The size of the Garlean Empire's military

[Conradus]

The Garlean Empire is said to have quite the impressive military force. But just how big is it in term of manpower?

The Final Fantasy wiki gives some idea of it's size, but it's a wiki, and its valdity is in question. The wiki lists it this way:

14 Legions

1 Legion = 10 Cohors

1 Cohor = 3 Manipulae

1 Manipulae = 2 Centuries

If this is true, then the size of the army is dependent on how big a "century" actually is. In real-life Roman military terms, a century could consist of anywhere between 100-1000 soldiers. Assuming the usual definition, you get 100x2 = 200 as one manipulus. 200x3 = 600 as one cohor. 600x10 = 6000 as one legion.

Ultimately, this means that Garlemald's military force is 84000 total. that's...really, really small. In today's terms, that's at most 4-8 divisions. By real life comparison, the initial force that Germany attacked with in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII was about 13 divisions with 200,000 soldiers, and that was with a severely depleted military.

Given what I've seen, I find this hard to believe, even given the Empire's technology advantage. Watching some cinematic scenes (Like End of an Era) I suspect that the Garlean Empire's manpower is considerably greater, especially given the disposable nature the tribunes seem to think of the legionnaires.

It's not made clear just how large of a military the Garleans have.

This is important for me as I'm writing a fanfiction in which the Empire invades another country, and the smaller legion wouldn't have a hope in hell of winning that fight because of numbers.

I don't know of any period in the Roman army where a century was anything like 1000 soldiers. As far as I know, a century generally varied between 80 to 160 legionnaires.

84,000 is really, really small by modern standards. That's in modern times, when you have advanced agriculture and industry to support a large army, and the large population needed to recruit that large army, and a mechanized supply chain to get it all to them. When you go back to medieval times, it's pretty damn big. Garlemald has some pretty impressive technology, but how widespread is it? They've only been fielding this tech for a few decades. You have to have implemented it across society, from top to bottom, and had time for the population to grow in response to the increased agricultural output, to be able to field the kind of army sizes seen in modern times. You use the Roman army to figure its size since it uses Roman terms for its units. The Imperial Roman legions themselves never had much more than 100,000 troops, although there was at least that many again in the auxiliaries (which Garlemald may have as well).

[lord_naarghul]

84,000 is really, really small by modern standards. That's in modern times, when you have advanced agriculture and industry to support a large army, and the large population needed to recruit that large army, and a mechanized supply chain to get it all to them. When you go back to medieval times, it's pretty damn big. Garlemald has some pretty impressive technology, but how widespread is it? They've only been fielding this tech for a few decades. You have to have implemented it across society, from top to bottom, and had time for the population to grow in response to the increased agricultural output, to be able to field the kind of army sizes seen in modern times.

I give you another example of what has actually happened in history. Look at Japan. During the Meiji Restoration (late 1860s) technology in Japan was, as an estimate, equivalent to 1600s Europe. Firearms were only starting to proliferate, there were still scuffles in the Boshin War where fights were conducted with swords and armor. In 1873, after the dust had settled and the Meiji emperor firmly in charge, they began to modernize. By 1905, they had defeated both China in 1895 and Russia in 1905. By WWI, they were a world power. By the 1930s, they were approaching the status of military superpower.

So yes. Rapid modernization does happen.

[Conradus]

I give you another example of what has actually happened in history. Look at Japan. During the Meiji Restoration (late 1860s) technology in Japan was, as an estimate, equivalent to 1600s Europe. Firearms were only starting to proliferate, there were still scuffles in the Boshin War where fights were conducted with swords and armor. In 1873, after the dust had settled and the Meiji emperor firmly in charge, they began to modernize. By 1905, they had defeated both China in 1895 and Russia in 1905. By WWI, they were a world power. By the 1930s, they were approaching the status of military superpower.

So yes. Rapid modernization does happen.

You've chosen probably the most extreme example of rapid modernization in history, and it still took at least twice as long as Garlemald's been at it. In 1905, Japan only had a total armed force of about 300,000. Their victory over the Russians, while undeniably impressive, can be ascribed in part to the extreme remoteness of the theatre of war from Russia's main populated areas, and the general decay of Russian institutions--the complete overthrow of the monarchy was at this point less than fifteen years away.

Nevertheless, I'm not saying it's *impossible* that the Garleans have managed a huge modern-sized army--just that's it's not unreasonable that they haven't.

[BlossomRose]

I am pretty sure the total population of the FFXIV world is not very large. Fantasy settings of such scale usually don't go beyond a few million individuals, if even that.

If the Garlean Empire's military is roughly ~100,000 bodies strong, then it's not unreasonable to assume the FFXIV world is one where ~100,000 bodies is a VERY SIGNIFICANT military body. If global population is in the millions, as it would tend to be for settings like this, then it's actually a very big deal, and understandably the largest military body of the world, hence the threat.