SOCIETY — 159/262 — Life in a military camp
A military camp near Kuttenberg remained in place for several months, requiring all the essentials of civilian life, including field baths, an apothecary, a clergyman, a mess hall, supply tents, and a sizable contingent of courtesans and prostitutes.
Many soldiers embarked on their journey with their families, and hundreds of other “civilians” joined the camp for practical reasons. There was always a need for cobblers, armorers, blacksmiths, bakers, and others. As a result, there were often more non-combatants than soldiers in the camp.
To sustain the camp so-called provisioning units were sent out into the surrounding areas. These were soldiers charged with getting provisions at whatever cost. In calmer times, the provisioners normally paid peasants for their food; in more desperate times, they took what they could find. Getting enough sustenance for a crowd of many thousands was a question not only of survival but of morale. Without morale there is no army, without an army there is no campaign…
Hygiene was a critical factor for any military camp, as many campaigns ended due to epidemics of dysentery or typhus before they even began.
— A high number of civil camp followers was needed for a military campaign, in managing logistics, carrying equipment, providing distraction in prostitution, drinking and gambling – anything to assist the troops and keep them from moving out to plunder. At the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the camp followers of Duke William of Normandy estimated around 7,000 commoners on 6,000 soldiers (among them 600 grooms to take care of 3,000 horses). While providing essential help, the mainly unskilled labourers – among them often hundreds of female family members and children – also needed special protection. When marching, Jan Žižka's troops achieved this defence through wagon forts arranged in columns: On the outside, war wagons were positioned, while the inside was made up of supply wagons, civilians and dismounted infantry.
Not all of them followed along on their own accord. After having their homes and fields destroyed, being assaulted and raped, the survivors of pillaged villages – most of them women – had no other choice but to follow their attackers as a means to survive. On the campaign they would often face more torment. They were frequently the first to be taken prisoner, were subjected to torture and maiming, only to be sent back to camp as a deterring proof of the enemy's cruelty, and many women had to resort to prostitution. The background and motivation of the camp followers could thus make or break the outcome of a battle. In 1410 at the Battle of Grunwald, when the Teutonic Knights fled back to their camp from the Polish-Lithuanian troops, their camp followers – many of them recruited or press-ganged from the invaded Polish lands – awaited them with violence. The Cronica Conflictus describes how the German soldiers tried to erect and hide in a wagon fort;
“but soon even that could not save them from the swords. More were killed here than at any other place on the battlefield.”
