The History Thread!

I'M SO JEALOUS.

This discussion reminded me.

I just learned about Battle of Chancellorsville, which was apparently the biggest Confederate victory.

It's also the one where they lost their best field general to friendly fire.

If I remember, that was the one Joe Hooker only lost because he froze at exactly the wrong moment, allowing Lee to reorganize his forces and unleash Jackson Magic (TM). I'd heard somewhere that a recent theory is that Hooker had literally hit his head some time before the battle (not to be confused with him being hit on the head during the battle), so he'd wandered through the whole thing dazed and concussed.

Ironically, after he was tossed out of command of the Army of the Potomac and sent out west, he actually did pretty well as a lower-level commander.

edited 13th Jul '16 4:19:46 PM by SabresEdge

It sounds as if Hooker was another one of those kind of commanders who suffered heavily from The Peter Principle, and was promoted to a position out of his depth. Meanwhile, the Confederates had John Bell Hood.

While we're still on the topic of the American Civil War, I finally realized something.

A while ago, I watched Gone with the Wind. One scene involved Scarlett and Rhett escaping burning Atlanta, which I thought was a spectacular scene.

NOW that I think of it, that was probably Sherman's doing.

Happy Bastille Day.

Tragically, I have a feeling that with recent events France is inching into an atmosphere ripe for a second Robespierre to seize control.

edited 14th Jul '16 9:24:51 PM by SantosLHalper

I'm taking a course on Silver Age Russian literature next fall. Being a person who does nothing halfway, I'm studying Russian history this summer, and learning the basics of the Russian language on Duolingo (The class is entirely in English, but I have the feeling there might be a Bilingual Bonus every once in a while) I'm hitting the library tomorrow, so I might have things to discuss with you peeps soon

This thought occurred to me while I was watching Pirates of Silicon Valley. How did Bill Gates and Steve Jobs get out of fighting in the Vietnam War?

At one point during the Second Indochina War (which I prefer to call it since it's more faithful to the other regions affected), the US government - Nixon's IIRC - put conscription on hold altogether. The two could have been members of the first generations lucky to have not been drafted.

PC Gamer showed Battlefield 1 to a World War 1 historian.

How bad was the aneurysm?

edited 22nd Jul '16 5:02:27 PM by SantosLHalper

They will let us know as soon as he stops trying to bite the orderlies. :P So really a lot like the vast majority of every other war game out there.

edited 22nd Jul '16 6:37:46 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Why is it that Russia never had knights? Or did it at least have cuirassiers?

Russia's Cossacks were famous. The wide-open plains of Eastern Europe saw a more mobile style of war than the comparatively cramped West; for that same reason the Poles had their hussar light cavalry. Less armor than the knights (theoretically) and a longer timeframe to be tactically relevant.

They had the Bogatyr. Both as folk lore and basically the knights. I haven't ever actually seen the Russians or the antecedents make use of heavy cavalry like they did in Western Europe. As noted they had a very strong tradition of light cavalry partly because of contact with the Steppe peoples including marauding Mongols.

At glance it seems very few of the Eastern European nations were big on the heavily armored heavy cav outside of the Polish and as noted above preferred lighter more mobile cavalry. However they really seemed to like heavy infantry wearing field plate.

here have a look at this pic I found◊ The guy in the middle wearing the coat of plates like armor is Russian heavy cav. They had them they just didn't go fro the all out plate armor of the Western Europeans.

edited 25th Jul '16 10:12:16 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Oh yeah, I forgot about those guys. ^_^;;

A massive book on Chinese economic history! Promptly added to my "WANT" list.

A very neat vid on traditional Bowyer skills in hand crafting a longbow.

Three years for cured wood after cutting and what is likely a fair number of hours in cutting, shaping, crafting, and finishing the actual bow.

Ah, Polish hussars...aka the Winged Hussars. The 17th Century was their oyster. lol Like here.

Truth be told, I'm starting to find Winged Hussars to be overrated. The Hungarian Hussars captured Berlin during the reign of Frederick the Great, sat on his throne, and put the city up for ransom.

And as late as 1920, the plains of Central/Eastern Europe saw massive cavalry armies crash against one another, playing crucial roles in outrunning and outflanking infantry columns. Between the strong cavalry tradition, untamed wide-open spaces, and industrial underinvestment delaying the onset of rail networks and motorization compared to Western Europe, it was a place built for horse soldiers.

Speaking of which, in that case, how did the knights of Western Europe become so famous since that region was comparatively cramped compared to Eastern Europe and Russia?

Sociopolitical factors. The knights were the aristocracy, the stars of the medieval sagas, and embodiment of the chivalric code that everyone who wasn't a peasant or a clergyman was expected to live up to.

It helped that they did dominate the battlefields until the advent of the infantry revolution in the late 1300s.