On Heterogeneous Imperial Armies

One of the interesting functions of war is to bring together people from far-flung reaches of a state or empire for the completion of a single purpose, and it thus serves as a homogenising force. In Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That, for instance, he describes how some of his Welsh troopers could barely speak English when conscripted and sent to the Western Front; the war Anglicised them. 

But before that can happen, there is the glorious spectacle of a great army made up of soldiers of many different cultures, ethnicities and languages - the stuff perhaps of cliche, but compelling for all of that:

'On March 6th the defenders made a sortie, which allowed Doguereau to notice how heterogenous the Ottoman army was: "There were Maghrebians, Albanians, Kurds, Anatolians, Caramaneniens, Damascenes, Alepese, and Negroes from Takrour [Senegal]," he wrote. "They were hurled back."'

-From Napoleon the Great, by Andrew Roberts

'The Kaspians [from the southwestern shores of the Caspian sea] in the army wore cloaks, and carried the reed bows of their country and short swords. Such was their equipment. Their leader was Ariomardos, brother to Artyphios. The Sarangians [from what is now southwestern Afghanistan] made a brave show with dyed garments and knee-high boots, carrying bows and Median spears. Their commander was Pherendates son of Megabazus. The Paktyians wore cloaks and carried the bows of their country and daggers. Their commander was Artayntes son of Ithamitres...The Arabians wore mantles with belts, and carried at their right side long bows curving backwards.​ The Ethiopians wore skins of leopards and lions. They carried bows made of palm-wood strips that were four cubits long in full and carried short arrows pointed not with iron but with a sharpened stone, the type of stone used to carve seals. Moreover, they had spears pointed with a gazelle’s horn sharpened to the likeness of a lance, and studded clubs in addition. When they went into battle they painted half their bodies with gypsum and the other half with vermilion....[T]he Paphlagonians in the army had plaited helmets on their heads. They had small shields and short spears, as well as javelins and daggers. They wore the shoes of their country, which reach half-way to the knee...The Thracians in the army wore fox-skin caps on their heads, and tunics on their bodies. Mantles of diverse colours were their covering. They had shoes of fawn-skin on their feet and legs, and carried javelins, little shields and daggers...The Psidians had little shields of raw ox-hide. Each man carried two wolf-hunter’s spears. They wore helmets of bronze, with the ears and horns of oxen represented in bronze, and crests in addition. Their legs were wrapped round with strips of purple stuff...'

-Herodotus, from the Histories

'Foreign observers never failed to be impressed by the exotic regiments of the Tsar – Don, Turkistan and Ural Cossacks, the latter ‘big, red-bearded, wild-looking men’. Officers carried their maps in their high hats; many enemies were killed with the lance...As for the men, correspondent Alexei Ksyunin wrote: "The yellow and purple robes of the Turkmens appeared blindingly brilliant against the background of village houses. They wore enormous sheepskin hats, above dark features and wild hair which made them seem picturesque and majestic. Galloping on their horses they caused no less panic than armoured vehicles. I ordered cigarettes and tried to talk to them. It was useless, for they didn’t speak any Russian. They could say only 'Thank you, sir,' and nothing more."

'An American correspondent described a squadron of Kubanski Cossacks: "a hundred half-savage giants, dressed in the ancient panoply of that curious Slavic people whose main business is war, and who serve the Tsar in battle from their fteenth to their sixtieth years; high fur hats, long caftans laced in at the waist and coloured dull pink or blue or green with slanting cartridge pockets on each breast, curved yataghans inlaid with gold and silver, daggers hilted with uncut gems, and boots with sharp toes turned up ... They were like overgrown children." First Army’s cavalry were commanded by the old Khan of Nakhichevan, who was found weeping in his tent one morning because he was too crippled by haemorrhoids to mount his horse.'

-From Catastrophe, by Max Hastings

'Men of all nations were there, Ligurians, Lusitanians, Balearians, Negroes, and fugitives from Rome. Beside the heavy Dorian dialect were audible the resonant Celtic syllables rattling like chariots of war, while Ionian terminations conflicted with consonants of the desert as harsh as the jackal’s cry. The Greek might be recognised by his slender figure, the Egyptian by his elevated shoulders, the Cantabrian by his broad calves. There were Carians proudly nodding their helmet plumes, Cappadocian archers displaying large flowers painted on their bodies with the juice of herbs, and a few Lydians in women’s robes, dining in slippers and earrings. Others were ostentatiously daubed with vermilion, and resembled coral statues.'

-From Salammbo, by Flaubert

Until very recently, very few armies indeed were unified and regimented swarms of men in uniform. They were more often a disparate, highly heterogeneous mix. Fantasy armies, it goes without saying, should reflect that, and are much more interesting and compelling when they are made up of a vast array of troops from different backgrounds, different regions, and different species, than when they are undifferentiated mass.