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Old 03-18-2023, 06:17 PM
Homer Homer is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2022
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Yep-

I read a couple of soldier accounts from the 30 years war with where the devastation was so complete that villages were reported to have a few lucky infants, children, infirm men, visibly sick or otherwise undesirable women, and old (but not elderly) people. The “crone” or “wise man” you see in a fairy tails was notable for survival and rare enough that they were accorded a level of deference solely for age and capability.

Fit men who weren’t killed or conscripted are mentioned as hiding in the woods; if there was enough warning older girls and women were also sent to hide on the approach of an army. Children were expected to work at tasks they could perform. The passage of an army or bandits may change the demographics of a village overnight; killing off the men, carrying off the women, or an introduced epidemic. Regarding militias, village resistance was generally not very effective against army’s or bandits (marauders) for lack of capability or numbers. That said, the murder of stragglers or foragers by villagers was not unheard of.

Fraser’s “The Steel Bonnets”, Löns’s “The Warwolf”, and von Grimmelshausen’s “Adventures of a Simpleton” all paint pretty good images of conditions for civilians in conditions similar to Poland or any other heavily contested area circa 2000.
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