History Thread!

[Yukle]

7 hours ago, Maithanet said:

... Confederate infantry had higher morale early on because "defend your homeland" is an easier sell than "defend the union". 

Morale and motivation aren't proven force multipliers in combat. That's not to say that they don't exist, but there has never been any evidence that they do.

And it wasn't really "defend your homeland" so much as it was "They want to take all of our slaves!"

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Yukle said:

Morale and motivation aren't proven force multipliers in combat. That's not to say that they don't exist, but there has never been any evidence that they do.

The NERVE! You've clearly never heard the speech at the end of Independence Day.

[Yukle]

1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

The NERVE! You've clearly never heard the speech at the end of Independence Day.

That movie is pretty much a documentary. Just the other day I fended off an alien attack by plugging in my phone to their ships' USB ports.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Yukle said:

That movie is pretty much a documentary. Just the other day I fended off an alien attack by plugging in my phone to their ships' USB ports.

Goddamn right you did! Get that Wi-Fi goin' and there's no stoppin'!

[Spring Bass]

I will defend 90% of the successful plan to defeat the aliens in ID4. 

I'm fascinated by the emergence of republics and democracies in the pre-modern world. 

[TheKitttenGuard]

On the U.S Civil War

Before 1863 many on either side thought that it was just a bunch of hotheads that got things in this mess and once the issue is quickly resolve amicable feels will soon return. There were many correspondences during this time looking not to be so harsh in order for healing to be easier. 

A lot of warfare tought at the time dealt with maneuvers to secure objective and not exactly looking to destroy the enemy army. Taking an objective without engaging in a major was consider to be a very commendable act. Destroying an enemy army was not as a main objective in most cases though it became clearer throughout the War that destroying the enemy force is to be the main objective. I think the best example of this is the Tennessee theatre in Summer and Fall 1963. Union General Rosecran objective was to capture Cornith and he accomplished  it with some superb maneuvering that successfully forced out Confederate forces but not destroyed them. This led to a near disaster at Chickamauga with Bragg being reinforce with Longstreet (one of few strategic moves the Confederate did) and only George Thomas dogged defense saved total it from being a total disaster. 

On McClellan, anything showing that there was information that Confederate were definitely smaller than the Union and was just ignored. If the only information being provided is of this significant Confederate forces then I think it has some significence in McClellan action regardless of what should of been consider as obvious looking back.

[maarsen]

On 1/24/2018 at 11:27 AM, Maithanet said:

Yes, but also remember that the Confederates had some significant short term advantages that helped a great deal in '61 and '62.  More horses, better horses, and far more trained horsemen meant that Union cavalry was consistently beaten.  This in turn meant that Confederate commanders had better scouting, while Union commanders had more supply problems.  Confederate generals were almost always fighting on home soil, which meant interior lines, shorter supply routes, and superior intelligence.  Confederate infantry had higher morale early on because "defend your homeland" is an easier sell than "defend the union". 

Obviously in the long term these advantages were overwhelmed by the Union's superior industrial capacity, naval supremacy and population.  But it really isn't surprising that the beginning of the war went well for the Confederates in Northern Virginia, when they were focusing on that theater above others (for example, defending New Orleans and Vicksburg), and they had those advantages. 

Lee's refusal to take his army west and defend the Mississippi River is what led to the quicker defeat of the South. For all of his skill at tactics, he was crap at strategy.

[Maithanet]

15 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Lee's refusal to take his army west and defend the Mississippi River is what led to the quicker defeat of the South. For all of his skill at tactics, he was crap at strategy.

I agree that the Southern leadership (and it wasn't just Lee making these decisions) put too much emphasis on the war in Virginia and too little on the west.  But given the resource and manpower limitations of the South, I'm not sure that holding both Vicksburg and Richmond would have been possible in the long term.  Lee's army was already outnumbered badly in the battles of Antietam (90k vs 40k), Chancellorsville (130k vs 60k) and Second Bull Run (77k vs 50k).  It's impossible to know for sure, but there's a good chance if another 10-15k troops were sent west to help Joe Johnston then any one of those battles might end in disaster. 

Obviously losing New Orleans was a huge debacle the Confederacy never should have let happen. 

[S John]

Also the Confederates didn't have to destroy the North, just make them blink and back down.  All they really needed to do was convince the North that it wasn't worth it and to let them go their own way and there were plenty of voices in the North who were willing to have peace with the CSA so it wasn't very far fetched.  The main thing they could not have happen was to lose Virginia for a number of reasons (proximity to the US Capitol and staging area for invading the North, most populous southern state, contained Richmond, etc.) so I can understand why they would want to concentrate their forces in the Eastern theater as much as possible.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 hours ago, Yukle said:

Morale and motivation aren't proven force multipliers in combat. That's not to say that they don't exist, but there has never been any evidence that they do.

And it wasn't really "defend your homeland" so much as it was "They want to take all of our slaves!"

No, not exactly.  At least from the perspective of the confederate soldiers on the front line, very few of them owned slaves themselves.  They, at the time (I suspect), thought of their actions as defending their homeland from invasion by outsiders.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, S John said:

Also the Confederates didn't have to destroy the North, just make them blink and back down.  All they really needed to do was convince the North that it wasn't worth it and to let them go their own way and there were plenty of voices in the North who were willing to have peace with the CSA so it wasn't very far fetched.  The main thing they could not have happen was to lose Virginia for a number of reasons (proximity to the US Capitol and staging area for invading the North, most populous southern state, contained Richmond, etc.) so I can understand why they would want to concentrate their forces in the Eastern theater as much as possible.

I think Lee concentrated on defending Virginia because he was a Virginian.  He didn't resign from the US Military until Virginia seceded from the Union.  Had Virginia not left the Union I suspect he would have participated in US military operations to bring the States that attempted to leave the Union back into the Union.

[mankytoes]

What event in history do you think Western culture is most ignorant about, relative to its' importance? Considering it is perhaps the second most devastating war in history by death toll (very hard to judge so please don't get into a debate on that), the Taiping Rebellion seems a good contender. And it's pretty attention grabbing too, this Chinese guy decided he was Jesus' little brother, and only one hundred and fifty years ago! The (first) Japanese invasion of Korea is extremely important in Asian history too, and most people here don't know about it. Most recently, the Congoese Wars have been put in the background a lot, despite being the bloodiest conflict since WW2.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

What event in history do you think Western culture is most ignorant about, relative to its' importance? Considering it is perhaps the second most devastating war in history by death toll (very hard to judge so please don't get into a debate on that), the Taiping Rebellion seems a good contender. And it's pretty attention grabbing too, this Chinese guy decided he was Jesus' little brother, and only one hundred and fifty years ago! The (first) Japanese invasion of Korea is extremely important in Asian history too, and most people here don't know about it. Most recently, the Congoese Wars have been put in the background a lot, despite being the bloodiest conflict since WW2.

The most important one. How and why the Roman Republic fell into despotism.

[mankytoes]

5 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

The most important one. How and why the Roman Republic fell into despotism.

I haven't heard a better argument for accepting constitutional democracy, even if you hate how things are going, that the story of the Gracci brothers. Once you introduce violence, it's hard to close that door. And there are limits to the levels of social injustice and inequality that a system can take before it breaks. But I haven't read that much on it, what are your thoughts?

[Jace, Extat]

6 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

I haven't heard a better argument for accepting constitutional democracy, even if you hate how things are going, that the story of the Gracci brothers. Once you introduce violence, it's hard to close that door. And there are limits to the levels of social injustice and inequality that a system can take before it breaks. But I haven't read that much on it, what are your thoughts?

In brief, there is delicate balance between populism and idealism that must be observed by the governing body to ensure that no one coalition of citizens become inordinately empowered or (worse) insulated against social retaliation.

The trouble is that everyone needs to recognize and respect that sort of basic rule not to try and break the system, and once one demagogue finds success he encourages others.

[GAROVORKIN]

3 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

In brief, there is delicate balance between populism and idealism that must be observed by the governing body to ensure that no one coalition of citizens become inordinately empowered or (worse) insulated against social retaliation.

The trouble is that everyone needs to recognize and respect that sort of basic rule not to try and break the system, and once one demagogue finds success he encourages others.

Entropy usually wins.

[Yukle]

3 hours ago, mankytoes said:

I haven't heard a better argument for accepting constitutional democracy, even if you hate how things are going, that the story of the Gracci brothers. Once you introduce violence, it's hard to close that door. And there are limits to the levels of social injustice and inequality that a system can take before it breaks. But I haven't read that much on it, what are your thoughts?

Indeed, Tiberius' death showed that there was no penalty for killing a Tribune, nor a consequence for ignoring their power.

Vetoes became more common after the Gracchi, but their power was increasingly ignored. Once Sulla marched his army into Rome, the Republic was dead forever. It was impossible to win a fight with words alone when your opponent could bring in an army.

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, Yukle said:

Indeed, Tiberius' death showed that there was no penalty for killing a Tribune, nor a consequence for ignoring their power.

Vetoes became more common after the Gracchi, but their power was increasingly ignored. Once Sulla marched his army into Rome, the Republic was dead forever. It was impossible to win a fight with words alone when your opponent could bring in an army.

I was torn between mentioning the private funding of armies in my previous post, but I wanted to keep it short and that leads us into the madness of Sulla and half a hundred other short term tyrants that were able to strongarm the Republic into concessions after a successful (or even just not-calamitous) campaign.

But then when you mention that you have to address why military campaigns could be financed out of personal interests which goes to wealth inequality and the horrific decision to privatize taxation in the Republic.

Democracy is delicate.

[Yukle]

1 minute ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

But then when you mention that you have to address why military campaigns could be financed out of personal interests which goes to wealth inequality and the horrific decision to privatize taxation in the Republic.

Democracy is delicate.

It most certainly is. It didn't help that the Romans specifically sought out to avoid democracy and made republicanism as a way of giving disproportionate power to the nobility, and later the wealthy.

As for taxation, I don't think that the republic ever decided to privatise taxation; the publicani tax-collectors were their default model until the reforms of Caesar in limited form and then Augustus across the whole empire, who decided the system was unsustainable. Before Augustus' conquest of Egypt there wasn't the funding for such wide-scale public service. Once Augustus was able to inject a massive influx of funds and began to supplant the publicani, then Rome transitioned from private to public tax collection.

Similarly, Augustus identified the dangers of paying legionaries in loot and booty, and began paying them a regular wage - after he had already centralised control into his own hands, of course.

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, Yukle said:

It most certainly is. It didn't help that the Romans specifically sought out to avoid democracy and made republicanism as a way of giving disproportionate power to the nobility, and later the wealthy.

As for taxation, I don't think that the republic ever decided to privatise taxation; the publicani tax-collectors were their default model until the reforms of Caesar in limited form and then Augustus across the whole empire, who decided the system was unsustainable. Before Augustus' conquest of Egypt there wasn't the funding for such wide-scale public service. Once Augustus was able to inject a massive influx of funds and began to supplant the publicani, then Rome transitioned from private to public tax collection.

Similarly, Augustus identified the dangers of paying legionaries in loot and booty, and began paying them a regular wage - after he had already centralised control into his own hands, of course.

Damn, a bitch be making me need to crack open a book!

My recollection of minutia is questionable at best in this time period.