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Qing Chinese upper leadership would speak Mandarin (how the dialect got its name). This was also commonly spoken by the hereditary banner armies, even the Manchu soldiers started using it instead of Manchu. The less formal militia units would speak whatever local dialect, which wasn't a problem for yongying forces since the units were all recruited together from the same geographic area. As for how the Taiping managed I dunno, since they had Hakka, Hunanese, and a bunch of other southern dialects already when they rolled into Nanjing. I'll read through Yang Xiuqing's paper on military affairs and see if he says anything. There was always written Chinese, which was a common language separate from any particular spoken dialect. The Taiping would try to reform/simplify it, so modern written Chinese would probably look different if they had won since it would be based on southern dialects instead of Mandarin.
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Mar 22, 2016 17:59
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Empress Theonora posted:How did multilingual armies (Austria-Hungary? HEY GAL's guys? Belgium? China? That one guy Louis Barthas knew who didn't speak standard French? etc.) keep organized and stay on the same page? I'm less interested in any particular army or period with this, and more just on what various approaches towards making sure that orders have been understood, officers can communicate with one another, etc. have been tried over the years. Even so, Tilly was embarrassed about his German so he had someone else do the pre battle speeches for him  Edit: Gustavus Adolphus and everyone he knows probably speak more German in daily life than Swedish, and the daily business of the Swedish army is conducted in German. Edit 2: Reenactment works the same way, except now English is one of the languages everyone speaks in in addition to German because Italian no longer has a world language status. I have translated from English into German and from French into German for my friends. Which reminds me of the time I was at an academic conference where a Japanese woman who studied the French view of China was giving a paper in French, which I was translating under my breath into English for the guy sitting next to me, a Swede. that's five layers of language HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 18:24
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JcDent posted:So, modern armies talk a lot about veterans and how they're better motivated and batter at getting shot at. What about medieval-ish? Were most knights/horsedudes and men-at-arms roughly on the same level as preparations and veterancy goes? Did anyone boast of their crack veteran spearmen and what not? Sparta and Alexander the great both boasted a lot. I'm fuzzier on medieval times but: Poland had its winged hussars. I vaguely recall French Knights being relatively awesome. The Varangian guard were supposed to be bad rear end veterans. Do the Janissaries or the Knights Templar count?
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Mar 22, 2016 18:25
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ArchangeI posted:AH originally had mostly German officers (or officers trained to use German), so they just taught the troops the 100-odd most used commands in German. That, uh did not work so well when the officers had to communicate anything beyond "Fix bayonets". So, after the ugly defeat in 1866, they switched it up and tried to form somewhat ethnically coherent units. Officers assigned to them had to learn the dominant language of the unit. To elaborate: after 1868 the military issued some clear directives on how to cope with the language situation for the first time. They distinguished between the "commando language" (the 100 commands, always given in German), the "service language" (Dienstsprache) for communication with other military units and offices as well as keeping protocol. This was German as well, though some units in Galicia used Polish as well which was quietly tolerated by the brass. The Honvéd and the Croatian Home Guard used Hungarian and Croatian as their respective service language. The "regiment language" was every language spoken by more than 20% of the troops. Although they tried to keep the units ethnically and/or linguistically coherent, there were still lots of regiments with more than one regiment language in use. In 1914, the army counted 142 regiments (or independent batallions) with one language in use, 162 with two, 24 with three languages and there were even one or two with four official language. Officers had three years to learn the respective language(s) of their unit. When they hadn't adequately managed to do so after that time they were given another two years, and if they couldn't use the language after then they were barred from any promotion until they could. It was often criticised that many officers were really bad when it came to speaking the various Slavic languages of the Empire, and many of them tried to get by with "Army Slavic", which was essentially a mishmash of various Slavic languages and German. Cadets were required to learn German if it wasn't their native language as well as two other languges of the Empire as well as French. The navy almost exclusively used Italian afaik
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Mar 22, 2016 18:38
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Tevery Best posted:Was it only the boring relevant letters, or the ones sent to his wife as well? I used a book from 1827, with a translation of the letters into German by Ferdinand Friedrich Oechsle. So no, since this collection only contains letters send to his wife during the campaign to relieve Vienna and yes, since it was letters send to his wife.  By the way, I found some of the books I used as source again. One with translated diary entries by Kara Mustafa and one old book about the siege by Isabel Ackerl (1983). The last one lists the letter-collection published by Oechsle as one of its sources, so that's three sources back from oblivion! Libluini fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 18:42
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JcDent posted:So, modern armies talk a lot about veterans and how they're better motivated and batter at getting shot at. What about medieval-ish? Were most knights/horsedudes and men-at-arms roughly on the same level as preparations and veterancy goes? Did anyone boast of their crack veteran spearmen and what not? This is about a thousand years of warfare and I'm going to assume you mean European warfare, but that's not much of a help because it turns out Europe isn't even remotely a unified entity in this time frame. There are times of peace and times of war. From what I've heard French and German knights declined a bit in quality during the late Medieval due to a period of relative peace and the end result is romantic stories and chivalrous knights entering jousting tournaments instead of hacking each other to pieces. You might want to be more specific in what you're asking. However, yes, there were veteran knights and men-at-arms that had fought since they were old enough to hold a sword and they were very good at what they did. Hereditary military service tends to result in some pretty effective warriors. There were also hussars, mamlukes, Turkish horsemen, Mongol horsemen, three major dynasties worth of Chinese armies let alone everyone else in Southeast Asia, samurai, and whatever was going on in Africa, India, and Central and South America. I don't think anyone has really boasted of their crack spear-men since Sparta declined. Unless by spear you also mean pike in which case that's a different story. The Swiss were known for their disciplined and experienced mercenaries, but I can't give you a good time frame other than late medieval and a bit beyond.
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Mar 22, 2016 18:52
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ArchangeI posted:Which brings me to another question: have there ever been any studies about the environmental impact of WWII? I mean it can't have been good for the environment when the u-boats were sinking tankers by the dozens, even though those tankers were quite a bit smaller than modern ones. I'd assume the planes dumped overboard were not quite environmentally safe as we would understand the term today, either. The fish stocks of the oceans benefited a lot because for years deep-sea fishing was off the menu.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:04
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Well, I have a very vague understanding how wars in Europe happened before pike and shot (despite having asked a few times, I think), so I don't know what is it exactly the infantrymen - and elite infantrymen at the same time - would have used, and in turn whether a lord would be boasting/be proud of his crack shieldwall/double handed axe/club and club guys. By the way, how do knights extract themselves after a charge? What if your lance is stuck or something?
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Mar 22, 2016 19:06
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JcDent posted:By the way, how do knights extract themselves after a charge? What if your lance is stuck or something? They're disposable. That's the whole point to having a sword/mace/whatever else with you as well.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:07
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Young French Revolution era Napoleon is incredibly goony. Scrimping money and only eating cheaply once a day to spend money on books, writing violent cringe enducing crazy pro Jacobin fanfiction pamphlets and getting vaguely saucy with his long distance relationship via letters. Poor dude was too self conscious to get a Parisian social life because of being rail thin and having a weird shaped head too. Just that guy in the corner with the shabby hat, big rear end coat in every party  .
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Mar 22, 2016 19:14
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System Metternich posted:The navy almost exclusively used Italian afaik Somehow this seems the most preposterous part of it all.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:14
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Acebuckeye13 posted:In the US at least, pretty much every Second World War-era aircraft flying today survived because they were repurposed as transport planes, fire bombers, or (In the case of fighters) air racers. Even then, only a scarce handful of those aircraft ever went overseas, let alone saw combat-many planes were simply scrapped where they were or immediately upon their return to the US, and the only planes that survived were the ones built so late into the war that they never went overseas, and got put into inventory and later auctioned instead of getting outright scrapped. It's a good point. That, and tanks are pretty space efficient things - if you want to keep every type of tank used in the second world war, you'd need two or three aircraft hangers. Aircraft on the other hand... - Fw 190 was one of the most produced aircraft in history with 20,000+ made; today 28 remain. - The Me 109 did a bit better: out of 33,000 about 100 remain. - Spitfires are similar: 20,000 made, about 50 remain. - Of the some 18,000 B-24s that were made, about 20 remain. - Of the 15,000 Ju 88s made, two still exist. - The He 111 has a grand total of four out of 7,300. Axis aircraft fared much worse for obvious reasons - unless you were produced in the thousands, there's a good chance there's none left. Preservation chances also go down depending on how big the airplane is. They found a shed for the Do 335 Arrow and the Go 229 flying wing, but the He 177 and the Ju 290 the US government had were flattened by bulldozers and used to make the base for the runways of what is now Chicago's O'Hare International. If you are into those sorts of aircraft (:sperg:) there's also a bunch of airframes that vanish - presumably they were scrapped when the US Military was done with them, but they could still be in a government warehouse in Maryland somewhere (maybe next to the Ark.) Your chances for preservation go up by a lot if you were used postwar by other air forces. Typically once these air forces are done using them, somebody is around who cares about preservation. The comparatively large number of P-51s that survive is because they were popular with air forces in the developing world. A very few types of WW2 aircraft are still in use today, simply because they were so cheap because there were so many. The DC-3 and the PBY Catalina are good examples of these. Honestly, Mr. Expendable, I've been meaning to ask you if them thar Soviet archives mention what happened to the various Nazi types they tested. I have a fantasy that all the types that don't exist are still sitting abandoned in a remote airfield in Siberia or Kazakhstan...
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Mar 22, 2016 19:15
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SeanBeansShako posted:Young French Revolution era Napoleon is incredibly goony. Scrimping money and only eating cheaply once a day to spend money on books, writing violent cringe enducing crazy pro Jacobin fanfiction pamphlets and getting vaguely saucy with his long distance relationship via letters.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:15
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Tevery Best posted:Somehow this seems the most preposterous part of it all. Because so many of your naval officers are going to be coming from the vibrant seafaring communities of Bohemia and Silesia.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:17
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HEY GAL posted:all artillery dudes are Your best friends are math, chemistry, gun powder and early deafness. Also, he picked up scabies from wearing a dead dudes gloves whilst reloading his cannon during the siege of Toulon. Gross.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:17
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I'm reading Dreadnought and Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie, which are great books, and I have a few questions. In describing the relationship between Jackie Fisher and Charles Beresford, Massie paints Fisher in a much more sympathetic light. Beresford comes off as rather petulant and vindictive, jealous of the successes of Fisher and others in the Navy. Is that a fair assessment of him? Likewise, the feud between Jellicoe and Beatty over the Battle of Jutland. The author makes the case that Jellicoe conducted the battle well given the (lack of) intelligence given to him by his subordinates including Beatty, that he won a strategic victory by maintaining British naval superiority and thus the naval blockade, and that Beatty was merely mediocre as commander of the battlecruisers. This is a compelling conclusion to me based on the narrative told in the book, but I'm curious if there are other common modern viewpoints that disagree. Finally, this quote: quote:Across the Atlantic, two years after the outbreak of war, the predominant opinion of the American people continued to be that the struggle was a purely European affair; Woodrow Wilson's 1916 reelection campaign was based on a single, powerful claim: "He kept us out of the war." Political and military neutrality, however, had not prevented the United States from enjoying an ever-growing volume of trade in war supplies, general cargo, and foodstuffs, which now firmly attached the American economy to the Allied war effort. In theory, U.S. commercial loans and trade in food and munitions were equally available to the Central Powers, but theory and actual usefulness to the German cause ran up against the implacable barrier of Allied control of the oceans. Suppose this trade imbalance didn't exist: either the Germans manage to break the British blockade, or their restricted submarine campaign is so wildly successful that they manage to stifle cross-Atlantic trade without inflicting many or any US casualties. Is this a scenario in which the USA still decides to involve itself in the war against Germany? To put it another way, how important was the sheer desire to ensure the continuation of profitable commerce, versus all the other factors that led to US involvement like the Zimmerman telegram's message to Mexico? Peepers fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 19:20
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SeanBeansShako posted:Your best friends are math, chemistry, gun powder and early deafness. You see the same thing with ACW-era Army Corps of Engineers guys. I forget exactly why, but apparently the ACE was also a pipeline for command promotion, so that leads to things. edit: ah. some quick googling indicates that the Corps ran West Point from its inception until the end of the ACW. I guess they were the ones with the biggest demand for actual college educated officers. I guess that makes sense.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:20
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Considering the crazy antics some bored soldiers get up to, I am relieved really they let the smart ones play with cannons and gun powder. And then we get told about some crazy 30 Years War artillery dude.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:22
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LLSix posted:Do the Janissaries or the Knights Templar count? I read this as "Janissaries of the Knights Templar" and got really excited. SeanBeansShako posted:Young French Revolution era Napoleon is incredibly goony. He was really into The Sorrows of Young Werter, a goony book about a goony young man.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:24
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The most amusing thing about young Napoleon to me is his Paoli complex.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:29
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Nebakenezzer posted:
Scrapped, I'm afraid. Almost everything got melted down to rebuild the country in the 50s, which is why you see so many shushpanzers playing the role of German tanks in Soviet cinema. Mant rare pre-war Soviet vehicles suffered the same fate. There was an MS-1 pulled out of an old Far East bunker complex, and has since been restored to running condition. There are also many IS-3s and IS-4s sans running gear available by the same means.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:39
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Cyrano4747 posted:Because so many of your naval officers are going to be coming from the vibrant seafaring communities of Bohemia and Silesia. Also, according to wiki, the nucleus of the navy was the bases and ships of the annexed Venetian Republic. Seems the ships were mostly crewed by Italians, Slovenes and Croats recruited from the Adriatic territories, and commanded by German- or Hungarian-speaking nobles. Kopijeger fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 20:00
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Cyrano4747 posted:Because so many of your naval officers are going to be coming from the vibrant seafaring communities of Bohemia and Silesia. what would an aquatic bohemian even be
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Mar 22, 2016 20:12
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter%27s_Tale#The_seacoast_of_Bohemia
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Mar 22, 2016 20:15
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The current curator of the museum I give tours at had a good example of mis-handling relics, too. That M1917 I was talking about was part of this really old, non-updated trench warfare display until he got the job. One of the first things he did was pull the tank off because he had the good sense in his head that the painted concrete slapped on it to look like dirt was destroying the metal on the outside. He said he'd seen ignorant stuff like that destroy pieces dating back to the Civil War and seemed to really get to him.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:24
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Plan Z posted:The current curator of the museum I give tours at had a good example of mis-handling relics, too. That M1917 I was talking about was part of this really old, non-updated trench warfare display until he got the job. One of the first things he did was pull the tank off because he had the good sense in his head that the painted concrete slapped on it to look like dirt was destroying the metal on the outside. He said he'd seen ignorant stuff like that destroy pieces dating back to the Civil War and seemed to really get to him. Aaaaaaaaaa gently caress, why?
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Mar 22, 2016 20:27
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Thanks for your replies to my question about multilingual armies, everyone! It's interesting seeing how similar problems were addressed in different times and places.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:35
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Ensign Expendable posted:Aaaaaaaaaa I mean real dirt will just wash off and you want it to look authentic! 
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Mar 22, 2016 20:42
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What's wrong with that? I don't understand metallurgy.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:53
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Fangz posted:What's wrong with that? I don't understand metallurgy. Cement is acidic.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:58
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uPen posted:Cement is acidic. Opposite. It's actually quite alkaline, pH of about 12 or 13. Either way (high or low pH) is bad for iron. Concrete is also hygroscopic, so it keeps water against the steel, making it corrode rapidly.
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Mar 22, 2016 21:03
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Ensign Expendable posted:Aaaaaaaaaa They wanted it to look like mud to make it look all battle-worn for the display
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Mar 22, 2016 21:13
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Oh, I was thinking that he'd misidentified Zimmerit and scraped it off, but this was a M1917 so nevermind
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Mar 22, 2016 21:23
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Actually what *do* museums do about Zimmerit? Does that stuff corrode?
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Mar 22, 2016 21:31
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Fangz posted:Actually what *do* museums do about Zimmerit? Does that stuff corrode? Apparently the Zimmerit was applied over primer rather than bare metal, so as long as the primer holds it should be fine.
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Mar 22, 2016 21:36
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Fangz posted:Actually what *do* museums do about Zimmerit? Does that stuff corrode? I don't think so. The King Tiger in Kubinka still has its coating on.
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Mar 22, 2016 21:36
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Ensign Expendable posted:Scrapped, I'm afraid. Almost everything got melted down to rebuild the country in the 50s, which is why you see so many shushpanzers playing the role of German tanks in Soviet cinema. Mant rare pre-war Soviet vehicles suffered the same fate. There was an MS-1 pulled out of an old Far East bunker complex, and has since been restored to running condition. There are also many IS-3s and IS-4s sans running gear available by the same means.  I'm still vaguely hopeful that a Fw 200 ended up on the bottom of a lake with low oxygen content. The Soviets apparently used Fw 200s as transports after the war till spare parts rendered them inoperative. I've read one account where one of these CCCP Condors had mechanical problems that caused it to land on a frozen lake, and the Soviets just left it there. It should also be said that "rebuilding the country" is a major factor in the scrapping of all these things.
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Mar 22, 2016 21:48
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Mr. Peepers posted:In describing the relationship between Jackie Fisher and Charles Beresford, Massie paints Fisher in a much more sympathetic light. Beresford comes off as rather petulant and vindictive, jealous of the successes of Fisher and others in the Navy. Is that a fair assessment of him? It's oversimplified but yeah, basically Beresford was a gigantic pain in the rear end.
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Mar 22, 2016 21:48
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Nebakenezzer posted:
There are plenty of tanks that were too much of a pain to recover or that were never found, and there are plenty of search crews finding them. There's a whole island full of cool poo poo, but also mines, so it's not explored much by archeologists. A few new finds pop up every year here and there. I haven't read about planes turning up, but I don't follow those circles. Russia is vast and there are plenty of places wrecks could be lurking.
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Mar 22, 2016 21:57
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Ensign Expendable posted:There are plenty of tanks that were too much of a pain to recover or that were never found, and there are plenty of search crews finding them. There's a whole island full of cool poo poo, but also mines, so it's not explored much by archeologists. A few new finds pop up every year here and there. I haven't read about planes turning up, but I don't follow those circles. Russia is vast and there are plenty of places wrecks could be lurking. There's been quite a few early war T-34s getting pulled out of bogs in the Baltics recently.
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Mar 22, 2016 23:14
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