How long did battles last in the old days when swords were used?

Question

Back a few hundred years when only swords were used in battles.. how long did battles last? Let's say each side consisting of a force approx 40,000 infantry?

Answer 1

Depends, really. Ancient battles do not occur the way Hollywood portrays them as, where two crowds meld into each other and commence individual duels until the victor moves on. In real life, Soldiers would have stayed right at each others side; battles were more of a pushing match than anything. Most battlefield casualties occured during the rout.

The most important thing to a General would have been morale. Even if the battle was going towards one side's favor, if its morale broke it never would have mattered anyway.

One famous example that comes to mind was a battle that was written about in Julius Caesar's "Commentaries on the Gallic Wars", where the Roman legions were having tremendous success against the Gauls, but their morale began to break. Caesar grabbed a shield from one of the rear soldiers and ran up to the front line himself, inspiring his men to hold on for those precious moments more it took for the Gallic army to break.

Another discrepency was the idea that a battle was continuous. There would often be lulls in the battle where the two sides backed off each other momentarily. Wether one could consider these lulls a mere delay in the battle or an end to it is situational. In ancient Greece, for example; when one side was finished fighting, the soldiers raised their pikes in the air to signify surrender, and the opposing force was expected to stop killing them and accept their surrender.

Battles could last a few hours, they could last days. Depends. A typical battle usually lasted no later than the better part of the day, when Fatigue would begin to set in between forces, which would tip the scales towards one side's rout.

A force of 40,000 men would have been a large battle during ancient times, but would have been an unknown size during the medieval era. Medieval texts cite most armies as being less than 10,000 men, with a 20,000 man army being exceptionally rare. Larger forces could be deployed during the classical era: a famous example would be the battle of Cannae, where the Romans took to the battlefield with over 80,000 troops.

Answer 2

In the Bible, battles often lasted for days; all day long was common.
When I started tracing my genealogy, I read some books on Welsh ancestry, Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales, by Thomas Nicholas, M.A., Ph.D., F.G.S., &c. Copyright 1872, 1875. In these books, the author noted that when Rome invaded the British Isles and fought against the Druids, tens of thousands would die in a single battle, so that the "soil ran red", the streams were red from blood. The Romans would slaughter so many, but within a few years, the population of the Druids had once again became numerous and the battles would begin again.
Later, when the Welsh fought against the English, the same thing happened.
Then you have the battles of the Spaniards against the Moors...
In more recent times, check out the battles of Antitam and Gettysburg during the Civil War. After the battles, civilians would stack the bodies "like cordwood".
Unfortunately, this type of warfare continued until WWII: sending bodies against others to hack (or shoot) each other until one side ran.

Answer 3

Converge - Dark Horse (The other song wasn't terrible, but I'm really not a fan of that type of metal, it just sounds a bit cheesy.) Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks (Good match-up, but I like Two Weeks more. Probably because I've listened to it a lot over the past few months though haha.) Generationals - When They Fight, They Fight (Since I already voted for an Animal Collective song, and I really liked this catchy tune, I'll give it to them.) St. Vincent - The Strangers (I love this tune, it was definitely the standout on the album for me. Glad to see that people are liking it.) Manic Street Preachers - Peeled Apples (I haven't listened to any Manics albums since The Holy Bible, but I'm really digging this song.)

Answer 4

That amount of soldiers on a battle field would be a major war. The support forces would almost equal the fighting force. This type of battle was rare and would last for as long as the amount of dead and wounded prevented one side to be effective. Most battles consisted of 'armies' that were either defensive or aggressive in nature and had possibly one thousand men in action. The unusual length for a war was the war of the roses, it lasted thirty years.
Spartawo...

Answer 5

They were battles of maneuver where you had to outflank your enemy with superior numbers and have them surrender.

Huge casualties in 'annhiliation wars' are a 20th century phenomenon, starting with WW1.

The battle of Verdun in WW1 was the first time in human history where a million men died in a single battle.

Answer 6

I heard that sometimes those battles would last weeks or even months.

Answer 7

I suppose until one of the armies decided to flee

Answer 8

Sometimes weeks.

Answer 9

houres....