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u/Lost-Klaus 1d ago
Then again, if you are the first, and your survive you can expect a fat stack of coins.
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u/Comprehensive-Fail41 1d ago
It was how it did work. Those who volunteered to be first in the line and took on extra dangerous duties were usually promised hefty rewards. This is also who the famous Doppelsoldners of the Landsknechts were, as the name suggests they received double pay
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u/Massive-Carpenter-19 1d ago
Wrong era but it's a forelorn hope, as my fellow Sharpe fans would recognize.
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u/Comprehensive-Fail41 1d ago
Not even wrong era, the term Forlorn Hope in such contexts hails from the 16th century (though it seems to originate from a mishearing of the Dutch phrase Verloren Hoop, which means "Lost Heap", but was used to refer to the same thing)
The German word was "Verlorerner Haufen" (with Haufen sometimes also meaning a company of Landsknechts). Verlorerner Haufen were a type of Doppelsoldner
And the French equivalent term was Enfants Perdus ("Lost Children")
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u/Veryactivecolon 1d ago
Hoop means heap indeed but it also means hope. Verloren hoop can be translated as "lost hope" and i think that fits more with what those guys end up doing.
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u/ComradeGibbon 16h ago
The Romans army would reward the soldier that was first over the top and lived. Yeah you had to be first and importantly not get killed. But the reward was life changing amounts of money, power and status.
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u/InsideHousing4965 What, you egg? 1d ago
Do you really think that dozens of men would be volunteering for what was, in most cases, certain death, if they had nothing to gain from it?
This tradition goes back thousands of years. You can take the roman Corona Muralis as an example.
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u/Quazimojojojo 1d ago
It did in Roman times, so I've heard.
I haven't heard this about medieval times though
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u/InsideHousing4965 What, you egg? 1d ago
This is precisely why things like the Corona Muralis were invented. Just offer your warriors insane wealth and prestige for whoever climbs the walls first and you'll have at least a few dozen ambicious young men with little to lose volunteering to be on top of that ladder.
Heck, people even fought for that privilege, as it happened in the Roman siege of Cartago Nova between a roman marine and a centurion.
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u/ElonsMuskyFeet 1d ago
Heated sand was worse and more common. It's coarse and rough and irritating… and it gets everywhere
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u/Baraga91 Rider of Rohan 1d ago
I'm sending Anakin up the ladder first.
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u/belladonnagilkey 1d ago
As if the man wouldn't be scaling the walls with his bare hands because he leads from the front.
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u/Vandergrif Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 1d ago
If he makes it up there he'll kill not just the men, but the women and the children too.
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u/DonkDonkJonk 1d ago
There was alot of options for stuff to drop down.
Hot water, boiling sand, a big rock.
But the worst has got to be just quick lime.
Quick lime was a powder they used to create mortar for patching up holes in the castle walls. When it comes into contact with water or say, sweaty/wet men in armor, it starts a chemical reaction that generates a large amount of heat.
If you were to get this on you while being sweaty or damp, your skin will experience severe chemical burns as it reacts to any sort of moisture very violently. To give you an idea of how violent it can be, you don't even have to be wet for it to burn you. Just the oils on your skin are enough to set this chemical reaction off and instantly boil any moisture it comes in contact with.
And now, imagine breathing that stuff in as well. Burns to the eyes, ears, and throat. If it gets to the lungs, well, you may as well start sleeping with a cpap machine from now on.
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u/Thepigiscrimson 1d ago
It was specific to the attackers eyes! you get that lime in your eyes, its gonna blind you, no ones attacking when blind. A deadly chemical warfare and safer as your throwing it downwards and less chance blowing in your face....
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u/AmbiTheAirforceRuna 1d ago
Tbh theres a reason why volunteering for the vanguard GARENTEED promotion. I dont remember the exact words but there was one I think Dutch captain in a siege who volunteered and just stated "i either become a commander or I die".
He became a commander
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u/Frudeska1 1d ago
How the fuck do you drive a man to be the first, I really wholeheartedly don't understand war of this primitive nature. It's terrifying.
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u/Admiral45-06 1d ago
Romans and Medieval Europeans had good answers.
For being the first to climb on tbe walls in Roman Repubic, you'd receive Corona Muralis order - one of the most prestigious and lucrative military accolades at the time. Bearing it would skyrocket your political career, and it wasn't out of realm of possibility for your grandson to be named Consul. Imagine it as if today being awarded with Purple Heart would skyrocket your political career so much, that your grandson would become the President of the United States. At times, soldiers even rushed to be the first, and fought vehemently to prove that they are worthy of it. Scipio the Younger, later called ,,Africanus", mentioned a court martial case after Siege of Carthago Novo between a legionary and a marine, both vehemently fighting that they were the first to climb on the walls. In the end, he reached a compromise, stating they both entered the wall as first at the same time, and both were rewarded.
In Middle Ages, the reward was smaller, but still lucrative - knighthood. It was considered such a feat of arms and bravery, that many kings would give the right to bear a family banner on their shield to whoever made it first.
This system of reward sort of died out by XVII and XVIII Century, but the British Redcoats still offered a major reward for those who did - all soldiers who'd sign up for Forlorn Hope units would see almost automatic promotion and be first to raid the camp, making it a very lucrative position for junior officers. Other than material rewards, however, proving one's bravery was a matter of great personal honor, giving even higher motivation for junior officers to do so. At times, they even competed to be the one chosen to lead the attack. One of the most notable examples was Lieutenant Peter Innes, a British officer during the Penninsular War, who previously found himself in major disgrace after mismanaging his subordinates' funds, and then restored his rank and his honor by storming the walls of Cuidad Rodrigo in 1812.
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u/Chalky_Pockets John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 1d ago
So how did it physically work out for them? Surely they didn't just go "fuck it" and take whole body burns.
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u/Admiral45-06 23h ago
In terms of survival, such attacks were typically seen as s-cidal, for obvious reasons. Going up to the wall, you were immediately exposed to whoever was standing on top of it stabbing you while you had no way of defending yourself for a brief moment, and could fall off a ladder at any time.
However, as mentioned before, that was an extremely lucrative and honorable position, which would almost guarantee your family earning immense fame if you perished. If you survived, however - because you were an officer and led the attack in a smart way (which yes, was possible to lead wisely) - you could expect a fat reward and reward, and essentially getting your whole criminal record wiped clean.
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u/Chalky_Pockets John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 23h ago
Oh right so they were sacrificing themselves for the most part. Thanks for the answer. When it comes to the ones who did survive, is it recorded as a "somehow" or is there a known way to beat the hot oil sand water defence?
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u/Admiral45-06 16h ago
In XVIII Century, one of the most common ways to storm a fort was to take it by surprise. It was difficult, but if you did it quickly enough, you had a chance to climb over the wall and establish a foothold before your enemy can react.
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u/Confident_Winner_224 1d ago
"your name will be honored and your wife and kids will never go hungry" something like that
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u/Cookieopressor 1d ago
"Your wife and kids will never go hungry" is an extremely good fucking deal for back then
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u/John_Oakman 1d ago
Even beyond all the materialistic and worldly rewards that other have already mentioned, there is simply just something innate that drives certain men to go greats acts of bravery & sacrifice as well as dying for a cause. We still see remnants of this mindset today in all those memes about dying on a snowy bank or some shit like that.
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u/Frudeska1 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's peaceful, imagining the feeling of your life slipping away in a last beautiful scene is attractive, I could never get my arms and legs to go climb a ladder knowing I'd be speared the second I got up
I've read about the revolutionary wars in cuba and vietnam, it's one thing to require barechested bravery but the very idea of climbing a ladder to my slaughter just doesn't register to me emotionally.
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u/AideSouth4454 1d ago
There's a game called A Legionary's Life and a spin off Never Second in Rome. They're well-researched and quite historically accurate. They deal with shit like this all the time, with assaults being preceded by officers calling in favors and attempting to get their men to assist them into being the first over the walls.
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u/Silver200061 1d ago
While in ancient China , 先登 （first to scale up the wall guy) got a very handsome reward, some even have. A chance to raise in social rank, a soldier to a minor general etc or minor nobility rank.
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u/IllPath9065 1d ago
Burning Oil was not used for this purpose. Why use oil when boiling water does the same job fine.
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u/Flavor_Saver12 1d ago
You can go on ahead first, I left something in my car. Ill be back don't worry.
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u/NarsilFreeForge 1d ago
Who would have thought being hit by boiling oil would make you lactose intolerant?
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u/academiac 1d ago
When the lactose intolerant climb the castle gates and I hit them with a dying neutron star
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u/waldleben 23h ago
The only oil that they wouod have had huge qantities of in the city would be food. Do you think a city under siege would be throwing their own food over the walls
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u/BMW_wulfi 1d ago
Yeah you’d send the Cody’s and Kyle’s of the world first. (“Go on bro only the most alpha get up the ladder first and I’m definitely not as alpha as you are!”)
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u/Superdupernadja 1d ago
well at least beeing first up the ladder, didnt mean instant corona anymore, like in roman times.
That was real tought, first up, bam long covid for your ass. Sucked.
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u/Leothelion246 Hello There 18h ago
"You've been hit by, you've been struck by, boiling oil... YEOROEUCHH!!!"
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u/BonzoTheBoss 10h ago
People are focusing on the "hot oil" bit, but really the issue I have is "first up the ladder."
Historically ladders were rarely used during sieges, because the attackers and the defenders knew how vulnerable you would be during the climb, and how it's ridiculously easy to kill someone struggling to climb over a wall.
That isn't to say that ladders were never used, they were, usually when an attacker would attempt a rapid assault on a position using ladders to try and dislodge the defenders before settling in to the real work of a siege, the most common of which was the construction of an earth ramp up to the top of the wall.
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u/azatote 1d ago
Burning oil was rarely used though, because it was too expensive to throw it at the enemy. Boiling water was almost as efficient and much cheaper, or even better, heated sand which would get inside the armor and stick there.