The History Thread!

Exactly. While being one of the least oligarchic states in Early Modern Europe wasn't a bad thing, the liberum veto sucked hard.

And that, kids, is why the most famous king of the PLC is remembered for his military triumph than for any reforms, because you literally had to get unanimous support from the Sejm to do anything.

I am trying to replicate this in my Visual Novel... in earnest

Well, good for you. I do wonder how awesome Winged Hussars looked in reality.

Most likely they did not march into battle with wings owing to the sheer weight and encumberance. Not that the uneducated mass should be aware of that.

I think they were there for frightening the enemies, myself.

And it's like how medieval knights didn't use their large warhorses to travel when on Crusade, after all.

Oh?

I've always been on the opinion that the well-bred destriers and other heavier warhorses of European breed are not very adaptive to the hot and dry climes of the Arabian deserts where the crusades were at. As a result, many of the horses died en-route in the first few crusades.

On the other hand though, had the crusade taken place in the Anatolia I believe they could have gained far easier access to good warhorses.

Yes; but remember that Western cavalry tradition post-Roman times (born at the Battle of Adrianople) emphasized shock and power over mobility. So even though the crusaders didn't know of F = ma, they did know that the more armor a knight wore, and with a horse strong enough to support it, the deadlier the charge was.

Though it wasn't the Crusades that killed the knight; its demise began at the Battle of the Golden Spurs, and heavily armored cavalry was the norm until the 16th century.

You're right that the Crusades didn't cause the death of the Knight, but they sure hastened it a LOT. How long might people have stuck with heavily armored cavalry without the crusades? We may never know.

It was gunpowder that would kill the knight, see. Without the Crusades it likely would have reached Europe if the Mongols come as scheduled.

The Mongols might have decimated Europe and its cultures. I doubt the Knight, or any of Europe's other military types, would have lasted had the Mongols came to Europe.

edited 17th Mar '11 6:45:22 AM by AlirozTheConfused

I doubt they would've lasted long or gotten very far though. Even the Golden Horde mostly ruled from a distance.

We had a long argument about this in Total War Center.

I am of the opinion that if Mongolia was to spread to further than Eastern Europe, they will have to retreat, not owing to batlefield defeat but because they would find it hard to support an invasion army large enough to both subdue continental Western Europe and hold it for long enough to make an impact. To conquer Europe, I reckon they would require no less than 50000+ famed steppe horse archers and 300000+ Chinese/Khitan/Jurchen auxilia to subdue and hold Europe, which would require a logistical effort nothing like they had ever managed.

Of course, detractors of this theory mentioned that yes, Mongols do know how to march as fast as Fate Testarossa in a few days to prepare for strategical maneuvers, as seen in the 1200s European campaigns. I still say that maintaining a logistic network stable enough to support that many troops for that long is an impossibility.

And then there was England and its island state status. Mongols don't really like the sea, you see.

What stopped the Mongols from besieging Vienna was the fact that a Succession Crisis threatened to erupt whenever a khan died.

So imagine if they had a stable succession law alongside their ahead-of-its-time military organization, siege use, and mobility.

If they had a stable succession law, they still wouldn't have been able to take over Japan or England. The Mongols were never any good at seamanship; unlike the Vikings.

Can't say the same for the landlocked parts of Eurasia, though.

edited 17th Mar '11 6:52:05 AM by AlirozTheConfused

Obviously. Like Napoleon, the Mongols were army prodigies but were allergic to water.

The Mongolian dynasty at that time (i.e. prior to the reforms staged by Yelu Chucai) was mostly a "succession by the strongest" sort of state. You can't expect succession crises to not spawn in such a state.

And which was why I (and quite a few Chinese scholars) held Yelu in very high regard. According to one tale, to cancel off this rampant lese majeste seen in Mongolian high nobles, he had Ogotai Khan's older brother kneel before the Khan like a common subject upon his coronation, something not seen before in Mongol culture.

Bad. Ass.

Any navy worth its salt can fry a Mongol landing party before they reach the land. That, or a fine dose of Kamikaze the original version.

edited 17th Mar '11 6:55:31 AM by ArgeusthePaladin

Sounds like a certain Western conqueror, huh?

Also, it is indeed a fun thing of world history that great land powers tend to have great sea powers as their archnemeses (i.e., Britain vs France).

Alexander is overrated when compared to the Mongols.

One man whose father was poisoned by his enemies and whose childhood was spent in the wild struggling to feed his mother and younger siblings, whose nationality at his time of birth was nothing but a barren steppe of fragmented tribes, and whose early career was plagued with failures and betrayal. That one man had the will to unite his fellow tribes, crush the much mightier Jin Empire, and then forge an empire by his own charisma and talent, at one point holding more than half the world as we know it.

Not to belittle Megas Alexandros (not so much the Visual Novel I potholed in), but compared to Genghis Khan, Alexander looked like a spoiled little boy who happens to know how to use his father's resources to bully others.

Genghis Khan was way cooler than some Macedonian upstart who was good at exploiting the resources his father left him.

Which reminds me, I have a WMG that Frederick the Great was a reincarnation of ol' Alex. Conquerors who used the resources their fathers built up to rock the foundations of neighboring empires. Except of course der Alte Fritz was much better on the administrative front.

edited 17th Mar '11 7:08:58 AM by Kinkajou

And unlike Alex, actually died peacefully of old age after being a Badass Granpa.

And thankfully, his successors were pretty decent. Ogedei, despite being a drunkard, was the mastermind of the attack on Eastern Europe. Genghis, that is.

Frederick, on the other hand, was Prussia's best ruler - though his nephew and great-nephew led it into a decline.

edited 17th Mar '11 7:19:33 AM by Kinkajou

You forgot Kublai frakking Khan. Chinese worldwide hate him for putting an end to the already half-dead Southern Song dynasty. Historians hail him as the nearest equivalent the Mongols would ever have to Octavius Augustus and the founder of the Yuan dynasty.

Oh, and if Marco Polo is to be trusted, he's a pretty nice guy too for as long as diplomacy with Italy is concerned.

Kublai Khan was the height of Mongol power over China. I would think Ming supporters and Chinese ultra-nationalists would dislike him on principle.

Of course, it doesn't help that China's last imperial dynasty was an outsider dynasty.

According to a book I had at home, that "outsider" dynasty was responsible for 2 out of the best 10 Chinese emperors of all time.

Complete list:

• Qin Shihuang.
• Han Gaozu
• Han Wudi
• Tang Taisong
• Wu Zetian
• Song Taizu
• Ming Taizu
• Kangxi
• Qianlung

... I'm sure I've missed the last one...

Ah, yes, Kangxi. China was the foremost power of the world before the Congress of Vienna, and sadly after him and Qianlong China was outpaced by those upstart Europeans.