Medieval - Pre WW2 History Thread

[KimberVaile]

Making a companion thread to Nexus's early and ancient history Thread.

https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/early-and-ancient-civilizations-and-peoples-thread.1671960/page-4

This thread will cover everything from the early medieval period all the way up to WW1. Please no WW2 stuff or modern history as it were. That can have it's own thread.
Also, as a personal request, keep the historical dick waving over which culture or civilization is superior to a minimum. It's unprofessional and in most cases, pretty unproductive.

 

[KimberVaile]

Now, for the reason I made this thread.

I had only just heard of this, but they managed to restore old WW1 film to be in color. It's quite fascinating how much more human and real it beocmes that way. That era suddenly doesn't seem so foreign. I hope to watch this pretty soon!

 

[Attaman]

Humorously, I was considering reviving the Early / Ancient History thread with Bret Devereaux's A Collection of Unmitigated Pendantry blog (since it covers a fair bit of Ancient History subjects, such as Sparta's oft-overinflated / -overhyped military society and - more recently - how citizenship worked in both Republic and Imperial Rome), but this thread serves as just as good a place as any to plug it.

His posts are generally extremely well cited (though with a clear preference / lean for the Mediterranean and general European theatres, from shortly before the Helenistic era to approximately around the European Renaissance), and he has some pretty solid articles (or guest articles) on everything from how cities formed and were structured to how vows and oaths worked to war elephants in India to a history of farming wheat to...

What I'm saying is that they have a ton of stuff to keep people interested, be it of a historical nature or even just a "Dissecting fiction and their tropes / 'realism'". And even after that they have a fairly solid book recommendation list as a historian who's acquired a PhD.

 

[KimberVaile]

Humorously, I was considering reviving the Early / Ancient History thread with Bret Devereaux's A Collection of Unmitigated Pendantry blog (since it covers a fair bit of Ancient History subjects, such as Sparta's oft-overinflated / -overhyped military society and - more recently - how citizenship worked in both Republic and Imperial Rome), but this thread serves as just as good a place as any to plug it.

His posts are generally extremely well cited (though with a clear preference / lean for the Mediterranean and general European theatres, from shortly before the Helenistic era to approximately around the European Renaissance), and he has some pretty solid articles (or guest articles) on everything from how cities formed and were structured to how vows and oaths worked to war elephants in India to a history of farming wheat to...

What I'm saying is that they have a ton of stuff to keep people interested, be it of a historical nature or even just a "Dissecting fiction and their tropes / 'realism'". And even after that they have a fairly solid book recommendation list as a historian who's acquired a PhD.

Interesting blog, his initial write up on Roman citizenship is sourced well, generally accurate with his assertions on the founding, have not read the rest yet. It's well done though. I can't speak on other subjects he's posted in, but he's quite well versed form what I have seen. Good find.

 

[Attaman]

Interesting blog, his initial write up on Roman citizenship is sourced well, generally accurate with his assertions on the founding, have not read the rest yet. It's well done though. I can't speak on other subjects he's posted in, but he's quite well versed form what I have seen. Good find.

Indeed. Likewise it helps that he will often openly admit when he's talking areas outside his expertise (he makes a fair few mentions of this when talking of Mongol horse archers, for example; or when he makes a side post on farming related to rice). Combined with actually sharing his sources (unlike a lot of such blogs which clutch them close to the writer's chest), it means even when he's just extrapolating with his opinion there's at least a chance to take a look yourself and see where things might have gone wrong: A hell of a lot easier to fact-check behind somebody and make your own conclusions when you know where they got theirs from in the first place! Also means that if somebody doesn't have the time or inclination to read the articles (especially if their somewhat snarky / informal manner of writing grates them) they can just go straight to the source material instead.

 

[Frank Gulotta]

Medieval/early renaissance music deserves more love

 

[The_biscuits_532]

Shoutout to the time Peru sneezed so hard it caused a civil war in Russia

 

[Nexus Cabler]

I recently discovered the Gun Shield

"The gunsmith Giovanni Battista of Ravenna proposed this gun shield to King Henry VIII of England, and King Henry ordered 100 to be made for his royal guards. They were really amazing and changed history forever. Many variants

There are two variants of gun-shield. One is Italian manufactured, and one British. The Italian is of smaller caliber and lighter. It is assumed the English version was meant to be used on ships, while the Italian to be handheld."

 

[The_biscuits_532]

I recently discovered the Gun Shield

View attachment 117520

"The gunsmith Giovanni Battista of Ravenna proposed this gun shield to King Henry VIII of England, and King Henry ordered 100 to be made for his royal guards. They were really amazing and changed history forever. Many variants

There are two variants of gun-shield. One is Italian manufactured, and one British. The Italian is of smaller caliber and lighter. It is assumed the English version was meant to be used on ships, while the Italian to be handheld."

Honestly every time I read something new about Henry VIII it's even wilder. Easily my favourite person from our national history just because of how characterful he was.

 

[Yastreb]

I recently discovered the Gun Shield

View attachment 117520

"The gunsmith Giovanni Battista of Ravenna proposed this gun shield to King Henry VIII of England, and King Henry ordered 100 to be made for his royal guards. They were really amazing and changed history forever. Many variants

There are two variants of gun-shield. One is Italian manufactured, and one British. The Italian is of smaller caliber and lighter. It is assumed the English version was meant to be used on ships, while the Italian to be handheld."

Then there's the lantern shield. What happens if you strap together a shield, gauntlet, lantern, sword, plus a spike/sawblade thingy or three? You probably shouldn't, but if you do it looks like this:

 

[Makoto95]

i like the pirates part of history

 

[Yakamaru]

WW2 can indeed have its own thread.

The 100 year war:

Then we have the nearly 600-years of war and conflict between Denmark and Sweden:

Granted, this video is less graphical and more topographical/geographical and have things being rather compressed.

List of wars involving Denmark - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Denmarks' involvement in wars, and there are quite a few of them.

List of wars involving Sweden - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sweden's involvement in wars and conflicts. Like the Danes, there are quite a few of them.

List of wars involving Norway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Norway's involvement in wars is far lower, though have also had its share in war too.

Scandinavia have been through a LOT of wars and conflicts in the past 1,000 years alone, and have a lot more of wars, conflicts and tribal disputes beyond that, and have probably had the most wars and conflicts compared to the rest of the world. Small countries demographically and population-wise, but have wielded a lot of power politically, economically and militarily throughout the centuries.

With the creation of the Norwegian Constitution in 1814 it created the start of a new era for our country, and a very prosperous and peaceful one at that for centuries to come.

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway - C. Rights of Citizens and The Legislative Power - Lovdata

C. Rights of Citizens and The Legislative Power

lovdata.no

I've found the English version for ease of translation and reading, and the Norwegian original can be simply read by clicking on "Norwegian version" in the upper left corner. And in 1914 we separated peacefully from Sweden, effectively becoming our own independent nation.

 

[KimberVaile]

Very interesting interview involving a German corporal and his experiences in WW1

Just kinda neat, this one, seeing a WW1 era tank being operated.
They really were as slow as people said, though pretty decent turning speed on that thing.

 

[SerlisTialo]

this is fascinating to me because i'm from asia and a lot of this stuff is news to me

 

[Punji]

this is fascinating to me because i'm from asia and a lot of this stuff is news to me

Asia? I thought you were a black dwarf from Scottland.

 

[O.D.D.]

Morals of the WW1 story: European royalty were kinda assholes, French commanders were bugfuck nuts (yeah just bayonet charge the German MG emplacement, dude, where's your cran?) and Germans pick bad fights and worse allies. Also don't fuck with the Royal Navy.

 

[SerlisTialo]

Asia? I thought you were a black dwarf from Scottland.

what?

 

[Attaman]

Of note: ACOUP (the formerly linked A Collection of Unmitigated Pendantry) is in the middle of an on-going series ATM involving Trench Warfare during WWI. Figured some people might be interested as the current subject seems to be erring towards WWI.

 

[Frank Gulotta]

A small point that shows that hindsight is 20/20 since this is pre-WW2, the appeasement policy prior to WW2 actually DID make sense and is unjustly maligned. Germany was seen as a buffer state against an ideology that was already known back then as a mass-murderous mess (and would keep killing millions worldwide way past WW2).

 

[O.D.D.]

A small point that shows that hindsight is 20/20 since this is pre-WW2, the appeasement policy prior to WW2 actually DID make sense and is unjustly maligned. Germany was seen as a buffer state against an ideology that was already known back then as a mass-murderous mess (and would keep killing millions worldwide way past WW2).

I'm not sure how widespread the knowledge of Nazi atrocities was at that point but as big a monster as Hitler was I can believe that the rest of Europe viewed Stalin as a more profound threat. I don't think appeasement was the correct response even with that knowledge, though. I believe Patton is quoted as saying we should have kept on going past Berlin all the way to Moscow. Hard to say, even in hindsight, how that would have panned out. The Soviets were not the beleaguered war machine the Nazis were by the end, and appeasement neither addresses the Nazis' predations nor does it offer hope against the Soviets later. Operation Barbarossa did not weaken the Soviets nearly enough to justify keeping Hitler around.

 

[Frank Gulotta]

I'm not sure how widespread the knowledge of Nazi atrocities was at that point but as big a monster as Hitler was I can believe that the rest of Europe viewed Stalin as a more profound threat. I don't think appeasement was the correct response even with that knowledge, though. I believe Patton is quoted as saying we should have kept on going past Berlin all the way to Moscow. Hard to say, even in hindsight, how that would have panned out. The Soviets were not the beleaguered war machine the Nazis were by the end, and appeasement neither addresses the Nazis' predations nor does it offer hope against the Soviets later. Operation Barbarossa did not weaken the Soviets nearly enough to justify keeping Hitler around.

It was proven wrong when the two brands of evil signed a non aggression pact but then that's also hindsight. People were back then aware of the biggest of two evils and we have kind of forgotten it since then and instead are obsessing over the one that's been all but dead for half a century, while happily making business to this day with the bigger one, because money

 

[O.D.D.]

Jumping between the context of "where we are now" and "where we were, in hindsight" doesn't really work well

Another reason it would have been better to nip the Nazi war machine in the bud - the Soviets ended up pillaging a lot of nasty stuff and some people too from the wreckage of Germany, though the Americans likely took as much or more

If the Nazis had been trounced before they had gotten too deep into some of their weapons projects, the Soviets would have had less to pillage

Also while Allied materiel wasn't exactly stellar before late war, the Soviets' materiel was fucking GARBAGE before Barbarossa... especially most of the stuff we gave them. The Soviets took a lot of lend-lease M3s which were derided as tracked coffins, and rightfully so. They made the P-39s work well, but I would consider that a bit of an outlier. The P-40s were obsolete before the outbreak of WW2. The Mosin-Nagant three line rifle was pretty archaic and they barely had enough ammo to keep conscripts supplied for their use.

Until the T34 with radios was brought about (and equipping them with radios happened post-Barbarossa, after the Soviets realized the T34s could still have their asses kicked by Nazi Panzers being commanded competently through radios) the Soviets had almost nothing but sheer numbers and brutality.

 

[Attaman]

I am going to go out on a limb and say @KimberVaile doesn't want their pre-WWII Military History thread turning into "Discuss WWII specifically who were worse the Communists or the Nazis?".

So while I do genuinely enjoy discussion of logistical aspects and whatnot (and, indeed, the ACOUP articles I mentioned earlier even go on a tangent discussing logistical, materiel, and tactical advances between WWI and WWII), it might be better to either ask Kimber if they're fine having that discussion in this thread (after all, it looks like the main point of the 'Pre-WWII' was less out of disinterest and more because nine times out of ten people mentioned "Let's talk Military History online" you're going to get 80% WWII, 15% Romans, 4.5% American Civil War, 0.5% Other) or to create a sister thread specifically relating to WWII and its military hardware, strategies, etcetera.

And also probably drop the "Who was worse, Hitler or Stalin?" outright. Because even discounting my own biases (which certain users may insist are why I'd request this), any discussion that starts to try quantifying "What's more evil?" with things like genocide, disappearing people, ideological purges, et al is going to be a mess even before the forum's ' "No Politics" rule comes into the equation. Besides, it's not like if people do want to engage in such exercises like there's any shortage of candidates pre-WWII to draw from. "You see, gentlemen. If we can just convince our population to throw a few million more of their children into the meat grinder, we can win through sheer attrition by the end of the decade" is a hell of a military strategy, and one that was genuinely floated by multiple ranking generals in multiple militaries during WWI, for example. Similarly "If we kill enough of their non-combatant civilian population they'll sue for peace!"

 

[O.D.D.]

(which certain users may insist are why I'd request this)

It is and you know it

the fact that you give yourself that disclaimer is enough reason to suspect it

otherwise, yeah, sure, let's talk about pre-WW2 stuff like the atrocities of the Cheka and how the Makhnovists got fucked over by the Bolsheviks how's that work for you

 

[Attaman]

It is and you know it

Nah, it's because debates on "Which is worse: Attempted genocide of [x] demographics or successful mass-murder of [y] demographics" - in addition to being off topic - are ones that never end well for anyone. Again, I invite Kimber to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they don't want their history thread split their "Interesting Medieval to Pre-WWII history" thread into people asking 'Who is burning lower in Hell?' as a vague-post way to skirt the Politics rule (which you yourself admit you think I'll trying to do if that debate happens).

And by pretty sure I mean

Also, as a personal request, keep the historical dick waving over which culture or civilzation is superior to a minimum. It's unprofessional and in most cases, pretty unproductive.

OP literally - explicitly - made that request.

otherwise, yeah, sure, let's talk about pre-WW2 stuff like the atrocities of the Cheka and how the Makhnovists got fucked over by the Bolsheviks how's that work for you

I mean, those are at least pre-WWII so as long as you can tie them into the framework of Medieval - Pre WW2 History and don't frame it in a "Who was better / worse?" more power to you! Go nuts!