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EvanSchenck posted:For example, how much did the foreign ministries of Britain, France, Austria, and Russia care about the Taiping rebellion? Probably not a whole lot. Quite a bit, I expect, considering they were able to humiliate the Chinese and extract concessions while the regime was distracted by the Rebellion.
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Mar 20, 2013 02:36
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EvanSchenck posted:from a purely functional perspective if you're trying to come to an understanding of how the governments of the European powers made decisions in foreign policy and how they related to one another, it actually isn't such a huge problem to do this, because you're actually just replicating the same dismissive attitude that was typical of the stuffed-shirt ruling class in those countries. For example, how much did the foreign ministries of Britain, France, Austria, and Russia care about the Taiping rebellion? Probably not a whole lot. I think the core of my issue with his concept and framing of the idea is that it does exclude so much. It seems to be that he is artificially limiting the events included in this framework to make it seem as if we are studying Concert Diplomacy/Congress of Vienna/The International Order of 1815-1914 in a vacuum which simply doesn't exist in real life. You're right, the Quadruple Alliance, and later the Pentarchy, probably don't care about the Taiping rebellion. The other events though, must have some influence in the balance of power game. Theoretically, I guess I'm willing to concede his point, given how you explain it, and it is a useful framework for examining international structure and tracing it from 1814, and the Congress of Vienna, through to the Leauge of Nations, U.N., Hegemonic rise of the U.S. and finally to post 9-11, but it just seems like outside of this single instance, talking about the time period as he teaches it would make anyone you engage in debate with think your insane, i.e. the first two replies. I didn't even know the extent of warfare, rebellion and conflict in this time period before people started discussing it, I was limited to only the Crimean war and first Sino-Japanese and the idea still didn't sound right to me. The Pentarchy (Russia, Prussia, Austria, Britain, France) didn't sit idly on top of the world for 99 years and twiddle their thumbs. My basic point comes down to "poo poo* happened, both inside and outside of Europe that affected these big powers and their power games. There was no massive realignment of the IS, but each had to manage crises and conflicts which significantly impacted their ability to influence the balance of power. Describing the period of 1814-1915 as a time devoid of "general warfare" is misleading, bordering on wrong". *poo poo defined as unification of Germany, the unification of Italy, the Russo-Turkish War, Revolutions of '48 and the Franco-Prussian war to begin with a limited list of things discussed in this thread. Mans posted:And the struggle for domination over China, Africa and the lost of political domination over the American continent led directly to the first world war. People were waiting for the war by the end of the 19th century. The 19th century was the century of revolutionaries, whose fear directly influenced the way the elites governed (introduction of welfare systems, nationalism, African and Asian expansionism)... He's somewhere in his late 40's or mid-50's I think, although we're bordering on ad hominem attacks here. I was wondering if you could expand your points on how the loss of colonies caused these imperial powers to look for war, and how all of that stuff you talked about led directly to the first world war? I imagine its not as simple as "Imperial powers pissed at loosing free natural resources, need to keep the economy going, lets start a war to keep industry and manufacturing happy". I'm solidly familiar with the pre-war attitudes, economies and strategic realities of the combatants in WW2,but much less so in WW1. I got "Guns of August" as a gift though, I should really read it.
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Mar 20, 2013 02:54
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Waroduce posted:I was wondering if you could expand your points on how the loss of colonies caused these imperial powers to look for war, and how all of that stuff you talked about led directly to the first world war? I imagine its not as simple as "Imperial powers pissed at loosing free natural resources, need to keep the economy going, lets start a war to keep industry and manufacturing happy". I'm solidly familiar with the pre-war attitudes, economies and strategic realities of the combatants in WW2,but much less so in WW1. I got "Guns of August" as a gift though, I should really read it. Basically, one of the salient points in support of your prof's view would be the "Scramble for Africa" was decided not by war but at a conference in Berlin. Sure, pacification had to be done, but the European powers got together and decided who got what. Things like the Fashoda Incident ended not in war (as it may well have, probably would have a century or so before) but in negotiation... again. But the balance was precarious, Germany was a rising power and it wanted more than it had negotiated for. This meant leaning on GB and France meant that France had to go to Russia. Meanwhile Germany did need some help, so they turned to (waning) Austria, once enemy but a rival with Russia over the Balkans so... toss on some jingoistic nationalism and brinkmanship you've got WWI. A period of relative peace between the big European powers, but a very tense, delicate peace. The Franco-Prussian and Austro-Prussian Wars, had they not ended quickly, may well have broken that balance. The Crimean War came very close to doing so, but everyone decided to keep it a little more limited (the fact that Russia and GB/France didn't share any actual borders probably helped...) Basically it's a way of viewing the world that works, but only because Europe was so good at establishing itself (and thus, the way it was handling itself at the time) as 'normal.' As ridiculous as calling that the universal truth then it has, [sort of] become the truth now.
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Mar 20, 2013 03:15
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Waroduce posted:
Most modern historians take more focus on the social, economic and cultural characteristics of history than plain politic history nowadays, so it's always weird to see people still talk in academic terms in such a way. If ad-hominem was present in my post it's because of the Goon-gene, i obviously mean him no harm. The expansion of the European empires in the 19th century can be directly tied into the idea of nationalism that was constructed to stop the populace from taking over the state from the governing classes. Spain went into a great focus of strengthening what remained of their empire after the loss of South America and you see Portugal doing incredible efforts to create a colonial empire in Africa (Portugal maintained a coastal control in there, only focusing on penetrating the territory after the loss of Brasil). The same thing can be seen to the same extent in Italy, but France is the best indicator of this policy of "nationalist expansion", doing enormous conquests that gave few to no profit for the sake of national pride (look at the province of Algeria for example). Expansion in Africa was obviously also tied to economic interests, even these states hoped to find more and more riches the more they conquered and obviously this conquests were enabled by technological advancements that allowed Europeans to permanently live in Africa without dying (Living in Africa before the 19th century was really hard for witey and even then it was hard for the non rich.). Indeed, there was much to gain in economic terms in Africa, some riches were already in the possession of Europeans, others came to them via local traders. The scramble for Africa caused massive speculation over which territories were valuable or not. While it's true that the political establishment of the time allowed a lot of negotiations that didn't exist previously these were all done with immense tension, indecision and dragging their allies or satellites into the deals. The point i'm trying to make is that national instability and desire for unexplored riches, coupled with technological improvements allowed the European states to expand all over Africa and Asia until they quite simply couldn't expand no more. The Berlin conference proved that these troubles could be resolved diplomatically, but if anything that conference and the solution to the Moroccan, Boer and Fashoda crisis were simply delays of something that was inevitable to happen. I'm can't say with confidence that delaying a conflict is the same as solving it, in that case we could also point out to a lot of times in European society were the "peace" declared by your teacher could also apply. I'm kind of poo poo in making long posts in English, i get lost easily so i apologize if i didn't get my point across.
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Mar 20, 2013 03:27
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Your English is fine, and you write better than many native speakers. Thanks to you, JJ and everyone else for talking this through with me. This is my favorite thread on SA, you're all the epitome of  to me.
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Mar 20, 2013 03:40
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If the First World War is one of the ends of your periodization, you cannot state that the period you're studying is not marked by wars which lead to international upheavals, since the latter third of that period contains the rise of Prussia which led to the freaked-out diplomatic situation which directly led to the First World War. It's ridiculous.
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Mar 20, 2013 06:08
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Waroduce posted:If I were to attempt to take the opposite view (he enjoys discussions in office hours), that there was a prevalence of internationally relevant conflict in the time period, would it be disingenuous to touch on internal rebellions? Things like the American Civil War, Boxer Rebellion, and Taiping being internal conflicts which could affect the ability to project power, or appear strong in the international system? The revolutions of 1848 were also pretty drat significant and with several international causes and consequences. 
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Mar 20, 2013 06:11
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HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:If the First World War is one of the ends of your periodization, you cannot state that the period you're studying is not marked by wars which lead to international upheavals, since the latter third of that period contains the rise of Prussia which led to the freaked-out diplomatic situation which directly led to the First World War. It's ridiculous. But until that point there was a freaked out diplomatic situation. As opposed to war. Hopefully, the class discusses this and doesn't, you know, just assume that WWI came out of nowhere. That'd be silly. But, from an IR perspective, that's when things have moved out of your hands and into that of the generals. (Yes, yes, Chaz and all that.)
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Mar 20, 2013 07:11
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the JJ posted:But until that point there was a freaked out diplomatic situation. As opposed to war. Hopefully, the class discusses this and doesn't, you know, just assume that WWI came out of nowhere. That'd be silly. But, from an IR perspective, that's when things have moved out of your hands and into that of the generals. Chaz? Just not familiar with the era.
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Mar 20, 2013 09:36
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I have a really broad-ranging question. I'm interested in military intelligence, specifically 'traitors' and the co-option of erstwhile allies to get information or negate defenses. I'm thinking of everything from the very simple "get a guy inside the castle to open the gate" to the use of spies inside enemy armies. Are there any works on this in general, the human intelligence part of military intelligence? Has it been at all common to simply have soldiers in the enemy army who also pass along information-- in the old days, by having someone sign up for awhile and then come and report back? How important is human intelligence of this nature, both in terms of gathering information and sabotage and the rest?
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Mar 20, 2013 13:53
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Frostwerks posted:Chaz? Just not familiar with the era. Carl von Clausewitz, whose most famous quote was being discussed above.
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Mar 20, 2013 18:38
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Alrighty, so in class we were doing the whole powerpoint slides and lecture thing, and got to this:quote:Why,ultimately, did Napoleon fall? I sort of posed this question two pages back and got this answer: HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:Militarily, his army never really recovered from the Russia thing and the coalition forces eventually brought him to bay. Financially, France really couldn't sustain the military effort, though, and I think this was more important. Bear in mind also that at least in the German states, which is what I'm most familiar with, initial welcome of Napoleon eventually gave way to hatred. A lot of small German countries welcomed Napoleon at first (since he represented the liberating force of modernity and the Enlightenment), only to peel off once they found that life as one of France's junior partners involved a lot of economic hardship and some oppression. This goes inline with what I know generally from just reading. I'm curious as to what the prof means by "rarely functioned strategically"? I'm taking "never used his military success as a platform for lasting peace" as having to do with him never consolidating and incorporating his holdings in Germany and the other conquered territories into the Empire in a sustainable way. We are also using Colin S. Gray's "War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History, as a class text. In it, he states that Napoleon was not a great military innovator, and covers that strategic comment a little saying: Gray posted:"If this were a military, rather than a strategic history, it would be obliged to devote extensive attention to Napoleon's dazzling achievements in warfare...As a strategic historian, one might argue that Napoleon was not only strategically incompetent but grossly and murderously strategically irresponsible. Napoleon's art of war was indeed impressive, but what was it for? What was the plot? Since war should not serve itself, to what end, with what political consequences, was the Emperor's military genius applied? Strategic history is a tale of means and ends. All too often, writers allow themselves to lose the strategic plot in their enthusiasm for the colour and dash of means. However, this analysis cannot leap over the military story, since, with a vital caveat, it is the necessary partner to the negative strategic judgement already suggested. The caveat is that the details of Napoleon's extraordinary military career really did not much matter strategically." So the question I pose to the thread is, what do you think about this quote, and secondly, why did Napoleon than go out to conquer Europe if he didn't have a long term strategic vision? Was it just "FOR FRANCE!"  Also, even conceding Napoleons campaigns as strategically inept,wouldn't they have long lasting strategic effects on Europe as a whole? It forced counter-balancing and collective action from the other significant actors in Europe to face the French threat, resulted in the Congress of Vienna, and eventually the Concert System in an attempt to avoid future wars like this one.edit: I really enjoy hearing the threads opinions on what we cover in class, because they tend to be both more encompassing and refined than what I hear in class. Thanks again. I know we've been talking about this period for like 3 or 4 pages, but I thought it'd be a nice change of pace from WW2 chat. Waroduce fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Mar 20, 2013 |
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Mar 20, 2013 20:17
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Comedy Answer: He grew up in a rural backwater and got trod on a lot, wouldn't you do it too in his shoes?
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Mar 20, 2013 20:19
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IF you are a world class genius in the operational art of war wouldn't you just practice your art?
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Mar 20, 2013 20:33
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Baloogan posted:IF you are a world class genius in the operational art of war wouldn't you just practice your art? Sadly for Napoleon, table top war games wouldn't exist until twenty years after his death.
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Mar 20, 2013 20:43
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Baloogan posted:IF you are a world class genius in the operational art of war wouldn't you just practice your art? SeanBeansShako posted:Comedy Answer: He grew up in a rural backwater and got trod on a lot, wouldn't you do it too in his shoes? If I end up doing my final paper on anything tangentially related to Napoleon, I'm going to work these quotes in and cite both of you.
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Mar 20, 2013 20:43
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Waroduce posted:So the question I pose to the thread is, what do you think about this quote, and secondly, why did Napoleon than go out to conquer Europe if he didn't have a long term strategic vision? Was it just "FOR FRANCE!" You know who else lost a war yet caused long lasting strategic effects on Europe?  (which fits - calling someone as a Bonapartist is the original "literally Hitler")But I disagree with that Colin S. Gray quote. Having a good long term stratagery is all fine and dandy, but drafting one depends on good intelligence. In the age when information was passed on quickest by semaphores or horse messengers or pigeons strategic planning was a whole different thing than today. Genghis Khan is regarded as one of the greatest warlords ever yet I doubt he had much of a war winning plan in the modern sense. He just kept warring better than others, and when he encountered something better than what he was doing he adopted that. Or maybe that means I agree with Gray - Napoleon, Genghis Khan and other truly great military leaders were total strategic scrubs. Just one of them had a more successful dynasty and knew what is best in life.
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Mar 20, 2013 20:49
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Napoleon inherits a bunch of wars. He then wins them, but he wins them in such a way (placing his family on the throne, imposing large reparations) that everyone in Europe hates the French and he fails to come to terms with the English who are willing to financially prop up anyone willing to fight him. He can't conclude the war with England, so his army in Egypt is lost, he loses several armies to the war in Spain, and he eventually invades Russia. The moment French power weakens anywhere then opposition springs up and his only solution is to try and win some battles.
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Mar 20, 2013 20:54
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Nenonen posted:You know who else lost a war yet caused long lasting strategic effects on Europe? I dunno Genghis Khan and the Mongols were really good at collecting intelligence. Talk about spies, before the invasion of Russia the Mongols had virtually surveyed the entire country. Of course when you've already conquered half of Eurasia you can afford to take your time and work out the details. Mongol campaigning was highly organized and involved years of planning, hordes don't feed themselves you know.
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Mar 20, 2013 21:23
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But there was no Russia, just a bunch of princedoms.
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Mar 20, 2013 21:39
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Waroduce posted:So the question I pose to the thread is, what do you think about this quote, and secondly, why did Napoleon than go out to conquer Europe if he didn't have a long term strategic vision? Was it just "FOR FRANCE!" Napoleon had a long-term strategic vision, it was just dumb. He intended to reshape the map of Europe and creating a new international system where the rest of the continent would be politically and economically subordinate to France, which would additionally annex various large territories directly. The problem with this was it was drastically beyond his capabilities. For example, he didn't seem to realize that it was one thing to put his relatives on thrones and another for them to actual rule. He could crown his brother Joseph King of Spain, but how do you actually keep him sitting there? How do you keep all your relatives in the places of power you gave them? By winning every single battle you fight and never losing, basically. Not a workable plan in the long term. As it was he got much closer to the goal than he probably should have, simply because he was such a brilliant military leader and won so many battles, but on the whole it was all far too ambitious. If he had set more limited goals in terms of modest territorial expansion and influence over neighboring states, instead of trying to control the whole continent, he could well have succeeded and remained in control of France. For an example of this kind of strategic wisdom, after victory in the Franco-Prussian War and the ensuing unification of Germany, Bismarck advocated strongly against annexing Alsace-Lorraine. Basically if you cannot completely destroy your opponent it is better to figure out a peace arrangement that is favorable to you but not too damaging to him. Prussia had earlier defeated Austria in 1866, but most of their gains actually came at the expense of Austria's allies among the German principalities, such as Hanover, which were small enough to simply be annexed and thus there was no risk of them returning to avenge themselves. Austria was always going to survive the war, and it was wiser to let them remain intact to the greatest possible extent and preserve the possibility that they could be good neighbors again in the future. And in relatively short order they became the new German Empire's closest ally.
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Mar 20, 2013 21:43
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SeanBeansShako posted:Sadly for Napoleon, table top war games wouldn't exist until twenty years after his death. Edit: It's in the FATAL and Friends thread, here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3421366&userid=191005#post413274258 HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Mar 20, 2013 |
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Mar 20, 2013 21:59
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Obdicut posted:I have a really broad-ranging question. If you want a really general work, Hidden Secrets by David Owen is a good place to start. It's a pretty broad look at espionage through the ages and it basically comes down to: people will do a lot of things for money. Getting your guy inside the other guy's castle to open the gates for the rest of your guys... well, that's basically the story of the Trojan horse so that's been known to various peoples and their armies for a very long time, but these types of actions were typically done by small groups of infiltrators rather than spies. There's a good book by Derek Leebaert called To Dare and to Conquer which is also a broad history of special operations throughout history that has plenty of examples of that kind of thing. It's not quite related to espionage, but one of my favorite parts in that book describes how Alexander the Great was laying siege to the Sogdian Rock in Bactria and, upon asking for the Bactrians to surrender, was told that he would "need men with wings" to capture the fortress because it was otherwise impregnable. Alexander being Alexander, he offered a reward for any soldier brave enough to volunteer to climb up the mountain overlooking the Bactrian fortress with long pieces of cloth, at night, and about 300 volunteered with about 10% of them falling to their deaths. The rest climbed up the mountain and, come morning, Alexander told the Bactrians to look up and see the men with wings, who were now flapping them cloth bolts. Shocked to see that Alexander's men were able to do what they thought was impossible, the Bactrians promptly surrendered the fortress. As for sending someone to join up with the enemy army, get information, and then come back to deliver the information, that is a pretty risky, highly impractical strategy. It was always easier to just pay off a knowledgeable local or greedy/disaffected official for information, instead.
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Mar 21, 2013 01:04
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Defectors always exist, especially in conscript armies. Failing that, you send out a patrol to nab someone from an enemy outpost.
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Mar 21, 2013 01:13
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HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:Not true, check out my posts in Traditional Games to hear more. (I'm behind now but I should put another one up by Saturday.) Correction, several years after his death. Still too late for everyones favourite Corsican.
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Mar 21, 2013 01:13
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Alchenar posted:Defectors always exist, especially in conscript armies. Failing that, you send out a patrol to nab someone from an enemy outpost. Generally, conscripts don't know much of anything beyond their own foxhole, and have a tendency to exaggerate to impress the people they've just defected to. Sometime the best intelligence is simply luck, whether you exploit it or not.
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Mar 21, 2013 01:53
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Thanks for the recommendations. I think I'm misremembering something from Mongol history about having soldiers join up with the enemy. I know that they used, as someone else already observed, very deep information-gathering tactics. I'll look into the books you've recommended.
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Mar 21, 2013 13:13
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How did Russia get so big?
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Mar 21, 2013 19:24
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coolatronic posted:How did Russia get so big? Nobody wanted most of it.
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Mar 21, 2013 19:26
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coolatronic posted:How did Russia get so big? Serious answer for modern Russia, Peter The Great and his modernisation of the state and Catherine The Great and her aggressive expansion. The weakining and collapse of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth helped a lot too. The decline of the Swedish Empire too.
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Mar 21, 2013 19:29
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Ensign Expendable posted:Nobody wanted most of it. Paradoxically a lot of people wanted the European part of it, from Varyags to Nazis. And even without the Asian part, present day Russia would be the biggest country in Europe both by land area and population. SeanBeansShako posted:Serious answer for modern Russia, Peter The Great and his modernisation of the state and Catherine The Great and her aggressive expansion. The weakining and collapse of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth helped a lot too. I would look further back than just those - the situation created by the Mongol empire first gaining overlordship over the entire eastern Europe, then rapidly declining, leaving behind a power vacuum that was taken advantage by Moscow which then subjugated the Khanate of Kazan. With Kazan gone, there was no real contestor to the east of Moscow, and it's this area reaching from Kazan to Ufa to the Urals that is heavily populated today.  Then there was the conquest of Novgorod by Ivan III, and all the conquests that you mentioned (some of which have gained independence since then). Nenonen fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Mar 21, 2013 |
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Mar 21, 2013 19:36
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So the TA let slip that one of the essays on our test is going to be if we agree with the concept of a "Century of Peace"  Can't fuckin wait.
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Mar 21, 2013 20:05
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gradenko_2000 posted:Absolutely. One way to look at it is for his assertion to be true, you would have to apply so many qualifiers to the rule (not in Europe, not a revolt nor civil war, not a war between just two nations, "apart from those wars", not a "total" war, etc etc) that it doesn't really mean anything anymore. Not to mention that the Franco-Prussian war ended with the latter annexing Alsace and Lorraine for almost half of that century, fostering the Revanchard sentiment in France and a major contributing factor to World War One. Pretty big thing to sweep under the rug.
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Mar 21, 2013 21:00
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Obdicut posted:Thanks for the recommendations. I think I'm misremembering something from Mongol history about having soldiers join up with the enemy. I know that they used, as someone else already observed, very deep information-gathering tactics. I'll look into the books you've recommended. No problem. They were both quick, fun reads so enjoy! What you might be thinking about is how the Mongols were pretty adept at identifying elements in the armies of their enemies who were either unhappy with the status quo, who had some cultural affiliations with the Mongols, or who would simply defect to the Mongol side during a critical time in a battle for enough loot. They would also commonly send merchants and/or outright spies into a town they were hoping to conquer well ahead of any actual attack. They would learn about the town and report back to the Mongols when they got back, and sometimes they would stay and tell stories and "rumors" they heard about how the Mongols were demonic warriors who killed everyone who refused to surrender to them, but who were very merciful to towns that submitted without a fight, for instance. It worked very well for the Mongols and their planning, reconnaissance, and the fearsome reputation they cultivated would often mean that their targets would surrender without a fight. The Timurids and Mughals later did much the same thing because it was such an effective strategy.
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Mar 21, 2013 21:14
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Oh I missed Ivan The Great too, But like I stated that was Modern 'European STYLE' Imperial Russia.
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Mar 21, 2013 21:14
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Nenonen posted:Paradoxically a lot of people wanted the European part of it, from Varyags to Nazis. And even without the Asian part, present day Russia would be the biggest country in Europe both by land area and population.
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Mar 21, 2013 21:41
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What made Russia expand east? Lack of other powers in that direction to stop them, and they just decided "What the hell?"
Farecoal fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 00:04
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Farecoal posted:What made Russia expand west? Lack of other powers in that direction to stop them, and they just decided "What the hell?" Russia expanded in many directions dude, it's what you do when you have a lot of people but not much money. There is a tax base and population to the West and South, and not so much to the East. Because nobody could contest Siberia, Russia could colonize it at whatever pace pleased the Tsar. It was pretty similar to the colonization of Canada, the first settlers were fur trappers and traders who worked with/shot the Siberian natives as they went along.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:57
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OK. Thanks for all the answers. I was mostly wondering if there was a structural advantage that Russia enjoyed like a cultural adaptation to conducting warfare in a subarctic climate, the stability/longevity of the Romanov dynasty or the quality of the Cossack military tradition. The lack of a major opponent would certainly fit the bill along with the other things you folks mentioned. To get as massive as Russia I presume you need a number of factors in your favor.Slim Jim Pickens posted:Russia expanded in many directions dude, it's what you do when you have a lot of people but not much money. There is a tax base and population to the West and South, and not so much to the East. Because nobody could contest Siberia, Russia could colonize it at whatever pace pleased the Tsar. It was pretty similar to the colonization of Canada, the first settlers were fur trappers and traders who worked with/shot the Siberian natives as they went along.
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Mar 22, 2013 03:47
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coolatronic posted:
Way too much infighting I would imagine. Not to mention they would have needed to go through Mongolia.
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Mar 22, 2013 03:52
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