|
Ainsley McTree posted:I have a spin-off question based on this one--how common is that attitude toward the military throughout history, around the world (or hell, even around the world today, I guess)? fortunately for their personal safety, they are also feared the exception is people with a soldier or two in the family, like there's a letter out there where a woman writes that her sister has just lost her job so things are tight so her soldier boyfriend should think about plundering more
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 07:18 |
|
|
HEY GAL posted:my subjects are despised Your people are mostly mercenaries though, aren't they? I can't imagine anyone having a lot of love for mercenaries (especially the ones who...do the things that yours do). (I actually know very little about your guys, apologies if I've said something dumb)
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:29
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:Your people are mostly mercenaries though, aren't they? I can't imagine anyone having a lot of love for mercenaries (especially the ones who...do the things that yours do). anyway soldiers start being less threatening to everyone in their general vicinity when their employers/sovereigns start paying them regularly and supplying them--if not well, then at least "somewhat." but then it's the 18th century and they're still looked down on a little, so i don't know how we get from the ancien regime dudes to the modern american view HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jun 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:34
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:no offense taken, all the stories about them that you've heard are real Unless the documents you're reading... were faked too! It's a Swedish conspiracy. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:35
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:no offense taken, all the stories about them that you've heard are real Not stealing people's food that they need to survive is a really big step towards being semi-popular. Conscription and proper nationalism probably help as well.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:39
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:I have a spin-off question based on this one--how common is that attitude toward the military throughout history, around the world (or hell, even around the world today, I guess)? Modern nationalism and the modern nation state didn't really exist until the industrial revolution. Before the invention of railroads and telegraphs 90% of your population basically lived and died within 20 miles of where they were born and never ventured any further beyond their agrarian villages. For the most part the Emperor/King/Tsar was a pretty abstract notion that rarely intersected with their daily lives. Trying to attribute modern nationalism to people from a pre-industrial context is mostly anachronistic and largely an invention of the Victoria era, when every modern nation state had to come up with their own Thermopolae to justify their national creation myth.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:40
|
|
|
and saying that people would necessarily hate mercenaries only works when you're comparing them to a nationalist ideal that doesn't exist in the 17th century. why they fight and whom they fight for is of no account to the people they're harassing, it's that they're there at all that's the problem mercenaries is just how you go to war, it's mercenaries all the way down HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jun 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:40
|
|
|
Normal peoples opinion soldiers weren't exactly tip top, especially if you were Irish or even Scottish if you consider the 18th century. The English Civil War pretty much hosed over a lot of people reguardless of whether they supported King Charles or not. Like their continental bros, unpaid and drunk English soldiers could be just as unpleasant to a unarmed populace. This attitutde persisted up until around the mid 19th century, the suffering of the Crimean War brought over by frontline news correspondents pretty much started to turn the British public opinion of the common soldier slowly about. Soldiering really wasn't that popular even during the early stages of the 19th century. Since the UK had no police force the army and militia was brought in to quell those pesky social disturbances and we all know how well that went. I imagine lenoon could tell us a thing or two about Peterloo.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:44
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:I have a spin-off question based on this one--how common is that attitude toward the military throughout history, around the world (or hell, even around the world today, I guess)? There's a vast literature about this in the British case. To be horrifyingly general: the army was certainly broadly disliked until things turn somewhere between the Napoleonic Wars and the early-mid Victorian, and come to a head with people like Havelock, where suddenly a soldier is being depicted as a virtuous Christian martyr, which then gives way to the late Victorian romanticism/jingoism. I think Linda Colley writes about the phenomenon a lot and is probably your go to author. Respect for the navy was a lot more substantial and consistent, however, probably because relatively few people have ever had to be quartered with the Navy or similar.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 01:45
|
|
|
Another thing is that I think there is an implicit overstatement of American military support here. It's very much a political / social strata thing. For every hyper support our troops guy you've got another who thinks anyone in the armed forces is a war criminal in the making. Most people fall between those two extremes. It's also intensely regional - talking to people in the Carolinas where there are a fuckton of military bases is going to yield something very different than talking to someone in Oregon. That kind of pro-military rhetoric exists in a lot of places. Really the only time the US looks exceptional is when you compare it to Western Europe which has some pretty specific historical reasons for an antipathy towards militarism. There was an upsurge in overt US military support post-9/11 but it's still nowhere near where it was pre-Vietnam and there are a lot of bad feelings over Iraq and the GWOT.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 02:02
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:Your people are mostly mercenaries though, aren't they? I can't imagine anyone having a lot of love for mercenaries (especially the ones who...do the things that yours do). I don't know if you're American or not but if you are, you know how one of the first amendments to the Constitution forbids the quartering of soldiers in people's homes without their consent? Yeah, back in those days even regular soldiers were basically boorish, violent room mates forced on you by somebody more powerful than you.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 02:06
|
|
|
"Don't waste good iron for nails or good men for soldiers."
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 02:27
|
|
|
my dad posted:Unless the documents you're reading... were faked too! It's a Swedish conspiracy. I saw more than one person claim that all German WWII documents are faked by the British and all German officers' memoirs were written under duress.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 02:39
|
|
|
When it comes to conspiratorial mindsets, I feel like the underplayed thing in describing them is that they're ultimately an appeal to order - it's more psychologically comfortable for some people to believe that there are malevolent forces dictating the flow of events and information than that the world is chaotic. I think the inability to be able to deal with the chaotic and messy nature of real events drives people to all kinds of eccentric, extreme, radical and sometimes awful viewpoints.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 03:10
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:Sort of a broad question but, for example, would 18th-century British people be exalted to SUPPORT ARE REDCOATS etc, or was/is soldiering not consistently considered a noble profession like it is in the USA? Britons were until very recently extremely suspicious of the Army as an institution and soldiers in general (the odd war hero aside); the Navy had a somewhat better image through being the reason why Britannia ruled the waves, but still nobody looked forward to being in town when the fleet was in port. There's a reason Kipling wrote Tommy Atkins. quote:I went into a theatre as sober as could be, There's all kinds of sayings like e.g. "the Army recruited officers from the very top of society and private soldiers from the very bottom", which aren't entirely accurate but which are still useful for grasping the flavour of things. Even the rise of things like the Boy's Own Paper and all kinds of stirring adventure stories didn't do that much to change adult attitudes towards being in the military outside wartime (when it flips to SUPPORT OUR BOYS for the duration and only for the duration, as Kipling was pointing out); if you're there, it's most likely because you couldn't find anything better to do with your life. There's a thaw of sorts after 1945, when there's been two entire generations of men who've passed through the world wars, to the point where now, there's a whole lot of people who if pressed on the military would say something about "oh, they're very professional and highly trained and tight discipline and better than the Americans at subtle jobs". But it's still far from a widely-respectable career, and if you had the conversation "what do you do?" "I'm in the Army" "thank you for your service" in public, I'd expect a lot of funny looks from people writing you off as a swivel-eyed loon. That's just not the kind of demonstrative patriotism we do, which is why, despite the best efforts of the right-wing tabloids, the "every-bog-cleaner-a-hero" portrayal of military service is only ever going to get very limited traction.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 03:33
|
|
|
I was reading Ron Chernow's Hamilton book and I was reminded about Baron Von Steuben, who is clearly the coolest dude involved in the American Revolutionary War. Is there a decent popular biography of Steuben? He's not exactly the most well-known figure, so it's hard to tell if the few books around are any good.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 03:40
|
|
|
Trin Tragula posted:Britons were until very recently extremely suspicious of the Army as an institution and soldiers in general (the odd war hero aside); the Navy had a somewhat better image through being the reason why Britannia ruled the waves, but still nobody looked forward to being in town when the fleet was in port. There's a reason Kipling wrote Tommy Atkins. In the last few years there has been an increase in awareness of what our military actually does out in the world, and there's a sort of quiet pride that the UN seems to regard sending armed Irishmen into a dodgy situation is enough to make everyone rethink having a go. Hence the "weirdly". VVVV Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jun 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 03:47
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:Weirdly the British army is very well regarded here in Ireland, I don't know a ton about Irish history, but I feel like there may have been one or two years in the past where that was...less the case.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 05:09
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:I don't know a ton about Irish history, but I feel like there may have been one or two years in the past where that was...less the case. Nah they just loved them for different reasons.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 05:23
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:
Didn't that end up causing a huge amount of controversy?
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 06:30
|
|
|
Stairmaster posted:Didn't that end up causing a huge amount of controversy? Seems so, wiki has a summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_War. "Generation War" is indeed a silly title, but here in Norway they called it "Krigens unge hjerter" ("The young hearts of war"), which makes it sound like some kind of wartime romance story. Kopijeger fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Jun 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 06:54
|
|
|
Stairmaster posted:Didn't that end up causing a huge amount of controversy? No. There were some hurt feelings in Poland, because it showed that partisan group as antisemites.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 07:36
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:my subjects are despised In addition, before nationalism made everyone stupid, fighting in wars was seen as a thing that the crown/state/nobles did and it really didn't have anything to do with the common folks or their interests.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 07:39
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:my subjects are despised how often were soldiers murdered by civilians, and how harsh would be the reprisals? like the nazis were notorious for their reprisals, but the nazis came about in an era where such behaviours were frowned upon
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 07:42
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:how often were soldiers murdered by civilians, and how harsh would be the reprisals? The 30 YW was in addition to the everything else also a free-for-all guerilla war where peasants and townsfolk killed soldiers all the time. I can't actually recall any formal reprisal efforts made, so it was probably just the way the game was played so a lone soldier wandering out and getting murdered by angry farmers was just thought of as an idiot.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 07:46
|
|
|
the JJ posted:You're generalizing a shitload. I had known that navies had more gun than armies, but hadn't realized how big the difference was. Eg. a single 1st-rate warship carried more guns than Brits had at Waterloo, and even a large merchant ship carried a few batteries' worth of guns.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 08:08
|
|
|
How dues guerilla warfare work in Pike and Shot era? Ambush a column and shoot them up? I don't see how you could hide a pike square in ambush, and I don't know if other implements of melee were common.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 08:21
|
|
|
JcDent posted:How dues guerilla warfare work in Pike and Shot era? Ambush a column and shoot them up? I don't see how you could hide a pike square in ambush, and I don't know if other implements of melee were common. you put some leaves and branches on pikes
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 08:26
|
|
|
JcDent posted:How dues guerilla warfare work in Pike and Shot era? Ambush a column and shoot them up? I don't see how you could hide a pike square in ambush, and I don't know if other implements of melee were common. The peasants find a lone soldier or a couple of soldiers who have been dumb enough to wander off and murder them any which way they can.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 08:27
|
|
|
JcDent posted:How dues guerilla warfare work in Pike and Shot era? Ambush a column and shoot them up? I don't see how you could hide a pike square in ambush, and I don't know if other implements of melee were common. and then this happens  Phobophilia posted:how often were soldiers murdered by civilians, and how harsh would be the reprisals? Kemper Boyd posted:The 30 YW was in addition to the everything else also a free-for-all guerilla war where peasants and townsfolk killed soldiers all the time. I can't actually recall any formal reprisal efforts made, so it was probably just the way the game was played so a lone soldier wandering out and getting murdered by angry farmers was just thought of as an idiot. Hogge Wild posted:you put some leaves and branches on pikes easy peasy HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Jun 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:23
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:
Can't say that my memory is 100% on this, but I don't recall organized ones at least. Improvised reprisals yes. I'd have to re-read Harrison which I probably will do anyway. Hagendorf does mention that when he got beaten the poo poo out of him by peasants and his boots stolen, everyone thought he had been an idiot to wander off without a buddy to watch his back.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:31
|
|
|
Kemper Boyd posted:Hagendorf does mention that when he got beaten the poo poo out of him by peasants and his boots stolen, everyone thought he had been an idiot to wander off without a buddy to watch his back. also he didn't just wander off, he was drunk at the time
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:33
|
|
|
JcDent posted:How dues guerilla warfare work in Pike and Shot era? Ambush a column and shoot them up? I don't see how you could hide a pike square in ambush, and I don't know if other implements of melee were common. Guerilla war's been the same since Fabius. The big armies have to constantly steal poo poo from farmers just to eat. There would be little parties of guys going around collecting the quarterly plunder, and little parties of guys going around trying to murder the guys collecting. Or little parties of guys doing both. They all have to use the same footpaths, so yeah, you would hang around a trail for a while. 10 guys does not a pike square make, and the ambusher always gets to choose when to attack, so it isn't usually a fair fight.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:33
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:The big armies have to constantly steal poo poo from farmers just to eat. There would be little parties of guys going around collecting the quarterly plunder, and little parties of guys going around trying to murder the guys collecting. Or little parties of guys doing both.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:36
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:also he didn't just wander off, he was drunk at the time If we'd always mention "and he was drunk at the time", it would take like half the pages of any book about the Early Modern.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:45
|
|
|
It depends on what you mean by guerrilla warfare. If you mean stuff like insurgencies, that style of warfare in the pre-modern period is pretty difficult, to my knowledge. Guerrilla warfare post-Mao depends on some common ideological element to keep your decentralized cells fighting, since a lot of them are more likely to die of some disease at best than get paid at a reasonable time and they may not have anyone at hand to "motivate" them. You also need a population at least willing to play along with you, which as the prior discussion about pre-Victorian views of the military show, is not really there outside of edge cases (such as Spain v Napoleon or the Colonies vs the British, to an extent) Irregular warfare, is in ambush, raiding, and avoiding strength while targeting weakness or otherwise having big loving messes without front lines is stuff armies did all the time. I don't think they'd use pikes much in that sort of fighting since they are more formation based weapons that serve a specific role as part of an army; I'd imagine a group of ambushers would go more for speed and rely on sidearms and light cavalry to hit vulnerable targets and there wouldn't be much opportunity for pikes to come into play at all. Irregular forces in armies tended to be mobile, competent forces that can be expected to operate somewhat independently to take advantage of opportunities without getting killed. Tiler Kiwi fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jun 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:45
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:don't forget that half the little parties of soldiers belong to one army and half to the other one, so there's at least three sides in this thing Any amusing stories of "whoops, turns out one foraging party on our side shot another foraging party on our side and now there is a lot of paperwork"? Actually, is that on the long, long list of things mercenary companies sue each other over?
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:53
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:don't forget that half the little parties of soldiers belong to one army and half to the other one, so there's at least three sides in this thing Were fantasy-trope bandit gangs a real thing? Because that would make four.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:54
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:Were fantasy-trope bandit gangs a real thing? Because that would make four. so three and a half?
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 09:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 07:18 |
|
|
HEY GAL posted:they were, but sometimes i'm not sure about the difference between those dudes and soldiers/ex-soldiers Amazing. Your guys are lucky they weren't fighting along the Med where literal pirates could spice things up further.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2016 10:02
|
|