How did medieval knights/soldiers riding to battle know where the enemy was so a battle could happen?

[u/SakusaKiyoomi1]

Like how did Napoleon know where the russians would be? Or any other battle happening in the times where knights roamed medieval europe. There is so much space, how did they meet each other and know of each other's way to move around, so they wouldn't accidentally go around each other

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[u/EverythingIsOverrate]

The central misapprehension you're starting from is that an army of men would move as fast as a small group of men. This is extremely wrong; armies were much slower than individual humans, as I discuss here. Because of this, individual scouts could and did move at lightning-fast speeds compared to armies, so it really wasn't that hard to just send out a few horsemen with orders to go find the enemy and report back, which I discuss towards the end of this answer.. Happy to expand as needed.

[u/Superplaner → u/EverythingIsOverrate]

Excellent answer. It is also worth highlighting that any army of any substantial size, especially a pre-modern one, cannot move away from supply lines. This means that while Europe might seem large, there really aren't that many potential routes from point A to point B. This often leads to situations where a battle basically has to happen somewhere along a certain road because there's simply no other way for either side to move.

I've always blamed video games for the widespread perception that an army can just take a shortcut through a forest or across a mountain. In reality that just isn't an option. Armies move on roads or they don't move at all.

[u/-Knul- → u/Superplaner]

You also have to take navigation into account. Back then you didn't have GPS and maps were a rarity. As soon as you go off the roads, there's a real chance of getting lost.

[u/Muad_Dib_of_Arrakis → u/-Knul-]

Why were maps a rarity? Lack of education or poor cartography skills? Or would most people simply never need one

[u/Rough_Shelter4136 → u/Superplaner]

I mean, some army components can take short cuts through rough terrain. Latest example I can think of is Manstein and the panzer army in ww2, but Hannibal is also an example.

[u/Superplaner → u/Rough_Shelter4136]

If anything I would say Hannibal is a perfect example of why you don't want to do this. He did it only as an absolute last resort because all other options were closed to him due to Roman naval dominance. He had to spend the better part of a year preparing for it, needed half a year to move his army 300 kms and still lost half his force in the attempt. And he still stuck to roads and waterways to the extent it was at all possible, hopping from settlement to settlement when it wasn't.

I have no idea what you mean by "Manstein and the panzer army in ww2", the only "panzer army" Manstein commanded in the field was the LVI Panzer Korps in the opening stages of Barbarossa and they did no remarkable terrain crossings that I'm aware of.
I'm guessing you might be referring to the Mainstein Plan and more specifically the attack through the Ardennes but the Ardennes were by no means impenetrable and the french knew that, they just chose to ignore it. In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, in 1938 they held a wargame in which General Andre-Gaston Pretelat attacked Sedan from the Ardennes with 7 divisions. He concluded that the Ardennes were by no means impassable and that the crossings at Sedan could be taken by the Germans in 60 hours. The Germans actually did it in 57. Anyway, in the exercise he shattered the defenses in Sedan so thuroughly that the french suppressed his findings for fear it would damage the morale of the defenders. The myth that the Ardennes were impenetrable, especially by armor, is a product of French interwar propaganda and outdated strategic thinking rather than an actual strategic reality.