What allowed untrained and unequipped armies to beat the opposite?

[sleeperul]

People like Ivaylo of Bulgaria and his army of untrained and unequipped army managed to bead the mongols, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians which all had trained and well armed and equipped armies.

The peasant revolts in China that kept winning and winning taking dynasty after dynasty and replacing them being replaced by another peasant rebellion.

Those people from Bohemia that followed an not catholic religion.

The Goths at the battle of Andrianopolis.

There rare but happened so how did they managed to win against and trained and equipped army?

 

[JodelDiplom]

People like Ivaylo of Bulgaria and his army of untrained and unequipped army managed to bead the mongols, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians which all had trained and well armed and equipped armies.

The peasant revolts in China that kept winning and winning taking dynasty after dynasty and replacing them being replaced by another peasant rebellion.

Those people from Bohemia that followed an not catholic religion.

The Goths at the battle of Andrianopolis.

There rare but happened so how did they managed to win against and trained and equipped army?

Usually those armies aren't actually untrained if you look closely into the historical record. Freshly formed, yes, and including peasants, yes, but also likely a core of veterans who saw service someplace else before...

Later on the legends of course make them all out to be totally untrained but super pious peasants who were blessed by God and won thanks to the righteousness of their cause

Much better story that way

 

[sleeperul]

Usually those armies aren't actually untrained if you look closely into the historical record. Freshly formed, yes, and including peasants, yes, but also likely a core of veterans who saw service someplace else before...

Later on the legends of course make them all out to be totally untrained but super pious peasants who were blessed by God and won thanks to the righteousness of their cause

Much better story that way

Lets take Ivaylo there is no actual record of him being anything else but an farmer and neither is his army. There are speculations that he was an former soldier but no records of that.

In China for example the first Han emperor was an peasant that became soldier then emperor but I guess it was over decades so experience was gained. But the emperor in the eastern Han was an peasant sure related to royalty but an peasant and so where his brothers and cousins. Also the first Ming emperor was an peasant and the army he was part of. Red turbans or something.

In Bohemia well I am mind blowned on how they managed that much. What was that can anyone explain how an armies of peasants and other non soldier like people who fought each other managed between that managed to beat professional armies of knights and mercenaries time and time again?

The Goths did they get experience from the fight with the Huns or something? I guess it works.

 

[Eusebio]

The Hussites lost though.

 

[sleeperul]

The Hussites lost though.

Yes them but they did won an lot like an lot very very much and the moderate ones kinda won.

 

[Geriander]

The Goths at the battle of Andrianopolis.
?

The Goths had been fighting for and against Rome for more than a century. Not only did they have warriors, their warriors were very familiar with Roman tactics.

 

[Eusebio]

Yes them but they did won an lot like an lot very very much and the moderate ones kinda won.

Many of the Hussites were noblemen who had seen previous military service. Wiki says Jan Zizka was at the Battle of Grunwald.

When professional soldiers do actually come up against armies of untrained peasants, they usually end up as lopsided massacres like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Frankenhausen . There were battles in the German Peasants' War where peasant armies of several thousand were broken by a single charge of a few hundred knights.

 

[JodelDiplom]

Lets take Ivaylo there is no actual record of him being anything else but an farmer and neither is his army. There are speculations that he was an former soldier but no records of that.

In China for example the first Han emperor was an peasant that became soldier then emperor but I guess it was over decades so experience was gained. But the emperor in the eastern Han was an peasant sure related to royalty but an peasant and so where his brothers and cousins. Also the first Ming emperor was an peasant and the army he was part of. Red turbans or something.

In Bohemia well I am mind blowned on how they managed that much. What was that can anyone explain how an armies of peasants and other non soldier like people who fought each other managed between that managed to beat professional armies of knights and mercenaries time and time again?

The Goths did they get experience from the fight with the Huns or something? I guess it works.

Han Guangwu, founder emperor of the Eastern Han, was certainly not born a peasant. His father was an official, his grandfather a prefecture vice governor, so he would have received a thorough education regardless of whether there might have been a bit of agricultural labor to be done every now and then.

 

[sleeperul]

Han Guangwu, founder emperor of the Eastern Han, was certainly not born a peasant. His father was an official, his grandfather a prefecture vice governor, so he would have received a thorough education regardless of whether there might have been a bit of agricultural labor to be done every now and then.

How did he got to do agricultural labor if his parent and grandparents held high positions and was from the imperial family?

 

[olm]

People like Ivaylo of Bulgaria and his army of untrained and unequipped army managed to bead the mongols, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians which all had trained and well armed and equipped armies.

Reading from wiki it seems that at first he just repelled some casual mongol raids and then later gradually moved on to bigger successes, building up his powerbase, and eventually beating several larger Byzantine armies. It is pretty safe to assume that with every conflict number of veterans in his army grew, and equipment situation also probably improved, so while he may have started with peasant army, he probably had more or less normal conventional fighting force by the time of his latter bigger victories.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

What exactly is meant by peasant here? Militarization of free non-aristocratic farmers was common in pre modern societies and these were frequently enough very effective troops. For example, looking at Ivaylo in wiki, it seems to be indicated that feudalism (and actual serfdom?) was only an emerging institution in Bulgaria of the time.

 

[Kgw]

Sometimes de idea of "untrained" and "underequipped" stays in the eye of the beholder. If they don't match your ideas on how you should be armed and fighting, you're just "peasant rabble"… So , even if you lose, it's not your fault, they fail at fighting like real men.

Or the guy writing the chronicles want to stress on how pathetic your defeat (or glorious your victory) was.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Afaik Chinese peasants of this era possesed usually weapons and some armor. Also some had certainly combat experience.
The Japanese disarmed their peasants as late as the 16th century in the Katana hunts.

 

[Pyoro]

There's also the fact that sometimes professional armies just do crazy stupid things and basically defeat themselves. Marching somewhere with tenuous supplies so their main logistic advantage is lost or whatever ...

 

[Geriander]

Sometimes de idea of "untrained" and "underequipped" stays in the eye of the beholder. If they don't match your ideas on how you should be armed and fighting, you're just "peasant rabble"… So , even if you lose, it's not your fault, they fail at fighting like real man.

Or the guy writing the chronicles want to stress on how pathetic your defeat (or glorious your victory) was.

There is also the admiration for the underdog. The one peasant rebellion that wins will be much better known than the hundred that are crushed.

 

[JodelDiplom]

Sometimes de idea of "untrained" and "underequipped" stays in the eye of the beholder. If they don't match your ideas on how you should be armed and fighting, you're just "peasant rabble"… So , even if you lose, it's not your fault, they fail at fighting like real man.

Or the guy writing the chronicles want to stress on how pathetic your defeat (or glorious your victory) was.

The guy writing the story might have intended for his story to be read to untrained peasants in order to rouse them to patriotic fury. Of course he would then make their long dead ancestors who beat the foreign invader into untrained peasants too.

 

[Easy-Kill]

There are a lot of examples where non professional soldiers become exemplars of military exceptionalism. For example, the founders of the most well known special operations forces trace their routes to citizen-soldiers who had a slightly different way of thinking. David Stirling, Freddy Spencer Chapman, bagnold, Wingate etc. None of them had traditional regular military careers and instead made the rules suit the situation. Even today both the UK and US special forces have substantial reserve elements.

 

[Geriander]

Speaking of medieval warfare, how much training would it take to make an average farmer into a decent pikeman or crossbowman?

Compared to a knight with plate and charger, they would be relatively untrained and unequipped but they often did very well.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Speaking of medieval warfare, how much training would it take to make an average farmer into a decent pikeman or crossbowman?

Depends on crossbow and pike of course but after three days you can hit stuff and after a week one would be decent enough.

 

[Fishman786]

Peasants can be very effective fighters. They're tough, strong men with little to lose and a lifetime spent swinging heavy farming implements around. They're lacking in equipment and more importantly organisation, but if the latter can be provided by a core of veteran soldiers they can definitely put up a fight.