Entourage
Starting with the first military history until around the end of the Second World War , the term tross describes those rear parts of a military unit that took on support tasks, particularly in the supply and transport sector. Until the time of the farmhand armies, their relatives were referred to as baggage handlers . The term “ supply ship” has been used in the navy to this day .
Task and function
As part of the marching order of a larger military unit, the entourage tended to take one of the rear and thus one of the supposedly safer places. Depending on the equipment and the available means of transport, food, bulky luggage and often heavier pieces of armament were transported on carriers, carrier animals and / or wagons. The Roman legionaries marched z. B. only with expected enemy contact with their bulky shields and otherwise transported them in the entourage to put them on before the fight. Often families of soldiers, prostitutes, sutlers and the like also joined a marching army in the entourage. The entourage had no active combat mission and often required security teams to protect them.
If an enemy force succeeded in destroying or capturing the train, this often plunged the affected army into massive problems, as most of the food supplies, spare weapons, ammunition supplies, tent material and any tools that were available were then lost. In the context of a military ambush , it was therefore considered sensible to attack the train, which tended to be weakly defended, first, if possible. The entourage was on the one hand indispensable for the supply, but on the other hand restricted the army's freedom of movement.
Depending on the epoch and size of the military unit, one spoke of legion train, field equipage , battalion train , regiment train , division train or army train .
Since the end of the Second World War, however, the term “baggage train” as a designation for rear units has largely disappeared from military parlance. Instead, it is now used to describe the interface between supply units and the combat unit within them. So mostly the spit stands before the entourage. In addition, the people in the supply of a combat unit belong to the convoy. During an exercise, the main task of the convoy is to provide the unit with food supplies.
Antiquity
In ancient Greece, the free citizens who provided the phalanx in Greece often had one or more servants with them who took care of their masters before and after the battle, but without fighting themselves, which of course made the army's food and water supply much more difficult. Philip II of Macedonia therefore limited the number of servants in his army to one for three soldiers.
The train in the Roman legion
The entourage in Roman legions had the task of ensuring the supply of the legionnaires on a campaign . In addition to simple assistants such as a muleteer, mostly unfree , with a mule per contubernium , various craftsmen, surveyors for field camp and road construction as well as doctors and paramedics were part of the entourage of each legion. The muleteers with their mules followed, except immediately before a battle, attached to the rear of each centurion , so that the material loaded on them, such as entrenchment equipment and tent, was available for construction immediately upon arrival at the camp. Other auxiliary workers with the subsequent supply of food, which the legion and its auxiliary troops had to follow on a daily basis, were also included.
The entourage was part of the non-combatant part of the legion and consisted of about 1,000 men. Except in immediate emergency situations, this was not used in a battle because its members had neither the training nor the equipment for it.
The entourage took up various positions within the marching order . This always depended on the danger situation and the terrain in which the Legion was moving. Typically, the main forces of the Legion marched in front of the train, while the rear was secured by a rear guard . In particularly critical situations, parts of the legion also marched on the flanks of the baggage train.
Together with the entourage, a legion reached a march length of four to five kilometers. The size of the baggage train and the nature of the route had a decisive influence on the speed of the entire large formation. That is why the Roman legions used the Roman roads they had laid out and paved wherever possible .
Thirty Years' War
In the Thirty Years' War , the baggage train ( baggage ) responsible for supplying the soldiers (logisticians, engineers, doctors, craftsmen, sutlers and field chaplains ) mainly included the families of the soldiers who followed the army, as well as many other civilians. In addition, there were often refugees, marauders and prostitutes ; Whole herds of farm animals were often moved between the crowds . The civilian appendix of a German Landsknecht army was administered by the so-called " Hurenwaibel "; usually the size of the baggage exceeded that of the fighting troops many times over. It could happen that an army of 1000 was accompanied by 500 women and 300 children.
Napoleonic Wars
The French Revolution brought about a revolutionary innovation in the revolutionary armies at the time: Instead of relying on a large, cumbersome train to supply the troops, the French marched without a train and made use of the resources of the traversed country. This procedure allowed them to march very quickly and, if necessary, to operate largely independently of fixed roads. The disadvantage of this was that the marching army had to rely on a rich surrounding area in which to replenish its supplies, otherwise it was quickly threatened by starvation. This was the case, for example, with Napoleon's Russian campaign in 1812 , in which Napoleon had assembled a huge entourage, but it was nowhere near enough to supply his troops.
