Grand Prize Winner posted:

Maybe that miniseries was (is going to be) made by historians 500 years from now and sent back to our time.

Did Lenin personally slain the Tsar in a swordfight on the Eiffel tower?

uPen posted:

How much time does it spend talking about aliens?

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

HEY GAL posted:

Also: do any of you remember when I mentioned finding a dude with the fantastic name of Century van Breitenbach? He's in a muster roll from 1681.

Today I found a Julius Caesar van Breitenbach testifying in a murder trial in 1625. Like, a grandfather or great uncle or something.

Conclusion: not only is this evidence for military service as a familial way of life for normal people as well as famous people (which we already know about), that family's been massive dorklords (pretty sure Century refers to the Roman military unit) for at least seventy years or so.

Grand Prize Winner posted:

^^^: Exactly. I really, really want to see that. To see what the study of history is like in a few centuries' time.

To some degree, I'd actually like to see a documentary like this. "How many unicorns really died in the Holocaust? We may never know."

"The Spanish Tercios were essential to their victory on the Marne."

And so on.


edit: I heard somewhere (maybe a little upthread) that in Spanish, 'Tercio' just refers to the group of soldiers (like 'regiment' or 'battalion') but not to their specific formation, while in the anglosphere we think of it as a squarish formation. True/false?

Arquinsiel posted:

If you've read the Hawkmoon books by Michael Moorcock in which the eponymous Duke of Köln fights the evil empire of Granbretan there's some fun references to a play written about two ancient gods who fought over the world in the days of myth before the generic "world altering event" that collapsed the old order of all fantasy works.

It's called "Chirshill and Adulf"

The same playwright also wrote "King Staleen".

Hargrimm posted:

Robert Jordan did this some too. "Tell us about Lenn, how he flew to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire. Tell about his daughter Salya walking among the stars."

Hargrimm posted:

Robert Jordan did this some too. "Tell us about Lenn, how he flew to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire. Tell about his daughter Salya walking among the stars."

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Well the AV Club basically covers it.

http://www.avclub.com/review/world-wars-reduces-global-conflict-story-few-great-204903

And I was rolling my eyes when Rumsfeld showed up on the show to talk about stuff. I am literally laughing now knowing that Cheney is going to appear. Getting loving Dick Cheney to talk about morality and war in a "documentary."

quote:

the opening credits feature introductions for Hitler, Churchill, and their contemporaries that would feel right at home in an Expendables movie, or possibly Wrestlemania.

uPen posted:

I might have to watch this at some point

quote:

While it’s just vaguely pointless to bring in former British Prime Minister John Major to offer banal platitudes about Churchill or General Stanley McChrystal to do the same for Douglas MacArthur,

PittTheElder posted:

Or he was just drunk.

I actually think the lack of emotion helps him here, makes it sound like what he's proposing is very routine and everybody just has to get on with it.

Grand Prize Winner posted:

edit: I heard somewhere (maybe a little upthread) that in Spanish, 'Tercio' just refers to the group of soldiers (like 'regiment' or 'battalion') but not to their specific formation, while in the anglosphere we think of it as a squarish formation. True/false?

HisMajestyBOB posted:

This is such an awesome discovery.

Can we find their modern descendants and see if they're Byzantine fanboys?

Grand Prize Winner posted:

^^^: Exactly. I really, really want to see that. To see what the study of history is like in a few centuries' time.

HEY GAL posted:

Hey now, I'd like to think our future colleagues don't huff glue.

WreckSov posted:

I feel this has given me a great perspective of the period and people.

ArchangeI posted:

Future historians might not, but popular perception of history might. I mean, hell, the public thinks cannons were first invented sometime during the 17th century (but the Chinese used gunpowder for fireworks earlier, those silly little orientals!).

HEY GAL posted:

if I find a German guy with the first name "Katana" I'll let you guys know.

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

When did the History Channel completely jump the shark and become solely about Hitler and/or Aliens? Also why do people keep watching it?

I remember when I was younger it used to show actual documentaries or old war films, the latter not being very educational but quite related to the subject matter at least I suppose. I haven't seen it in ages but it seems its turned into a joke? I remember when I lived in Canada, at the start of the time I lived there "the learning channel"/TLC used to show lots of documentaries and academic shows, then slowly just shifted to showing just home re-modelling shows and such.

Tomn posted:

Were there any French or German generals in WWI whose images post-war got the Haig treatment - i.e. transformation into a mindless reactionary idiot who needlessly killed his own men? Like, does popular media in France and Germany today speak of "Murderer Moltke" or "Slaughterhouse Joffre" or what-have-you? And if the French and the Germans avoided painting their generals with that brush, can we guess at why they did so?

HEY GAL posted:

Also: do any of you remember when I mentioned finding a dude with the fantastic name of Century van Breitenbach? He's in a muster roll from 1681.

Today I found a Julius Caesar van Breitenbach testifying in a murder trial in 1625. Like, a grandfather or great uncle or something.

Conclusion: not only is this evidence for military service as a familial way of life for normal people as well as famous people (which we already know about), that family's been massive dorklords (pretty sure Century refers to the Roman military unit) for at least seventy years or so.

ArchangeI posted:

Germany stayed on the defensive for most of the war in the west and won in the east, so from the German side you don't really have the narrative of "Sent 50.000 men to die in an attempt to shift his liquor cabinet six inches closer to Berlin Paris". The most well-known Generals are probably Hindenburg and Luddendorf, and if anything the view of them is that they came this close to winning if it hadn't been for the Americans with their white bread and their millions of soldiers and it just wasn't fair. Verdun is obviously considered a giant waste of men and the most important battle of the war for the layman, but few would even know who ordered the attack.

But WWI is overshadowed by WWII, so most Germans consider it "that war where everyone who was important in WWII was like a Corporal or something, also the Red Baron".

FAUXTON posted:

I have a question:

Tactically, was there a bigger difference between 1870 and WWI or WWI and WWII?

It really seems like it's the latter, but my knowledge of the topic is largely retail, so when I think F-P T-50 and WWI I think trenches and artillery, whereas WWII is tanks, aerial bombardment, fire/maneuver, and urban fighting. This thread has done a lot to drive home the similarities between even Napoleonic warfare and WWII, but at the same time it seems like the interwar years of the 20th century saw more military development than the previous century combined. Sure the 19th century saw an advance in projectile fire rate, rocketry as a delivery method, payload, and maybe accuracy, but 1918-1939 saw submachine guns, semiautomatic rifles, early automatic rifles, modern (non-infantry) tank doctrine, bomber doctrine, man-mobile radio communication, etc.

It seems like the technological advancement since the preceding war was taken into account with WWII while WWI was this weird foal-like attempt at merging the death-dealing-tools of the era with a Napoleonic(?) tactical paradigm of digging in -> bombardment of enemy positions -> charge.

bewbies posted:

I'll amend this question a bit in order to frame my answer: there was a bigger difference in (land) tactics used from the beginning of WWI to the end than in any other major war in history. As such, I'd say that there was very little difference between 1870 and 1914, and very little difference between 1918 and 1945 (or really, 2014).

Fangz posted:

Do you want to back up that assertion?

Honestly though, I don't think these comparisons can be made. I mean, by what metric? Further, what theatre? There are parts of WWI that are much more similar to WWII, than to other theatres in WWI. There are ways in which parts of WWII were more similar to 1870 than WWI. And so on.

Broadly though, my gut instinct is that an effective WWII army would have handily trounced a WWI-force, whereas an effective WWI army would probably have eventually stalemated against a sufficiently competent 1870 force.

BBJoey posted:

Is there anything in the idea that if Nazi Germany had held off on Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army would have modernised in peacetime and eventually Stalin would have declared war and rolled over the numerically inferior Wehrmacht? I always got the impression that the invasion of Russia went about as well for the Nazis as anyone could hope a war between Germany and the USSR would go, but that it just was literally impossible for Germany to come out on top because of the logistics involved.

e: Oops this isn't the milhist thread, sorry for continuing a derail.

Slavvy posted:

Here in New Zealand it was ANZAC day not too long ago. Actual conversation I had with someone:

:iamafag: Why are they sending a delegation to Turkey? They didn't help at all

...what do you mean? Help with what?

:iamafag: Fighting the germans. They didn't do jack poo poo! It was fully just New Zealand and Australia.

As in...during world war two? Or what?

:iamafag: No dumbass at gallipoli. They didn't do poo poo and I reckon that's why the germans won.

Wait...what? Do you realise the Turks were fighting against the british and anzacs and so on?

:iamafag: HAHAHAHAHA what are you retarded? Why would they be sending a delegation to the enemy country??



edit: well, a month ago. I lose track of time.

HEY GAL posted:

Also: do any of you remember when I mentioned finding a dude with the fantastic name of Century van Breitenbach? He's in a muster roll from 1681.

Today I found a Julius Caesar van Breitenbach testifying in a murder trial in 1625. Like, a grandfather or great uncle or something.

Conclusion: not only is this evidence for military service as a familial way of life for normal people as well as famous people (which we already know about), that family's been massive dorklords (pretty sure Century refers to the Roman military unit) for at least seventy years or so.

Fangz posted:

Do you want to back up that assertion?

Honestly though, I don't think these comparisons can be made. I mean, by what metric? Further, what theatre? There are parts of WWI that are much more similar to WWII, than to other theatres in WWI. There are ways in which parts of WWII were more similar to 1870 than WWI. And so on.

Broadly though, my gut instinct is that an effective WWII army would have handily trounced a WWI-force, whereas an effective WWI army would probably have eventually stalemated against a sufficiently competent 1870 force.