The History Thread!

Ah, you seem to have found the slight flaw in the Nazi program—the consistently high rate of duds. However, it's grit in the war machine at most; most German shells and guns worked well enough.

Also, I should clarify: to anyone sane, the destruction of the Jews had no economic rationale. The Nazis, however, thought that it would enrich the nation. Because everyone knows Jews are greedy and the cabal that secretly controls the US and USSR is immensely rich; surely they would offload the wealth they'd stolen to Germany as ransom! Surely the seizure of the assets of all those rich Jews would pay for itself!

I'm not sure when the Nazis realized their mistake, if ever.

So what were the odds of the Mongols successfully getting into euroupe I know they got all the way to Hungary but if the khan hadn't died could they have went as least as far as Poland

They were stopped here

He meant Mongols, not Huns.

edited 22nd May '15 10:26:46 AM by HallowHawk

The Huns and the Mongols were very different peoples. The Mongol invasion of Europe was halted by the the death of Ögedei Khan in 1241, at which point the Mongol armies under Batu Khan retreated back to Asia to take part in the kurultai that was to elect his successor.

For what its worth, I think that the Mongols would have failed to conquer Western Europe, largely on the basis of this excellent Quora answer. TL;DR: Mediaeval Western Europe is kryptonite for nomad armies.

edited 22nd May '15 10:36:00 AM by Achaemenid

It's pure supposition, but given the hitting power and sheer organizational efficiency of the murder train sans brakes that was the Mongol Empire, it's theoretically possible they could have blitzed all the way to and through France as Attila did.

Whether or not they could hold that empire for decades, or whether it'd collapse after a few generations like the Yuan Dynasty did, is another question entirely.

Oh right. Got them mixed up.

Also, not sure how they would have gone through Constantinople. They were allied, sure but the byzantines were wily enough to know when and how to act for them to not take over all of the world they wanted for themselves, you know. And I doubt they would have taken Constantinople. I wager Italy would give them more trouble than you give them credit for too, considering how control of the mediterranean sea is important for those times.

By the 1200s the Byzantine Empire was barely hanging on.

Yes. venice did not help at that. But I still doubt the siege available at that time would have been enough to take care of Constantinople. And they were experts at that "pay tribute to other people, send them to fuck up nearby enemies and then just fuck shit up after the storm has winded down" strategy.

And Byzantium did have a very slight resurgence just before its very end to the Ottomans, with the Palaiologan Dinasty. And again, navies. I think they are important.

I love that particular period of history just because I love restoring them in Europa Universalis.

... And often destroying Austria as a first target.

I'm looking more at North/Central Europe. By the Mongol Age the Europeans had become very good at fortifying against sieges, and given the amount of grassland needed to sustain an all-cavalry army, I'm seriously wondering how long a Mongol cavalry horde can sustain itself in Europe by raid and chevauchee and still remain effective enough to besiege European castles. The counterpoint is how well they did against the fortified cities of Central Asia and Arabia. The real question is political division or unity among the Europeans.

Byzantium probably would've held, though. They paid Attila nuisance money to go away a thousand years before, and they probably would've done the same to the Mongols.

I don't know if you saw it, but the Quora answer I linked covered both those topics:

- The difference between castles in Arabia and Asia and in Europe is volume. Arguably, Western Europe is a castle civilization. They were building thousands at the time. So rather than dealing with a number of strategic fortresses numbering in the tens or twenties, Batu Khan would have been dealing with thousands. And unlike where he had to move over steppes or plains, in Western Europe he'd be moving through wildwood.

- Western European political division would have been a strength, not a weakness. Unlike the civilizations of Asia, which fell apart when the Mongols captured central cities and road junctions, capturing some European principality would make little difference to the rest, whilst the Crusades had shown that Europe had an ideology that could, in the right circumstances, engender unity and purpose in the many squabbling princes. Hail Hydra!

When it comes to Northern Europe: Scandinavia, sans Denmark, and Scotland would almost certainly have held out.

edited 22nd May '15 11:19:23 AM by Achaemenid

Oh, wait, I didn't see that link. (You sneaky ninja-editor, you.) Well, it's off to be reading I am!

Not sure the Mongols would have done good at even Sicily, or England. or Greece. I doubt they would have even reached Scotland or Ireland. Look at how Java went for them. And how easy would it have been for them to take the Philippine islands and others? Where would they have gotten the ships from to get there?

I would mention Japan but. Those typhoons, man. Basically cheating.

edited 22nd May '15 11:29:37 AM by Aszur

@ Achaemenid: The English Channel, as always, would have also been a hard nut to crack. This was also the time the English/Welsh Longbow started to become prominent, so they might have seen early use.

And added to that, I agree with the point about besieging the thousands of castles and forts^note  Everything to Hill Forts to old Roman Forts to Motte-and-Bailey castles to the latest designs all across Europe at that point. It would have been almost impossible to perform.

edited 22nd May '15 11:35:04 AM by Greenmantle

And logistics defeats another army.

I've got to look up the Golden Horde Hungarian campaign of 1285.

I can imagine them reaching as far as Poland and the Balkans, but not much further. To keep their position in the east they'd probably make alliances with local rulers, maybe help them in their on going conflict against the Islamic world? There is some level of historical precedent for such an alliance.

The idea that the Mongols couldn't have taken Western Europe because of how forested it was is pure bullshit. This becomes pretty obvious when you look what happened in the just as forested Russia and Poland.

As for the Egyptian force that beat back the Mongols, they defeated the remnants that were left behind after the main force had left for the same kurultai that stopped the Golden Horde's invasion. It's very unlikely that they would have been able to defeat the full invasion force.

I'm not very knowledgeable about the density of forts in Europe compared to say China, but from the rest that I've seen I'm not very trusting of this guy's information

Neither Russia nor Poland were nearly as fortified as Western Europe, and the information did say that the longer the supply lines from the steppe, the weaker the Horde would get. There's no fighting the tyranny of distance.

Did the Mongols really need supply lines? In this age armies still largely lived off the land, and the Mongols were both relatively few in number and able to cover distances (and thus reach unforaged land) much faster than other armies. I admit this is outside my area of expertise, though.

If they wanted to defeat the siege of a European castle, yes, they would indeed need supply lines if they wanted to take castlesthat could resist years

You could only sustain an army for so long by chevauchee, and only if it's constantly moving: like a wildfire, an army living off the land must move or die. The situation is worse by an order of magnitude if everyone needs a string of remounts as well.

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Dog domestication earlier than previously thought

So... I recently found this out.

Apparently, the Hiroshima bombing is partially the fault of an incompetent translator.