Z
I'm curious why people keep reiterating on points that I've never argued against in the first place? Occupation, policing, I've already said multiple times of course a commoner contingent would be called in to take care of. What I have been entirely consistent on is the fact that commoners are not actually useful in the conduct of the actual battle, and very likely not useful in the actual war itself, insomuch as determining the ultimate victor of the war.
Following along those lines, pretty much all of the examples raised thus far are predicated on the nobles positioning themselves in such a way that they would be vulnerable to attack by commoners. My position is simply that, due to the nature of warfare in the Bookverse, when there is a war going on, the way the nobles fight precludes this from happening except by such random chance that you cannot credibly rely on a commoner contingent to play any role in the actual outcome of the war. This means that the opportunity to employ on the ground ambushes or some other such engagement in practical terms does not exist. Considering the range and speed with which the nobility can move, why would they need to bother camping out in the open field where they could get ambushed? And due to the very nature of offensive warfare, the attacking side would only bother attacking if they were assured of a superiority in mana/numbers against the defending nobles. And the defending nobles are technically inside their own domain, so it's not like they would be without the existing infrastructure that is maintained to secure the domain that they could use to rest and whatnot, so they wouldn't be camped outside either, unless they were already beaten, at which point again, the war is concluded without any influence by the commoners.
By all indications wars between nobles are quick and sharp. With the ability to move via air, the attacking nobility have near total freedom to choose where they want to launch an attack. There's no forts or anything that could block their advance, and with the speed they move and now the revealed existence of teleportation magic, there's not an actual supply line to cut. So there aren't any "caravans" for any commoners to man, the nobles are indeed themselves capable of handling their own supply needs. For that matter, a caravan would likely only be needed if the nobles decided to bring a large number of commoners along, so the need can just be eliminated outright by not bringing them. So the commoners aren't a solution to some existing problem, they are the source of the problem to begin with.
All this being the case, victory in battle, and likely in the war as a whole, is dictated by the speed with which the attackers can move the total sum of their strength against the defenders. Once that battle is concluded, if the defenders are forced to "retreat," that effectively signals the defacto end of the war as well, since it indicates the defending nobles cannot hold against the attackers. Similarly if the attackers are routed, it's also game over, and all this was settled between just nobles with minimal if outright nonexistent combat contributions from any commoners.
Once the war between the nobles are concluded, there is no structure in which the commoners under the losing nobles would try to rise up. By all indications in the Bookverse, the commoners don't really care one way or another who their ruling lords are. They have no reason to stick their necks out to avenge their previous masters. So long as the new nobles that come in don't do anything stupid, the change in rulership just happens. The Bookverse does not have the concept of a modern nation state like what we have in the world right now. So, no guerrilla warfare to even take into consideration. And frankly, guerrilla warfare is already sufficiently outside of the normal strictures of war that the methods for dealing with it wouldn't apply in the formal wars between nobles anyway.
The other body of examples, of where people suggest that commoners might tip the edge if there is some near parity of forces between the nobles, I've already pointed out why that wouldn't happen, but I'll repeat here. If the two sides were at near parity to begin with, they wouldn't have gone to war in the first place. You don't go into war, or even battle, when you know the other side is equal or almost equal to you in strength. That's what an amateur would do. In cases where two sides are at parity, they tend to avoid battle or war at all costs. It's only when you manage to stack the deck as heavily in your favor as possible that the metaphorical trigger is pulled. And due to the nature of warfare in the Bookverse, commoners cannot provide a large enough bolster to your combat power to upset the balance of power when it comes to actual combat.
I see little reason why an insurrection in a city would require a noble to fight on the ground. Were I a noble in the Bookverse, my reaction to an insurrection would be to organize an aerial encirclement of the city and rain down magic artillery until the insurrectionists surrender, the local populace has itself torn the insurrectionists to pieces, or everyone inside is dead. And before anyone tries to claim, "but oh, destroying so much of the city and killing so many civilians would be a blow to the area's economy," those considerations are flat out ignored when dealing with insurrection in the real world. Entire towns and even cities have been razed for the purpose of putting down an insurrection many a times over the course of our own history. The Bookverse nobility have shown no indication that they are any less ruthless than nobles or other autocrats in our world. This being the case, concern about collateral damage is NOT a rationale for the nobles to endanger themselves, since if they're dead, the potential loss of income is already moot. So, a bunch of insurgents in a city versus a couple of knights? The knights would win, hands down.
That being said, an insurrection is NOT a formal state of war between nobles. So what I said about the whole guerilla warfare thing also applies here, we're no longer talking about formal war, so what applies to insurrections do NOT apply to formal wars, and vice versa.
As for the caravan example, the simple problem with trying to use that as an example is that it's on the ground. As I noted above the nobility have absolutely no need to expose themselves in such a manner when on campaign. You can't actually set an ambush like that if you can't actually get ahead or keep pace with the nobles in question.
