History Thread!

[SeanF]

On ‎11‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 2:34 AM, A True Kaniggit said:

Y'all member back in 1204 when those crusaders decided to sack Constantinople? Sad. 

A pretty stupid move in the long run, but the rulers of Constantinople after the death of Manuel I, were both bigoted and stupid, and share a lot of responsibility for what happened.

On ‎11‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 2:15 AM, Pony Queen Jace said:

I'm sorry that I didn't also encourage you to delve deeper into the Romans of the East. There's SO MUCH incredible material, and thanks to how long it managed to survive we have unprecedented levels of detail through which to look at the lives of people who shaped Europe for a thousand years.

And the fact that so few of even the brightest westerners appreciate the contributions to their history from these Greek speaking Romans, even calling them 'Byzantines', is just another layer under which some of the most incredible stories in history lie. The term Byzantine itself comes from 18th century racist scholars who sought to associate themselves with the Western Rome (white people) they so idolized without suggesting a link to the Eastern continuation of the failed Republic and totalitarian state.

And the only reason those western scholars had half the material available to them regarding Caesar, Scipio, and all those Greek philosophers they so admired was because while those precious white former Romans were busy scrabbling out petty kingdoms in the dirt, in the east were the Emperors of Rome continuing to maintain a state of culture and intellectual advance.

In other words, ungrateful assholes sought to denigrate the same people who reeducated his ancestors about their lost cultural heritage when western Europe decided to slow down on acting like vicious animals long enough to listen to civilized peoples. 

While the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire still called themselves Romaioi up till 1453, I think it's plain that by c.750, the Empire had become something very different from the Roman Empire as it had been  when it started to collapse in the West.  Nobody spoke Latin any more, and it was no longer even an official language;  the Orthodox church had not formally broken with Western Catholicism, but there were very big differences in doctrine (not least iconoclasm);  urban civilisation had almost disappeared, and with it literacy, and much secular learning (Constantinople probably had 25-30,000 inhabitants at this point, and outside of the monasteries, literacy was confined to the Court, and maybe a couple of thousand civil servants and army officers);  and constitutionally, there had been massive changes in the face of Arab invasion, with the abolition of all the old Roman civil offices, and civil power being placed in the hands of Bishops and military commanders.

 

[Yukle]

I always find it interesting that there are heroes in any culture who, to everybody else, seem to be absolute monsters.

We've already discussed Genghis Khan, but here are some others I've found, where the translated local texts (if not in English) are always so different to the foreigner's view.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm eschewing nuance, but here's how it often goes:

Australia: Ned Kelly was a heroic Irishman standing up to the racist and oppressive police. Everyone else: He was a highway bandit who murdered several people and shot at police rather than face justice for his actions.

England: Oliver Cromwell was a noble and forward-thinking revolutionary who gave power to the people. Everyone else: Cromwell was a genocidal extremist who butchered Catholics in a fit of rage.

Russia: Josef Stalin was the ruthless but necessary strong leader the world needed to stare down, and defeat, Hitler. Everyone else: Congratulations on coming second in the "Who is the worst person ever?" award, you barbaric animal.

U.S.A.: Robert Lee was a man fighting for the rights of his people against tyranny. Everyone else: Robert Lee fought to preserve slavery, was a traitor to his country and spent his post-war life trying to overturn every aspect of racial equality that had been won.

China: Mao was the man who turned China from the nadir of its fortunes to the engine of the world that it is today. Everyone else: There are 50 million graves filled because of your abhorrence.

Mongolia: Genghis Khan was an efficient conqueror, who razed cities and smashed armies and people alike with impunity. Everyone else: Same thing, only seen in a negative light.

And so on. It's always funny how it can happen: we probably tend to idolise the wrong people.

[DireWolfSpirit]

^^^Bashar Al Assad is a good contemporary example of that ironic cultural outlook. With his supporters, and he has a lot of them in Syria, he's revered as a great protector who is killing the terrorist, the liberator who saved them from ISIS. 

 

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Yukle said:

I always find it interesting that there are heroes in any culture who, to everybody else, seem to be absolute monsters.

We've already discussed Genghis Khan, but here are some others I've found, where the translated local texts (if not in English) are always so different to the foreigner's view.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm eschewing nuance, but here's how it often goes:

Australia: Ned Kelly was a heroic Irishman standing up to the racist and oppressive police. Everyone else: He was a highway bandit who murdered several people and shot at police rather than face justice for his actions.

England: Oliver Cromwell was a noble and forward-thinking revolutionary who gave power to the people. Everyone else: Cromwell was a genocidal extremist who butchered Catholics in a fit of rage.

Russia: Josef Stalin was the ruthless but necessary strong leader the world needed to stare down, and defeat, Hitler. Everyone else: Congratulations on coming second in the "Who is the worst person ever?" award, you barbaric animal.

U.S.A.: Robert Lee was a man fighting for the rights of his people against tyranny. Everyone else: Robert Lee fought to preserve slavery, was a traitor to his country and spent his post-war life trying to overturn every aspect of racial equality that had been won.

China: Mao was the man who turned China from the nadir of its fortunes to the engine of the world that it is today. Everyone else: There are 50 million graves filled because of your abhorrence.

Mongolia: Genghis Khan was an efficient conqueror, who razed cities and smashed armies and people alike with impunity. Everyone else: Same thing, only seen in a negative light.

And so on. It's always funny how it can happen: we probably tend to idolise the wrong people.

Even in their home countries, attitudes towards Oliver Cromwell, Joseph Stalin, and Robert Lee are divided.

[Eggegg]

8 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Even in their home countries, attitudes towards Oliver Cromwell, Joseph Stalin, and Robert Lee are divided.

Yeah I think its more about what these people represent rather than their actual character. Genghis Khan was a monster but he represents the absolute peak of Mongolian power and status. Stalin was responsible for a period of time where Russia was a huge superpower, and Cromwell represents the beginnings of British Republicanism and Democracy. Nations store their sense of collective pride in these moments in time and don't really want to think about the terrible things these leader did to achieve that.

[mankytoes]

43 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Even in their home countries, attitudes towards Oliver Cromwell, Joseph Stalin, and Robert Lee are divided.

I can't help but feel people who like Cromwell don't really understand him. The puritans were like Christian Jihadis, and his vicious conquest of Ireland was awful even by the standards of the time, and contributed to problems we still have.

I think his contribution towards democracy is real, but overstated, seeing as everything was undone quickly and he ended up ruling like a king anyway. Simon De Montfort did something similar before him, with establishing a parliamentary system.

[Yukle]

41 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Even in their home countries, attitudes towards Oliver Cromwell, Joseph Stalin, and Robert Lee are divided.

Yeah, I did say I was overlooking subtlety. I know that they're divisive figures. The point is more that I can't believe anyone regards them as good people at all.

[Yukle]

30 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

Yeah I think its more about what these people represent rather than their actual character. Genghis Khan was a monster but he represents the absolute peak of Mongolian power and status. Stalin was responsible for a period of time where Russia was a huge superpower, and Cromwell represents the beginnings of British Republicanism and Democracy. Nations store their sense of collective pride in these moments in time and don't really want to think about the terrible things these leader did to achieve that.

Pardon the double-post, but this is a pretty good way of putting it.

I suppose there's an element of pride in it. From my perspective, I think nothing was worth that sort of cost, though. As you say, though, we tend to remember around the parts we don't like.

I have, after all, posted a lot about Caesar, somebody who was exceptionally brutal.

[SeanF]

20 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

I can't help but feel people who like Cromwell don't really understand him. The puritans were like Christian Jihadis, and his vicious conquest of Ireland was awful even by the standards of the time, and contributed to problems we still have.

 

7 minutes ago, Yukle said:

Yeah, I did say I was overlooking subtlety. I know that they're divisive figures. The point is more that I can't believe anyone regards them as good people at all.

It depends whether you regard them as bad men who were bad rulers, or bad men who were good rulers.

[mankytoes]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

It depends whether you regard them as bad men who were bad rulers, or bad men who were good rulers.

Cromwell's revolution lasted a decade before the royals were fully restored, that's a failure to me.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

3 hours ago, Eggegg said:

Yeah I think its more about what these people represent rather than their actual character. Genghis Khan was a monster but he represents the absolute peak of Mongolian power and status. Stalin was responsible for a period of time where Russia was a huge superpower, and Cromwell represents the beginnings of British Republicanism and Democracy. Nations store their sense of collective pride in these moments in time and don't really want to think about the terrible things these leader did to achieve that.

In addition to that, I think events that happened centuries or millennia ago can feel very distant to persons today, making it easy to dehumanize the people who lived back then because they appear so different from us in terms of cultures and lifestyles. 

I mean, if a present day dictator butchered the entire population of a city except for its young women, who instead were handed out to his soldiers as sex slaves, a person who said "Yeah well he is actually not all bad, don't forget that he has built two nice museums and made shoe exports go up with 15%" would be regarded as insane, but these are the kinds of arguments you hear all the time when it comes to discussions about various historical rulers. It is easy to sort of forget that people who lived in earlier historical periods were just as real as we are, I think. 

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, Yukle said:

Pardon the double-post, but this is a pretty good way of putting it.

I suppose there's an element of pride in it. From my perspective, I think nothing was worth that sort of cost, though. As you say, though, we tend to remember around the parts we don't like.

I have, after all, posted a lot about Caesar, somebody who was exceptionally brutal.

I remember reading an old history book, written about 30 years before WWII, which described Caesar's massacre of a German tribe as "a holocaust."

Many Roman generals were actually proud of the numbers that they slaughtered and enslaved. in the Ancient World, showing mercy usually meant enslaving the women and children, rather than massacring them.

[Yukle]

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

I remember reading an old history book, written about 30 years before WWII, which described Caesar's massacre of a German tribe as "a holocaust."

Many Roman generals were actually proud of the numbers that they slaughtered and enslaved. in the Ancient World, showing mercy usually meant enslaving the women and children, rather than massacring them.

Yes, as sickening as that is. It's not true of all ancient people... but those who didn't tended to end up being massacred or enslaved by those who did. Certain people such as the Helvetii were essentially wiped out.

15 hours ago, SeanF said:

 

It depends whether you regard them as bad men who were bad rulers, or bad men who were good rulers.

I think a leader's job is to protect people and any human's job is to care for any other. So most of those men who can be regarded as leaders were terrible as people and leaders, I think, although I still follow your point.

[Eggegg]

4 hours ago, Yukle said:

I think a leader's job is to protect people and any human's job is to care for any other. So most of those men who can be regarded as leaders were terrible as people and leaders, I think, although I still follow your point.

I think that makes sense in a '21st century, Humanists' point of view way, but put yourself back to a time that was nowhere near as comfortable and great as we live in now, where resources are scarce and your neighbours are threatening to come in and murder everyone you know, and that is happening all the time. And don't forget, the way we view human life is very different now, its considered the most sacred thing, and death is a rarity that most of us don't experience till we get old.

So back then I would would want a leader who was going to protect my family in whatever way was necessary, if that involved killing another tribe or wiping them out, I'd probably be ok with it.

[SeanF]

8 hours ago, Yukle said:

Yes, as sickening as that is. It's not true of all ancient people... but those who didn't tended to end up being massacred or enslaved by those who did. Certain people such as the Helvetii were essentially wiped out.

I think a leader's job is to protect people and any human's job is to care for any other. So most of those men who can be regarded as leaders were terrible as people and leaders, I think, although I still follow your point.

In fairness, I should say that both Lucullus and Pompey did show mercy to the people they defeated.  Lucullus let the people of Tigranocerta go home, rather than enslave them, (much to the fury of his soldiers) and Pompey resettled the pirates he defeated, rather than crucifying or enslaving them.  Caesar and Crassus, OTOH, were pitiless.

[Yukle]

13 hours ago, Eggegg said:

I think that makes sense in a '21st century, Humanists' point of view way, but put yourself back to a time that was nowhere near as comfortable and great as we live in now, where resources are scarce and your neighbours are threatening to come in and murder everyone you know, and that is happening all the time. And don't forget, the way we view human life is very different now, its considered the most sacred thing, and death is a rarity that most of us don't experience till we get old.

So back then I would would want a leader who was going to protect my family in whatever way was necessary, if that involved killing another tribe or wiping them out, I'd probably be ok with it.

Can't really say for ancient times, although I assume humans didn't like dying then, either. But I think even Cromwell was recent enough that we can find him intolerable.

You're right, though, cultures are always in flux. For ancient Romans the idea that somebody was genocidal was a source of intense pride at times.

[mankytoes]

1 hour ago, Yukle said:

Can't really say for ancient times, although I assume humans didn't like dying then, either. But I think even Cromwell was recent enough that we can find him intolerable.

You're right, though, cultures are always in flux. For ancient Romans the idea that somebody was genocidal was a source of intense pride at times.

There's a line. You can't just judge everyone by today's standards, or someone like George Washington is a monster for owning slaves. But at the same time, there has always been morality. Slavery has often been contentious- we had it in the British Empire until the 19th century, but it was abolished in the UK in the 12th century. Even Genghis Khan had a code- if you didn't put up a fight, he wouldn't plunder anything, he'd just tax you. The only people who he literally wiped out, and destroyed everything of, were the ones who either killed his messengers (often a big part of war morality) or surrendered but then rebelled. But the Mongols were seen as exceptionally vicious by other cultures in the area.

King Leopold the Second of Belgium was such an evil coloniser than he even disgusted the other Europeans ruthlessly carving up Africa. Colombus is another one who you can't just excuse by saying "he was a man of his time"- like Cromwell, his subjugation was seen as extreme. The carrot has always been an option as well as the stick.

I don't know enough about Ceaser to place him on this. I know he did some things that could be called genocide today, I don't know many details, or whether that was controversial at the time.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

There's a line. You can't just judge everyone by today's standards, or someone like George Washington is a monster for owning slaves. But at the same time, there has always been morality. Slavery has often been contentious- we had it in the British Empire until the 19th century, but it was abolished in the UK in the 12th century. Even Genghis Khan had a code- if you didn't put up a fight, he wouldn't plunder anything, he'd just tax you. The only people who he literally wiped out, and destroyed everything of, were the ones who either killed his messengers (often a big part of war morality) or surrendered but then rebelled. But the Mongols were seen as exceptionally vicious by other cultures in the area.

King Leopold the Second of Belgium was such an evil coloniser than he even disgusted the other Europeans ruthlessly carving up Africa. Colombus is another one who you can't just excuse by saying "he was a man of his time"- like Cromwell, his subjugation was seen as extreme. The carrot has always been an option as well as the stick.

I don't know enough about Ceaser to place him on this. I know he did some things that could be called genocide today, I don't know many details, or whether that was controversial at the time.

Just a quibble but only the enslavement of Christians was abolished in the 12th century. Total abolishment was not till the  late 18th century.

[Corvinus85]

OK, which one of you is Ken Mondschein? Because I've read your book Game of Thrones and the Medieval Art of War.

I would be shocked if he does not have an account on this forum.

Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the book, but I do have some constructive criticism. 

First, for anyone who is not aware of this book, it is a nice book, written in an easy-to-understand style, so really good for the amateur historian. It compares ASoIaF with real medieval aspects of warfare and culture (and Renaissance, too).  I recommend this book to anyone who became interested in medieval history, or whose interest of the medieval times was reinforced because of their love for ASoIaF. (I count myself in the latter group)

The author mentions the show a few times, but from the start, he says the show is shit in portraying any kind of historical accuracy, and I think any of us would agree with that. But I was pleasantly surprised that he quite often praises GRRM for how he depicted a medieval society, knights, and combat. He even painstakingly defends GRRM on why his world is so technologically stagnant.

Now the book is mainly a history book, with the here and there comparisons with ASoIaF, which is why I brought it up here and not in another thread. I greatly enjoyed the sections of historical women warriors/leaders, the origin of the knights ("thugs in mail" ), and the comparisons of styles of warfare in ASoIaF with the medieval styles of castle sieges and chevauchée, as well as that of wars of annihilation that came about with the military revolution. I was aware of women like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Caterina Sforza, but had no idea how much they had accomplished in their lifetimes.

Constructive criticism

• Book needs editing - there are some spelling and syntax errors, and a few errors that could confuse the reader - ex) the picture showing various types of helmets has the reader follow in the wrong direction (clockwise vs counterclockwise)
• Some of the ASoIaF lore is wrong - Jon Snow's sword is called Longclaw, not Longtooth; and unless you want to start something, please don't makes statements of fact about unconfirmed theories - Lyanna Stark may have likely have been the Knight of the Laughing Tree, but it's still only a theory
• But these are little things; in all I was only disappointed in one thing, or should I say the lack of one thing: based on the book title, not all aspects of the "art of war" were covered in the book, namely tactics and army dispositions; in ASoIaF, GRRM does go into detail occasionally - at the battle on the Green Fork we get a detailed picture of the Lannister army and how it was organized on the battlefield; we also get mentions of shield walls and cavalry wedge formations. Unfortunately, we don't get any real life comparisons, or in depth descriptions about this. Yes, the author mentions that the medieval period saw very few pitched battles, as the belligerents seldom sought each other out to fight a decisive battle - but such battles did happen, and it would have been nice to have some discussion on them.

A more subjective criticism I have is with regards to the lack of Eastern European coverage. It's understandable for this book to mainly focus on Western Europe, but there is plenty of stuff to mention from EE, as well. In the book's final chapter, which compares various ASoIaF atrocities with historical atrocities, all I could think of was the infamous Dracula, Vlad Tepes.

[Chaircat Meow]

On 21/11/2017 at 11:47 AM, mankytoes said:

I can't help but feel people who like Cromwell don't really understand him. The puritans were like Christian Jihadis, and his vicious conquest of Ireland was awful even by the standards of the time, and contributed to problems we still have.

I think his contribution towards democracy is real, but overstated, seeing as everything was undone quickly and he ended up ruling like a king anyway. Simon De Montfort did something similar before him, with establishing a parliamentary system.

I think we need some facts about Cromwell's conquest of Ireland. 

1. Cromwell himself was only in direct command in Ireland from August 1649 to May 1650, when he returned to England to lead an army against Charles II in Scotland. He was not Lord Protector at this time either, and the sovereign body was still the Rump Parliament.

2. Total civilian casualties at the two infamous sieges, Wexford and Drogheda were somewhere in the region of 2,000 or less, with the majority of the slain actually being soldiers (and some were English Protestants). Not exactly an Irish holocaust here and these places were refusing to surrender.

3. Cromwell did not treat every enemy stronghold town like the two above, but negotiated surrenders. 

4. The real devastation came from the fighting that had gone since 1641 and especially after the royalist army in Ireland had collapsed in 1650 leaving Parliament faced with Irish guerrilla forces, called Tories, who could not be brought to an open engagement. This led to Parliament's forces destroying foodstocks, a tactic which the Elizabethans also used against the Irish, and the famine and consequent disease (subsonic plague) claimed many lives.

5. The Cromwellian settlement was directed against Catholic/royalist landowners not the general populace. It was relatively normal for a defeated nobility/gentry to lose lands to the victors and their financiers although the extent of the redistribution was extreme. Claims of ethnic cleansing do not make much sense given the new landowners would need labourers. 

6. The transportations were not unique to the 1650s, and had been going before the outbreak of war in 1638/41 due to the need for labour in the Caribbean and because people at the time always thought the country was overrun with 'the poor.' Atlantic trade was disrupted after 1641, so they resumed following the Cromwellian conquest and were used to dispose of captured soldiers and vagrants. Obviously this was bad but it gives us some context to what happened in the 1650s. 

7. The war in Ireland was much harsher than in England and Scotland but probably caused so much damage because it went on such a long time, like the 30 year war on the continent. Also not sure there is such a thing as standards of the time, because different people have different standards despite living at the same time.

On the Christian Jihadist claim, I think this is pretty ridiculous. Parliament's armies did not covet death in battle, did not think sex slaves were a good idea, usually did not murder civilians as a method of war and did not seek to stamp out all religious differences (Cromwell readmitted the Jews to England, for instance).

Cromwell was not trying to make a 'contribution towards democracy.'. 

edit: I am going to leave the typo in because it's funny