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veekie posted:English longbows would be the upper end of muscle powered ranged then? How about rate of fire? Early firearms took a while between shots, but how did that compare rate wise between musketman, crossbowman and archer? When you ask about archers, the answer isn't simple. Eastern techniques that use a thumbring will enable you to hold 3 arrows in your locking hand, so you're able to shoot at least those 3 without great delay. You can't do that if you use the mediterran lock, so you either draw from the quiver or plant the arrows into the ground before shooting (holding arrows in the bowhand is another option, but only with weak bows). I have tried the turkish method and it's quite possible to get quite fast with a little training. So, to give you some number, I have a book on eastern style archery here that mentions archer examinations where you're required to shoot 3 arrows within 12 seconds and hit the target at a given distance. There are videos of some guy on youtube that shoots at a much higher rate, but I wouldn't give much significance to such demonstrations. You can see that he uses a fairly light bow, nothing comparable to the drawweigth of a real warbow, which will range between 100-140# (and sometimes above that). Something like this replica of a crimean tartar hornbow: http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2486&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 Training men to use these beasts with great skill takes many many years. Massively built guys might be able to pull such a bow, but there's a huge difference between somebody who is just strong enough and a real shooter, who can draw and hold without swaying and is able to hit a moving target and bodypart of your choice with ease. Yea, and shooting lots of arrows in a short period of time is also great. As far as I know we have no goons shooting warbows over at the archer thread, but I'd love to ask the guys who shoot warbows how fast they can actually go.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:40
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Yup. Like civilians did at the same time, early modern soldiers worked in household economies, where everyone who's old enough contributes to the economic activity of the family. So, in the case of the soldier and his life partner (you may not know this, Obdicut, but in early modern usage "Hure" need not mean prostitute, but only "loose woman," which is what city-dwelling authorities would call military women whether or not they were married to their men--a woman could be completely chaste, but if she traveled with an army she was automatically a "slut" to outsiders), he'd do the fighting and she would do basically everything else. You mean "Dirne" or "Metze"? There's also a bunch of other early modern words that denote unmarried "loose" women that slipped my mind. Help me out. Fangz posted:I'd point out that in a battle situation, shooting accurately is generally less important than getting a whole bunch of arrows into a rough area at a given period of time. Yes and no, within 50m it's very well possible to target individual body parts. Arrows to the face are always good.
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Nov 14, 2013 22:19
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So, Siege of Vienna? I've been to the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna today: Turkish hornbows  more:  Crimean Tartar hornbow. Those are larger and have more reflex in the grip. Note the string bridges:  Some turkish general's riveted chaimail, the inside of the links is just 5mm. Very tightly weaved. Looted after the Siege of Belgrad  Hussar's cuirass. Note the segments:  Different types of imperial soldier's equipment:  There's also the seal of the sultan that was captured in the Battle of Zenta, but it's a rather hidden in a small case and the ligthing was pretty bad (also the reason why there's just these few pics)
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Nov 23, 2013 20:34
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Godholio posted:Ugh. The one on the left reminds me of a now-retired USAF Lt Col's flight suit. I found that one pretty impressive. It's a Lancer's suit. There's also another one like this one across the room, made for a general. That one looks like as if it rendered the poor guy completely immobile. There were also lots of different kind of swords, sabers and pallaschs. All very impressive and large. Oddly large if you compare the sizes to the uniforms that were on display. Small guys with large swords. Oh yea, the Hussaria. Those guys are really scary. An armored steamroller with lances. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 23:02
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Nice one. Is that chainmail on August's dick? Have another Schamkapsel 
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Nov 23, 2013 23:11
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a travelling HEGEL posted:OK, who here hasn't been to the HGM? Firearms. Yeah, they made pretty good stuff, but look at the iconic turkish weapon - the bow. I've been interested in ottoman archery tackle for the last 2 years, which led me to building these bows. Or at least trying to. The knowledge and capital involved in building a working hornbow is staggering. Look at this:  That core was the work of 3 months and it was hosed because of some minor mistake involving a little too much heat. Today we can get the materials for such a bow from the internet with a little time for recherche, but look at the checklist for the basic bow. - The wood for the core is maple, usually it was Acer Tartaricum, which was harvested at the Crimea. Although, other types of maple can be used, this type of maple is the best. It needs to be flawless, without knots and pins. - The horn is from a special species of waterbuffalo with very long horns. For a working bow, you need 2 of around 70cm length. Ram's horn can be used, but those are usually twisted and require several additional worksteps to straigthen. - The glue used to bind the components is a mix of fish glue (cooked from the air bubbles of sturgeons from the danube), and sinew glue. Bows of higher quality are solely made from fishglue. There's certain advantages that this glue has in terms of workability and material properties. - Sinew from a working animal, or a wild animal. Usually it's either dried back strap or leg tendon. You smash the tendon and separate the fibers, so that they are of the size of dental floss. That's probably the most tiresome part about the process of building these bows. Back strap is faster to process and longer, but the result will be more coarse. You also might need to degrease it before glueing. - Covering of horse/calf leather or sometimes birch bark. - Silk for your string - A shitload of custom tools that you have to build yourself or adapt. Completing such a bow will take between 9-12 months (mostly waiting for stuff to dry), but longer seasoning gives better results. The cores were often steamed while green and rested in the bench for a year. Each workstep is fraught with mistakes that might show months later and make it a piece of firewood. Or in my case, kill it instantly in the first 1/4th. So to understand the scale of organization and capital behind a single workshop - a master bowmaker and his crew making a batch of 100 of these things for your janissaries - you just have to have your poo poo together. Foremost, you need somebody to pay for all the rare materials and feed the master and his guys, and lots of other guys down in the pyramid working like a clockwork to keep them flowing before you even have a working product.
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Nov 24, 2013 20:56
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), a good drill which allowed them to use these firearms effectively, and good morale.
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I seriously have no idea. The core can be made with basic woodworking tools, it's fairly easy while the wood is green. You might need 3 hours or so, soaking takes around a week, steaming an hour. After that the limbs rest separately in your forms for 3 months (or longer if you want to be spergy). Separating the sinew to fibers is really really slow. I've spent the evenings of a week to separate leg tendons, but only got about 1/3rd of the ammount needed for a complete bow (everything needs to be weigthed in a specific ratio). The great authority for building these bows meant that a single bow takes around 1 week working around the clock, without the drying and seasoning. Now, you can't just assume that a single person could make 52 bows in a year. I'm pretty sure each workstep had a dedicated guy. One guy just processing sinew all year  . Keep on hammering, apprentice  Well, it's complicated. I've read that each workstep was executed in a certain season. Which makes alot of sense if you look to the properties of the glue, it will gel slower in a hot and humid climate. The slow gelling capacity is the prime feat of fish glue. Hide and sinew glue gels fast (in this state it will look bloated, and doesn't seem to be glueing right, you cannot correct errors in this state). I've worked with it recently and in summer, the difference is striking. At around 20°C it gels in less than 30 secs, while it took around 2 mins in summer. Applying sinew is very stressfull, you need alot of precision and routine (and preparation). If the glue gels slower, you have room to correct mistakes. You can imagine the process of glueing a bunch of hair perfectly combed to a wooden board, the glue all slippery, and then overlapping with the next layer. Sounds like fun? Nope. The preparation of the glueline of core and horn also is beneficial in a warm environment (and ofc also the final glue-up), while the wood of the core is best dried slowly in a dry and temperate area. Spring and winter would be used to saw and sand the horn and make the grooves, and our poor apprentice has to keep hammering and separating that sinew all year long. Sawing & sanding the horn by hand is a loving ordeal. e: There's a few guys around making these bows for real monies today. This famous guy here also makes hornbows: http://www.yumi-bows.com/yumi.html he states that he makes around 6 a year (but he does that on the side). Lukas Novotny of http://www.salukibow.com/ makes them too, but I didn't ask him how many he does a year. Others make them too, but they're usually very expensive at around ~2.000€ a piece. There are still korean bowmakers that build solely hornbows for a living, those guys could give an account of what's possible. Those bows are no high drawweigth warbows though and are of slightly different construction. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 21:42
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Bacarruda posted:Pretty much. Hutier tactics are really intriguing, but I won't pretend to be an expert on them. Let's read In Stahlgewittern once more. It can't get more colorful than Ernst Jünger taking LSD at 75: http://www.welt.de/kultur/literarischewelt/article118106538/Ernst-Juengers-LSD-Trips-mit-Schnittchen-und-Mozart.html Power Khan fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 11:22
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It is relatively easy to make a selfbow. With metal tools and experience, you can do that in just one afternoon. There's an article in the bowyer's bible where a guy demonstrates how to make a bow with flintstones and such, which takes more time, but it's still no magic at all. You can bring down the largest game with a bow between 50-70#, so there are also lots of choices in terms of wood that you can use. You also have many choices for your string. Rawhide, gut, ramie, linen, etc. I's really a very simple weapon that gives you the advantage to reach out and kill stuff pretty efficiently. Btw, it takes longer to make a good set of arrows than a bow.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:39
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Ensign Expendable posted:It's not that hard to make a decent arrow, the hardest part is making many arrows that all fly the same. I don't exactly understand what you mean. I'm sure you can glue some feathers on a piece of cane and put a tip of some kind on it, but that doesn't make it a decent arrow. What you can do today with a fletching tool and modern glue is trivial. You buy straightened shafts, always spined and sometimes even weigthed to groups, but they don't grow like that. Easy to work material like cane takes alot of work to get them straigth, same with wood. You need to weight them, cook your glue, glue the feathers properly by hand or with a simple tool. Yesterday I sat for like 3 hours and stripped feathers from the keel. That was just 30 feathers. We're still lacking an arrowhead. So, how about flint, maybe bronze, iron or steel? Atm I'm glueing some goose feathers to a set of ottoman target arrows and I can tell you, this isn't a job for the faint hearted. And I'm using modern glue. Weigth and fletching is the hard part. And then you go and shoot the arrow and lose it. Or it breaks.
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Nov 27, 2013 17:44
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Rabhadh posted:If you want your arrow to go where you think you're aiming, instead of off to right/left, your arrows have to be "spined". Basically they have to flex correctly with the bow. You know, there was no common way that spine was to be measured before Rheingans & Nagler came up with a method in the late 1930s. I've posted about this in the bow thread over at TFR, but old manuals like Taybugha's book speak of a certain ratio of arrowhead to shaft weight that the finished projectile should have (which also affects spine). Those were sorted for exact weight, but I think they'd also remove those that weren't consistent with the set after shooting (I've read that about turkish flight shooting in Klopsteg's book). Reed was also a material for military arrows that were produced in bulk, as was bamboo. Contrary to wood like cedar, spruce, beech, etc. there's a great advantage in bamboo: the material is very consistent. You can match diameter and the way the nodules are arranged on your shafts and it's very likely that the arrows will have a similar weigth and spine. Bamboo is awesome. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 20:30
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You've never done this job before? Well, here's a point stick, and off you go. Von der Pike auf lernen
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Nov 27, 2013 21:42
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Let me guess, you take up apprenticeship with some older soldier and he makes you wash his poopy pants and take out the buckets. No seriously, I imagine that like picking up a trade. You start as Gesell and run all the trivial stuff for your master.
Power Khan fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 22:09
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a travelling HEGEL posted:A lot of these guys have "servants," so I think that's how it went down, I just don't know. And science isn't about something that seems like a good idea to us, it's about knowing. What I wanted to hint at was the relation of Meister und Lehrling, I was wondering if you found that it was like picking up a trade with a master who was in a Zunft. Was learning to be a soldier inspired by this fairly regulated system or similar? I don't know how it is in other countries, but in rural areas in Germany and Austria there's still remains of these old customs. Just in case that you've seen these guys and wondered what they are doing and why they are dressed like this. That's the outfit of a Fahrender Gesell, those guys will wear the outfit for the time of their travels.  Btw Hegel, have you heard if these old soldiers that were still alive after so many years of service were called Gefrorener. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 08:53
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steinrokkan posted:I would have a question related to pikechat: Once I read somewhere that the janissaries were so effective largely because of their ability to employ very individualistic tactics, basically infiltrating rigid European pike formations, and breaking them with swords. While pikesmen would be paralyzed in such close quarters combat, the janissaries, trained to fight on their own, without need for a formation, would thrive in the chaos they caused. Has anyone here read more about ottoman tactics? I just found a few journal articles that touch the subject and a few books. Some guy at my uni wrote his MT about that. I'll order it and see if it's any good. There's an important point about ottoman battle tactics that doesn't seem to turn up. Maybe I didn't translate it properly, or it has another name in english: Sultansschanze, or Sultan's redoubt. Let's see if it's really so relevant as the german article in wikipedia about the Kapikulu puts it. e: Meh. Just the abstracts of these journal articles is in english. The rest is turkish. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 10:09
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my dad posted:I've heard good things about the Memoirs of a Janissary. Apparently, the whole point of the book is giving the enemies of the Ottoman Empire an idea about how Ottoman tactics and politics worked. - Not having read the book myself, I can't guarantee its quality, though. I've got that one on the list already. Looks promising. Btw, one article that I downloaded before turned out to be quite interesting. Scorched earth tactics in Ottoman Hungary
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Nov 28, 2013 12:06
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My great grandfather and his brothers fought at the Isonzo. He told my mom that somewhere around there, the tip of a mountain that was particularly well defended was undermined and blown up. I forgot the name. Have you ever been to the Carnic Alps? It's very rough and beautiful. Steep valleys, narrow gorges, high plateaus and towering summits. A great place to go hiking, but trench warfare?    I think it was 2 or 3 years ago that they found 3 bodies way up there that were sticking out of a cornice. They were killed by an avalance. The snow had melted and some alpinists noticed the bodies. Check out the pictures on this (horrible looking) website: http://www.kleiner-steinfisch.de/fernkampfwerke_stellungen_stollen_1wk_sperren_fortezza_dolomiten.htm That should give you an impression of the area. There's still lots of these fortifications left, even way up high where there's snow all the year.
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Dec 4, 2013 11:10
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Bringing home a washing machine as a war trophy would be pretty funny. I don't think this is fiction. Officers and anyone with authority to get stuff transported to back home stole anything of value. Russian soldiers just looooved watches of all kinds. How would such a russian farmer look at a machine that washes his clothes. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 08:19
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Yeah, but 20th century generals are less likely to celebrate it on an aesthetic level. I've came across letters and diary excerpts of common soldiers and higher officers on the eastern front that play with this imagery in their writing. It seems that it's mostly people with higher education, the reception of literature surely plays a huge part. Btw, I enjoyed reading Arkady Babchenko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le8AcGHL9_s Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 20:36
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Strike? At least they didn't set fires to the cities, because they were displeased by payment, minor policies or people installed by the sultan. The janissaries of the late 16th and 17th century were also employed as firefigthers and had the unpleasant habit of setting fire to the houses of political rivals or to the houses of rich people just to steal their stuff and gently caress them up. In the book that I'm just reading there's a story about a fire breaking out near the Tophane foundries in Istanbul, the Agha sends his men over to put it out, but the gunners of the foundry were first. The janissaries that were there halfway were angry, since now they wouldn't get payed for quelling the flames. So they set out to the nearby villa of the grand vizier and put it to the torch, only to claim the loot for putting out the flames. Istanbul was famous for it's wooden houses. Everything was made of wood, and by setting fires they usually burned down whole districts of the city (also burning lots of citizens and janissaries that tried to put out the fires). "We set fire to this district, but we also tried to put it out. We now demand payment for our services. Or else." These dudes were also famous for their love of underage boys. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Dec 6, 2013 |
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Dec 6, 2013 12:19
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I wonder if that has something to do with access to prostitutes? The vicinity of the barracks was an area where parents wouldn't let their kids come close. The guys would pick up their boys in taverns and dress them as females and veil them. I don't know, maybe it has something to do with females being unavailable and them being forbidden to marry? Though, I have no idea how seggregated ottoman society really was. Speaking of giving an inch, this kind of praetorian system that the ottomans installed is pretty interesting. I didn't know that once you get into the corps you'll get selected for education in one of the colleges. You'll be trained as a professional soldier being put in different ortas accoding to your physique and wit. At the same time while your physical training goes on, you'll get a pretty solid education in a wide range of jobs, from carpenter, smith to bookkeeper, engineer, etc. That means, that these guys were craftsmen or bureaucrats for most of the time, only becoming soldiers when they're on campaign or on garrison duty. Soldier training continuing the whole time. Ottoman army logistics and engineering supposedly was awesome. The men are bound to the corps for life, this being a source of great pride. Technically they're slaves, but that doesn't mean they're just cattle. They're Kul, which means that they're part of the Sultan's family and retainers. Royal slaves. I struggle with a better desription, but think of them as state property, but at the same time civil servants of high social status. Being a Janissary isn't bad. You'll an education and a secure job, at 45 you'll retire and the corps provides anything you'll need, if you live that long. Pay wasn't bad either. The whole power system between Sultan, Janissaries, Sipahi and local gouvernors was pretty delicately balanced and got hosed up really bad once they eroded all the regulations that kept the Janissaries out of day to day life, linking up with the proletariat and making them eligible to hold land/inherit. The Janissary system was organized as a state within the state. Once they started to be able to marry and live outside the barracks (and later linking up with the guilds), everything got messed up. I'm still surprised how this well oiled machine descended into utter lawlessness and corruption in the late 16th century.
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Dec 6, 2013 14:04
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I don't know what kind of german you speak, but "bequem" is still "comfortable". It just doesn't mean lazy. The old translation for zierlich is simply "looking good" or "looking sharp", while the common use of "zierlich" is used to denote something delicate, petite or daintly, like you said. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 18:17
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You can imply that this has something to do with being lazy, but the word means comfortable in its foremost use. As in: "Warum nehme ich Moskau nicht ein? Ich mache es mir bequem. -40°C machen mir nichts aus." Or try: "Diese Schuhe sind bequem." Context and all that. Do you know any martial art, where it's encouraged to act lazy?
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Dec 7, 2013 18:32
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It's not completely wrong, because you can imply that you're lazy. What you want to say is: "Why go out? I feel comfortable in here." It could mean that you're lazy, but you expressed that by saying you're alright as is. Ok, gently caress the semantics. The author just wants to say "If it looks good and it's comfortable, then you're doing it right".
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Dec 7, 2013 19:15
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Are there any accounts of German soldiers, having broken through the Allied lines during the Spring Offensive in 1918, marveling at the seemingly limitless supply of artillery shells, food, and other provisions and then for the first time coming to the conclusion of "yeah, we're hosed"? I seem to recall reading ones before but I might be confusing it with something else. Maybe when the Germans broke through during the Battle of the Bulge. The last chapters of "Storm of Steel" tell about that. In the last great offensive, Jünger and his men get into the enemy's trenches they loot everything they can get their hands on. He marvels at the great equipment and the foodstuffs of the allies, while he and the guys are all sick and starved. It's been some time since I read it, but I think he realizes by then that the war is lost. That book is pretty intense. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Dec 9, 2013 |
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Dec 9, 2013 12:26
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It's almost the same scene. He checks out a dugout and there's tea on the stove and cookies and all that.
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Dec 9, 2013 16:45
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Speaking about Kepis, I recall WWI french soldiers complaining about about the fact that they just had small steel skullcaps underneath. Which brings me to something that I forgot to take a picture of at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, there's a large felt hat of an 30YW arquebusier on display, right next to it there's a steel skullcap that is worn underneath. Was that standard equipment?
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Dec 10, 2013 10:35
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We spoke about the foodstuffs and all that a while ago, and also in the Nazi-Germany thread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan Bonus points if you can read the german version of the article, it's quite good. The nazi leadership attributed the lost war of 1918 to a crumbling of the homefront, brought about by  and famine. So naturally, they'd try pull all the tricks to not let that happen this time.The deal with the soviets helped the economy for some time, but by the time the invasion of the UK failed, it was clear to everyone in the planning that by 1942 they'd start to make cuts.
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Dec 10, 2013 14:14
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Lol no, that's the shafts breaking. There seems to have been an artistic tradition showing crossbow quarrels breaking, and probably reflected reality. You can see a similar thing in this image from Hans von Gersdorff's Feldtbuch der Wundartzney: Have you seen how massive those quarrels for war are? There's pieces in a museum here that are thicker than my thumb. Those just don't break like that if you shoot them into flesh or bone. What you're seeing is more likely the head coming off from the shaft. Arrow- and boltheads were often fixed with beeswax, with the wise backthought that it's easy to work with and will seperate head from shaft once you shoot it into a warm body and then try to work it out. Wooden arrows may break, but not as fast legend goes. You'll lose more arrows due to deflection than if you shoot them straight into wood or against stone. I've lost dozens like that shooting in the woods. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Dec 11, 2013 |
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Dec 11, 2013 22:03
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I live 10mins away from the Staatsarchiv and never even realized that it's there.
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Dec 19, 2013 11:07
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The area around Nottendorfer Gasse 2, which is the official address for the archive is actually a pretty lovely area of the city. Used to be shanty town in the 1900s (a place famous for cheap cheap prostitutes and catching Syhphilis), as nobody with any sense left wanted to live close to the central gas depots. Incidentally, there's the Franzosengraben close by, which was part of the Gürtel or Linienwall that enclosed the original trace itallienne that protected the city. As the name gives away, it was held by a detachment of french soldiers when the turks came in 1683.
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Dec 19, 2013 14:20
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Davincie posted:How did you guys like Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter? I've been meaning to watch it and I suppose a bunch of war nerds would be the best judge on a German series about WW2 I've seen the series 2 times now. Actually, I wanted to write my MT about the reaction in our media here. It was supposed to cause an uproar similar to the Wehrmachtsausstellung, but nothing ever happened. Even the most reactionary newspapers agreed that it was well executed and well researched. Kinda disappointing. There are so many things to be said about the war in the east and the series picked a few centerpieces that are relevant to the culture of rememberance in Germany and Austria. Presenting the issues in such a fashion was unthinkable 15 years ago and it's no accident that I related it to the Wehrmachtsausstellung as this is the most recent pivotal point that changed alot in the way how people are now (or better "were", as there are few left) able to tell their stories. It is hard to understand for somebody that didn't grow up with this culture of silence that only allowed the recounting of what they've seen and been through in the war within a very tight framework. It is about the stories that descend to you from your grandparents and other relatives. Often there's these cleavages between perpetrators and victims that run right through families. It's not something that is uncommon. It might be interesting to see if there's any deeper confrontation about the antisemitism that was rampant at that time in Poland, but that's something that the Poles will have to deal with. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 20:23
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  This type of helmet is for mace tournaments. (Streit)Kolben = Mace, Turnier = tournament I have posted another picture like this before:  You put a small flag on top, the job of your opponent is to smack it down and viceversa. These helmets are not meant to give good protection from bladed weapons, for obvious reasons. Just a reminder what happens if you get hit in the face by a lance:  I think the Duke of Urbino considered himself lucky. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 11:07
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Donaubayrisch, the only group of german dialects that you'll ever want to learn. Btw, these letters are interesting. Although this baroque upper class language is a pain.
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Dec 29, 2013 15:01
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I understand why there's still greek there, but why are there all these albanian enclaves to the south? Is that due to recent migration?
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Dec 29, 2013 20:18
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a travelling HEGEL posted:That's fine, you (like me) are speaking the fake thing, which works I guess, I'm just bummed a little. A fellow goon from northern Germany always makes fun of me for being a slav, or at least sounding like one. The dialect of Vienna is ripe with czech words and pronuciation. Hardly an accident if you consider that over 50% of the city's population were of czech ancestry by the beginning of the 20th century. Here, it's almost impossible to find somebody who doesn't have a czech or polish grandmother. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K89YalcS9M Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Dec 29, 2013 |
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Dec 29, 2013 20:54
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hogmartin posted:UGH, my mom made me take Xenophone lessons when I was like eight and I HATED them. I still can't play the drat thing. Joseph II. made it mandatory for jews to take a german last name, so that's where these typical names like "Goldwurm", "Letzergroschen", "Nirnstein", et al. come from. I can picture an ill tempered bureaucrat handing out these lovely names left and right, just for giggles. These names that I gave are actually to be seen at the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, in the jewish department. So, I'm curious what your last name is. If your ancestors came from Austro-Hungaria and the name dates back to this wave it could implicate an interesting story. Either said bureaucrat was mocking them, or it could mean that they already held a position in the military. Which would be not so unusual given the special relation of jews and the state - you could read a pretty good summary of that in Hannah Arendt's "The Origin of Totalitarism". To make it short, a number of influential jews called "Hofjuden" catered to the financial and material needs of the emperor - in absence of a modern system of taxation. Thereby gaining special status and direct access to his majesty. Interestingly it is extensive warfare and maybe foremost, standing armies that made it necessary for the Emperor to look for new sources of money. Common jews would enter a patron/client relation with these people, using them to bypass local nobles and gouvernors in case of trouble and appeal directly to the emperor. These jews with access to the Kaiser had special protection and rights and formed a strata not unlike nobility. Ironically these people jealously guarded their privileges and were a major factor as to why the situation of the common jew only slowly improved up until the constitution of 1867. And of course you can also find lower nobles who had jewish connections for their financial needs. By the way, it's not so unusual to find places like this, which were mostly jewish. Speaking of said cemetery in Vienna, right behind the old jewish section, there's jewish war graves from WWI, where you can find lots of jewish officers, surgeons, etc. Lots of graves in the other sections mention the occupation of it's owners, it's a surprisingly high density in jobs that have close proximity to the state's apparatus or within the bureaucracy.
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Dec 31, 2013 09:32
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SeanBeansShako posted:As a man who simply loves the ornamental design of wooden firearms especially from the 17th to the 19th century I would like to state this: HELL YES PLEASE. Speaking of guns, since you're the napoleonic expert here: I've seen a bunch of french cannons here at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, is there any special reason why these cannons have only "Liberté" and "Egalité" engraved in them, but not "Fraternité"? handbanana125, these muskets are pretty cool stuff. Are there any bows on display? I'd be especially interested in mughal crab bows.
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Dec 31, 2013 17:14
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Waroduce posted:My girlfriend and I are going to be traveling Europe this summer, and I'm a huge milhistory/foreign policy reader. I was International Relations in undergrad and have been an avid reader in that vein all of my life. I was hoping this thread could point me in the direction of some cool things to see while we are traveling. Our itinerary is roughly - We are doing 4 days in Germany (2 Munich/2 Berlin), a night in Amsterdam You cannot come to Europe and skip cities like Prague, Vienna, Budapest or Salzburg. There's lots to see in Vienna. 1. Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (The special exhibition is about WWI atm) 2. Höfische Jagd & Rüstkammer 3. Flak Towers 4. Roman Museum 5. Kunsthistorisches Museum 6. Ethnological Museum 7. Loads of churches 8. Stuff that I forgot (Like the Albertina Art Museum) 9. Castles in the vicinity.
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Dec 31, 2013 21:10
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, a day in Paris, and finishing in London. I'm primarily interested in WW2 and Cold War monuments/locations/whatever, however I enjoy every post in this thread so if someone knows some cool stuff from any point in history, I would take it under consideration. 
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ArchangeI posted:... and a multi-ethnic monarchy in Austria-Hungary tethering on the brink of a revolution that may well go communist. The communists didn't play a notable role in Austro-Hungaria, the main cleavages ran along nationalities in the parliament in Vienna. Do you mistake the Social Democrats for the Communists? This party was never properly accepted into the political process by the powers that be, although being a major player on account of the mass of the workers - and that's a problem that was only fixed (with ducttape) after WWII. The only thing that kept the Monarchy going for a few years was the outbreak of the war and Kaiser Franz Joseph as an integrative figure being alive. If it wasn't for that or a federal solution that gave the same status to the Czechoslovaks that the Hungarians possessed, Austro-Hungaria would've been on the brink of civil war a few years down the road. I can hardly imagine a rational solution, as both the German and Hungarian estabishment had a vested interest to keep the status quo at any cost, while any possible Monarch was unable or unwilling to resolve the dilemma. The political situation was already being unbearable for more than a decade by 1914, and if my memory doesn't fail me, you can count the occasions that the parliament was able to put out anything meaningful on one hand. People would go to there to amuse themselves and see the delegates brawl and obstruct each other by playing pipes, ratchets and drums. Hitler went there often to watch the show. People would joke that it's cheaper and more amusing to go to the plenum than to go to the circus. What you have after WWI, namely the conflict lines of the remaining state Austria are secondary conflicts that carried over from the Monarchy, namely between the christian social party and the social democratic party, which fits the categories of political cleavages really well. But politically, anything before 1918 was overshadowed by national conflicts. If I was tasked with describing the whole deal after 1918 with one sentence, I'd say it's about "keeping the workers disenfranchised". Even now you can spark angry discussions about what happened in 1934. What remains up to this day is some kind of silent post WWI agreement not to speak about these things, they're not resolved by any means. Anyway, forget the classic communists if you talk about Austro-Hungaria, they never played any notable role (lest for their resistance against the nazis, which wasn't much and got lots of pretty brave people killed). Austromarxism might have been intellectually influential, but it wasn't something that could get anything done politically - because the national conflicts droned out everything else and the old elites were still in power. Also, the social democrats were very sucessful in capturing most leftist potential, which left the communists with a small hard core of supporters. In this context it is extremely unlikely to imagine anything that would shake Austro-Hungaria's diverse society (societies?) so profoundly that the communists had any realistic prospects to grab power across national borders. Think about it, not even the lost war and the economic crisis of 1929 moved the communists anywhere close to power in post 1918 Austria. It's actually remarkable. e: Sorry for the many edits. It's complex. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 09:54
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