|
khwarezm posted:Popular opinion? What, was there a poll or something taken? Nobody got trounced, it was a back and forth with good points on either side but, as you can see, I lean more in favor of the idea that the Mongols would have been bad news as they were most other places. Well, popular opinions that were better than mine at least  . But yeah, nobody would ever truly want the mongols at their peak banging on their back door.
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 13:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 15:45 |
|
|
100 Years Ago The BEF and 5th Army enter the gap on the Marne and engage both German flanks. 6th Army remains intact. Meanwhile, the situation around Nancy and Verdun has become critical, and General Castelnau requests permission to withdraw. Joffre orders him to hold the high ground for another 24 hours, hoping that the Germans will have to either retire or transfer men to the west as reinforcements in the meantime. This is about where the material for day-by-day narratives starts to run out, but hopefully I'll be able to remember when things happen, or at least when they start, and write a bit more about them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 13:08
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:I remember that this debate about the Mongols ability to conquer Europe came up in the previous thread and Obdicut made a pretty good argument that Europe's supposed natural advantages probably didn't actually count for much against the Mongol onslaught. Not really. quote:First the Mongols successfully conquered areas extremely heavily fortified and mountainous, Particularly in China and Iran, and were known to be world class besiegers when they gained access to Chinese engineers and technology. China and Iran were not nearly as heavily fortified as medieval Europe. This was all discussed in the previous thread. There is also the question of whether the Mongol forces in Europe actually had any of these Chinese siege engineers. The Mongol Empire was not homogeneous and by the 1230s was already breaking off into rival hordes, and there isn't really any evidence to indicate that the Golden Horde abutting Europe had the same facility with siege warfare as the Yuan Dynasty. quote:Related to that they had also shown to be adaptable and disciplined in ways nobody, least of all the Europeans, could match up against, they were perfectly able to change tactics as the situation needed, after all, nomadic people traditionally had trouble taking cities in war by and large, but the Mongols were able to overcome this usual weakness with a combo of learning from settled peoples and extreme brutality. How much manpower did the Mongols have available for operations in Central Europe, relative to what they took into China and Iran? For Iran they had 150,000-250,000, for Southern China they had round about 500,000. Estimates vary for their invasion of Hungary and Poland but a figure of about 30,000 has looked reasonable. quote:Finally there's the niggling fact that every European army that actually went up against the Mongols got loving annihilated in campaigns conducted with speed and ingenuity no one could have imagined. This is frankly untrue. Following the Battle of Liegnitz the Mongols' northern force fell back on Hungary (which they eventually also abandoned) rather than give battle to the approaching Bohemians, and by the 1280s they had ceased raids in Central Europe after being defeated in the field by Poland and Hungary.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 13:26
|
|
|
Um. Well a little late but I actually wanted to say, full disclosure for the thread, that what I was misremembering about w/r/t the trouncing was the dude who called ES a sociopath for calling the ERE/MRE simply Roman. I think it was Ardennes? Which is a bummer because I normally don't have anything against the guy. I knew ES was involved in something but I couldn't remember all the details.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 13:39
|
|
|
Frostwerks posted:I knew ES was involved in something but I couldn't remember all the details. It's so hard to keep track. In the goldmined threat, the Mongol discussion from more-or-less begins with this post and continues for some time.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 13:51
|
|
|
Frostwerks posted:Um. Well a little late but I actually wanted to say, full disclosure for the thread, that what I was misremembering about w/r/t the trouncing was the dude who called ES a sociopath for calling the ERE/MRE simply Roman. I think it was Ardennes? Which is a bummer because I normally don't have anything against the guy. I knew ES was involved in something but I couldn't remember all the details. Oooo, ooo, can we do the ERE argument in this thread too? (It's actually been one o the more civil debates I've seen in these amateur history threads, I guess I don't remember the sociopathy cheap shot.) If we're not going to do the ERE fight can we get Hey Gal to sound off on cavalry charges again? the JJ fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Sep 8, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 14:30
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:China and Iran were not nearly as heavily fortified as medieval Europe. This was all discussed in the previous thread. There is also the question of whether the Mongol forces in Europe actually had any of these Chinese siege engineers. The Mongol Empire was not homogeneous and by the 1230s was already breaking off into rival hordes, and there isn't really any evidence to indicate that the Golden Horde abutting Europe had the same facility with siege warfare as the Yuan Dynasty. And those individual Hordes were able to keep up at least another 15 years of conquests that included the richest and most advanced areas on the planet. I saw you mentioned that the Europeans were more heavily fortified than elsewhere but weren't Chinese forts quite far advanced and in Terrain that did not seem conductive towards the Mongolian way of war? The political fractiousness of Europe is also a salient point, the Mongols had other ways of subduing the Europeans since they could have played off different states against each other. Political tensions played a huge role in the fall of Iran and China, and Europe was one of the most divided places in the world, what was to stop the king of France buddying up to the winning team if he thought the HRE might collapse? Not that anything like this was attempted of course. quote:How much manpower did the Mongols have available for operations in Central Europe, relative to what they took into China and Iran? For Iran they had 150,000-250,000, for Southern China they had round about 500,000. Estimates vary for their invasion of Hungary and Poland but a figure of about 30,000 has looked reasonable. And look at what they did with those 30000 odd. The Hungarians, Poles and Germans were mauled, Subutai was considering moving into the HRE at that point. Its not like the entire European campaign would have been waged with just these bunch of guys, and even if it was they were able to make the Russians fold without vast amounts of troops. The key point IMHO was that the Mongols were not going up against massive individual states that could call upon hundreds of thousands of men but against smaller states with a tendency to bicker that didn't command particular loyalty to a central government (especially Germany). They simply could have worked on one country at a time while exploiting political tensions and making marked displays of brutality to convince cities to surrender without the need for protracted sieges, like they did everywhere else (and which also happened after Legnica). quote:This is frankly untrue. Following the Battle of Liegnitz the Mongols' northern force fell back on Hungary (which they eventually also abandoned) rather than give battle to the approaching Bohemians, and by the 1280s they had ceased raids in Central Europe after being defeated in the field by Poland and Hungary. I should have made the proviso of "in the invasion under Subutai" (though they still hosed up Poland in their second raid), this was a campaign that was able to destroy two separate armies over a vast area in two days and they were preparing to follow it up with more, I'm not sure if a diversionary force(where in this case a "diversion" was one of the most traumatic battles in medieval Eastern Europe) falling back after just annihilating various Germans and Poles to renew their strength and consolidate Hungary without getting into another battle constitutes a defeat, Hungary was the real objective at that point in the campaign.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 14:56
|
|
|
Another thing (which may be hearsay) that I heard was the Mongols would plan campaigns in advance so well that they would send groups in to cut down trees so that in 15 years when the campaign came through there would be grasslands for their horses. The big thing with the Mongols is their adaptability. Genghis Khan created a great empire that was willing to learn from anyone, ignored racial or religious differences as well as cultivating a pretty effective scary reputation that meant many towns would surrender rather than attempt to fight and risk a massacre. It actually seems that surrendering was the best option really, the Mongols were a hands off empire.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 15:08
|
|
|
Ardent Communist posted:Another thing (which may be hearsay) that I heard was the Mongols would plan campaigns in advance so well that they would send groups in to cut down trees so that in 15 years when the campaign came through there would be grasslands for their horses. Given that 15 years is enough time for pine trees to regrow and reach pretty decent height it might not be that effective.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 15:17
|
|
|
As far as I'm concerned, the Mongol Empire was environmentally defined. Going into Europe means traveling away from the dry, open steppes and into a wet, dense forest. Their composite bows would begin to fall apart from the rain, just like they did for everyone else including the Romans, and then they'd just be slow-moving horsemen invading a heavily fortified foreign land and constantly looking for good grazing areas.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 15:29
|
|
|
On a completely related matter, I had at one time drafted up a pretty huge post that I never posted that basically boiled down to: if the initial invasions of the Japanese home islands had succeeded, might any further sustained campaigns been basically a lovely go even for the biggest badasses in the far east? I figured that while they'd run riot over the coastal plains and the farms, food and fodder within, the comparatively moist climate's effect on bowstrings, dense forests/brush and mountainous terrain would not have been conducive in the least to actions by cavalry and mounted archers. Yeah, yeah, I'm well aware it's the definition of counterfactual history. But I don't know enough about the mongols incursions in (sub)tropical-climates to really have any examples to cite in favor or refutation. I know they fought in Vietnam to unsatisfying effect; were there any further forays into indo-china or the subcontinent proper? I know at least at some point in time the Mughals set up shop in India at the very least. All I know is that if I had to fight dudes on horseback, ambushing them from heights and a dense stand of trees would not at all be the worse way of going about it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 15:50
|
|
|
There is a jerk immediately above my previous post that raised a lot of pertinent points but I won't give them any credit because I am also a jerk.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 15:52
|
|
|
Frostwerks posted:On a completely related matter, I had at one time drafted up a pretty huge post that I never posted that basically boiled down to: if the initial invasions of the Japanese home islands had succeeded, might any further sustained campaigns been basically a lovely go even for the biggest badasses in the far east? I figured that while they'd run riot over the coastal plains and the farms, food and fodder within, the comparatively moist climate's effect on bowstrings, dense forests/brush and mountainous terrain would not have been conducive in the least to actions by cavalry and mounted archers. Yeah, yeah, I'm well aware it's the definition of counterfactual history. But I don't know enough about the mongols incursions in (sub)tropical-climates to really have any examples to cite in favor or refutation. I know they fought in Vietnam to unsatisfying effect; were there any further forays into indo-china or the subcontinent proper? I know at least at some point in time the Mughals set up shop in India at the very least. All I know is that if I had to fight dudes on horseback, ambushing them from heights and a dense stand of trees would not at all be the worse way of going about it. Matchlocks, bows, and mounted archers worked well enough to win the Sengoku Jidai, and Takeda cavalry worked well enough until they came up against guns in fortified positions. There's no reason they wouldn't work for the Mongols. I don't regard large scale guerilla tactics in the medieval age as particularly plausible. People really, really want to go back to their farms and feed themselves. Can people think of any applicable examples? I honestly don't know what the terrain and environment of medieval europe really is. How big were the forests by this time? It seemed like most battles were fought in open land, so... Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Sep 8, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 16:11
|
|
|
Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 16:15
|
|
|
Kaal posted:As far as I'm concerned, the Mongol Empire was environmentally defined. Going into Europe means traveling away from the dry, open steppes and into a wet, dense forest. Their composite bows would begin to fall apart from the rain, just like they did for everyone else including the Romans, and then they'd just be slow-moving horsemen invading a heavily fortified foreign land and constantly looking for good grazing areas. Frostwerks posted:On a completely related matter, I had at one time drafted up a pretty huge post that I never posted that basically boiled down to: if the initial invasions of the Japanese home islands had succeeded, might any further sustained campaigns been basically a lovely go even for the biggest badasses in the far east? I figured that while they'd run riot over the coastal plains and the farms, food and fodder within, the comparatively moist climate's effect on bowstrings, dense forests/brush and mountainous terrain would not have been conducive in the least to actions by cavalry and mounted archers. Yeah, yeah, I'm well aware it's the definition of counterfactual history. But I don't know enough about the mongols incursions in (sub)tropical-climates to really have any examples to cite in favor or refutation. I know they fought in Vietnam to unsatisfying effect; were there any further forays into indo-china or the subcontinent proper? I know at least at some point in time the Mughals set up shop in India at the very least. All I know is that if I had to fight dudes on horseback, ambushing them from heights and a dense stand of trees would not at all be the worse way of going about it. Ok so I just want to make a couple of points: 1. There were other Nomadic groups from the Steppes with a similar background and military tradition to the Mongols that were able to penetrate much deeper into Europe than the Mongols ended up doing:The Avars, the Huns and the Magyars. While they didn't do too well with cities they were able wreck havoc throughout France and Germany and even Italy and Spain (and lay the foundations for a powerful, long lived state in Hungary). 2. The Mongols attempted to invade Java and it didn't go so well, They seemed to suffer quite a bit on water really.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 16:16
|
|
|
oohhboy posted:Thank You for these write ups. Even though I know what is to come, they are still a nail biter. This is exactly how I felt about The Guns of August. I read it after A World Undone but the tension just builds and builds and builds and I was still on the edge of my seat even if I knew what was going to happen.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 16:23
|
|
|
Okay, googling brought up this on medieval terrain and land use: http://www.wsl.ch/staff/niklaus.zimmermann/papers/QuatSciRev_Kaplan_2009.pdf The short version is that actually most of Europe was highly suited to pasture, and at this point much less forested than Poland which the Mongols had a successful campaign in.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 16:25
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:1. There were other Nomadic groups from the Steppes with a similar background and military tradition to the Mongols that were able to penetrate much deeper into Europe than the Mongols ended up doing:The Avars, the Huns and the Magyars. While they didn't do too well with cities they were able wreck havoc throughout France and Germany and even Italy and Spain (and lay the foundations for a powerful, long lived state in Hungary). I dunno mate, there's nearly a 1,000 year separation between the Huns and the Mongols, the world was pretty different and Europe in particular was pretty different. And even then, there really wasn't very much penetration into Europe proper - both the Huns and the Avars basically got as far as the Balkans. There were some raids that went a bit further in, but ultimately they just couldn't generate the constant force required to keep territory.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 16:38
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:By this point the Mongols had already conquered areas far, far away from areas considered their 'Core', especially Iran and Russia, and would go on to bring down the Sung despite being in areas more heavily fortified and in terrain and climatic conditions that did not seem at all conductive towards the Mongol ways of war. The Mongols that went into Europe weren't able to fully subjugate Hungary, which had taken serious losses and couldn't mount a field army. The Mongols of a slightly later time and a long way away could deal with the sieges, but everything in the process of dealing with Europe takes time. The Mongol Empire at the peak of its power could very likely beat Europe senseless, but that wasn't the Mongol Empire at the time of Ogedei's death, and that incredibly capable version didn't last that long. That form also had other targets like southern China that offered more gains for the time put in, and even with Ogedei, it would only have so much time. Europe doesn't need to outright defeat the zenith of the Mongol Empire, they just need to survive it with enough strength to rebound as the Mongols weaken. I think that's eminently doable considering the comparatively smaller forces the Mongols could mount. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Sep 8, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 17:00
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:The Mongols that went into Europe weren't able to fully subjugate Hungary, which had taken serious losses and couldn't mount a field army. The Mongols of a slightly later time and a long way away could deal with the sieges, but everything in the process of dealing with Europe takes time. The Mongol Empire at the peak of its power could very likely beat Europe senseless, but that wasn't the Mongol Empire at the time of Ogedei's death, and that incredibly capable version didn't last that long. That form also had other targets like southern China that offered more gains for the time put in, and even with Ogedei, it would only have so much time. Europe doesn't need to outright defeat the zenith of the Mongol Empire, they just need to survive it with enough strength to rebound as the Mongols weaken. I think that's eminently doable considering the comparatively smaller forces the Mongols could mount. They weren't able to fully subjugate Hungary because they weren't there for very long, like a year and a half. Not many countries are going to be subjugated in that short a period! Also that was the empire at the time of Ogedei's death, they still had years to go before a real military defeat, while formidable commanders, especially Subutai and Batu were gunning to expand in the west. I'll concede that Europe had less to offer than Southern China though, and was generally not going to be the most attractive target which in my mind is why a serious effort was never really made.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 17:18
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:Ok so I just want to make a couple of points: It's people from the east with horses all the way down. IE, the hitites were the first, later the 'greeks' of the classic age who wiped out the mycenaeans Later the celts took over most of northern Europe. Then later the romans did, and later still all the germanic tribes ruled the show. All came from the east. (E: East of the Carpathians, not 'east' as in Mongolia/China) Fo3 fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Sep 8, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:I don't know offhand if Prussia held any of Mexico's foreign debt, but there was a German mercantile presence in Mexico City that is sometimes referred to as a "colony." That doesn't necessarily have any imperial connotations though, if that's what you're thinking; it's in the same sense as say 'artists' colony' (i.e. a bunch of dudes with something in common living in the same place).
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 19:33
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:Ok so I just want to make a couple of points: It should be noted the Mongols were lightyears ahead of the Huns or Magars as far as siegecraft goes. The trope of the nomad horseman being unable to deal with walls doesn't really work after the Mongols started dragging a bunch of Chinese engineers everywhere.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 19:55
|
|
|
Do we know what percentage of the Mongols who invaded Europe were actually Mongols? Wasn't it general practise to levy from conquered territories? Like by the time they reach central Europe it's mostly central Asians/Russian levies etc?
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
Kaal posted:As far as I'm concerned, the Mongol Empire was environmentally defined. Going into Europe means traveling away from the dry, open steppes and into a wet, dense forest. Their composite bows would begin to fall apart from the rain, just like they did for everyone else including the Romans, and then they'd just be slow-moving horsemen invading a heavily fortified foreign land and constantly looking for good grazing areas. Composite bows do not fall apart in wet weather (As if the 4 mayor types of composite bows on the Indian subcontinent wouldn't hint). Apparently the person that put this idea forward, never had any experience with the matter and based his assumption only on the fact that the glue dissolves in water. The bow is never unprotected. For the Mongols, it is wholly wrapped in birch bark. You hardly ever see the bows that they used, unless you spend some time on the subject. Here is the bow from the Cagaan Chad gravesite. Still strung after 600 years. It's deformed because of that. You'd be too.   The bow from the Zargalant gravesite, from an earlier period. Turkic:  Stuff that the Russians found:   A Yuan Dynasty bow:  One of Kublai Khan's buddies shooting some stuff:  Here a reconstruction with birch bark wrapping:  There is another one called the "Omnogov bow", but I do not have access to that article yet. It looks like the reconstruction from what I've seen. I kind of like these non-contact siyah bows. They're somewhat similar to Magyar bows from the 10th century, but do not have bone plates as reinforcements on the siyahs. Storytime: I had to re-glue the horn on my first bow and after soaking it in water for 2 days, the glue didn't start to swell. The gap where water could enter is about as thin as a hair and the water that penetrated into the wood didn't do much. You need weeks or longer for that to happen. And that was on a completely unprotected bow. I had to use a heatgun and over 100°C for 20mins or so and a knife to pry it apart.  The only thing that will take damage fast on an unprotected bow is the sinew backing, and that is never unprotected. The bow is completely wrapped in birchbark and then treated with oil or grease. You can take such bows anywhere on a hunt, it might lose a few pounds drawweight when it's raining for a few days, but that's normal, even for selfbows in very humid conditions. Once you put them in a warm and dry place, it will regain everything within a few days. These bows creep back into reflex unstrung once you warm them up. Peter Dekker soaked a damaged Manchu bow apart a few months ago. Parts of the bow were split open, so water could enter. It still took over a week with the bow submerged until he was able to take everything apart. This German wikipedia article gives information about the proportion that's actually woods in the 1300s http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_des_Waldes_in_Mitteleuropa#Waldfl.C3.A4chenanteil Tl;dr: It's not much different from today. I kind of wonder how scorched earth tactics would work, if you do that to your own land and cannot evade indefinitely. Sit in a castle and wait for the Mongols to disappear? They will move on to somewhere, maybe you can ambush a detachment now and then, but they'll be back. Where will you get your supplies from if they reappear in spring? You put everything to the torch and they control the open land and kill or enslave your peasants, like the Crimean Tartar light cavalry did a few 100 years later with every incursion of the Turks further into Europe. And those guys just did it for fun and all the nice loot. How long do you think you can play this game with an enemy that's less friendly? Have you heard about the dent that the Mongols gave the population development of Iran? Hint: It reached pre invasion levels in the 1920s. loving Mongols. Another story worth remembering is the fate of Bayezid I. and what the europeans did in the aftermath of his defeat. Better the Turks than the Mongols and their bros all over again. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Sep 8, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 20:31
|
|
|
One night a museum caretaker somewhere will hear an almighty twang.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 20:35
|
|
|
Tell use more about bayezid the first!
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2014 21:09
|
|
|
khwarezm posted:And those individual Hordes were able to keep up at least another 15 years of conquests that included the richest and most advanced areas on the planet. This is true of the Yuan Dynasty, which was the largest and most powerful of the hordes and the one that initially included the homeland and recruitment centers in Mongolia and Central Asia. With respect to the hordes you're actually talking about, this period marks the high-water mark of the Il-Khanate and Golden Horde, both of which were checked and then pressed back to the east. This occurred in large part because of their mutual rivalry, which dramatically curtailed their ability to make further conquests and deal with other emerging threats. This internecine warfare is also a trend that was beginning before Mongols even mounted their invasion of Europe, and would have been a major factor limiting their freedom of action against Europe, whatever happened to Ogedei. quote:I saw you mentioned that the Europeans were more heavily fortified than elsewhere but weren't Chinese forts quite far advanced and in Terrain that did not seem conductive towards the Mongolian way of war? Arguments about which were more technically sophisticated aside, the key difference is that political organization and military strategy in Medieval Europe resulted in the construction of fortifications through the entire depth of a principality. Empires in Southwest and East Asia tended to have stronger rulers who fortified their frontiers and largest cities. They actually had a strong incentive to prevent further fortification beyond this level, because to do so would give their vassals strongpoints from which to resist central authority. The Mongol success at siegecraft was partly from their adoption of Chinese methods and partly from the effect of their exceptional strategic mobility in this context; once they penetrated the enemy frontier they were in open country. By contrast, European feudalism and the dissension it fostered encouraged the development of defensive strongpoints not only at the borders and capitals but throughout the country. Europe was a dense patchwork of forts, castles, and walled cities, many of which had formidable citadels. In Esztergom or Krakow, where the Mongols attacked important European cities, they were able to raze the lower city but could not take the citadel, and in both cases they simply withdrew without even attempting to mount a siege. Again, the Mongols were in Hungary for over a year, and when they left most of the country's fortified places were still in Hungarian hands, which allowed the Hungarians to immediately wipe out the Mongol rearguard and reestablish control. It is also important to note that Hungary was one of the least fortified kingdoms in Europe, and it was only after the disaster of 1241-2 that they made a real effort to bring their defenses up to European standard. quote:The political fractiousness of Europe is also a salient point, the Mongols had other ways of subduing the Europeans since they could have played off different states against each other. Political tensions played a huge role in the fall of Iran and China, and Europe was one of the most divided places in the world, what was to stop the king of France buddying up to the winning team if he thought the HRE might collapse? Not that anything like this was attempted of course. Louis IX of France, aka "Saint Louis", was deeply religious and devoted a tremendous amount of wealth, effort, and time to the crusades. It is true that he allied with the Mongols against the Muslims, but there are at least two very good reasons to imagine that he would not have allied with them against the Holy Roman Empire: (1) military affairs during his reign were oriented entirely around the French-English rivalry and crusading and (2) if the Mongols were (as you suggested) razing Christian cities in Europe itself he would be as likely to join the fight against them as not. quote:And look at what they did with those 30000 odd. The Hungarians, Poles and Germans were mauled, Subutai was considering moving into the HRE at that point. German forces at Legnica amounted to an unknown number of volunteer miners (i.e. non-professionals). There is also some doubt that any Teutonic Knights participated. So actual forces involved were almost entirely Polish with some number of French knights in the military orders. Also, again, the Mongol force that won the Battle of Legnica pressed towards Bohemia but withdrew when the King of Bohemia approached with his army, which indicates that if Subutai considered moving in, he reconsidered it when he saw the extent of the force he was facing. quote:Its not like the entire European campaign would have been waged with just these bunch of guys, What evidence suggests that they would have been able to bring more troops for continuing operations in Central Europe? As outlined above, their rivalry with the Il-Khanate is a major and chronic drain on their strength. Over the same period, the forces they brought on successive invasions dwindled until they stopped raiding altogether. quote:and even if it was they were able to make the Russians fold without vast amounts of troops. Kievan Rus isn't remotely the same thing as conquering the Holy Roman Empire. quote:The key point IMHO was that the Mongols were not going up against massive individual states that could call upon hundreds of thousands of men but against smaller states with a tendency to bicker that didn't command particular loyalty to a central government (especially Germany). They simply could have worked on one country at a time while exploiting political tensions and making marked displays of brutality to convince cities to surrender without the need for protracted sieges, like they did everywhere else (and which also happened after Legnica). The next state in their path after Hungary and Poland was the Holy Roman Empire, which was at the time in the latter part of the reign of Frederick II, who you might want to look up if you think the HRE was going to be an easy target in the 1240s. Historically he was distracted by fighting the Pope in Italy and was not involved in affairs with the Mongol Invasion, but if they'd been making inroads into the Empire itself his reaction (and the assiduity of the Pope in acting against his interests) would have been very different. quote:I should have made the proviso of "in the invasion under Subutai" (though they still hosed up Poland in their second raid), this was a campaign that was able to destroy two separate armies over a vast area in two days and they were preparing to follow it up with more, I'm not sure if a diversionary force(where in this case a "diversion" was one of the most traumatic battles in medieval Eastern Europe) falling back after just annihilating various Germans and Poles to renew their strength and consolidate Hungary without getting into another battle constitutes a defeat, Another way to put this would be that the King of Bohemia was able to deflect the Mongols away from the Holy Roman Empire without even having to fight. As with anything else it depends on how you define a defeat. quote:Hungary was the real objective at that point in the campaign. An objective they failed to take. Kaal posted:As far as I'm concerned, the Mongol Empire was environmentally defined. I don't think it's an especially complicated problem, or at least not one that requires us to reach for a just-so explanation of this kind. The Mongols did not record their losses, but the fact that they declined battle and retreated rather than fight King Wenceslaus of Bohemia indicates that they were hurting. They also must have suffered casualties in the first stage of the Battle of Mohi, before they discovered an alternative crossing of the Sajo River. Their subsequent action in Hungary involved grinding siege and ambush warfare for limited gains, since the bulk of the kingdom's material wealth and military strength was defended by fortifications that the Mongols were generally unable to take within the year or so that they were campaigning. Taken together with the need to consolidating their gains in Russia, which was their real base of power, and the increasing threat of conflict with the Il-Khanate, the most likely explanation is that they assessed they did not have the available resources to continue the campaign further into Europe, and the death of Ogedei supplied the occasion but not the sole reason for their withdrawal. This explanation also has the merit of explaining why they never returned in anything like the force they brought in 1241.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 00:20
|
|
|
100 Years Ago There is no way for the Germans to fill the gap in their line, and they are in severe danger of being encircled. All along the front they quickly disengage and withdraw to avoid the rapidly-approaching derriere velocite. And, as was demonstrated earlier, when 2nd Army retires, 3rd Army has to do so as well to protect their own flank, and so too must everyone else along the northern part of the front. The pressure on Nancy and Verdun begins to abate, and there is a German withdrawal from their exposed salient. When General von Moltke receives the news, he literally has a nervous breakdown at his headquarters, and it's up to his army commanders to govern the retirement. Fortunately for them, the ground that they are now about to retire over is favourable to the defender, and although their pace is slow and tired, the attacking forces are equally slow and tired. The Germans cannot fully disengage, but the Allies cannot fully press their advantage. About this time in Serbia, the Serbs launch a highly effective counter-attack towards a peak of the Jagodnja mountain; the battle for Mačkov Kamen lasts four days and sees about 25,000 casualties on both sides, one of the bloodiest encounters of the entire war.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 09:06
|
|
|
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/warriors-3900-year-old-suit-of-bone-armour-unearthed-in-omsk/ This is really cool. Anyone have any background to add to this?
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 09:59
|
|
|
Are there any theories as to what the tipping point was for the title of "most influential and technologically developed culture(s)" passing to Western Europe and its progeny? How much of it could be a deterministic series of events and how much of it sheer chance? I'm assuming it's fairly rooted in military history; the whole Colonial thing clearly wouldn't have worked without the sheer advantage in arms necessary to brutally subjugate native populations. tl;dr how did a bunch of pale backwards fuckwits from a tiny corner of the globe who were constantly fighting each other from the fall of Rome all the way into the 20th century become globally influential/dominant it sounds like bad alt-history fanfic to me I'd ask who else might have been contenders for "become the dominant global culture", but that's probably too speculative and not military-specific enough 
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 11:13
|
|
|
Tollymain posted:Are there any theories as to what the tipping point was for the title of "most influential and technologically developed culture(s)" passing to Western Europe and its progeny? How much of it could be a deterministic series of events and how much of it sheer chance? I'm assuming it's fairly rooted in military history; the whole Colonial thing clearly wouldn't have worked without the sheer advantage in arms necessary to brutally subjugate native populations. It's a Matter of Some Debate. In the opinion of one fairly unknown historian (me), it is because they were fighting all the drat time. I would argue that the European Way of War was fundamentally different from the way wars were fought in other parts of the world. Europeans fought each other within a complicated political framework that was based on the idea that war was a political act aimed at forcing your will on your enemy. Other cultures fought wars differently and for different purposes, as a religious act, or to acquire prisoners for sacrifice or to sell as slaves. When you are used to raiding villages for slaves, you assume that an invading force will try to take people alive and you try not to kill your enemy because corpses make bad slaves. Then the Europeans come and murder the gently caress out of everybody and burn down any village that resists. Now, this didn't mean natives looked on and went "Welp, we're boned". They mostly adapted very quickly, but if you don't have a history of fighting battles of annihilation, it is hard to beat a force that has centuries of that warfare behind it. If you are an American native, it also didn't help that literally 90% of your population has just died from smallpox. It should be noted that many areas of the globe that were colonized late or not at all were always either a) themselves practicing annihilatory warfare (North Africa, Japan) or b) openly hostile to human life (most of sub-saharian Africa). The fact that Europeans fought each other all the drat time also led to them being locked into an arms spiral with each other. If you couldn't keep up technologically or financially, you were swallowed up by people who could. This led to the development of the modern state, with its institutions and, most importantly, its tax system that allowed huge armies to be raised and equipped. Of course, sheer chance did play a role. Arguably the biggest advantage the Europeans had was from Industrialization, and that took a ridiculous amount of interdependent factors to come along. As I said, just my opinion.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 12:00
|
|
|
Luck has a huge part to play as well. The start of colonisation is helped by plague and disease. Ths geographical positioning and trade winds help take advantage of this. Great wealth over the atlantic helps continue shipping advances. Industry and centralisation give them the means and combined it comes to a head in the 18th and 19th century as they ride roughshod over the rest of the world. Note the above is barely informed speculation. Smart people who study this apparently cant agree. I also personally think the difference between europe and the other more centralised parts of the world wasnt even that big until the 19th century. Even then its ship building and coal that really seem to make the difference.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 12:21
|
|
|
Having the Mongols happen to their nearest rival can't have hurt either. Also the Suropeans fought with a bunch of infantry and forts compared to everybody else, and both of those pushed the development of stuff that turns out to lead somewhere very useful. There's a lot of things that could have contributed and even more that sound like they did.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 13:21
|
|
|
Tollymain posted:tl;dr how did a bunch of pale backwards fuckwits from a tiny corner of the globe who were constantly fighting each other from the fall of Rome all the way into the 20th century become globally influential/dominant it sounds like bad alt-history fanfic to me Well, if you look around enough, you'll find a landmine on the ground. Dust it off, and you'll find "Guns, Germs, and Steel" written on it. Step on that and you'll find something interesting. I guess you'd want to look at all the criticism of it to get a fuller picture. I don't think people have decided his theories are totally passe yet, and some of the stuff seems like a stretch. Still, I think I agree with the idea that Europe was basically flanked by water on 3 sides, and had to develop a strong tradition with sea navigation. On the side with land, there was a great deal of flux with the crusades that gave them the awareness that there was a lot of other stuff out there. This gave Europe a great opportunity to travel and rip off of everybody.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 15:57
|
|
|
JaucheCharly posted:Composite bows do not fall apart in wet weather (As if the 4 mayor types of composite bows on the Indian subcontinent wouldn't hint). Apparently the person that put this idea forward, never had any experience with the matter and based his assumption only on the fact that the glue dissolves in water. The bow is never unprotected. For the Mongols, it is wholly wrapped in birch bark. That's an interesting idea, but it doesn't really explain why composite bows were fairly universally restricted to areas with low humidity. And yes, that includes the Indian subcontinent, which is predominantly arid throughout the year, except for the summer rainy season when all the rain comes at once and campaigning is impossible in any case. British, French and German bowyers, for example, had the capability for making composite bows ever since they were introduced by the Roman garrisons, but they never really caught on until the advent of medieval crossbows more than 1,000 years later. It's pretty commonly accepted that animal glues are water-permeable, and that the constant exposure to humidity, rather than rain, makes any amount of field covering undependable and renders the weapon itself unreliable. The glue might stand up to a day of submersion, or even a week, but month after month of rain and 90% humidity will eventually loosen the glue and fatally weaken the bow. It's apparently an issue that military conservators are quite familiar with: http://www.romanarmytalk.com/17-roman-military-history-a-archaeology/68229-did-the-romans-have-the-composite-bow.html?start=30 But to continue the discussion, if we assume that composite bows could indeed be used reliably in wet climates - what is the alternate explanation for why they weren't used in Western Europe? Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Sep 9, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 16:34
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:It certainly didn't work out for Emperor Max. I'll try to make an effort post later about him and the Second French Intervention, or really the cluster gently caress of Mexican politics from the 18th century. For example, The First French Intervention is known locally as the "La guerra de los pasteles (Pastry/Cake war)" where it began as a French baker asked the help of France to pay for looting incurred during one of the constant battles between conservatives and liberals, but really people who wanted to wield more power in the young nation. France accepted the request and bullied Mexico into accepting to pay an enormous amount of money.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 16:44
|
|
|
Tollymain posted:Are there any theories as to what the tipping point was for the title of "most influential and technologically developed culture(s)" passing to Western Europe and its progeny? How much of it could be a deterministic series of events and how much of it sheer chance? I'm assuming it's fairly rooted in military history; the whole Colonial thing clearly wouldn't have worked without the sheer advantage in arms necessary to brutally subjugate native populations. The colonization of the Americas gave some European states access to a lot of resources that they previously had to get from other places. The diseases that wiped out the indigenous American civilizations gave the white settlers even more proportional wealth and the the home nations became economically prosperous from the boon of seemingly infinite resources in the new world. The conquest is entirely predicated on countless epidemics that wipe out the Aztecs, and peculiar political play that cap off with epidemics for the case of the Inca. Western Europe becomes an important economic center from all the poo poo it gets from the Americas. This depresses the economies of a lot of states along the Europe-Asia corridor, because they don't have an entire continent to themselves. It even depresses the Europeans at some point when the volume of stolen gold and mined silver start making currencies worthless. The biggest benefactors from colonisation are the British, who are relatively insulated from petty wars and predisposed to making scads of ships. The wealth of the empire is derived from growing poo poo on the extra land in the new world, selling it in Europe for goods, and then bribing Africans for slaves to perform free labor. The system basically injects money into the British economy, and they quickly become at least the richest, of all states. From there, you get the luxury to philosophize, to develop weapons, to research frivolous things such as gravity, and so on. I can't give a point of time when Europe became the "most influential and technologically developed culture(s)", because it isn't as if being British engendered a lot of respect in the 17th century. I wouldn't say it was "lucky" that the Meso-Americans were vulnerable to our diseases. They always were, because they didn't keep many pack-animals/livestock and never had the small/cowpoxes or influenzas you get from proximity to filthy beasts. And so, they never had the immunity. It was "lucky", that Pizarro stumbled upon the Incan empire in a succession crisis, but their big roads and winding empire was definitely not immune to the same diseases that did the Meso-Americans in. A lot of economic theory gets its grounding in the aftermath of colonization, which is maybe the dumbest thing that we still learn/teach. Again, after diseases, there were two entire continents that some small European nations got to toy with and exploit, and there is nothing equivalent to that in today's world.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 17:00
|
|
|
Kaal posted:That's an interesting idea, but it doesn't really explain why composite bows were fairly universally restricted to areas with low humidity. And yes, that includes the Indian subcontinent, which is predominantly arid throughout the year, except for the summer rainy season when all the rain comes at once and campaigning is impossible in any case. British, French and German bowyers, for example, had the capability for making composite bows ever since they were introduced by the Roman garrisons, but they never really caught on until the advent of medieval crossbows more than 1,000 years later. It's pretty commonly accepted that animal glues are water-permeable, and that the constant exposure to humidity, rather than rain, makes any amount of field covering undependable and renders the weapon itself unreliable. The glue might stand up to a day of submersion, or even a week, but month after month of rain and 90% humidity will eventually loosen the glue and fatally weaken the bow. It's apparently an issue that military conservators are quite familiar with: http://www.romanarmytalk.com/17-roman-military-history-a-archaeology/68229-did-the-romans-have-the-composite-bow.html?start=30 Time? Composite bows take a long-rear end time to make, and a lot of skill and expertise. Western European bow use is generally based on large peasant foot archer levies firing large volleys. The time and expense of producing composite bows is not worth it, when simple bows made of wood are sufficient for that purpose. In turn, the eastern societies were often forced into developing composite bows because of the shortage of suitable wood. The main value of composite bows, in any case, seems to be their compactness, and so their suitability for mounted archery. Mounted archery never seems to really take off in Western Europe, perhaps due to the control of military horses by the upper social classes, and their close connection with the idea of shock cavalry. Western europe tends to tie enormous notions of honour and prestige to melee combat, especially using swords. I'm generalising, of course. Or maybe I'm talking out of my arse.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 17:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 15:45 |
|
|
Kaal posted:But to continue the discussion, if we assume that composite bows could indeed be used reliably in wet climates - what is the alternate explanation for why they weren't used in Western Europe? Just spitballing, but I'm going to go with a lack of locally available horn of the right shape and quality? Also, perhaps pre-existing bow making traditions that were good enough for the general day to day needs of the people in that area? I imagine it would be a bit hard to sell a Welsh longbowman on the need for shifting over to a composite weapon. Also the local non-military bow needs might be pretty different. Your average mongol herdsman has a day to day use for a composite bow that can reach way the gently caress out there and drop a large herbivore, and he needs it small enough to manage on a horse. Meanwhile, what kind of ranges are you realistically getting out to in the German forests? And does it really need to be all that compact? Finally, maybe something to do with trade routes and the more specialized (or at least work intensive) nature of composite bowmaking? The parts of Europe where humidity and rainfall are an issue are also those areas that were just a mess of small, fortified communities for quite a while. There was a bunch of recorded trade throughout that region, but as I recall most of it is pretty high-end luxury items. You still manage to maintain local weapons making traditions surprisingly close to each other, and although they certainly influence one another you don't see one becoming utterly dominant. Maybe that sort of situation just favors tons of local, less skilled bowyers making simpler bows than fewer, highly skilled artisans making complex composite weapons?
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2014 17:24
|
|
