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Captain_Maclaine posted:"Better than the late Russian Empire" isn't exactly the highest bar to get over, dude. Sure as hell beats "Congolese in the Belgian Empire" or "African or Indian levy in the British Empire" as contemporary possibilities. 'Better than the late Russian Empire' actually is quite a high bar for most of the human population at that time.
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Dec 17, 2014 05:46
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My Imaginary GF posted:Sure as hell beats "Congolese in the Belgian Empire" or "African or Indian levy in the British Empire" as contemporary possibilities. 'Better than the late Russian Empire' actually is quite a high bar for most of the human population at that time. Yeah, but we're not talking about them. We're talking about people living in the metropoles of the great powers of Europe, of which the Russian Empire ranks pretty drat close to the bottom, depending on whether or not you rank the Ottomans in or not.
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Dec 17, 2014 05:49
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Yeah, but we're not talking about them. We're talking about people living in the metropoles of the great powers of Europe, of which the Russian Empire ranks pretty drat close to the bottom, depending on whether or not you rank the Ottomans in or not. MIGF does this poo poo everywhere, bringing relativism into an argument over absolutes and trying to start poo poo by conflating your absolute with the superlative. See: "Russian empire is a lovely place to live" "Well you didn't consider LITERALLY EVERYTHING so your argument is invalid as it can't be lovely seeing as though something else is shittier!"
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Dec 17, 2014 05:54
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Malleum posted:The Russian winter is not this insurmountable obstacle that ground Russian plans to a halt whenever it happened. The summer rains were much, much more of a detrimental factor to Imperial Russian war readiness. Bolded the important bit. The reason why winters in Russia is a big deal wrt invasions is that dumb foreign armies underestimate the cold and don't equip or plan for it.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:53
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My Imaginary GF posted:Well, it depends what they 'pushed the button' on. That's where we disagree. The major powers all really wanted to push that button and almost had several times before. Together, both international and national socialist movements had prevented the button from being pushed previously. But Franz Ferdinand's assassination gave the Austrian hawks the edge they needed to shut their local leftwing up (in no small part because Franz Ferdinand appealed to reform-minded Austrians so it cut the opposition off at the knee). Once Austria declared war, it was easy to have patriotism outweigh international idealism in every country. Take your pick between the "We are all Germans now" speech and/or France "honoring" Jaures by declaring war. While there was plenty of planning, it wasn't some high-minded "missile gap" penis contest. You can't apply Cold War thinking to pre-WWI society.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:28
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Bolded the important bit. The reason why winters in Russia is a big deal wrt invasions is that dumb foreign armies underestimate the cold and don't equip or plan for it. I'd argue that it was the reality of war with Russia rather than underestimating the Russian cold that gave rise to the mythos of General Winter. Russian warfare has often been characterized by movement over vast tracts of land, and really didn't mesh well with the Western European pseudo-static conflicts. Trading territory for time and maneuvering away from the enemy to make him overextend and place himself where he's easily flanked and encircled was the first thing the Russians taught their strategists. Napoleon couldn't deal with it, and most other powers seeking conflict with the Bear of the East couldn't either. So they decided the best way to attack Russia was to attack in a swift, decisive blow that couldn't be dragged into a long war of maneuver and encirclement that the Russians loved so much. Most military planners decided that if open combat was still happening in winter the invasion was hosed anyway, and swifter troops with less of a logistical footprint were more likely to meet their objectives quickly over the traditional regiments hobbled by their longer supply train. It was essentially the Decisive Battle doctrine that navies of the world were schooled in, but with men and horses rather than ships. To bring this back to WW1, this was essentially the reason the Imperial Russians fared so badly. Instead of utilizing centuries of light cavalry-inspired wars of maneuver the political generals decided to concentrate their armies in massive fortresses and static emplacements with little thought to the areas around them, leading to the disastrous results in the early war. They essentially handed the Austrians and Germans decisive battle after decisive battle and the generals still clung to the more Western-minded doctrines of front-wide defense and front-wide counterattacks over Brusilov and his contemporaries' more tradition-minded and successful doctrines of maneuver and limited, overwhelming concentrations of force.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:30
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Shbobdb posted:That's where we disagree. The major powers all really wanted to push that button and almost had several times before. Together, both international and national socialist movements had prevented the button from being pushed previously. But Franz Ferdinand's assassination gave the Austrian hawks the edge they needed to shut their local leftwing up (in no small part because Franz Ferdinand appealed to reform-minded Austrians so it cut the opposition off at the knee). Once Austria declared war, it was easy to have patriotism outweigh international idealism in every country. Take your pick between the "We are all Germans now" speech and/or France "honoring" Jaures by declaring war. While there was plenty of planning, it wasn't some high-minded "missile gap" penis contest. You can't apply Cold War thinking to pre-WWI society. It almost reads as if you're viewing the war through a marxist perspective. Socialist movements did jack poo poo to prevent war. The shifting balances of power, and the possibility for international mediation, prevented wider wars from occuring during the crisises of Europe post-1848 to pre-WW1. Once Ferdinand was assassinated, the dove position was to send a list of demands to Serbia. The hawk position was more to attack Serbia with everything available while mobilizing for wider war, without the option of Serb acquescence due to the anticipated rejection of essential terms. Once the physical embodyment of Austro-Hungarian nationhood, of the nation's hopes and dreams, was assassinated by an organized terrorist plot, then patriotism came out. You remember America after 9/11? That's Austro-Hungaria after the assassination. You know why France had to enter the war? It was because of the naval armament race. If Germany were able to have a High Seas Fleet at parity with Britain and a Mediteranian Fleet superior to France, then Italy would be forced into war. In addition, the Austro-Hungarians had just begun their own naval modernization and expansion program, financed in large part by the reforms of Franz Ferdinand. You think he wanted a United States of Austria because he loved the Romanian language so much? gently caress no, he wanted higher effective tax revenue for the state in order to finance the fleet necessary to force Italy to keep her alliance obligations. You can apply realpolitik thinking to the Great War and contributing systems. The fact that there was an ongoing naval armaments race is an essential context which cannot be avoided in considering why this crisis resulted in war, whereas previous crisises had not.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:55
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MIGF posted:It almost reads as if you're viewing the war through a marxist perspective. Socialist movements did jack poo poo to prevent war. The shifting balances of power, and the possibility for international mediation, prevented wider wars from occuring during the crisises of Europe post-1848 to pre-WW1. I promised myself not to respond to you any longer, but in here people might not know you're a lovely gimmick poster and take what you write seriously: This is flat-out wrong. The international socialist labor movement threw a serious monkey wrench into war preparations. Not only in all the nations to participate in WW1, but also the Cuban war of independence, , Russo-Japanese war, occupation of the Philippines, Spanish-Moroccan war, and other wars of the time. You're totally, dead wrong, so don't start your poo poo again. Malleum posted:The ground doesn't really harden until the second quarter of summer, and even then the roads are still too soft to move military equipment on. Winter is a good thing for Russian mobilization, since the ground freezes. They can move cannons around with impunity, they can march regiments to and fro without fear of ruining the roads for further troop movements. Sure, it gets cold and windy, but that's what winter uniforms are for. Too true. At least in WW2, Cossack regiments would often pout and pine for a "real winter", even as other soviet soldiers died of cold!
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Dec 17, 2014 08:09
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Shbobdb posted:That's where we disagree. The major powers all really wanted to push that button and almost had several times before. Together, both international and national socialist movements had prevented the button from being pushed previously. But Franz Ferdinand's assassination gave the Austrian hawks the edge they needed to shut their local leftwing up (in no small part because Franz Ferdinand appealed to reform-minded Austrians so it cut the opposition off at the knee). Once Austria declared war, it was easy to have patriotism outweigh international idealism in every country. Take your pick between the "We are all Germans now" speech and/or France "honoring" Jaures by declaring war. While there was plenty of planning, it wasn't some high-minded "missile gap" penis contest. You can't apply Cold War thinking to pre-WWI society. I don't think Socialist movements prevented a war even a single time in the late 19th/20th century, WWI just marked the point where they switched from opposing war ineffectively to outright supporting it. In every country which had a Socialist party that had significant amount of political power/influence (i.e the SPD). The parties which -wasn't- very influential though tended to oppose the war, i.e the American Socialist party, because they had far less to lose from doing something which conform with their principles, but might be political unpopular. Typo fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 08:13
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Malleum posted:I'd argue that it was the reality of war with Russia rather than underestimating the Russian cold that gave rise to the mythos of General Winter. Russian warfare has often been characterized by movement over vast tracts of land, and really didn't mesh well with the Western European pseudo-static conflicts. Trading territory for time and maneuvering away from the enemy to make him overextend and place himself where he's easily flanked and encircled was the first thing the Russians taught their strategists. Napoleon couldn't deal with it, and most other powers seeking conflict with the Bear of the East couldn't either. So they decided the best way to attack Russia was to attack in a swift, decisive blow that couldn't be dragged into a long war of maneuver and encirclement that the Russians loved so much. Most military planners decided that if open combat was still happening in winter the invasion was hosed anyway, and swifter troops with less of a logistical footprint were more likely to meet their objectives quickly over the traditional regiments hobbled by their longer supply train. It was essentially the Decisive Battle doctrine that navies of the world were schooled in, but with men and horses rather than ships. Russia had a lot of problems but fighting in fortresses and emplacements was not necessarily the biggest one. While the Russians never ended up stripping fortresses to gain their artillery for field troops, World War I was not the kind of war where maneuver would dominate because even small detachments had enough firepower to stop much larger units. This was the big problem with cavalry. A division of cavalry was a quarter of the size of an infantry division, used the same amount of supplies as a full infantry division, and could be stopped by a company of infantry because of machine guns. Also, the Russians did concentrate force in WW1, to a fault, actually. They launched attacks in tiny zones with huge forces which caused them to take inordinate amounts of casualties because there's a diminishing return on value for men in tiny areas. Brusilov attacked in a distributed way and tried to infiltrate as close as possible before attacking. He also had the factor of fighting the Austro-Hungarian army which was a lot more brittle and prone to routing. Attacking along a wide front and reinforcing success rather than failure went on to influence Soviet doctrine later on (Brusilov did join the Red Army). Also the idea that Franz Ferdinand's Austria would have worked better than Yugoslavia is rather quaint. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 12:49
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Since this thread loves counterfactuals, I wonder how much sooner the US would have joined the war if TR had won in 1912.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:06
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Jack of Hearts posted:Since this thread loves counterfactuals, I wonder how much sooner the US would have joined the war if TR had won in 1912. I believe Roosevelt is on record during the outbreak of war that America should enter on the side of Germany. Given his history, I interpret that as FDR having his sights on Canada.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:09
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My Imaginary GF posted:I believe Roosevelt is on record during the outbreak of war that America should enter on the side of Germany. You believe a lot of things, so forgive me if I ask for a citation.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:21
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My Imaginary GF posted:I believe Roosevelt is on record during the outbreak of war that America should enter on the side of Germany. "T. Roosevelt to Sir Edward Grey posted:22 January 1915 
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Dec 18, 2014 02:37
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Jack of Hearts posted:Since this thread loves counterfactuals, I wonder how much sooner the US would have joined the war if TR had won in 1912. AEF deploys in France no later than May, 1913. "Bully!"
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Dec 18, 2014 03:02
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I'm just happy that I managed to make a salient enoug poiint thT rahn himself tormented
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Dec 18, 2014 03:36
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Shbobdb posted:I'm just happy that I managed to make a salient enoug poiint thT rahn himself tormented Uh do you need a ride to the hospital? Mash the right side of the keyboard for yes
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Dec 18, 2014 03:43
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Shbobdb posted:I'm just happy that I managed to make a salient enoug poiint thT rahn himself tormented Thrawn did what now?
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Dec 18, 2014 03:48
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Pong Daddy posted:Thrawn did what now? Besieged Coruscant?
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Dec 18, 2014 03:51
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Pong Daddy posted:Thrawn did what now? Nothing wrong! except trust the traitorous Noghri. 
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Dec 18, 2014 04:19
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Shbobdb posted:I'm just happy that I managed to make a salient enoug poiint thT rahn himself tormented Having a terrific headache are we?
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Dec 18, 2014 05:58
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I'm pretty sure the translation for the last four words is, "that Rahm himself commented." (based off the running D&D joke that My Imaginary GF is literally Rahm Emanuel)
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Dec 18, 2014 06:40
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Also, the big issue with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were the Hungarians and it was extremely doubtful the Hungarians would have gone for a break up of a Kingdom of Hungary willingly (it just so happened to be done unwillingly) and a "civil war for liberalism" wasn't going to work either.
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Dec 18, 2014 06:58
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Typo posted:Then you run into the issue where, if war seemed imminent for longer, the placement of French military assets and the degree of Russian mobilization is going to differ wildly from that of actual history if the Germans don't respond with a mobilization. Given that mobilization was caused by the issuing of war, not declaring war till spring means that mobilization happens later too. I mean the whole thing happens, it just happens later. you get pretty much the very same shitstorm
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Dec 18, 2014 09:13
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Panzeh posted:Also the idea that Franz Ferdinand's Austria would have worked better than Yugoslavia is rather quaint. Depending on your POV, Yugoslavia was not entirely unsuccessful as a state and its breakup in the '90s was not completely inevitable.
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Dec 18, 2014 09:52
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What do you all think of the book "Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!" I was actually surprised at how much the World Wars actually helped black people and women gain equality.
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Dec 19, 2014 17:44
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100 Years Ago The past week or so has seen the French Army trying to take the initiative, even as General Joffre is somewhat equivocal about what he's trying to achieve. A lot of Anglo-centric works often end up making it seem like almost nothing happened between the end of First Ypres and the Battle of Neuve Chapelle next March, which simply isn't the case. The First Battle of Artois began five days ago; the First Battle of Champagne, two days ago. Meanwhile, in the Caucasus, the Ottomans are launching an over-complicated and optimistic offensive through a load of mountain passes in the teeth of winter.
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Dec 22, 2014 21:29
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rkajdi posted:Legitimately elected, not legitimate. I'm a pretty staunch democrat, so I don't see much wrong with a regicide to get people out from under a dictator. If you have no problems with a liberal reformer being shot, I think you're not really a democrat. Also you seem to confuse fashism and monarchism. Trust me, there's a difference. Here's a hint: The guy who shot the archduke wasn't really a staunch democrat either.
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Dec 23, 2014 02:04
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I don't mean to be that guy but I hope there's an effort post about the Christmas Truce of 1914. I'm no historian but it has always seemed to me like a moment of clarity amidst all the bloodshed, and the results were so unacceptable to the commands of either side that they made it a priority that no such fraternization would occur in the following years. edited for the wrong 'T' word Son of Emhak fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 00:51
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You mean the Christmas Truce right? There was no treaty as far as I know. Edit: I remember seeing this movie years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl I'm not sure how accurate it is. Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 00:54
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Christmas day 'truces' seem to be fairly common, at least between countries with similar cultures/religion. I know they happened a handful of times during the ACW as well. They're generally pretty informal, and get broken up as soon as the higher-up commanders figure out what's going on.
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Dec 26, 2014 01:06
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Kurtofan posted:You mean the Christmas Truce right? There was no treaty as far as I know. I saw the opera on PBS, it was really really good, would watch again
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Dec 26, 2014 01:21
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No reason for this thread to die: http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-54-blueprint-armageddon-v/ Dan Carlin released the Fifth episode of Hardcore History: Blueprint for Armageddon was released on December 29'th. If you havent litsened to the series do it now. Seriously.
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Dec 30, 2014 14:46
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A.S.H. posted:I don't mean to be that guy but I hope there's an effort post about the Christmas Truce of 1914. I'm no historian but it has always seemed to me like a moment of clarity amidst all the bloodshed, and the results were so unacceptable to the commands of either side that they made it a priority that no such fraternization would occur in the following years. There are some good (or at least detailed) articles out there about it, because it has been a major talking point in the British media. Examples: http://www.historyextra.com/news/fi...first-world-war http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11313103/Christmas-Truce-football-match-romanticised-historians-warn.html It's just silly that it's become such a talking point. It was a nice human moment; it was also not by any means as big of a story as people make out. I think it's partly because the left love it because to them it's a sign of working class internationalism - the right love it because they can attribute it to Christianity.
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Dec 30, 2014 14:59
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Im curious would Italy joining the central powers make a significant change in how the war went? Or would their mountain misadventures instead just happen on the French border.
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Dec 30, 2014 20:34
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Communist Zombie posted:Im curious would Italy joining the central powers make a significant change in how the war went? Or would their mountain misadventures instead just happen on the French border. They were pretty inept and fighting over a a highly defensible set of borders. They probably wouldn't have had the biggest impact. Their bizarro Navy might have done something quite funny, I suppose.
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Dec 30, 2014 20:37
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Disinterested posted:They were pretty inept and fighting over a a highly defensible set of borders. They probably wouldn't have had the biggest impact. Their bizarro Navy might have done something quite funny, I suppose. It may have let AH hang on a bit longer - One less theater/festering wound to deal with. In the long run though, yeah, I don't think Italy would have made much of a difference - Germans wound up taking over significant parts of the AH defense against Italy.
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Dec 31, 2014 01:07
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Disinterested posted:They were pretty inept and fighting over a a highly defensible set of borders. They probably wouldn't have had the biggest impact. Their bizarro Navy might have done something quite funny, I suppose. I don't know much about WW1 naval operations. What was so weird about the Italian navy?
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Dec 31, 2014 01:19
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Prism posted:I don't know much about WW1 naval operations. What was so weird about the Italian navy? You should ask in the Milhist Ask/Tell thread for the real  answer. The Adriatic just saw lots of bizarre non-committal naval activity between Austria and Italy. Both of them had a couple of reasonably large ships, which were mostly badly designed, technically faulty, or both. The Italians got in to their practice of sneakily blowing up large vessels in WW1 with torpedo boats, too, in preparation for similar antics in WW2.
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Dec 31, 2014 01:32
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Prism posted:I don't know much about WW1 naval operations. What was so weird about the Italian navy? There was a joke going around between the wars: Q: Why did the Italians put glass bottoms on their new navy? A: So they can get a good look at their old navy.
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Dec 31, 2014 01:34
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