegraph message warns of the invasion. (Not that the SNARCs wouldn’t have seen them coming before they put to sea!) Blow away an engine or two, and subsequent trains aren’t going anywhere. (And a bunch of troops could end up dead if the train derails.)
So the enemy ends up walking to Tellesberg, which they could do NOW, and could have always done. A land invasion from the Cauldron has always been Telleserg’s Achille’s heel – the MWW just chose not to use it. “Luckily” that didn’t happen in AoG because the maritime countries didn’t conceive of loading galleons with thousands of troops and invading Tellesberg, but they could have – which would have made this a very short series, which is why the MWW didn’t do it.
Until the invention and wide dissemination of exploding shells, this was still possible, so the NoG could have loaded up with Desnarian and Dohlaran troops at Iythria and Temple Guardsmen in Zion, and would have overwhelmed the Charisian maritime defenses using both fleets. How an invading army (200+ galleons with 500 soldiers/seaman apiece = 100,000 enemy, though not all fighters) would do against flintlock rifles and long-ranged artillery would have been interesting, presuming the EoC had enough troops near Tellesberg to put up a good fight.
Good thing Clyntahn isn’t Thirsk and Magwair is an idiot! Bleek!
Remember, there are LOTS of factories around Tellesberg, textile mills, steel plants, farm tool production facilities, and all those other Charisian products all Safehold used to buy. Cutting the shipping costs by two or three five-days would make a big difference for shipping routes to Haven, Howard, Tarot, and all points west. So a direct railroad from Tellesberg to the Cauldron simply makes sense, and the security problems aren’t any worse than they are now. Considering that the EoC rules the seas and nothing is likely to change that for quite some time, the danger of building such a railroad is basically nonexistent, and the advantages are obvious.
@55 Hank, I wasn’t really thinking about the amount of steel required as I was thinking about how expensive steel is to produce for the mainland, especially Harchong. Without the widespread use of steam engines or some other labor saving techniques, the mainland cannot create a network of railroads that span their continent. There are already canals leading from the Gulf of Dohlar on Haven. Harchong would likely find issues with building such a network even if they do need it. They would have built canals if they were interested in expanding their distribution network. Desnar can and would build such a railroad network, but would have to adopt enough of the Charisian innovations to make them suspect to Clyntahn.
So a railroad either makes a mainland nation that could build it more likely to become neutral towards Charis or not be feasible to those nations that will remain belicose towards Charis.
Getting back to the marching thing, you guys have quoted a lot of historical battles and marches. How many of those marches were in the middle of winter over poor roads while dealing with hostile locals?
If the army makes better than 20 mi/day average on its march it’s a crock of baloney. I’m not saying it isn’t already a done deal, but that’s the way it is. No chance a major army is marching 40mi/day through snow, on crappy roads, through hostile or at least neutral territory, no chance.