Is there any reason why all countries on a specific continent and known world would agree through a treaty to not have standing armies but instead only hire and use mercenaries exclusively for war?
Besides fear of death I can't think of anything. Like I could see the Dark Eldar doing it because when they die they are fucked, but I can't think of other reasons.
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No, that's retarded.
Instead, what is far more likely, if you're looking at a medievalish sort of setting, is that standing armies are far too politically unstable to keep around for long. You probably have levies supplemented by mercenaries, to be disbanded after a campaign ends for most warfare. Keeping a professional army around tends to lead to coups and civil wars as long as the armies are more or less self-sufficient and can sustain themselves on plunder.
Like merc companies in italy or contractors now, either the political situation is too muddy or the nations involved find it is better to use paid professionals for their armies rather than risk their manpower
Berserk's a poor example, there were standing armies but the series focuses on characters that are mercenaries. The Band of the Hawk regularly went up against knightly orders and kicked their asses.
I wasnt refering to Berserk.
Drafting farmers lead to disorganized armies and soldiers with much to lose - home, farm, family. They all fuck off once harvest season starts.
Which is why you used a picture from Berserk in your OP.
Regulatory capture.
In the real world defense contractors are constantly shmoozing for bigger contracts. It's not too hard to imagine a scenario where they've bribed enough of the local governments to replace traditional armies.
I used it because it's the most recent thing that I downloaded and I'm posting from my phone so it was the first picture in my images
Phoneposters, when will they learn?
>nowthisisautism.jpg
What about something similar to the dark eldar? The thing that connects the material plane to the afterlife was destroyed in a war. So now being a mercenary is a very lucritive job all of a sudden.
I've only seen something like that happen once, and it was because all of the countries on that particular continent were on the outskirts of a magic-radioactive wasteland that used to be the heart of a continent-spanning empire. Large groups of people can't make the journey from one country to another, and pretty much all of them have harsh natural barriers (Large deserts, impassible mountains, jagged cliff coasts, ect) out in the other directions. Small groups with proper preparation can skirt the edges to travel from one country to another, so all trade and mail is piecemeal. Nobody has a real military because they only really need to guard the border from wandering monsters and there's not much reason for international conflict because nobody really shares a border and there's no hope of taking control of other nations' land or resources.
Religion
They follow the same god and the notPepe forbids it under excommunion punishment
Also its expensive as hell to maintain a large professional army.
Also, you can't maintain a peasant levy during sowing/harvest season or nobody will have food.
Then a Nigger from not-Italy become emperor and conscript en masse and steamroll your nigger armies with 10 times more soldiers who all are highly nationalistic.
Countries are utopian-collectivist to the point of being an emotional hivemind. Using own soldiers would affect the emotions of the general society and drag the entire country into total war. Those that did that fell into general ruin. Now wars are a remnant of tradition, limited and politicized affairs conducted by independent monastic orders trading arms for resources and favors.
Because it worked so well for the papacy when they tried to ban crossbows or prevent their own religious orders like the teutonic order from wrecking shit upon over other catholics or just prevent christian princes from being absolute douchebags to each other because someone from another fief stole a cow or married a girl he fancied more.
This. One of the reasons the Roman Republic transitioned into an empire was due to changes in the military.
A reform basically took out the requirement of being a citizen and owning land. Thus the landless masses would join up with whatever popular Roman general was on the scene, knowing the end of their 20ish year service would be rewarded with land, and a yearly wage/loot along the way.
The legions would only be formed for specific campaigns and disbanded, before this new reform. After the reform was passed, legions starting popping up, and the generals would be like warlords, using their new armies for political purposes. And this caused civil wars and general unrest from about 100-30 BC. Emperor Augustus leaned more heavily on the politicking side, but consolidated all the legions under him, and made the title of commander-in-chief of all legions part of the hereditary imperial title.
>took out the requirement of being a citizen and owning land.
No, you still had to be a citizen to join but many citizen were piss poor and couldn't join until that. "Non citizen" joined only when a smug emperor decided that EVERY roman subject was cititizen because only citizen had to pay taxes to him.
An unspoken law, soldiering is a "Dirty" profession, fit for peasants and those mad enough to want to wade out in the muck and die for the glory of posh nobility who are all actually intermarried with one anothers family.
OR
Armies have recently been devastated or are fighting a united war against bumfuckistan elsewhere. No standing armies because that could be seen as antagonistic, but mercenary armies? Eh, they're fine.
>An unspoken law, soldiering is a "Dirty" profession, fit for peasants and those mad enough to want to wade out in the muck and die for the glory of posh nobility who are all actually intermarried with one anothers family.
You mean, like in reality ?
Mages kill everything, so wars are more like sports matches with sponsored army's competing for the prize!
God didn't smite crossbow owners.
He was too scared of that armor piercing power !
Mercenaries are still there after wars end. And now you have well-organized groups of heavily armed seasoned warriors roaming the lands looking for money, food and rape victims.
Fucking this. After the Treaty of Brétigny, essentially ending the first phase of the Hundred Years War, France had a ton of mercenary companies left in the country. It was only because Bertrand du Geusclin was charismatic enough to convince them to fight in the civil war currently going on in Spain that France wasn't severely mauled and plundered.
It's a post-post-apocalypse where countries are stuck within magical bubble cities to escape the miasma and mass mobilization is pretty much impossible, so they hire the "toxlings" who can live in the miasma to fight for them.
OR if you're pretty attached to the treaty part, then the countries sign such a treaty because nobles are magical super-warriors akin to strategic bombers, and whenever they wage war both sides' assets are ruined. So treaties prevent nobility from fighting in most situations, but attacking certain territories with lowborn mercenaries is A-OK.
You could have them be, for whatever reason, limited by an outside force to what size of army they can have. Like if at one point they were all beaten by an outside state and can't rebuild their armies for fear of being invaded again.
>You mean, like in reality ?
Depends on the country you live in.
Soldiering in the States is far from dirty.
This concept reminds me of a grand menace in Sword of the Stars, the Peacekeeper.
This OP motherfucker shows up, declares to each faction that fleets of ships above a certain size are not tolerated, then proceeds to fly around the sector "fixing" any fleets that are larger than his given parameters.
Something similar could happen in a fantasy realm; a powerful being of law forces peace upon the land by making all the rulers sign a treaty severely limiting the number of soldiers they can have. Breaking this treaty risks suffering the wrath of this being. Mercenaries are, for some reason or another, not covered by this treaty.
They still got mauled by them, France and Italy took it in the ass from the Routiers for a long time there, especially when King John II was hostage in England.
God was busy that week
Well here's a really easy answer to your problem that nobody else has mentioned.
Mercenaries, in the long run, can be cheaper. If you're not constantly waging war, and your tax rate/national income is pretty low, clothing, feeding, and training a professional army is a significant burden on your coinage supply.
Mercenaries are always there when you need it, and when you don't need them they continue to fight for whoever, because somebody is ALWAYS going to be pissed off as someone, and make a pretty good living.
Mercenaries were huge during the middle ages for this reason.
Knights and their Men-at-Arms became mercenaries.
I am pretty sure the Italian Condottieri fit the description.
But the ones hiring them where filthy rich and still had a small standing army to support them.
In other words hiring mercs and maintaining them is very costly, so you would never have a standing army of only mercs since they are not suited to be a permanent standing army.
But through history and some fantasy there are accounts of a mercenary army becoming an elite standing army like the Papal Swiss Guard or FR Baldur's Gate Flaming Fist.
In most western countries this is the case. A time of peace that turns the army into a well paying job UNLESS there is a war.
Only in western countries that border certain threats (Israel for example which uses a reserve and conscription system) this is not the case and a large enough standing army is required to protect its borders.
>Two nations have a long and bloody war
>as it progresses they begin running out of willing volunteers/conscripts
>begin to rely more and more on mercenaries
>due to this more and more mercenary companies begin forming
>soon the war is fought entirely with mercs
>war is finally over, but at this point the mercs represent the largest military force in the world
>realize they're onto something good here and band together, forcing the rest of the nations to disband there standing armies
>wars are now fought almost entirely with mercenaries
>any nation foolish enough to try and build a new standing army will be fucked up by the mercenaries.
So... basically the mercs turn into the nation's rulers and turn conflict into the means they stay in power ?
This is not a political reason but an environmental reason. What if the world in which your characters fight are not suited for large army movement like the world being covered in dense swamps which don't allow for fast army travel but do allow small bands of mercs to move quickly and use guerrilla warfare. Obviously this idea isn't optimal as it severely limits the environment of your setting s well as not being a political treaty like you said but you could make it work if you have your heart set on it
>Drafting people to your standing army.
Why would anyone do that during peacetimes?
You forgot to mention the most important part, namely that the reforms resulted in that the soldiers became loyal to their commander rather than the state. This was due to the fact that the soldiers only prospered when the commander was successful.
Non-citizens joined the army all the time. Like 25% to 50 % of a roman army was composed of auxillaries, i.e Non-citizen soldiers. To serve in the auxillaries was one of the most effective ways to become a citizen.
Also non-citizens still had to pay taxes it was just that they didn't have to pay as much which is why Caracalla gave citizenship to everyone. Money makes the world go 'round, especially if you scorn all except the military.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
They're more like corporate execs holding the world for ransom. They don't actually take responsibility for anything.
Why not. It's happening irl more or less with the perpetually (intentionally) destabilized middle east and the war on drugs.
Isn't this basically Naruto?
So literally the Shogunate
That's not really as good a system as you make it out to be.
Once you "disband" a mercenary army, you've got a large group of violent armed men, who are out of a job, and probably encamped within your country.
not a continent but that was pretty much renaissance Italy in a nutshell
the reason for it was mutual prosperity through lucrative trade making the countries complacent and min-max merchants instead of warriors.
it's best if the continent was surrounded by a powerful navy headed by those merchants a la Venice, Athens, Carthage, etc.
No need for a treaty to this effect. Relying heavily on mercenary forces has happened repeatedly throughout European history, out of convenience. In addition to "Condottieri" as suggested above, you might want to look up "Scutage." It's way easier to talk a baron into paying an extra tax than to talk him into personally showing up for a war he has no personal interest in.