It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion about how fantasy world builders might better incorporate real world historical analogues into their stories for greater verisimilitude – and, yes, to further Bret Devereux’s explicit agenda which is to counteract what he sees as historical misinformation perpetuated by fantasy authors adopting a sheen of ‘based in realistic history’ while actually doing a disservice to ancient and modern people and their histories.
The annoying part of the article is how it very much pretends to be some kind of objective truth and that fictional stories are bad and wrong for not adhering to the author's exact view of historical militaries. Every sentence he writes about fantasy stories diverging from his view is dripping with contempt for the authors, as though they're ignorant at best if not outright mentally challenged for daring to write their fictional worldbuilding in a way that is not congruent with his expectations.
I'm not going to build a catalogue of every one of his irritating statements (it would be about as long as the article), but, take, for instance: "Fans of fictional worlds will have often run into the most egregious examples of the failure to think in these terms". That is not a man sharing his opinion, that is a man asserting that his opinion is objectively correct and that anyone who disagrees are so stupid they must not've thought of all the details he thought of, else they would have come to see his light. Not once does he stop to consider that perhaps an author did do their research, and that their work was informed by a specific piece of research or simply an interpretation that differs from his own, or that they deliberately chose to take liberties because fiction is about crafting a compelling narrative moreso than creating an autistically-perfect simulation of the existing world.
> counteract what he sees as historical misinformation perpetuated by fantasy authors adopting a sheen of ‘based in realistic history’
Ah yes, realistic history like... Star Trek. It seems much less like his agenda has anything to do with counteracting misinformation and everything to do with being the archetypical "AKSHUALLY" nerd who gets off on correcting people in extremely pedantic and not actually meaningful ways.
He's a military historian writing for a popular audience who naturally get much of their intuitions from pop culture. Of course he's going to find unrealistic elements in creative works. I've never seen him dismiss the overall value of a work due to these unrealistic elements. I enjoy having my misapprehensions acquired from pop culture corrected by an expert. I imagine many of his loyal readers first discovered him through one of his critiques of military depictions in The Lord of the Rings like I did. If you don't enjoy that, he's just not for you. No need to yuck my yum.
It was also quite long winded. Probably could have been summarized to maybe 3 reasons. Oddly enough I don’t see “money” mentioned, at least not simply, and that should probably be reason #1
There's a famous quote attributed to the Italian military commander Gian Giacomo Trivulzio in 1499.
When asked by King Louis XII of France what preparations were needed to invade the Duchy of Milan, Trivulzio responded: "To carry out war, three things are necessary: money, money, and yet more money."
> The first place most modern folks’ mind goes, of course, is to pattern this task off of their own jobs and so to assume that these fellows are under arms because they are paid to be, which I am going to term the employment principle.
The Helm's Deep series ended up with 8 posts. Well worth reading.
"the entitlement principle (service as the flip-side of the coin for some set of rights or status)" and
the employment principle (separate from the vocational principle). We may sum it up with, “recruits show up purely as an economic transaction: service for money” – it’s a job.
Close enough.
> and that should probably be reason #1
Article goes on to explain that:
it is fairly rare for pre-modern armies to function purely ‘as a job.’
Which makes sense: humanity's history of picking fights with fellow humans goes back much further than the history of money itself. And even where they overlap, there's other reasons for recruits to enter an army.
Much of pre-modern societies were organised around master-servant, slavery, nobility, family clans & related concepts. Free market economies with individuals striving to maximize the amount of gold nuggets in their pouch, is a relatively recent concept.
In those periods, people work more on credits and debts, which shade directly into systems of social obligation and caste when extended over time.
(As you note) It's also very historically recent that 'making money' was seen as any kind of reasonable choice for someone with power. The political and merchant classes are typically quite separate (the exceptions prove the rule); the merchants are picking up an under-explored source of power that is mostly uninteresting to the the ruling class.
Does that make him infallible? Of course not. But it does mean I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here.
https://acoup.blog/2025/01/03/collections-coinage-and-the-ty...
It's also worth mentioning that directly linked from this blog post are several in-depth examinations of historical military systems, including Mongol, broader steppe nomad (note that the Mongols were exceptional), Roman, Carthaginian, Macedonian, Greek, and Gallic specifically covered in depth, and a couple of other cases (e.g., Medieval Europe and Mamluk examples) more covered in passing. The detail you think is lacking can easily be found in those blog posts.
You can also find a nice summary of the different motivating factors at the end, with 21 specific examples distributed among them. Is that not enough for you?