this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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The Last Kingdom did such a good job showing how
Mundane medieval warfare was since it really wasn't often grand scaled. Post Roman Europe was mostly small skirmishes with occasionally large scale warfare, but it was few and far between until probably Charlemagne (citation needed. I am NOT a military history guy.)
Brutal. There was no even match up. It was either a one sided slaughter or the battle didn't happen.
Point two is important. When your force is so small that a single pitched battle is pretty much it for either side, you don't really want to roll those dice unless you really like your odds
Likewise, how "few" casualties there were in actual battle. Fiction shows both sides duking it out until they're both effectively wiped out. In real life, if 10% of an army was dead or incapacitated, the battle was over. There would be a rout, a retreat, and depending on the details, another battle a few days or weeks later.
And if you were a knight of nobility you would surrender with the expectation to be ransomed.
Remember limited warfare? That was awesome.
Yeah turns out seeing your buddies get stabbed isn't great for morale.
Very true!
A fighting retreat is an incredibly difficult maneuver to pull off, but if managed, it means that what could have been an utter massacre is reduced to simply damaging. A commander - and a military force - that knows when to fold 'em in that context of high-casualty retreats is worth their weight in gold.
Contrary to what movies generally show, there's a time after battle, and most of the time there were more than two factions at play in a given region.
If you go all-in on one battle, and both factions battle to the last man then (a) you won't have anyone to do the next harvest and (b) you won't have anyone who could defend against any random third party to swoop in and easily take both factions' land.