How ancient armies were fed on the march

For anyone unlucky enough to find themselves having to fight in someone’s army, life would consist of poor food, dangerous battles and lots of walking. With only a few exceptions, soldiers of most of histories armies were expected to bring their own food with them, and when you live in a time when you’re only going to be eating a handful of different things your entire life, this led to some very poor marching food.

(Napoleon Bonaparte, great at commanding armies, terrible at feeding them)

The quote “an army marches on its stomach” was apparently said by Napoleon Bonaparte, and while its true it also seems to be a bit hypocritical because his entire army was notoriously poorly fed. This was one of the reasons he lost well over 500,000 of his troops when he tried to invade Russia, but if you were in his army, or any historic or ancient army for that matter, what would be your choices?

One of the most important things to remember about ancient armies is that they had very few ways of preserving food, and vegetables and fresh meat are heavy and don’t last very long stuffed into a carry bag. From the Iron Age up until the late colonial period, the number one marching food for armies was grain, usually wheat or rye, and it was always in dried form so it lasted. Salt was expensive and out of reach for most troops, so the only way they had of preserving their own food was to dry or smoke it.

Grain was usually boiled into a dish along with anything else they could find or hunt along the way, which came along quite often in earlier years of Britain. During the Iron Age, the population of Britain passed 1 million for the first time, leaving huge expanses of wilderness across the country, which in turn provided huge amounts of forageable foods and animals to hunt.

(Hardtack, lasts for years but has to be dipped in water or milk to make it soft enough to eat)

Things stayed the same throughout the medieval period in terms of marching food, but pork was now more often on the menu than before. Pigs had been bred across the whole country and their meat could be salted and would last for a long time, the only problem was affording the salt in the first place.

Towards the end of the colonial period during the 1800s, British troops were now fed by the nation they were fighting for and were supplied with standard rations. This was an improvement on bringing your own food, but it still wasn’t anything to write home about. The standard rations for most troops consisted of hard tack and salt pork, which was very different from the salt pork sold today. Hard tack is dense bread that’s been baked for a long time to remove all the moisture, which makes it safe to eat for years if kept properly.

Salt pork was made by alternating layers of thin pork steaks and salt, before pouring a heavily salted brine solution in to push out the air and fill in all the gaps. The good thing about this dish was it provided a safe form of meat which not only provided calories for marching, but also provided a welcomed break from the rock-hard biscuits they were given.

(Pottage, a grain based dish that involves boiling grain for a long time with literally anything else thats edible, turning it into a thick slop)

Why did ancient armies eat so poorly?

The simple answer is that the ruler in charge of the army didn’t have the capabilities, money or willingness to provide food for his army. The land you would be living on would be owned by a lord or the equivalent title, who would in turn answer all the way up the ladder to the king. If the king commanded you to fight in his army you wouldn’t really have a choice, because if you refused you would probably be arrested, and they didn’t like to waste time with prisons during the medieval period.

As a poor farmer or labourer, you would grow the most efficient crops you could and also as much grain as possible to last through the winter. When it came to being ordered to go on the march in someone’s army, you wouldn’t waste effort carrying a load of cabbages that would feed you a few days when the same weight of grain would last a couple of weeks. There are a few exceptions to ancient armies having their rations provided for them or having more than just grain, the most notable of which are listed below:

The Romans

Having the most powerful army didn’t just mean having the best equipment and training, but also the best food. To keep their troops in peak fighting condition, Roman soldiers were given a high calorie diet that included meat, cheese and wine as part of their basic rations. They were also able to buy or just take food from the populations they passed through, with no one being able to do anything about it.

1700’s British sailor

The standard rations for a British sailor during the 1700s was one pound of hard tack (also known as ships biscuits) and one gallon of small beer. The calories in the beer was probably more than the biscuits, though it helped to keep up moral it didn’t help with the stereotype of sailors drinking too much.

Turkish army during WW1

One of the reasons that the Turks didn’t take many prisoners during the first world war was because they couldn’t feed them and they’d die anyway. At one of the worst points during the war when supplies were especially low, the standard rations for a Turkish soldier was a single scoop of grape jam and a piece of bread each day.

American Revolutionary War soldier

An enlisted man fighting in the revolutionary war of 1775 was assigned a standard food ration to make signing up more attractive. Each day a soldier would receive one pound of either bread or flour, and one pound of meat which would be either beef, salted fish or salted pork along with one pint of milk a day, and three pints of either peas or beans each week. This would be quite a decent ration to receive, but actually getting it was another matter. The meat provided was almost always salted pork, and it wasn’t practical to get a pint of fresh milk to thousands of soldiers each day, so many had to go without.