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Tomn posted:the Royal Army Nitpick, there hasn't been such a thing as the 'Royal Army' since the Civil War. Parliament has long been nervous (understandably) about having a body of armed men sworn loyal to the King who can physically turf them out if push comes to shove between the two. There was a lot of resistance to having a standing army at all; the idea was if the kingdom went to war then the King would raise troops on the spot, to be disbanded once hostilities were over, and that this could only happen with Parliamentary support.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:07
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Kind of amusing really when you think about it, considering a lot of British Military tradition and iconagraphy seems be twinned with the modern Monarchy. I imagine a lot of people make that mistake with the other branches of the UK being the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. Come to think of it, did the Royal Navy ever get renamed briefly under Cromwell? Or was it so small/bankrupt it didn't matter?
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Mar 5, 2015 22:26
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It didn't receive the official title of "Royal Navy" until after the Restoration, is my understanding. The Navy was actually massively expanded during the Interregnum and the Commonwealth Navy fought the First Anglo-Dutch war.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:31
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Never knew that the Royal Navy title wasn't a thing until Charles II showed up, weird to think it being simply called The Navy.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:35
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SeanBeansShako posted:Never knew that the Royal Navy title wasn't a thing until Charles II showed up, weird to think it being simply called The Navy. Keep in mind that procurement was still semi-feudal before the Interregnum - the royal household paid for the upkeep of certain ships, but various important power brokers in the kingdom also paid for the upkeep of their own small fleets or individual ships. These ships would be tasked with the royal establishment during a war - very similar to the practice of raising local regiments. So "The Navy" was sort of a nebulous thing. Naval expansion for the King's ships and taxes to pay for those ships were evidently one of the cited causes of the revolt against Charles I but I don't know quite enough about the politics of that period to comment. Seems plausible as one of the causes, though.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:41
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feedmegin posted:Nitpick, there hasn't been such a thing as the 'Royal Army' since the Civil War. Parliament has long been nervous (understandably) about having a body of armed men sworn loyal to the King who can physically turf them out if push comes to shove between the two. There was a lot of resistance to having a standing army at all; the idea was if the kingdom went to war then the King would raise troops on the spot, to be disbanded once hostilities were over, and that this could only happen with Parliamentary support. But isn't Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Queen of England and Scotland, Defender of the Faith etc.) commander in chief of the British Army, and Colonel of several regiments?
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Mar 6, 2015 00:03
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ArchangeI posted:But isn't Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Queen of England and Scotland, Defender of the Faith etc.) commander in chief of the British Army, and Colonel of several regiments? It's still not the Royal Army.
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Mar 6, 2015 00:06
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Keep in mind that procurement was still semi-feudal before the Interregnum - the royal household paid for the upkeep of certain ships, but various important power brokers in the kingdom also paid for the upkeep of their own small fleets or individual ships. These ships would be tasked with the royal establishment during a war - very similar to the practice of raising local regiments. So "The Navy" was sort of a nebulous thing. Basically only the coastal counties were required to pay upkeep on the navy. Parliament refused to extend this to all the counties so Charles did it by fiat. He prosecuted the first people who refused to pay, and when the jury refused to convict, he prosecuted the jurors for treason.
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Mar 6, 2015 01:31
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sullat posted:Basically only the coastal counties were required to pay upkeep on the navy. Parliament refused to extend this to all the counties so Charles did it by fiat. He prosecuted the first people who refused to pay, and when the jury refused to convict, he prosecuted the jurors for treason. Nice - how were the payments calculated? Were taxes roughly balanced between coastal and inland counties before, and this unbalanced it? How did the crown collect revenues in those days? Tell me more!
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Mar 6, 2015 01:57
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From what I vaguely recall, this little fellow helped with that a bit after the restoration.
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Mar 6, 2015 02:01
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Nice - how were the payments calculated? Were taxes roughly balanced between coastal and inland counties before, and this unbalanced it? How did the crown collect revenues in those days? Tell me more! As I recall, coastal counties had to provide and maintain ships or provide funds to do so. The interior counties didn't have to pay anything. Charles wanted to make it so all the counties had to pay a uniform amount, but without getting permission from Parliament, which had been dismissed. There wasn't really a uniform method of collecting revenue at the time. I think a lot of it was handled by the local administration. Which is why you get stuff like Oliver Cromwell trying to replace it with an entirely military administration. But you had customs, local assizes, the occasional head tax. When Charles dismissed Parliament, he had to get creative, resorting to "forced loans" and "reinterpreting" old tax laws like the ship taxes.
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Mar 6, 2015 02:37
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:It's still not the Royal Army. Yeah but it's pretty much an army sworn loyal to the monarch so the only reason it isn't call the Royal Army is tradition, I guess. Which, in Britain, is as good as any other reason. Probably better than most other reasons.
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Mar 6, 2015 03:00
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Disinterested posted:The best thing you can say about it is that it was a pretty normal thing to do in its day and got a bit overblown by some chroniclers. It absolutely was not normal, and that was half the point. It was immense violence and a man-made famine, designed exclusively to punish and terrify William's own subjects. Orderic may (may!) have overstated the number of dead, but he did not overstate the horror of it. GO gently caress YOURSELF posted:If your assertion that the Harrying of the North was actually good isn't a joke, I'd really like to hear your defense of it. It was good because it killed the English. As someone who specializes in medieval Normandy and France, studied in Scotland, and has a Spanish username, I naturally hate the English. That's the joke. The second part about the yoke is serious tho. Theres an article in one of the Anglo-Norman Studies (I think?) volumes that debunks it exceedingly well.
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Mar 6, 2015 05:27
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What the hell is Norman Yoke?
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Mar 6, 2015 05:45
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JcDent posted:What the hell is Norman Yoke? The people's history of the bayeux tapestry, basically.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:13
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JcDent posted:What the hell is Norman Yoke? Everything that's been wrong with England for the last 1000+ years is France's fault.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:29
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JcDent posted:What the hell is Norman Yoke? Norman yoke is a wooden beam used between a pair of Saxons to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:09
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SeanBeansShako posted:I imagine a lot of people make that mistake with the other branches of the UK being the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. Yep, that's pretty much it. "Well, everything else is Royal, why not the Army?" 
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Mar 6, 2015 07:12
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Deteriorata posted:Everything that's been wrong with England for the last 1000+ years is France's fault. Ah, "The Jews did it" for 17th century English.
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Mar 6, 2015 08:06
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Jobbo_Fett posted:You want a stalemate or German victory? Come up with a scenario where they beat the Russians and still have most of their army, done. Not going to be easy. Umm... Stalin decides the purges were 'a good start', kills everyone above Corporal?
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Mar 6, 2015 08:30
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The Lone Badger posted:Not going to be easy. Alternatively, Stalin doesn't scare the Russians enough to keep them down, and there's a successful counterrevolution in the 1930s. Admittedly it's a cheap way out, and pretty much a gay black Stalin scenario, but the alternate history way for the Nazis to plausibly win World War II is if they don't go to war against the Soviet Union and the Japanese don't attack Pearl Harbor.
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Mar 6, 2015 08:33
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I found the picture I was talking about! Allegedly given to commanders of the Southwestern Front of the Red Army in 1918-1920, which proves my thesis that everyone loves swastikas!
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Mar 6, 2015 08:51
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:It absolutely was not normal, and that was half the point. It was immense violence and a man-made famine, designed exclusively to punish and terrify William's own subjects. Orderic may (may!) have overstated the number of dead, but he did not overstate the horror of it. I didn't say it was true, but that's the only way of even trying to argue for it - that famine-ing a large number of people to death by destroying crops was an accepted practice. Trin Tragula posted:Second, after the system went away, that wasn't a magic bullet for getting rid of twits and snobbery. In 1914 officers were now being paid, but they were also responsible for providing their uniform (and not just their service uniform, either) and a lot of their equipment. They also had to pay for their food and drink, and you'd usually face social ostracism if you couldn't afford to also play polo, go hunting, and do all the other shite expected of an officer and a gentleman. This allowed the snooty regiments to stay as socially exclusive as possible by putting lots of extra requirements on their officers and ensuring that they would still need a private income. (There were plenty of infantry regiments where it was possible to get by, just about, on your pay; and of course, if you instead joined the Indian Army, your entire expenses were about a shilling a week to live in ridiculous luxury.) This hasn't gone away, btw. For Guards regiments, the cost of uniforms and social bills are considerably higher, so at the junior officer's level it is highly desirable to have a second income or your entire salary will be consumed by just paying for being a guardsman. Also a lot of guardsmen are the sons, grandsons etc. of guardsmen. But although the Guards regiments are prestigious, they're not the most elite regiments, so it doesn't cause issues.
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Mar 6, 2015 11:38
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Alfred the Great and Charlemagne didn't learn to write until adulthood. I don't think Charlemagne ever learned?
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Mar 6, 2015 11:39
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Disinterested posted:I don't think Charlemagne ever learned? He was renowned as a lover of books, although that doesn't prove he was literate, it indicates he might've been.
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Mar 6, 2015 12:08
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:He was renowned as a lover of books, although that doesn't prove he was literate, it indicates he might've been. I don't know if it's clear whether or how much he learned later in his life. I believe the sources indicate he was semi-literate at best. From Einhard's Vita: quote:Charles had the gift of ready and fluent speech, and could express whatever he had to say with the utmost clearness. He was not satisfied with command of his native language merely, but gave attention to the study of foreign ones, and in particular was such a master of Latin that he could speak it as well as his native tongue; but he could understand Greek better than he could speak it. He was so eloquent, indeed, that he might have passed for a teacher of eloquence. He most zealously cultivated the liberal arts, held those who taught them in great esteem, and conferred great honors upon them. He took lessons in grammar of the deacon Peter of Pisa, at that time an aged man. Another deacon, Albin of Britain, surnamed Alcuin, a man of Saxon extraction, who was the greatest scholar of the day, was his teacher in other branches of learning. The King spent much time and labour with him studying rhetoric, dialectics, and especially astronomy; he learned to reckon, and used to investigate the motions of the heavenly bodies most curiously, with an intelligent scrutiny. He also tried to write, and used to keep tablets and blanks in bed under his pillow, that at leisure hours he might accustom his hand to form the letters; however, as he did not begin his efforts in due season, but late in life, they met with ill success. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 12:14
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Disinterested posted:This hasn't gone away, btw. For Guards regiments, the cost of uniforms and social bills are considerably higher, so at the junior officer's level it is highly desirable to have a second income or your entire salary will be consumed by just paying for being a guardsman. Also a lot of guardsmen are the sons, grandsons etc. of guardsmen. Hos does that work in practice, these days? I would have thought that being an officer is pretty much a full-time gig. Or are the second incomes usually derived through other means than working?
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Mar 6, 2015 14:27
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Disinterested posted:I don't know if it's clear whether or how much he learned later in his life. I believe the sources indicate he was semi-literate at best. Point is, he had way less than a sixth grade education.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:41
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Churchill posted:Hos does that work in practice, these days? I would have thought that being an officer is pretty much a full-time gig. Or are the second incomes usually derived through other means than working? As in you come from a rich family so you probably have savings, investments, trusts, or an allowance, etc. For example - you get given a pretty big allowance by the army to buy a tailored dress uniform + mess kit when you pass out of Sandhurst. But the guards often wind up way outspending it to the tune of thousands of pounds. Then you have to subsidise an enormously expensive social lifestyle. So even with low overheads it's steep as gently caress without some money of your own in the early years. Guards officers also have batmen still to help them with their uniform etc. but that's pretty much necessary given the amount of elaborate ceremonial poo poo they do.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:53
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Point is, he had way less than a sixth grade education. He was evidently not stupid, but it's a lot harder to learn when you're old. He did speak a lot of languages, but then again so do many poor people without formal education today.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:54
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Jobbo_Fett posted:You want a stalemate or German victory? Come up with a scenario where they beat the Russians and still have most of their army, done. Then Germany gets glassed by the US around 1949 or so; that's pretty much the only alternative the way things were going.
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Mar 6, 2015 16:05
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Disinterested posted:Guards officers also have batmen still to help them with their uniform etc. but that's pretty much necessary given the amount of elaborate ceremonial poo poo they do. Do they still get called that? To me, working as a Batman is the most prestigious job of all.
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Mar 6, 2015 16:40
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Chamale posted:Do they still get called that? To me, working as a Batman is the most prestigious job of all. Yes. I have a lot of friends in the British army, there's a lot of amusing fuckery.
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Mar 6, 2015 16:41
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Raenir Salazar posted:Then Germany gets glassed by the US around 1949 or so; that's pretty much the only alternative the way things were going. If Germany beats out Russia before D-day it would probably be very hard to keep any beachhead they create. Radar developments, etc, etc. There are a lot of factors one would have to look at and conditions to establish right off the bat.
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Mar 6, 2015 16:47
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Jobbo_Fett posted:If Germany beats out Russia before D-day it would probably be very hard to keep any beachhead they create. Radar developments, etc, etc. There are a lot of factors one would have to look at and conditions to establish right off the bat. AWPD-1 and/or 4. B-36 in case Britain falls early. He meant glassed literally, look how tightly packed the Ruhrplex is.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:01
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xthetenth posted:AWPD-1 and/or 4. B-36. He meant glassed literally, look how tightly packed the Ruhrplex is. I get it, but you still have to fly over a lot of enemy territory with a lot more fighter cover
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Mar 6, 2015 17:02
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I get it, but you still have to fly over a lot of enemy territory with a lot more fighter cover Cool. If the Germans achieve the same kill rates as they did against the Schweinfurt raids against either escorted B-29s or B-36s at probably around 45k feet and huge speed for a WWII plane (fat chance) Germany still gets turned into a big ol crater lake.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:04
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Disinterested posted:This hasn't gone away, btw. For Guards regiments, the cost of uniforms and social bills are considerably higher, so at the junior officer's level it is highly desirable to have a second income or your entire salary will be consumed by just paying for being a guardsman. Also a lot of guardsmen are the sons, grandsons etc. of guardsmen. This boggles me. How are officers assigned to regiments in the British Army, anyway? If there's a markedly higher financial cost to being in certain regiments, then I can totally imagine going in, not expecting to be assigned to whatever regiments...And ending up in a regiment that takes your whole paycheck, which would suck.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:37
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Spacewolf posted:This boggles me. How are officers assigned to regiments in the British Army, anyway? If there's a markedly higher financial cost to being in certain regiments, then I can totally imagine going in, not expecting to be assigned to whatever regiments...And ending up in a regiment that takes your whole paycheck, which would suck. Nobody is a guardsman who doesn't want to be. It's very prestigious and in demand. Mostly it's a combination of what you ask for and how good you are - if you're good you get what you're want. If you're poo poo you wind up on vehicle maintenance, truck driving, and guarding field hospitals. Not many people sign up for that fully voluntarily. The good people at military academy go in to regiment that is either specialised and prestiguous, or has a good reputation for competency. So that's like: Good/specialist: Engineers, Artillery Int Corps etc. Good rep for competency: Rifles Anglians Not so good rep: Mercians, REMI, Logi There are gigs you dodge in the army if you can because you know all the shitters from military academy are the officers. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 17:39
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Ah. That answers the question nicely, thanks.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:41
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