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{ "a_id": [ "daj38ya" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "It's not official, it is military slang, and is used purely because it is easier to say." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "col0dpk", "colamhm" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Forgive me, I am not certain what you mean by 'undercover regions'. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's travel writings on Turkey and other countries are used as primary sources. Her relish in appealing to her audiences means her writing isn't always reliable as verbatim records of events, but is insightful for us for a range of reasons. Including for understanding then prevailing views of some English people of the Occident and Orient.", "There's lots of sources that could be considered travelogues, and some have of course attracted more scholarly attention than others. A few that I'd particularly recommend:\n\n* For the early medieval north (Vikings, Slavs, Bulgars, Khazars, etc., from an Islamic perspective), there's a great collection in Ibn Fadlan, et al., [*Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness*](_URL_1_) (Penguin, 2012) [$10-12].\n\n* I'd also recommend reading up on two Norse (aka \"Viking\") traders who visited Anglo-Saxon kings in England: [Othere and Wulfstan](_URL_0_).\n\n* For more recent accounts (which are better covered by scholars, but still very interesting), I'd look at Olaudah Equiano's autobiography. Equiano was sold into slavery from Africa, but eventually purchased his freedom and became an abolitionist working against slavery in London. In between, he traveled through the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Arctic. Here's an online collection of sources on [Olaudah Equiano](_URL_3_).\n\n* And another brilliant narrative of the early modern slave trade is Robert Harms' [*The Diligent*](_URL_2_), which uses an officer's journal to track the journey of a slave ship in 1731. Harms is a great writer, and he's provides an excellent example of what all we can learn from a travelogue like a ship's log. " ] }

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[ [], [ "https://classesv2.yale.edu/access/content/user/haw6/Vikings/voyagers.html", "http://books.google.com/books?id=UPCworiqUqcC&source=gbs_book_other_versions", "http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Diligent.html?id=0YILMba_EnoC", "http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/index.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cq13nb7" ], "score": [ 27 ], "text": [ "The case of Ex Parte Quirin is of note here, if only to show how inept German sabotage was for the time. A handful of covert German operatives deposited by submarine on the American eastern coast landed in uniform, to comply with the laws of war, buried their uniform, to get around the laws of war, and then started to get busy- only to all be captured within a month or so of their arrival. The issue of whether or not they should be afforded Geneva Conventions is the one the Court takes up in Quirin. Worth your time to read.\n\nThe Japanese also launched a series of incendiary hot-air balloons bound for America, but as far as I know, they caused no significant damage to property or persons in the continental United States." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cf9gsac", "cf9obsi" ], "score": [ 2, 16 ], "text": [ "What are the assumptions concerning non-white people in medieval Europe? Please outline the specific assumptions you feel are being made by the blog.", "So, for the record there was [this conversation last week](_URL_0_) which examines some underlying assumptions in using 'race' as any sort of measuring stick of human descriptions before our epoch.\n\n'Non-white', the same as 'black', or 'asian', or any other modern race definition are just that, modern which is what /u/telkanuru is referring to as a 'sociological construct' in the linked answer. So, we are faced with two problems when we look backwards into Medieval Europe.\n\n\\1. The first is the problem of whether the verbal or visual language we receive from the past actually conforms to our indicators of race. The first hurdle is translation, and the second is idiomatic expression. Did a reference to someone being 'black' in Latin actually mean a 'black' person, or did it mean someone with black hair in a culture where black hair was unusual? Or even further, did reference to 'black' actually mean some local idiom which referred to an aspect of character or of origin lost to us now?\n\nThis first point is important because, from examples within my field - the medieval period - we are not going to find chroniclers referring to 'some black guy from nigeria' or some such thing. We have references to Moors, or Moslems, but they might look 'Latino' or 'Middle Eastern' to modern 'scales of race'. Is that a separate race? We might have a reference to someone from Egypt. Or Africa. How are we to establish the race of the referent under these terms?\n\nWhen it comes to visual depictions like we frequently see in MedievalPOC blog, we don't know if the manuscript, painting or fresco coloration is always actually a reflection of a racial difference or if it holds some other meaning. This is not to discredit the blog's intent or assertions entirely, but merely to problematize the assumptions to the point where we return to the same question.\nWhat we can say is that pre-modern western sources did not care to establish race according to what we think is now important. Consider this inversion for a moment: in place of whites and blacks, were are more likely to have heard prior to 1000 a discussion of the natures of the 'race' of Angles, Saxons, Franks, Germans. How are we to reconcile our modern notions of race with these terms?\n\n\\2. The second problem is depth of evidence. If we take some written or visual depictions as actual reflections of skin colour, and therefore of modern race (and I hope you already see the massive problems just getting us to these assumptions) are these 'frequent enough' to make broader assumptions about 'people of colour' in the medieval world? Again, we just don't know because again pre-modern sources didn't use race the way we use race. In medieval society it was apparently far more important to establish whether someone was Christian, or not Christian: that was worth noting.\n\nAll of the above can pretty much stop us from answering a well-intentioned question about modern notions of representation of race so important in many modern discourses. So, that said, I'd like to answer your question on its own terms, whether those we classify as 'non-white' (according to, say, an American census form) were visible in daily life in Western Europe. Realzing of course the depending who you ask today non white may or may not include 'latinos' (Spain) or 'arabs' (again Spain, and many other parts of Mediterranean Europe).\n\nHere's a lot of ifs and mights for you:\n\n* Vikings were exceptionally well travelled 800 -1000 and they may have encountered 'black' people in lower Spain, or southern Italy, or Constantinople, or in the Holy Lands. It is possible that they might have slave-traded 'blacks' or 'middle easterns' and some may have returned to northern ports.\n\n* The Moors of Spain were established through the Moslem invasions of the Iberian peninsula.Those Moslems had come across from north western Africa and so may have included 'blacks' and certainly 'middle easterns'. Those same moors travelled up into southern France and established themselves in colonies and cities from Toulouse to Narbonne to Provence. They established forts and castles in Provence. Beyond the incursions and wars, Moslems travelled up and down the Rhone river trading slaves to 1100. Moslems also frequented ports of Southern France like Montpellier and Nice.\n\n* Of course the various crusades brought Western Europeans in contact with peoples of the middle east which definitely included 'arabs' but might also have included 'blacks' and 'asians'.\n\n* There is some evidence of Irish contact with Mediterranean peoples in the early middle ages - some of those people might have been 'non-white'.\n\n* And of course throughout the medieval period, from late antiquity through to renaissance, we have the travelling merchant; he might have been from northern Europe, or he might have been from southern Europe; he might have encountered 'non-whites' or he might have been 'non-white' himself.\n\nSo we can gather from above that some inhabitants of some towns and some cities in medieval Europe all the way up to parts of Scandanavia encountered 'non-white' peoples, whether they be described by modern terms as Arabic, Middle Eastern, Black.\n\nHow many and how far afield into the very rural landscape of medieval Europe? Who knows. And anyone who makes generalist claims for or against is not arguing about the past but arguing politics of today. It holds something of a lesson if we care to look at it: race is constructed, not eternal.\n\nWhatever we aren't sure of, we can be certain of one thing: there was no such thing as 'white society' in the European medieval period.\n\nnote: this was moved from response to top level in hopes of people reading it and discussing." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1wuu4g/the_blog_medievalpoctumblrcom_asserts_that_black" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d7zjf34" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Although English is a Germanic language, approximately 30% of English vocabulary comes from French in one form or another. This is largely caused by an event called the Norman Conquest, in which a group of people called Normans, who inhabited Northern France and had a degree of Scandinavian ancestry, invaded and conquered England. The Old English-speaking aristocracy was mostly replaced by Norman French-speaking aristocracy, and for at least a hundred years, the nobility of England were primarily Norman French speakers. As a result, many words in English, particularly ones related to politics, warfare, and social class come from French. Many of these Norman French words are different from their modern French words, such as the word castle, from Norman French castel, in comparison to Modern French Château (which had evolved from Chasteau as indicated by the circumflex accent). Eventually, likely around the early or mid 13th century, the Norman/Angevin aristocracy of England lost most of their titles within the Kingdom of France and began to transition to English, which by this point was now full of French words. The higher nobility and Kings of England continued to speak French as their first language until sometime in the 14th or 15th century.\n\nFrench words continued to enter the English language after England and France became more distinctly separate entities, as France and England were still geographic neighbors (there are quite a few Dutch and German words of French origin as well), and because for a long time French was the dominant language of European courts and was therefore a prestige language that many nobles of various countries learned. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example, spoke French natively and may have preferred it to German, and the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Austrian army often used French as a common language. Most of the English words and expressions that remain distinctly and obviously \"French\" come from these more recent vocabulary exchanges." ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_expressions_in_English" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "dum1m8f" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "This is not to prevent anyone from writing you a full, new answer, but you may be interested in these two answers of mine:\n\n[Why are people today fascinated with the Victorian era?](_URL_0_)\n\n[Dang kids! Or: Why does each generation have such an exaggerated view of fashion in previous ones?](_URL_1_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7brmla/why_are_people_today_fascinated_with_the/dpl8k1o/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5zavf4/dang_kids_or_why_does_each_generation_have_such/dex8q7t/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eprt9u0" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "One of the first things you need to think about is why the Germans came over to the US. The vast majority of immigrants came after the failed Democratic revolutions in the 1890s, so they wanted to live in Republican state. That being said while these Germans hated the Kaiser they didn't want war between the US and Germany, simply due to connections back home. This produced huge strains which would impact how they were treated and how these Germans would act in WWII. Anti-German sentiment was so bad that 16 US states banned speaking German in public some states even required that people change their German names to American ones (Smicht to Smith), thousands of beer halls in the US were shutdown or even burned down, Germans were banned from having certain jobs (strategic/Gov't), internment camps were also set up, there were numerous cases of Germans being killed to seriously maimed due to 'Not being patriotic'. For example a man was tarred and feathered for not buying War Bonds, another man was lynched for 'not being American/Patriotic', and a pregnant woman was reportedly nearly beaten to death for speaking German with a local priest ( Although I have read this mentioned in numerous books I haven't hit any primary sources on it). President Woodrow Wilson even called German-Americans 'Alien citizens'. This caused two things 1) Need/Desire for German Americans to prove their loyalty, 2) complete erasure of German Culture. Point one can best be seen in the case of Henry Gunther a German-American who was killed 15 seconds before the Armistice charging a German machine gun, his death was so controversial that it caused a investigation as to why nobody stopped him and why he did it. As to point two close to fifth of the US population (60 Million people) have German ancestry but despite this less than 5 million have German names and less than two million can speak German. So by the time that WWII came along most German-Americans were so disenfranchised with their culture that they no longer saw them selves as Germans but where in stead were Americans." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cga1661" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "A few of the most famous examples of Roman religious syncretism are the cults of Isis, Mithras, and Sulis.\n\nIsis was an Egyptian goddess of magic and mother of Horus, God of the Pharaoh. She was an incredibly important figure in the Egyptian pantheon so it's no small wonder that her cult thrived under the rule of the Ptolemies after Egypt was conquered by Alexander of Macedon in the 4th century BCE. When Cleopatra died and Octavian claimed Roman conquest over Egypt, slowly the cult of Isis began to take hold. Her cult would later become wildly popular amongst the Romans in Egypt, who would spread it far and wide. A large temple to Isis was even found as far north as Londinium, thousands of miles from her original home on the banks of the Nile.\n\nSpeaking of Roman Britain, one of the Romans most effective methods of conquest was extremely passive, that is to say they imposed no religious doctrine on their recently conquered peoples. Rather, they attempted to find common grounds between the native deities and their own. A god called Sulis had a large following within the north of Roman Britain, near what is currently the city of Bath. Sulis shared many properties with the Roman goddess of war and wisdom Minerva, so the Romans stuck them together and called the deity Sulis Minerva. In this way not only did the Romans assuage any fears of Roman imposition of religious practice, but they also helped introduce those practices passively. Scholars have argued this was almost a more effective tactic than military might for ensuring conquered peoples stayed Roman (although the issue is far more complicated than that).\n\nSpeaking of the military, the cult of Mithras was hugely popular with them, and with the military being found in all corners of the Empire, it's no surprise that cults to Mithras are also found everywhere in the Empire. Mithras was originally a Zoroastrian deity from the near East who was implanted throughout the empire by those same soldiers, and the cult spread from there. Mithraism is a highly structured religion, with seven levels of religious initiation. This highly rigid rank structure mirrored the rank structure the soldiers were already familiar with in the Army and provided yet more incentive for promotion (one has to wonder if an experienced Mithraic infantryman had the potential to exercise power over his newly initiated commanding officer). Mithras was also a warrior and sun deity, the symbolism and significance of which also mirrored the desires and lifestyles of the Roman military. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cktcpzi" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "During a campaign, an officer was generally allowed a small Wagon to carry personal effects and anything necessary for his work in the field. This would range from a tent and necessary notes to liquor and personal reading. Naturally the higher the rank the more you'd be able to have bit the more you'll also need for your own command (maps, rosters, etc). \n\nThe main people to have a Wagon would be *chief De batalion* whom commanded a battalion (the smallest unit of independent command) on up. High ranking commanders would get a larger baggage train as they'd be allowed more personal effects and need more things relevant to their command.\n\nHowever one thjng that officers were not allowed to have was wives. While this wasn't allowed, this didn't mean that it did not happen. Generally wives never accompanied commanders, commanders would take mistresses (such as Marshals Soult and Massena during their command of the Pininsular campaign).\n\nAs for horses, generally officers would be on horseback while moving but leading from the front (if that was their choice as not all commanders were the ideal leaders like Lannes or Oudinot) on foot. The reason of not being on horse has more to do with being a larger target for sharpshooters and the chance of having a horse (expensive for a lower ranking officer) dying and even falling on you if you're on it when it dies.\n\nI hoped this helped, for more information on the organization of the French Army I'd recommend looking at Swords Around A Throne by John Elting, a very accessable and cheap book." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "crqhqtz", "crr38fl" ], "score": [ 4, 2 ], "text": [ "This is a somewhat controversial topic within the Syriac christian community. Basically there are two main schools of thought: those who identify as Assyrians and descendants from the ancient Assyrians and those who identify as Arameans and their descendants. I will let someone with the 'Assyrian' origin point of view post that since I'm not as well versed in their various arguments but I will provide you with the basic 'Aramean' origin arguments, however first I'm going to go on a slight tangent that is necessary for this topic. Up till the 20th century, the Syriac Christians called themselves in Arabic 'Suryani' which originally meant 'Syrian'. Suryani was not only a term exclusive to Christians but also exclusive to those Christians not of Arab ancestry (the arabs christians were usually Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, or Maronite). During the 20th century however, nationalist ideals started among the Arab Christians of 'Al-Sham'(the Arab term for the Levant meaning \"land of the North\"), and at the helm of this nationalist movement was Antun Saddeh, a Greek Orthodox arab christian. In his movement, the arab christians who identified as 'al-shami' (meaning arab of al-sham), started to adopt the name 'suri' an invented term that was equated with Syrian in English therefore causing great confusion. The 'Suryani' response was to change the translation from Syrian to Syriac. So for the purposes of this post I will be using Syriac, and take in mind that it means 'Suryani', unless I specify that I mean the Syriac language.\n\nThe main idea of the Aramean origin argument goes as this: The Syriac christians, are descendants of the people called Arameans, a group of northwestern semites closely related to the Hebrew and Phoenicians, who during the bronze age collapse settled the land they called Aram. Later on, due to outside influences, namely Greek confusion on the matters of the people they saw as barbarians as they saw all non-Greeks, the name 'Syria' was invented either from a)the Coptic word for Hurrians translated to Greek or b)the Luwian-Hittite word for Assyrians translated to Greek (note that despite there being a greek word for Syrian, the Greeks also had a word for Assyrian, therefore complicating the matter even further). During this confusion the Greeks and later on the Romans would use the name 'Syria' without any solid meaning to refer to people of the near east/fertile crescent region who spoke aramaic. However, during that time, the Arameans continued to identify as Arameans until a gradual process started that was most likely in tandem with the rise of Christianity(which was after all spread by Hellenized Jews who spoke Greek), where they started to called themselves 'Syriac' in their native Aramaic. Eventually, the term 'Syriac' would be used to apply exclusively to the people of Aramean ancestry. So the name Syria would be applied to the former lands of Aram, which makes sense since the Syriac Church was based in Antioch, a city nowhere near ancient Assyria. So due to the fact that Arameans adopted the name 'Syriac', anyone who identified as such was an Aramean whether or not they came from areas like Mosul or Nineveh which thousands of years earlier were considered the Assyrian heartland. They back this up with evidence that during the Iron Age, Arameans settled in large numbers in the Levant and a region of Mesopotamia called Aram-Nahrain (Nahrain meaning \"of the rivers\", possibly a callback to the bronze age kingdom of Mitanni which was from the same area of Mesopotamia, that was called Nahrain by some peoples), which was just north of the Assyrians. The Assyrians on several occasions held massive deportations of Arameans (as well as other peoples such as Jews), not out of the empire, but into its capital. It is claimed that Aramean numbers grew so large that Aramaic replaced Akkadian, and Arameans grew to outnumber the native Assyrians. The origin of the modern Assyrian identity would be in the works of 17th/18th(not sure which one) century western missionaries who upon finding the Syriac christian communities of Iraq, claimed based on archeological grounds that they must be the descendants of the ancient Assyrian, confusing the meaning of 'Suryani'.\n\nLet me know if anything needs clarification, however, I will restate that I expect someone else to post the Assyrian side of this, as I do not want to misrepresent my post as one sided.", "There's a mod on here that supports the continuation of the modern Assyrians from the ancient Assyrians: /u/Daeres \n\nHere are some of his excellent posts:\n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_4_\n\nHere's a quote from the last thread:\n\n > \"One thing to bear in mind is that even before Assyria became an Empire, it was the largest state in the Near East. Many of its capitals were destroyed when the Empire was toppled, but several of its major centres continued to be active. Even reduced in size and strength, and without political control, there were still a lot of Assyrians- it was a state capable of raising a standing army of 80,000 Assyrians by about 900-800 BC. We know that worship of Ashur at the city of Assur was still going on before the Arab conquest. That means that the Assyrian identity had survived for 1200 years after the fall of their Empire. It's now about 1400 years since then.\n > \n > Given how many cultures have assimilated or vanished in that 2600 years, I'm just grateful that Assyrians aren't gone from the world.\"\n > \n\nAnd here's a great post about the Arameans from another historian:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nShort post about \"Syrian vs. Assyrian\":\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEdit: Fixing a link." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2u5p7f/is_there_a_difference_between_assyrian_and_syriac/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2zcvnq/what_is_the_history_of_the_arameans_when_was/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10qocs/were_the_assyrians_victim_to_a_culturewide/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17h4d9/what_was_the_significance_of_the_name_change_of/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10m94x/friday_freeforall_sept_28_2012/c6eo627" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cj6gc6b", "cj6gihl" ], "score": [ 18, 9 ], "text": [ "Let's assume that Hernando Pizarro was telling the truth about the size of the ransom and that all the promised ransom was received. Here is the description from Hernando Pizarro \n\n > for that he could give them ten thousand plates, and that he could fill the room in which he was up to a white line, which was the height of a man and a half from the floor. The room was seventeen or eighteen feet wide and thirty-five feet long.\n\nWe'll start with the room. Assuming that the average height of a man was 5 feet, that would make the volume of the room to the line 17ftx35ftx7.5ft. 4462.5 cubic feet. One cubic foot of gold weights 1206 lbs so the total amount in the room would have been, accounting for open space, less than 5,381,775 lbs of gold. There is approximately 280,000,000 lbs of gold above ground in the world. So that would make it about 1.9%. \n\n[Here](_URL_1_) is a picture of silver Incan plates, let's assume the gold ones Pizarro describes are the same size. They are not very big, so let's put their weight at 2 pounds. That would add 20,000 lbs of gold to the ransom which even at 10 lbs a plate is a negligible amount compared to the world's gold supply.\n\n* Sources: \n* _URL_2_\n* _URL_0_\n* _URL_3_\n", "According to my copy of 1491, the room Atahualpa filled was 22 feet by 17 feet, and it was filled to a height of 8 feet.\n\n[According to the BBC](_URL_0_), the total amount of gold in the world is about 67^3 feet^3.\n\nIf you assume that the room was filled by a solid block of gold, it works out to be a little less than 1% of the current gold supply. Of course, there was probably much less gold than that - many objects, like cups, are mostly empty space, and the objects wouldn't have been perfectly packed in there. I think you can reasonably say that the amount of gold Atahualpa was ransomed for was somewhere between .0001% and 1% of the current world supply, and is probably closer to the range of .01% to .001%." ] }

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[ [ "http://greenanswers.com/question/how-much-gold-circulation-world/", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Silver_plates_and_gold_beaker,_Peru,_Chimu_and_Inca_-_Staatliches_Museum_f%C3%BCr_V%C3%B6lkerkunde_M%C3%BCnchen_-_DSC08503.JPG", "http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Pizarro.html", "http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_one_cubic_inch_of_gold_weigh" ], [ "http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21969100" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ctyk9m5" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The so-called 'Order of the White Feather' was created in Britain in 1914 by a former admiral, and essentially involved handing out 'white feathers' to anyone, specifically men, not seen as supporting the war effort, ie not enlisting. Some British women's organizations handed out feathers, an act that symbolizes 'cowardice' on the part of the receiver and which predated WWI. However, they seem to have been a minority, [with Stephen Badsey indicating that most references to them he's seen from the time being in the context of complaints against their activities.] (_URL_0_) It would seem their activities were curtailed, and by 1915 Compulsion had been introduced under the Derby Plan, and eventually Conscription was introduced at the beginning of 1916. The appearance of the White Feather seems to have died out by 1916, which seems to suggest a correlation with Conscription being enacted.\n\nIt's also worth noting that few men before conscription enlisted purely on compulsion; the Derby Plan netted 80 000 in 1915, the roughly same number as that of volunteers in August 1914. [Compare this again to the over 100 000 men that volunteered in the first fortnight of September 1914, following the publishing of the Mons Dispatch.] (_URL_1_)\n\nIf you want some good sources on wartime Britain (1914-1918), I'd highly recommend *The Last Great War: British Society in the First World War* by Adrian Gregory, *A Kingdom United* by Catriona Pannell, *Myriad Faces of War* by Trevor Wilson and *Different Wars, Different Experiences* by Janet K Watson. " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziGow3CLalo", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W0657Bwn_A" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d7hk088", "d7hm99g", "d7jdwvo" ], "score": [ 3, 25, 2 ], "text": [ "Follow up, when did the Byzantines stop using Latin and changed to more Greek names?", "That depends on the time period and location. Up until around the sixth century, you can see a lot of emperors having Latinate names, like Flavius Sabbatius Iustinianus (not that I'm biased!), Constantinus, or Iulianus. Later, more Hellenic names appear, like Basileios the Bulgar-Slayer or Alexios Komnenos. It's worth noting that those two are usually anglicized and latinized, respectively, as Basil and Alexius Comnenus. Now, since the Byzantine heartland was around the southern Balkans and Anatolia, Greek names would dominate the lower classes in much of the Empire. At its further reaches, one could also find Slavs, Armenians, Arabs, and others. Furthermore, in Constantinople there existed a large Italian presence thanks to the merchant republics. \n\nAgain, though, you're asking about a period of roughly a thousand years and an area covering much of the eastern Mediterranean. It's hard to generalize. ", "**Background** (to build upon /u/EMPEROR_JUSTINIAN_I) Historically Hellenes practiced mononomia (meaning they only had one given name, i.e. Alexander or Pericles). Typically those names would have two components just like Germanic names. In addition with the long recorded history of Greeks and Hellenes there was a wide record of possible names to give to your child. After the Roman conquest, Greek Roman citizens use a mix of the Roman trianomia (usually the praenomen and nomen of their first sponsor) using their Greek name as cognomen. With the declining use of the trianomina among Roman citizen starting the 4th century BC, Greeks simply reverted back to mononomia in their own language. By the 6th century, even in Latin record of the ERE most individual are only identified by their given name, only old senatorial families keep alive the practice of multinomina.\n\n\nOne of the most important factor in the change of naming conventions among Hellenes is obviously Christianity bringing both names from the Bible, and names related to Christian concept or affiliation (i.e. Theophilos or Christophoros). Side note: some major Latin names made their way into Greek (most notably Constantine), while Greek gave many Christian name to Latin speakers.\n\n\n*So what about the 13th century:* If you look at the Palaiologos line, you see names heavily influence by Christianity, both names from the Bible and theophoric names. But some classic Greek names remain too (Andronicus in this case). This is a feat that is also present in the west with Germanic names coexisting along side Latin/Christian names in the same family (the Capet dynasty of France mostly used Charles, Louis, Robert for their sons since the 10th century, names which are all Germanic but later they also started to used Philippe (i.e. Philip) a very old Greek name, and later Jean (i.e. John)). The 13th century is also a complicated time for the Empire falling to the Latin in 1204. So it is very likely that at some level Germanic or Latin names penetrated into the Greek culture among the lower classes at least for a time. Another interesting things is the use of several family names in the mobility to demonstrate lineage (especially in relation to the former imperial lines), when the West was only starting to spread the use of family names for the commoners." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cw9utx8" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "The Polish army was strong for a country of its economical development - it was well trained and equipped with modern arms. However, they were unable to stand up to the full power of a grand power such as Germany, and even less the power of two grand powers (Germany and the Soviet Union).\n\nThe Soviet-Polish war and the Polish gains in it earned it the enmity of the Soviet Union. It already had the enmity of Germany due to existing partially on previously German land that the Germans wanted back. It also had the enmity of Lithuania, since it had annexed the city of Vilnius and the area around it.\n\nCzechoslovakia and Poland also had a strained relationship, since Czechoslovakia had used the timing of the Polish-Soviet war to grab the contested area of Teschen from Poland.\n\nPoland had friendly relations with Romania and France though.\n\nAs you can see from this, the Polish-Soviet war placed Poland in a strategic and diplomatic vice from which it could not escape. Once Germany and the Soviet Union came to an agreement, there was very little the Poles could do to change their situation." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "donmmbz" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "There was a legal question regarding whether or not the state of enslavement could exist on British soil. The situation was ambiguous, and certain West Indian plantation owners did bring slaves back to Britain with them, as personal valets/maids and the like. However, it became increasingly common, as the 18th century progressed, for enslaved persons to bring a legal challenge against their 'owners' in the courts, to claim their freedom and avoid being sent back to the harshness of plantation life. The earliest such case was in 1690. Judgements varied - there are cases of enslaved persons being granted their liberty, sometimes permanently and sometimes temporarily; as well as cases where the state of enslavement was confirmed rather than overturned.\n\nThe most high-profile case of this type was that of James Somersett, a slave 'owned' by a Boston government official, with whom he travelled to Britain. (This is at a point where the US is still a British colony, just about). Somersett escaped, but was recaptured and sent aboard a ship bound for Jamaica. A suit for his release was brought by abolitionist campaigners, and after a lengthy deliberation, the judge Lord Mansfield determined that Somersett had the right not to be forcibly removed from the country against his will. Crucially, he did not rule that slavery on British soil was illegal, but it was interpreted this way by many slaves and masters alike.\n\nSo, in short, the number of enslaved black people in the UK was always tiny, due largely to the fact that their ambiguous legal status there meant that their 'owners' risked losing their slaves via legal mechanism. There was a small community of free black people in 18th century Britain, primarily of former slaves who had been granted freedom - the writer Olaudah Equiano was one, as were Francis Barber (the servant and heir of the writer Samuel Johnson), and Ignatius Sancho. It's estimated that there were around 15,000 black people living in London by the end of the 18th century, although these numbers are difficult to fully reconstruct because racial identity is not always recorded in datasets such as parish registers." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eabls1v" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I'm honestly more curious about horse names " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dhnered" ], "score": [ 26 ], "text": [ "Sorry, other poster is dead wrong, tomatoes were eaten fresh only rarely before the invention of commercial canning, getting down on fresh tomatoes is a pretty modern thing, your pre-canning tomato breeds would not make for tasty fresh eating, pretty acidic. But they were certainly preserved, it's a smart question you've asked! What they did was make a paste of tomatoes, called conserva. [I have previously written here about how they made (and make!) conserva,](_URL_0_) including a video! \n\nHowever, in the era of conserva (and in Italy today, depending on region of course) tomatoes were a minor vegetable. For a little on how the tomato came to be seen as #1 Most Italian Food, [read here.](_URL_1_) (Despite it not being my specialità at all, I've apparently made myself a little side career in tomato history here, because people ask about it so often!) " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3xubkl/comment/cy7z4al", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fcqkd/comment/ck8dirc" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ciktbqu" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "This is a difficult question to answer, due to the size of the empire and how different regions reacted differently to the decline of Roman authority, but generally I would say that though decline was visible in the West, it was a gradual one. In the Eastern Mediterranean, not much has changed at all - Egypt was as prosperous as ever, fringe areas such as the Negev desert or the Limestone Massifs in Syria were still densely populated and cities continued to grow in size. In the East, the economy and the empire were as vigorous as ever. Even in the West, things weren't so grim. Vandal Africa for instance was still very productive and Chris Wickham has suggested that Roman taxation system didn't collapse there because they were reverting to a more 'barbarian' form of rule, it was because the Vandal elites were getting so rich from confiscated estates that they didn't need the Roman taxation system any more. \n\nThere is plenty of evidence that the West declined in material terms of course, with Bryan Ward-Perkins' book *The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization* being a very accessible overview of the archaeological evidence - tiled roofs, which were available to all Romans, even the poorest peasants, disappeared when Roman rule disappeared, and more generally, expensive and complex pottery became rarer and can only be found in a few ports in the Western Mediterranean, rather than widespread as before. Britain in particularly declined significantly, as it was a fringe province anyway - things such as patterned mosaics (a very Roman form of decoration) generally arrived a century after they reached Gaul, a much more Romanised province. When Roman authority disappeared, the integrated trade networks connecting cities and provinces faded away too, as there was no centralised bureaucracy overseeing the distribution of goods or friendly armies protecting the means of exchange. Instead, locals had to make do with local goods, with only the elite still capable of procuring luxury goods abroad. \n\nHowever, though there was a decline in material prosperity, there wasn't a collapse of civilisation. People liked the things they had, and even if there was no longer an emperor ruling over them, they wouldn't abandon the things they were used to. The 'barbarian' Franks, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals that took over the western provinces of the empire were all used to the Roman way of life, and they didn't want to lose all its advantages either. Above all, there was still a Roman Empire for them to look up to - the emperor in Constantinople was still an awe-inspiring figure and we have letters from Francia and Ostrogothic Italy all clamouring for titles and recognition from the East. Rome was very much alive after 476 and post-Roman warlords recognised that. They all made an effort to keep in place local elites, such as local senators and bishops, to secure their rule. These tribes were never the majority in any given province and they needed to placate the local Romanised population. In Italy for instance the Senate still met, the Romans manned the bureaucracy and education was kept at a high standard. The same was less true in Francia and Visigothic Spain, due to warfare and the less integrated economy they had, but the decline in Roman institutions was slow and generally unwanted, since Roman institutions and luxury goods were good things that leaders didn't want to destroy. \n\nLet me know if you have any more questions :)" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdjpbdl", "cdju015" ], "score": [ 9, 3 ], "text": [ "Jesus is his name as passed through a number of transitions through other languages. The original Hebrew or Aramaic name would be something like Yoshua.\n\nSome modern groups make a big deal of calling Jesus by his \"real\" name. Earlier centuries didn't worry about that though. It was common for names of biblical figures, foreign royalty, etc to be changed into a fitting form in your own language. Mary wouldn't be Mary either, but more like Maryam, with the \"a\" as in \"hard\". Medieval kings were known by many different names: Charles would also be Karl, Carlos, Karel... the view that there is exactly one version of a name that is the proper name is a rather modern idea.", "His name would be something like Yeshua, meaning \"Yahweh is salvation\" or \"Yahweh's salvation.\" Names with this meaning are pretty common in the Hebrew Bible. Joshua, Elisha, and Isaiah are all variants of it, using different prefixes or suffixes to refer to god's name. \n\nIsa may have come by way of the Greek form Iesous." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cevwgmr", "cew62fj" ], "score": [ 26, 2 ], "text": [ "I wouldn't say I'm an expert on the Germanic tribes, but having read fairly extensively on Caesar, Varus and Germanicus, I can give you some background.\n\nThe Romans actually did a pretty good job of whipping German butt. At the end of the first century BCE, Tiberius (soon to be emperor) and his legates had done a damn fine job extending Roman borders East of the Rhine and North of the Danube rivers. So much so, they declared the tribes there pacified. Tiberius peaced out to go and deal with an Illyran revolt and Varus, a former governor of Africa and Syria was appointed to watch over these lands with three legions (soon to be extremely infamous legions).\n\nEnter Arminius, a commander of auxiliary German forces during the roman subjugation, a roman citizen AND a Germanic Prince of the recently subdued Cherusi? tribe. He was a sneaky fucker. Playing off Varus' lust for political glory and his own ambition to unite the German tribes, Arminius convinced Varus to march north with his legions to proactively subdue a rebellion (which he was organising).\n\nVarus being impetuous and also extremely trusting of Arminius (they had been bros for ages), rallied his troops. The legions were the 17th, 18th and 19th and took off toward modern day Mainz to expand the borders further and expand Varus' political penis. \n\nWhat followed was the greatest ass kicking the Romans would receive since Cannae... The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.\n\nLed down a narrow trail, which according to Cassius Dio, had been ravaged by storms, the Romans were ambushed. Unable to properly form up and completely cut off from a retreat, the three legions were harassed and slaughtered all day and night as they made a cannonball run down the trail in a doomed attempt to punch free of the hell they found themselves in. I get chills thinking about how horrifying that experience would've been. Some estimates put the Roman losses at 6000 to 1, but these figures are highly disputed... though they do give you an idea of how utterly obliterated they were getting.\n\nThe 17th, 18th and 19th standards were lost. Rome was shamed. Apparently Augustus never lived it down and was often found mourning the lost up until the day he died.\n\n\"QUINTILIUS VARUS! GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS!\" ... Awesome.\n\nIt ended Roman dominion in Germania and pretty much Roman expansion in general.\n\nGermanicus was tasked with retrieving the standards years later and did so, because Germanicus was one of the baddest motherfuckers to ever Don the purple. You don’t get renamed Germanicus Gaius Julius Caesar for eating grapes and having orgies.\n\nEssentially, to answer your question - the Romans didn't have a problem fighting the Germans, they were actually quite successful, having administered victorious campaigns both before and after Varus... But Varus' complete and total defeat at Teutoburg was so haunting, the Romans wanted nothing to do with the place. So much so the 17th, 18th and 19th legions were never risen again, instead those numbers were left to rot in the mud of the Black Forest forever, as a reminder to Rome of its shame. \n\nI also think we see the Germanic tribes as implacable because culturally, the Romans chose to remember them that way - as seen in your Tacitus quote\n\nEdit: I shot a lot of this from the hip from my mobile- can tidy it up tomorrow/others can call me on my bs.", "The first thing to be acknowledged (in regards to your quotation) is that Tacitus mention of a “fight for liberty” (duly opposed to the Persian despotism) is hardly a suitable explanation. There are two traditions in Roman historiography regarding the depiction of barbarian people: they can be either (and sometimes, both) (i) animalised or (ii) praised for their unsullied virtue. Tacitus, though he exhibits features of the first, is well-known for having used quite heavily the second process to criticise indirectly the Roman empire (a similar (and more radical) take-on the same theme can be found in an interesting work of the 5th century, *De gubernatione Dei,* by Salvian of Marseille). The consequence of this is that he tends to mix ethnographical considerations with moral (in its original sense) subtext.\n\nHowever, his opinion does have some historical ground. The Romans' relations with Germanic people began before the annexation of Gaul, and they were not exactly to the advantage of Rome. Most notably, several legions had been defeated by a massive migration coming from the North, which aggregated several Germanic tribes (the best-known of which are the Cimbri; it also included the Teutones, whose ethnic name has had a surprising fortune). The defeat of Arausio (Orange, in southern France) was particularly humiliating, and resulted in the death of several legions; sources (such as Livy, 67.1) point to a body count higher than in Cannæ. This first encounter arguably gave the Germans a durable aura, even though later engagements were to favour Roman troops (*e.g.* against Ariovistus: Iulius Caesar, *Commentarii de Bello…,* 1.50). A recension of victories and defeats is not the good way to think about these events; for the Romans, winning was the normal thing to do. A people that managed to crush Roman troops was a force to be reckoned with.\n\nIt is also true that individual Germans were considered to be worthy warriors. It is hard to know what to do of such an assertion; fierceness is a traditional feature of barbarian people in Roman representations, and the more barbarous you are, the best fighter you are (actually, there might be some truth in this idea) [1]. Germanic societies, before they came in contact with the Romans, were fragmented in several small tribes, which must have known a good deal of infighting, therefore guaranteeing a constant military training. It must also be underlined that a good part of the male population of a given tribe must have taken part in these fights; this is the reason why Germanic coalitions succeeded in fielding troops that matched the Roman Empire's, even though their lands were far less populated than, say, Italy or (the province of) Africa.\n\nA final element of importance is that tribal societies were much harder to control and conquer than “states.” The Roman troops had no problem in conquering the Hellenistic west: they only had to topple the local king (sometimes the ruler went as far as bequeathing his kingdom to Rome!) and to replace his bureaucrats by their own (often by recycling members of the former élite). On the other hand, if you vanquish a tribe (or even wipe it out), you still have to deal with numerous neighbours. Indirect control is also harder, because you have to deal with multiple actors. And even if you manage to exercise some kind of overlordship over the area, revolts are probable — much more than in societies where people are used to be submitted to distant powers (a good example for the Germans would be, in Tacitus, the account of the revolt of the Batavi, in 69 AD (*Annals*, 4.15 and sq. [2]).\n\n*Voilà* for the Republic and the early empire. The picture is different in later periods: Roman influence (in the guise of subsidies, army recruitment, trade) had contributed to a concentration of power in the Germanic world, and therefore to the apparition of larger confederations. There was still an outstanding military culture amongst the Germans, arguably more threatening than before, but the gradual evolution towards vast entities and the increasing levels of social stratification had changed the situation.\n\n[1] A striking illustration of this view: “the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind.” (Iulius Caesar, *Commentarii de Bello…* 1.1)\n[2] Also famous for being the first account of someone being raised on a shield as a coronation rite." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ds5qfot" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "you should also try to ask this over at r/askanthropology but the current thinking is that the mammoth would be butchered where it fell. Bison (*Bison bison*), were much smaller and they tended to be butchered where they fell as well. There is a paper where they experimented by butchering a dead zoo elephant but I don't have my memory stick with me at the moment so I can't give you a reference, will try add it later" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c6u470l", "c6u4xjm" ], "score": [ 5, 4 ], "text": [ "hurricanes were not 'tracked' in the 17th and 18th centuries. There was little understanding of cyclonic storms and no means of instantaneous communications. A track could be made well after the fact, but that was not 'tracking' in the sense we use the word today.\n", "Astrology attempted to predict hurricanes and other \"acts of God\" by setting horoscopes to determine the position of the planets and their influence on the earth below. Of course, they weren't very accurate, but they *were* trying." ] }

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[ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1780_Atlantic_hurricane_season" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cwr1ind" ], "score": [ 36 ], "text": [ "generally speaking, pre-existing towns or settlements weren't renamed, and san francisco is the exception. [according to the 1847 ordinance changing the name of the town,](_URL_0_) \"yerba buena\" was renamed \"san francisco\" to prevent confusion. [look, for instance, at this 1839 American map of the US and Mexico-- the settlement of yerba buena is mislabeled as \"st. francisco,\"](_URL_4_) but the other dots on the map of california generally correlate with their modern names. [see also this 1846 map,](_URL_1_) where most settlements (except for modern sacramento) have recognizable names-- and the settlement on san francisco bay is called \"san francisco\" by the cartographers rather than its proper name of \"yerba buena.\"\n\nthere was no wholesale renaming. don't forget that a sizeable number of mexicans living in california flipped over to the american government during the mexican war. i'll turn it over to a previous post i made, detailing the chaotic conditions in mexico that led to californios going over to the american side:\n\n[Copy-pasted from a previous reply](_URL_2_):\n > [in addition to the internal warfare over control over the government, major portions of the country tried to secede.](_URL_3_) while the republic of the rio grande and the republic of yucatan never really got off the ground, texas managed to successfully beat back the mexican army and gained its independence in 1836.\n\n > california was not excluded from this political turmoil, and several mexican governors ended up getting being violently removed-- california governors micheltorena, gutierrez and victoria were all deposed by violent revolt. mexico was doing so badly at the time that multiple former mexican governors of california actually were in favor of being annexed by foreign powers. the relative stability brought by the americans was welcomed by a significant portion of californio society, including mariano vallejo, the richest man in california. many of the rest, like former mexican governors andres pico and pio pico, ended up staying on after the switch to american control and remaining prominent citizens. (andres pico, for instance, was elected to the california legislature and served in the state militia after the americans took over.) \n\ngiven this chaos, and the defection of large numbers of the californio elite, it's not surprising that the names stayed in place. i have a handy table of the spanish, english, and modern names of the places marked, too, from north to south.\n\nSpanish name | English name (1846 map) | Modern city\n---|---|----\nNueva Helvetia | New Helvetia | Overtaken by the adjacent City of Sacramento in the 1800s\nYerba Buena | San Francisco | San Francisco\nMisión Santa Clara de Asís | Santa Clara | Santa Clara\nPueblo San José de Guadalupe | San Jose | San Jose\nMonterey | Monterey | Monterey\nMisión San Miguel Arcángel | San Miguel | San Miguel\nMisión San Luis Obispo de Tolosa | San Luis Obispo | San Luis Obispo\nMisión La Purísima Concepción | La Purissima | Lompoc (named after the local ranch rather than the mission)\nMisión Santa Bárbara | Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara\nMisión San Buenaventura | San Buenaventura | Ventura (but the official name is still San Buenaventura)\nMisión San Fernando Rey de España | San Fernando | Mission Hills (neighborhood of Los Angeles); the City of San Fernando is less than a mile away\nPueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula | Pueblo de los Angelos | Los Angeles\nMisión San Juan Capistrano | San Juan | San Juan Capistrano\nMisión San Luis Rey de Francia | San Luis | Oceanside (mission seized by the U.S. Army until 1865 and fell into disuse)\nMisión San Diego de Alcalá | San Diego | San Diego" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist/name.html", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/1846_Mitchell's_Map_of_Texas_Oregon_and_California_-_Geographicus_-_TXORCA-mitchell-1846.jpg", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2xtspe/after_the_us_won_the_mexicanamerican_war_was/cp3ihiq", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Mexico_states_evolution.gif", "http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/us_texas-1839-atlas-mitchell-school-04.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d7amsp3" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I quite enjoyed: Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage Books, 1999).\n\nIt covers one of the earlier conflicts to take place and explores some of the different perspectives and sources on the conflict." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dnxjcpr" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Hey there!\n\nYou're right that it's not a commonly accepted theory, and for good reason. There's no evidence. Most arguments for it are based on \"We don't know anything about this era.. So it could be?\" This mentality hardly lends itself to any kind of scholarly research, which is based on making conclusions from observations. While I can recommend some good books in why the \"lost ancient super-civ\" trope is so prevalent in the West, or on what excavations reveal about the earth during the era of these hypothetical civs, if you would like, but I have never seen a book with anything resembling a scientific approach that takes ancient advanced civs seriously." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cxelbw0" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "After Simon Bolivar drove out the Spanish in South America, he was briefly president of much of Spanish-speaking South America. His vision was for it to be a united country. Other political factions felt differently.\n\nFurther north, Mexico and Central America were briefly united after independence -- they were all administered as part of New Spain by the Spanish. Then, modern-day Central America was united as one country for a bit before breaking up into different countries like it is today.\n\nThe reasons were different from place to place, but generally speaking, despite having the same language and some cultural similarities, there were too many different political factions, different local leaders who wanted power and not enough of a sense of national unity for these big federations to be workable in the long run." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cg7w0gu", "cg81mlp", "cg85axa", "cg8iel7" ], "score": [ 3, 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "There are no Greek Myths relating to the Persians or Persia directly. ", "I'm not aware of any specific myths involving the Persians but there are several involving the near east: Medea was an easterner, Troy was in modern turkey & hercules' travels took him through the middle east and India. \n\nAlso Herodotus' attempt to explain the origin of the Persian wars by drawing it back to the trojan wars. He was trying to show that the east v West conflict had ancient somewhat mythical origin.", "I'm not sure your characterisation of the Persians as 'arch-nemesis of the Greeks' is accurate.", "The replies so far are inaccurate. In fact, Herodotus (VII. 61) gives an etymology for the name of the Persians:\n\n > When Perseus son of Danae and Zeus had come to Cepheus son of Belus and married his daughter Andromeda, a son was born to him whom he called Perses, and he left him there; for Cepheus had no male offspring; it was from this Perses that the Persians took their name.\n\nPerseus is, of course, the hero of Greek mythology who famously killed the gorgon, Medusa, among many other things. Nothing else, however, is known about Perses. Later in Herodotus' narrative (VII. 150), the Persian king Xerxes I sent a herald to the Greek *polis* of Argos, the mythological birthplace of Perseus. The herald said: \n\n > Men of Argos, this is the message to you from King Xerxes. Perses our forefather had, as we believe, Perseus son of Danae for his father, and Andromeda daughter of Cepheus for his mother; if that is so, then we are descended from your nation. In all right and reason we should therefore neither march against the land of our forefathers, nor should you become our enemies by aiding others or do anything but abide by yourselves in peace. If all goes as I desire, I will hold none in higher esteem than you.\n\nSo, according to Herodotus, the Persians are descended from Perseus, and the Persian king himself used this myth in an attempt to win over a Greek city during the Persian Wars.\n\nNow, Herodotus is not a mythographer, and his *Histories* do not contain every Greek myth that existed. But these instances do show at least one myth that circulated in 5th century Greece concerning the Persians. Moreover, the philosopher Plato backs up Herodotus' statements. In *Alcibiades* I. 120e, Socrates says to Alcibiades:\n\n > Then let us consider, by comparing our lot with theirs, whether the Spartan and Persian kings appear to be of inferior birth. Do we not know that the former are descendants of Hercules and the latter of Achaemenes, and that the line of Hercules and the line of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus?\n\nScholars have presumed that Achaemenes and Perses were likely equated in Plato's mind, since the Persians called themselves the Achaemenid Dynasty, while the Greeks called them the Persians. Hence the two etymologies were conflated. Nonetheless, Perseus, and thus his father, Zeus, were the ancestors of the Persians according to Greek myths.\n\nSomewhat related is the tragedy *The Persians* by Aeschylus. It is not mythological in its content like the majority of Greek tragedy, but it does add an extra layer to the reception of the Persians in Greek storytelling. It recounts the situation of the Persian court in the capital receiving the news of their defeat at the hands of the Greeks. It is undoubtedly a very enlightening piece of Greco-Persian interactions." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dbbn5h3" ], "score": [ 16 ], "text": [ "\"Months to years, it depends\". Many of the famous Renaissance sculptures took between one and three years. Almost three years for Michelangelo's David (september 13th 1501-early spring 1504), about two for Moses, and almost two for the Pietá (1498). Donatello spent more than two years on each of Zuccone, Saint George and Saint Mark, working with several assistants.\n\nSources: _URL_0_\n\"Donatello: Sculptor\" by John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy" ] }

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[ [ "http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/vasari/vasari26.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ddxz7l5" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Hi, hopefully someone can drop by to help with something more specific, but you might find these resources helpful : the sub has a wiki for finding military records [here](_URL_0_). You might also try x-posting to /r/genealogy for more tips. " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/militaryrecords#wiki_germany" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "crm3z5r" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "There's a lot of talk on this and there's an idea here that many seem to struggle with greatly as it directly challenges this idea of \"trench warfare\" as a \"thing\". For each army it is different certainly so we'll speak for now only on the British and German side of things w.r.t. the Western Front. The French case is just a giant basket case of confusion but if you want to read on them in particular Robert Doughty's work *Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War* is **the** work on said matter. For the purposes of this post though I'll mainly be working off of Richard Holmes' *Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front*, Martin Middlebrook's *The Kaisers Battle*, and *Through German Eyes: The British & The Somme 1916* by Christopher Duffy. Holger Herwig's *The Marne: The Opening of World War I* is also a wonderful source on this matter.\n\nSo let's run over this. The war can be broken, roughly, into four phases:\n\n* **Summer 1914 - Winter 1914: The War of Movement**\n\nThe battles of this period would look distinctly Franco-Prussian War-esque in nature. In 1916 a Division General would have at his disposal 204 machine guns but in 1914 that number was 24 for 10,000 rifles. They were, in other words, very short on ordinance for the regular infantry and the doctrine reflected that of late 19th century warfare because of such. This would be dominated by what are so cleverly called skirmishing lines. Men would spread out with something of 3 meters on either side about 70 men long with the next row about 25 meters back. Further back, about 200-500 meters, the rest of the battalion would remain in column formation and send up \"waves\" to reinforce the skirmish line. \n\nThe combat of this period would not heavily rely on grenades nor mortars or light machine guns; notably because both sides had a distinct lack of such. Fire and maneuver and general suppression based warfare were the name of the game. A very fluid form of fighting to say the least. \n\n* **Spring 1915 - Fall 1916: Stagnation**\n\nA big issue with a lot of amateur WWI historiography is that people try to find all these tactical level reasons for why trench warfare developed. As if both sides just happened upon machine guns and blundered into it. We must remember, first and foremost, that trench warfare was an operational and strategic *decision* by the upper commands of *both* sides; almost a mutual agreement of sorts as a pause in the fighting benefited both tremendously. They soon found, however, that that pause became increasingly more difficult to break. The Germans had the benefit of choosing the most defensible positions in France/Belgium and thus were very, very, very well defended and the longer things went the more fortified their positions got. Same for the Allies.\n\nThis is where we go to infantry tactics. This is also when Kitcheners New Army and basically the B Team's of all armies started to swarm in; not the main force by any regards. These were, by and large, thoroughly untrained troops and non-battle hardened. Thus the skirmishing lines were tightened. It was perceived, and we can't divorce the infantry from the artillery here unfortunately, that the *artillery* did the fighting and the infantry *occupied already conquered land.* \n\nBy and large though there was no general doctrine for the British in particular; the first Tactical Manual appeared in March 1917 which we will talk about later. By and large it was up to Divisional commanders or even Battalion commanders to decide, on their own whim, how to conduct battle. For instance at the Somme General Rawlinson highly recommended/commanded that the soldiers do not advance behind the artillery barrage and only go over after the barrage has ceased to occupy the trenches (he did not want friendly fire); most of those who fought in the battle disregarded this and did very 1917/1918 looking tactics. They would travel shortly behind the barrage and strike the enemy trenches right as the barrage passed over to shock the enemy. \n\nThroughout 1916 we see an absolutely enormous increase of reliance on the bomb, or the grenade in other words. How a general trench assault would look like would be men advancing on a position while rifleman suppress the enemy. The Lewis Gun, which would now accompany at least every Platoon, would also contribute to this but in a lesser relied upon degree. The barbed wire would be cut while bombadiers laid to waste the enemy trenches. Grenades were how battles were fought by the infantry first and foremost above all else. Flamethrowers would be used in large mass as well as trench clearers; basically once things got into the trench it became a shitshow of brass knuckles, knives, clubs, flamethrowers, pistols, so forth. But leading up to that point? Grenades. Lots and lots and lots of grenades. \n\n* **Spring 1917 - Spring 1918: Defense in Depth**\n\nThroughout 1916 both sides would begin experimenting with a more fluid style of fighting; for the Germans this would culminate in creating specific divisions for specifically highly trained, highly experienced soldiers to perform deep infiltration missions; Stormtrooper tactics. For the British this meant evenly applying it across the *entire* army as a doctrinal overhaul. Far less sexy but, in the long run, far more effective. As more Lewis Guns got into circulation the reliance upon them would increase significantly; eventually every Section (15 men) of every Platoon (60 men) of every Company (240 men) of every Battalion and every Division and so on would have a Lewis Gunner while every man was trained to use it. \n\nThis document, which overhauled British doctrine and was their first tactical manual of the war, is called \"The Normal Formation for the Attack\" issued to the British General of Staff, February 1917. Some relevant bits:\n\n > *\" . . .the frontage of an Infantry Battalion in the trench-to-trench attack may range from 200 yards against a highly organized position, to 600 yards or more against one less highly consolidated.\"*\n\n. . .\n\n > *\". . .the rifle and bayonet and bomb [grenade], being the most effective offensive weapons, should be placed as far forward as possible, closely supported by the [rifle grenade](_URL_0_), which may be regarded as the \"howitzer\" of the platoon, and the Lewis Gun [portable machine gun], which is the weapon of opportunity.*\n\n > *Each platoon will, therefore, normally be disposed in two lines, bombers and riflemen in the front line, rifle grenadiers, and the Lewis Gun in the second line. These two lines will constitute one Wave . .\"*\n\n. . .\n\n > *\". . .[firstly] in the assault every man is a bayonet man, exceptiong No. 1 of the Lewis Gun, secondly, that every man in a bomber; and thirdly, that every man in rifle sections [14 privates + 1 lance-corporal] is also trained to be either a Lewis Gunner or a Rifler Grenadier, with a view to replacing casualties in men armed with those weapons.\"*\n\n. . .\n\n > *\". . .extensions between men . . .should usually be from 4 to 5 yards. . .The distance between lines should be from 15 to 25 yards . . . between waves from 50 to 100 yards.\"*\n\n. . .\n\n > *\"The assault may be carried out either by:*\n\n > *(i.) The leading wave going straight to the furthest objective, rear waves following it to the nearer objectives.*\n\n > *(ii.) The leading wave being directed to a near objective, rear waves passing through it to those further away, i.e. 'leap frog'.\"*\n\nIn other words? Sounds *a lot* like 1914 styled warfare but with a lot more nice toys. Thin skirmishing lines spread out; machine gunners would support the advance while rifle greandiers and bombadiers suppressed the enemy. \n\nSo how did the Germans respond? Well after the defeats at both the Somme and Verdun not only did they have significantly less manpower they also had a lot less leeway to risk on the front. In 1917 they would abandon what is called static defense for what is called defense in depth; in other words they would abandon the notion of not losing an inch of ground to purposefully allowing land to be taken for the purpose of launching local counterattacks. The front would not be so hotly contested. Rather than thick mazes of trenches they would be replaced by pillboxes and foxholes/crater holes (functionally the same) littering the battlefield. Sporadic machine gun nests and a highly functioning logistical component allowed 'outposts' to signal enemy advance, 'advanced lines' to hold off the enemy long enough for local reserves to run up to the 'main line of defense', a static defense, and the 'advanced lines' to resist the enemy. Let them take the land, barrage the land behind them to restrict reinforcement and/or retreat, counterattack locally. \n\n* **1918: Last Resort**\n\nThe only real major doctrinal change that we would see in 1918, though it bears mentioning, is the German application of Stormtrooper tactics in the West. Basically it's the principal that if the weak positions are all taken by infiltrated, highly specialized forces then the strong positions are not so strong any longer but are isolated and weak. However the very strategic position Germany was in (and we can't divorce the tactical from the strategic here) did not allow them to advance as entire front as was preferred and what the British style of war was designed for. They were on their last leg; they had to penetrate *deep* and encircle the British and seize Paris. On top of all of that though they had no real support as they were deep infiltration units; so more often than not they were fighting without artillery support. On top of this all due to the rapid nature of their mission they *never actually hit those strong positions*; all they did was seize a bunch of strategically unimportant land." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ervjm9y" ], "score": [ 36 ], "text": [ "The answer to your question is no, and the best way to describe the linked comment is \"horribly wrong\". Horrible because it blames Spartan women for a development that was wholly the result of laws and customs drawn up, enacted, and enforced by Spartan men. Women's subjection to these laws and customs meant that they were routinely made to suffer countless horrors and indignities, including the complete loss of their reproductive autonomy. Most of the TIL thread consists of poorly understood anecdotes and rampant nonsense, but this comment is particularly awful, so I'm glad you asked about it here.\n\nIt is true that Classical Sparta went through a spectacular decline in citizen numbers. They started the period with about 8,000 adult male Spartiates and ended it with fewer than 1,000. But no scholar would blame this on the behaviour of women. They point to several other reasons, starting with the catastrophic earthquake of 465 BC which almost completely levelled the city. Success in war mostly kept combat losses low throughout the 5th century BC, but in the next century these really started stacking up, with hundreds of Spartiates lost in battles like Lechaion an Leuktra. But by far the most important reason was the property threshold for Spartan citizenship. In order to be a Spartiate, you had to pay your contribution to the common mess - a donation of wine and meat to share with your *syssitia* (tent group). If you could not afford to make this regular donation, you were stripped of your citizen rights. There is no evidence that it was possible to regain them once lost. In other words, the Spartan citizen body wasn't shrinking because Spartans were dying; it was shrinking because people were constantly being kicked out.\n\nThere were many reasons why most Spartiates were getting poorer and falling below the property threshold while a small cadre started to hold all the land and wealth. The earthquake and subsequent helot revolt, the uneven distribution of spoils of war, and the extreme favouritism inherent in the Spartan social system all played their part. But the main factor seems to have been the Spartan practice of partible inheritance. Unlike other Greek states, the Spartans divided their inheritance equally among all children - including women, whose inheritance usually took the form of a large dowry in her own name. The result was that estates were constantly splintering, and many sons found themselves unable to afford the social status that their fathers had held. \n\nMeanwhile, since women were under no similar obligation to pay mess dues, their status was more secure. Moreover, unlike elsewhere in the Greek world, they were allowed to own land. The result was that the richest men, but also the richest women, were able to gobble up the patchwork remains of many fragmented estates as the majority of the citizen population fell into poverty. Aristotle gleefully blames the decline of Spartan power on women owning property, but this is just an outsider's misogynist prejudice; the situation was not in any way their fault. The fact that by the 330s BC about 40% of Spartan land was held by women is a *symptom* of the problem, not the problem itself.\n\nThe Spartans, however, didn't respond to the situation by reforming their inheritance system or changing their property requirements, but by encouraging Spartiates to have more children. At some point in the 4th century BC, it became punishable for a man to be unmarried; there were sanctions against childless marriages; having children was framed as a moral obligation to the state. It became permissible (or even mandatory; our sources don't agree) for old men married to young wives to select a favourite from among the younger Spartiates to father children on their behalf. It also became permissible (or mandatory) for men who didn't get along with their wives to ask other Spartiates if they could impregnate *their* wives instead.\n\nThis is where we see why the linked post is so profoundly wrong. A Spartan woman may have had a relative degree of autonomy in matters of property ownership and management, but she lived in an extremely patriarchal society, and men wrote the laws that shaped her life. In her late teens, she was made to marry a suitable Spartiate, who would be at least a decade older than her (and possibly much more). If her husband was too old or too disinterested in getting her pregnant, she was at the mercy of his choice of who might do so for him. If her husband was happy for an interested third party to try to get her pregnant, she had no choice but to accept it. Indeed, if her husband decided that *he* had provided the state with enough children already, he could decide to lease her remaining fertility to another Spartiate, and there was nothing she could do to protest it.\n\nIn other words, it's not just that Spartan women didn't have the freedom to decide whether or not to bear children; it's that the laws introduced in response to shrinking citizen numbers *deliberately took away what little reproductive autonomy they had* in order to fix the problem. The Spartan marriage ritual itself was focused entirely on producing children, and took a form that can only be described as traumatic: the bride was made to lay down in the dark, head shaved, alone, waiting for the groom to appear at a time of his choosing to tear off her clothes and drag her to bed. This would continue nightly until the bride was pregnant. The girl herself - aged perhaps 18 or 20 - was expected to play along with enthusiasm.\n\nThe final outrage of the linked post is the suggestion that wives would be rewarded if they gave birth to 3 sons. What Aristotle actually says is that when this happened, *the husband* would be rewarded with exemption from military service. If he produced a fourth son, he would be exempted from taxes as well. His wife never got anything. Indeed, as I've just described, she might be introduced to some stranger favoured by her husband who might want to get 3 sons of his own out of her womb.\n\nIn other words, women were not the cause of Sparta's declining number of citizens, but they were very explicitly the victim of Spartan measures to turn the tide. Blaming the demographic decline on the women reinforces a particularly heinous strand of socio-political thought, started by Aristotle, which suggests that giving women any rights or freedoms at all will lead to the inevitable collapse of society. It suggests that the way to \"fix\" the Spartan situation would have been to take away the limited, precious rights that women had in that society, as if they weren't already subject to the horrific exploitation of their bodies and lives for the purpose of birthing more Spartiates. A Spartan woman's only hope to gain control of her own reproductive system was for her husband to die, so she could live as a widow on her own estate. Until that happened, she was at the mercy of her husband and the cruel laws of Spartan society, which treated citizen women as little more than incubators for the children of citizen men.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nFor a quick overview of the relevant evidence, I used A.G. Scott, 'Plural marriage and the Spartan state', *Historia* 60.4 (2011), 413-424, and M.G.L Cooley's sourcebook *Sparta* (2017)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdpqf41", "cdpt9ga" ], "score": [ 21, 4 ], "text": [ "I feel this is a loaded question as Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands all consider homosexual activity perfectly legal. So perhaps the question should more focus on why Jamaica itself is so homophobic as being a British Colony past or present seems to not be a variable in the conversation. From what I can briefly turn up, it seems the compounded problem of poverty, lack of education, disease (HIV) and masculinity issues all tied in with religion. ", "I deleted this question because it deals with current events ('why *are*...) and not the past. You are asking why people are homophobic, and suggesting this is because they were former British colonies; the only possible historical answer would be to 'connect the dots' between those datapoints that you established, but these may not be the actual reasons why people in those specific countries are homophobic. This need to constrain a possible answer to a historic cause makes a question about the current state of the world (like yours) very unsuitable for our subreddit." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ceg63yb", "ceg82sj", "cegiw1x", "cehk2rg" ], "score": [ 71, 985, 9, 4 ], "text": [ "Tolkien was in many ways the father of modern fantasy as we know it. He is responsible for many of the aspects of fantasy that are see as commonplace or cliche today namley, orcs, Tolkien style elves and dwarves, dark lords (Melkor/Sauron) and many more. \n\nBeyond that however he popularized the concept of world building. Before him almost all fantasy (there are some exceptions) was very much set in our primary world. King Arthur's legend for example is mythical and full of fantasy yet set in ostensibly the real British Isles. What Tolkien did was create a secondary world (Arda) which was almost totally divorced from our primary world. He set out to create a world for his constructed languages (another thing he popularized in fantasy to some extent) and stories which was something rather unique. Nowadays worldbuilding is a key part of many fantasy authors process. Authors from George Martin to Gene Wolfe create their own secondary worlds to house their stories and I would argue it was Tolkien, as the most successful world builder of his time, that largely is responsible for this.\n\nIn additon the genre of Mythopoeia which concerns itself with the creation of artificial mythology (named for a poem by Tolkien written to C.S. Lewis about the importance of myth) was popularized by him and the Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings remain probably the most famous works in the genre. \n\nOn his influences you can see many things from Germanic myth such as names like Gandalf or the use of goblins and trolls and of course worms (dragons). You can see the influence of the old elegiac tradition in the longing for a the golden age of the world now long past and the progressive decline in magic and the strength and feats of men/elves through the ages of the world. The Rohirrim from Lord of the Rings are heavily based on Anglo-Saxon culture in their language, poems and naming. His Christian influences are also apparent and the concept of sub-creation stems from his religious beliefs. I suppose one could say he was influenced too by Greek myth. The story of the Fall of Numenor recalls that of Atlantis. The Valar too recall the Greek Olympian gods as much as the gods of Asgard from Germanic myth. \n\nI would say that without Tolkien the modern fantasy genre would look completely different. There have been so many imitators and those that seek to subvert the tropes that he established that I think it fair to call him at least one of the fathers of modern fantasy. ", "Tolkien is unquestionably the most influential figure in high fantasy, and I think it is not unreasonable to say that he and C.S. Lewis were the originators of the subgenre. The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings were both published during the mid-1950s. Earlier in their respective literary careers, Hobbit was published in 1937 and Perelandra in 1938, the former was not yet the fully-developed high fantasy of Lord of the Rings and the latter would be better described as science fiction. Tolkien and Lewis were good friends, of course, and often discussed their writings with each other.\n\nThe roots of Tolkien's works lie primarily in medieval writings, especially Anglo-Saxon poetry and Norse epics like Beowulf and the [Volsung Saga](_URL_5_). Influences from farther afield, including the Finnish national epic the [*Kalevala*](_URL_9_), show up from time to time in his writings as well. Tolkien was, of course, a professor of Anglo-Saxon (and later of English language & literature) at Oxford, and was interested in poetry and languages since at least his late teenage years. In addition to being one of the all-time best selling authors in human history, he was an accomplished linguist, literary critic, and translator. The Book of Jonah in the Jerusalem Bible was translated by Tolkien, he made a complete translation of Beowulf as well as a highly influential lecture on it entitled [*Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics*](_URL_0_), he did etymologies of Germanic W words for the Oxford English Dictionary, he wrote a vocabulary of Middle English, and he published translations of three Middle English poems: [*Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*](_URL_6_), [*Pearl*](_URL_11_), and [*Sir Orfeo*](_URL_1_). One particularly interesting aspect of Tolkien's writings, from a meta-literary perspective is that they are framed as a collection of writings which he discovered and translated from Elvish (Silmarillion and related works) and the Common Tongue of Middle Earth (the Red Book of Westmarch, written by Bilbo and Frodo-- the former of whom translated some Elvish source material for use in the book). Truly an irrepressible enthusiasm for philology. Also, if you read Lord of the Rings out loud to yourself, you will find many examples where Tolkien wrote sentences that pretty much could have been lines of [alliterative verse](_URL_2_), the style of Old and Middle English that many poems were written in, including Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo.\n\nTolkien believed the world suffered from disenchantment: that along with the modernization of the Industrial and Victorian eras had come a reduced sense of wonder at the world, and a diminished willingness to believe in the fantastic and the terrible. In his essay, [*On Fairy-Stories*](_URL_3_) (seriously, read it, it's great), he explained his views on faery-stories and the importance of fantasy and mythology. He felt that they had been tamed, that the connotation of \"fairy\" (he often used the spelling \"Faery\" or \"Faerie\"--the spelling was important to him, as a discriminating philologist) had become domesticated and defanged, something you would meet in your garden rather than a dark forest, something adorable rather than something which should make you tremble. He felt that such stories described the world on a spiritual plane in a way that mundane stories about the real world could not.\n\nWhile at secondary school in the early 1910s, Tolkien and his three closest friends (Rob Gilson, G.B. Smith, and Christopher Wiseman) formed a private club they called the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, or TCBS for short. They talked about many things, including philology and poetry, which they also wrote and read for each other. After graduating from the boarding school, they remained in contact and visited each other. All of them considered the TCBS to be the center of their intellectual lives. It was during this period and his subsequent university education at Oxford that the seeds of his world began to grow. In 1914, he wrote a poem called *The Voyage of Eärendel the Evening Star* (published in the Book of Lost Tales 2), which later evolved into the culminating episode of the *Quenta Silmarillion*. It was based on a line of Anglo-Saxon poetry by [Cynewulf](_URL_7_). Tolkien later wrote that the name Earendil struck him as one that he could write stories about.\n\nHis influence on fantasy is profound-- anything which has Orcs in it owes him for that invention, and anything with Elves or Dwarves (although both spellings exist prior to Tolkien, he is largely responsible for the thorough dominance of Dwarves and Dwarven rather than dwarfs and dwarfish) very probably owes him as well, since neither of those mythical beings had yet taken the well-defined shape that is present in Tolkien. Elves and Dwarves were ideas present in Norse/Germanic mythology, but their physical descriptions were generally quite vague or indeterminate, and \"elfs\" in particular could denote a wide variety of concepts of mythological beings, from frolicsome gnomes (which one can see in The Hobbit as well as some of Tolkien's earlier writing) to wicked spirits which are responsible for causing illnesses (a view represented in late medieval Britain). To [Snorri Sturluson](_URL_10_), the medieval Icelandic writer, dwarfs were dark-elves and light elves were what we might think of. In many cases both dwarfs and elves were thought of as simply beings which populated the unknown world on the periphery of human realms, hiding in mountain caves or deep forests, sometimes practically as animistic spirits, and rarely as the magnificent, ancient civilizations that Tolkien envisioned. Any time you see a representation of invariably bearded dwarves (which, let's be honest, is any time you see dwarves), you're seeing Tolkien's influence. Elves being the noble, cultured, ancient elder race is also attributable to Tolkien-- even in situations like the game Dragon Age, which another poster mentioned, where elves are a marginalized, formerly enslaved people, they were once much more powerful than humans. That game tries to buck a lot of standard high fantasy tropes (drawing on G.R.R. Martin's work in part), but the key point is that it still existed within a context where it doesn't even make sense to the player to use the word \"elves\" if they're not going to be a noble ancient race. Authors like Rothfuss and Martin have specifically said that they're trying to write something in high fantasy that *isn't* a rehash of Tolkien. I'm deeply sorry for the 20-year-rule violations, but the magnitude of Tolkien's influence is shown by the fact that until the last 20 years or so there were not many fantasy authors making a serious effort to do something wholly apart from Tolkien. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series had the first installment published in 1990 and was still clearly laden with Tolkien.\n\nAfter graduating from Oxford in 1915, Tolkien proposed to Edith Mary Bratt, married her in early 1916, and in the summer of 1916 shipped off to serve as a signals officer in the Great War that was then raging on the mainland-- a parting which caused both of them great distress, but it was just not very socially acceptable for a young, able-bodied man to refuse to serve in the war. He wrote the poem *Kortirion Among the Trees* while in a training camp in Britain in 1915-- Kortirion would later become the Elvish city on the isle of Tirion lying off the coast of Valinor. Besides disease and hostile shells, one of the chief dangers of the trenches was boredom. Tolkien's imagination had all the time it desired, and though it was nearly impossible to do any serious writing in the trenches, Tolkien nonetheless jotted down many an idea, which he would often expand upon during his time back from the trenches. \"You might scribble something on the back of an envelope and shove it in your back pocket, but that's all. You couldn't write.. you'd be crouching down among flies and filth.\" It was during this period that he first began to dream up the two languages that would become the Elvish languages [Quenya](_URL_4_) (which he worked on first) and [Sindarin](_URL_8_) (which came later, in 1917, as a derivative of Quenya). Earlier in his life he had played with inventing languages, but never so thoroughly (nor with such a grasp of linguistic change) as during the period immediately after WWI. His history of Arda (the world which includes Middle-Earth) began in part as an explanation of the historical migrations of the Elves that led to the linguistic relationship between Quenya and Sindarin. The other three members of the TCBS were aleady serving in WWI by the time Tolkien joined, and they stayed in correspondence with each other regularly, writing poetry to fill their time. Rob Gilson died in the first days of the Somme offensive, which weighed heavily on the surviving three. Also at the Somme, Tolkien witnessed the advent of the tank, which made a great impression upon him, serving as inspiration for the description of Balrogs and dragons overrunning the walls of the Elvish city of Gondolin. He began writing *The Fall of Gondolin*, the first prose story about Middle-Earth in 1917 on the back of some military sheet music. The poems he had written prior to that point tended to become incorporated into the legendarium later on, but did not begin as poems about this other world.\n\n(continued in next comment)", "I am deleting all comments in this thread that are not about Tolkien's influence on fantasy literature. Please don't post any more discussions of Balrogs, I can hardly keep up.", "I'm curious, now that I think about this - does *The Wizard of Oz* count as \"high fantasy\" by your definition? \n\nBaum's Oz books are definitely set mostly or entirely in another world. \n\nThey're also hugely influential in ways that aren't always obvious - I don't think Isaac Asimov could have written his laws of robotics without Tik-Tok, Nick Chopper and Jack Pumpkinhead providing examples. \n\nBaum was more prolific than Tolkien. He authored 14 Oz books and several plays/musicals - that's beyond the \"authorized\" sequels, which may have constituted the first \"canon\" of fantasy literature, in the way that some Star Wars material is canon and some isn't. \n\nTolkien drew on Northern European history and mythology to make up magic that feels real and authentic; Baum was a [member of the Theosophical Society](_URL_1_), and encoded a lot of real magic (or, at least, Western occultism) [in his books](_URL_7_).\n\n If you look at a map of Oz, it makes a mandala. In the first book (altered unfortunately for the movie) there's some heavy elemental symbolism around all four of the main characters - Dorothy (who arrives by air, uses water to defeat the witch), the Scarecrow (who grows in the fields and is terrified of fire), the Tin Woodman (who yearns for a heart, but can't stand water), and the Cowardly Lion (who defines himself by fear, but is always plunging into chasms or dark spaces). \n\nThe subsequent books go even deeper in some unexpected esoteric directions and philosophical puzzles. Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, is a ship of Theseus - all of his parts have been replaced, until there's no original part left. In one sequel, he even meets his old head and converses with it. Which one is the real Nick, the disembodied head or the perfect replacement?\n\nIn a few of the later books, the main villain is [the Nome King](_URL_3_), a greedy, bearded fellow who lives in an underground kingdom with immense mineral wealth and a few magical items. (Which might put the hoard under Erebor into an interesting perspective.)\n\nSo there are some depths there that are a little unexpected in books for children. At least one of the sequels, *Rinkitink in Oz*, reads more like a Grimm's Fairy Tale than Dorothy and Toto not being in Kansas any more. (The main character is a prince who has to free his parents from enslavement and restore his kingdom. There are wars and underground traps with secret doors and other familiar things.)\n\nSo those were all published about 20 years before Tolkien wrote *The Hobbit* - the Judy Garland musical came out two years after *The Hobbit*, but that was actually the third *Wizard of Oz* film. The first [came out in 1910](_URL_4_) and the [second in 1925](_URL_5_). I don't think any direct links can be demonstrated between Oz and Middle Earth (despite the [best efforts](_URL_6_) of some [dedicated fans](_URL_2_)), but it'd be highly peculiar if Tolkien hadn't heard of Baum's books and perhaps read them to his own children. \n\n(Both Baum and Tolkien also [wrote stories about Santa Claus for their kids](_URL_8_), but that's pretty predictable, really.)\n\nI'm not sure if the Oz books are high fantasy - lots of sorcery, not so much swords - but I think they have to be an important ancestor.\n\nIf you're curious about Baum's vast web of influences, the best source is Michael Patrick Hearn's [*The Annotated Wizard of Oz*](_URL_0_). \n\n\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.english.uga.edu/~jdmevans/Personal/JRRT1936.pdf", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Orfeo", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_verse", "http://public.callutheran.edu/~brint/Arts/Tolkien.pdf", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quenya", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lsunga_saga", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynewulf", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sindarin", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snorri_Sturluson", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_(poem\\)" ], [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/The-Annotated-Wizard-Centennial-Edition/dp/0393049922", "http://www.teosofiskakompaniet.net/LFrankBaumTheosophist.htm", "http://archives.weirdload.com/oz-arda.html", "http://oz.wikia.com/wiki/Nome_King", "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWQ5-UBU22M", "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX5g0AOy53U", "http://www.theonering.com/reading-room/critical-viewpoints/are-hobbits-munchkins-similarities-between-baum-apos-s-oz-tale-and-the-hobbit", "http://www.academia.edu/2511173/Oz_L._Frank_Baums_Theosophical_Utopia", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Father_Christmas_Letters" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cki86tb" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "So, there's a million questions. It would be beneficial if you reworded your question for a single question and ask a few over a few days." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "co4hrt8" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "You mean a 'really' ancient civilisation such as the Greeks or the Egyptians, or will a more recent example do?\n\nRoman teenagers from the 17th/18th/early-19th centuries grew up in the street and the society they lived in was rife with violence. Every *rione* (ward) of the city usually had a long-standing rivalry with another, and these neighbourhoods' identities were very strong; for example, the people from Trastevere despised Monti, the *monticiani* hated Trastevere with a passion, everbody hated the Ghetto and so on. \n\nThus many teenagers and their friends often formed what we'd call neighbourhood gangs, but - and this is an important point - there was no extorsion or racketeering going on: these hot-headed youths spent their days fighting the other youngsters from different neighbourhoods. These 'battles' often took place in the Roman Forum and were known as *battaglie a rocci* - stone fights, whose ammuniton was provided by the nearby ruins. Knife, sword (more precisely the *saracca*, a type of sabre) and even slingshot duels were also extremely common among young people, to the point that hospitals regularly received people with related wounds... especially during or after the Carnevale, as recalled by father Bresciani in his *Edmondo, o dei costumi del popolo romano*; an astounding number of youngsters died because of such forms of 'entertainment'. \n\nHostarias, or pubs, were the quintessential meeting place for your average Roman and were also the kind of place in which brawls were much too common; these youngsters, but also their older counterparts, lived a honour-based lifestyle in which even the minor offences had to be 'settled' - you're looking at someone the wrong way? Snickering at that guy a table over? Then you're looking for *rogna*, or trouble. As mentioned earlier, Jews were also made the object of such 'innocuous' pastimes... when outside the Ghetto, they had to wear a yellow ribbon on their hats and were easily recognisable: many a youngster took one of them during the Carnevale and [made him/her roll down the Capitoline Hill inside a barrel](_URL_0_). Other forms of 'entertainment' during such a festivity was the *corsa dei barberi*, during which wild horses were made to run through the via del Corso and contestants had to stop them with their bare hands. Perhaps unsurprisignly, too many young people died this way.\n\nCard and dice games were *extremely* popular, and more often than not source of disputes... many of which ended up badly for the losing party. Favourite games were the *morra*, *faraone*, and the like but itinerant puppet theatres, the most famous of which belonged to the vitriolic Ghetanaccio, were popular as well; these often narrated the histories of fol poems such as the Meo Patacca. Finally, attending public execution (which were particulary cruel back then) was a popular pastime for both young and old people; *mazzolature* - during which the prisoner's head was smashed on a stone pedestal with the help of a hammer - quarterings and decapitations were also an occasion for social gathering exactly the same way a market or the hostaria were.\n\n\n\n " ] }

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[ [ "https://zanzathedog.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/giudeo-nella-botte.jpg?w=320" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7cvz95", "c7cxf97", "c7cxnny", "c7cxnvg", "c7cyex4", "c7cz0dk", "c7czqws", "c7d08yb", "c7d1i7l", "c7d2f7d" ], "score": [ 7, 3, 44, 12, 2, 41, 4, 6, 6, 2 ], "text": [ "[Does this count?](_URL_0_)\n\n > Studentendorf Schlachtensee (Schlachtensee Student Village) is a student accommodation complex located in south-west Berlin, in the Schlachtensee area of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough of the city. It was constructed between 1959 and 1964 to provide accommodation to students of the new Free University of Berlin, and was opened in 1959 by Willy Brandt, Mayor of West Berlin. The project was financed through a gift from the United States government. It is now recognised by the German government as a National Cultural Monument.\n", "Not exactly the U.S., but the American Colony in Peru donated [this](_URL_0_) bronze fountain in 1924. Between 1921 and 1924, foreign citizens living in Peru commissioned several monuments as gifts for the country's independence's centennial celebration. ", "I think that the Marshall Plan was a pretty swell thing for the U.S. to do. It's not a commemorative statue, but you could probably find a list of many public projects that were completed as a result of the money. Almost all of the money was given in the form of grants and European countries, to my knowledge, were only asked to pay for the administrative costs of the program. We spent $13 billion on Europe, which was about 5 percent of our 1948 GDP. That's a *lot* of money in grants. \n\nEdit: Just for further comparison, in 2012, the equivalent project would cost around $754 billion, as a percent of GDP. ", "[This statue in Iceland](_URL_0_). I'm sure they're others. Try searching for \"A gift from the people of the United States\".\n\n[Searching around a bit more I also found that the US gave and endowed the construction of a wing of a museum in Sydney.](_URL_2_)\n\n[The US also maintains memorials around the world, generally to memorialize American war dead. These are not gifts.](_URL_1_)", "The Holocaust Memorial is the closest one that I can think of, but it wasn't to any state in particular but to a people and I gather that American Jews had a lot to do in that process...not that there's anything wrong with that at all. ", "Interesting question. Not something I've specifically studied, but from a historical perspective, it might be useful to consider the issue from America's somewhat unusual attitude to public versus private giving and why that distinction matters. While USAID has a lot of money to disburse in an average year, [the majority of American philanthropy has always been done privately.](_URL_3_) Why? It's a question better suited to a sociologist than an historian, but the reason I bring it up is because your question reminded me of something. In all of the Bodleian library's staircases, there are little plaques honoring the people who made donations and enabled the library to cover its astronomical maintenance and operating costs, and a *lot* of these plaques thank Americans. These acknowledgements are by no means unusual in European libraries and museums, and I remember asking one of the Bodleian librarians about it once. He said that Americans gave a lot of money during the 20th century to help rebuild and repair these institutions all across the continent, and not just after the wars.\n\nLike I said, this really isn't something I can reasonably claim to have studied, but I do know of one very good example: **[Charles Dent](_URL_0_)**. He was a retired airline pilot and hobbyist sculptor who read a 1977 *National Geographic* article about the destruction of [Leonardo da Vinci's planned Il Cavallo](_URL_1_). In short, the Duke of Milan commissioned da Vinci to create a massive bronze sculpture of a horse, and da Vinci spent more than a decade sketching horses and sculpting a model in clay, wanting the finished piece to be a masterpiece of equine sculpture. However, during [Louis XII's invasion of Italy](_URL_5_) at the turn of the 15th century, French troops used da Vinci's sculpture for target practice, and the Milanese defenders took the bronze that he'd wanted for the casting and melted it to make cannons. So all of da Vinci's work was for nothing.\n\nDent thought that was very sad and started working to replace the sculpture. He worked on it for the rest of his life and died in 1994, but not before endowing a foundation meant to carry on the work. Long story short, after a lot of work, fundraising, and assistance from Pennsylvanian foundries and artists, a massive bronze sculpture of da Vinci's horse was completed in 1999 and given to Milan as a gift from the American people. [This](_URL_2_) is what the finished Il Cavallo looks like, although [this](_URL_4_) might give a better sense of the horse's sheer size.\n\nThe U.S. government really wasn't involved in this at all, just as it hasn't been involved with most of America's donations to foreign monuments, memorials, or causes. Your question makes me wonder about the effect of public versus private giving.\n\nEDIT: Fixed formatting.\n", "I'm not a historian but I know that in my city, Buenos Aires, there is an statue of George Washington ([which Wikipedia says was made by Charles Keck](_URL_0_)) that was gifted by the United States to Argentina commemorating the nation's independency centenary.", "On the island of Ocracoke, North Carolina, they issued a perpetual lease on a plot of land to the British Government for use as a [British cemetery](_URL_0_).The bodies are of British sailors who drowned after their ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat in World War II.", "Would you count the US naming one of its warships during WW2 to USS Canberra in honour of HMAS Canberra (Australian Heavy Cruiser named after Australia's Capital) which was sunk during (well, technically scuttled after) the Battle of Savo Island, even though it was also a US battle? It's not like HMAS Canberra was in anyway American. \n\nHowever, there are claims that it was the US which accidentally hit Canberra during the battle. ", "I don't know if this counts but I like the peace Arch _URL_0_" ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/14g8j1/russian_911_monument_for_usa/c7cttxn" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "dwy68qq" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Not to discourage any further answers but while you wait you'll probably enjoy these older posts:\n\n[What was Mark Antony's intention when he gave Rome's lands to Egypt in 34BC? And why did it take Rome two years to start a war against him?](_URL_6_)\n\n[What were some of the rumors about Cleopatra during the civil war between Octavian and Mark Anthony?](_URL_3_)\n\n[What positive things did Cleopatra do in her reign?](_URL_4_)\n\n[Did Augustus order the death of Caesarion or wanted to bring him first to the triumph like he pretended with Cleopatra, Caesarion's mother?](_URL_2_)\n\n[What happened to the Ptolemaic Egyptian bureaucracy after the Romans took over?](_URL_1_)\n\n[Were the trappings of the office of pharoah maintained in any way in Roman Egypt?](_URL_5_)\n\n[What was the religion of Egypt like after Cleopatra and before Christianity?](_URL_0_)\n\nBy /u/cleopatra_philopater" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6iem2e/what_was_the_religion_of_egypt_like_after/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5w8lrw/what_happened_to_the_ptolemaic_egyptian/?st=izwoo53i&sh=eff23e7d", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ot9xi/did_augustus_order_the_death_of_caesarion_or/?st=jc7ymsrw&sh=49ea8bf5", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6bn729/what_were_some_of_the_rumors_about_cleopatra/dhqa1cx/?st=j2v4syov&sh=42a48ec3", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5o19ls/what_positive_things_did_cleopatra_do_in_her_reign/?st=j2cndrrq&sh=94790d2f", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/684omb/were_the_trappings_of_the_office_of_pharoah/?st=j22lnaq8&sh=10b526d8", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7kkenx/what_was_mark_antonys_intention_when_he_gave/drfh9ue/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ca90qj2", "ca9237h" ], "score": [ 5, 2 ], "text": [ "The \"feathered thing\" is called a crest and its usage depends on the time period:\n\nIn the days of the early republic, it was not common.\n\nDuring the late republic (post 3rd century B.C.) it was very common among legionaries.\n\nAfter the reforms by Augustus, only centurions were wearing crests.\n\nIn the later empire, they seem to be abandoned altogether.\n", "Crests were used by both Greek Hoplites and Roman legions to denote rank. The color/orientation of the crest would indicate exactly what rank you were depending on the culture." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ddy9beq" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "The sources are particularly lousy for this: the wretched Appian on the one hand, and on the other Plutarch, more interested in the morbid details of his wasting disease than any politics. Scullard and Keaveney both argued that Sulla simply got tired and decided that he'd done enough to ensure a return to Republican form. Sulla retired to Cumae, into a Campania that he had essentially remade from the ground up in the aftermath of the ravages of the Social War. It was a pleasant place, to be sure, and I don't think there's anything wrong with believing that Sulla went there purely because he wanted to relax and indulge in the proclivities which he seemed to cultivate.\n\nBut I don't think that's right. I don't think Sulla was \"done,\" and in fact the actions of Sulla in some ways provided a rough draft for how the *principes* would elevate themselves above the machinery of the Republic later, starting with his protege Pompey. Striking coins with his image while he still lived (a no-no in the *mos maiorum*), not to mention the giant equestrian statue of himself in the forum, both suggest Sulla had grand designs. He left off the dictatorship in 81 and held the consulship in 80, probably thinking he was secure enough in his position to do away with the more odious form of authority. His old rival Marius had held consecutive consulships in the past, and Sulla might have had something like that in mind in lieu of the dictatorship. If so, it never came to pass. I think the old madman was probably gently ushered out by the younger Sullani, Pompey in particular, and convinced to let others have a turn. He could have fought on, and there were plenty of Sullan veterans in Italia that he could have stirred up, but he seems to have just simply got too tired. I don't like modern claims that he was \"forced out\" or the like. Nobody ever forced Cornelius Sulla to do anything. It was most likely a combination of satisfaction with his life's work, fatigue and sickness, and the gentle, careful, but insistent advice of his young proteges. \n\nCheck out Jenkins' little article, \"Sulla's Retirement,\" 1994. See also, for a modern and interesting look at Sulla, Santangelo's *Sulla, the Elites, and the Empire* Brill 2007." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cje5tpd" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Yes, Roman armies faced armies primarily composed of horse archers more than once. The fellow under me has referenced Attila the Hun. The Romans did technically defeat him at Chalons, but I'll admit to a small working knowledge of the late Roman army, so I'll focus on the earlier armies of the Republic and the Principate, and how they fared against horse archers.\n\nIn this time period, the two best examples I can come up with are both involving the Parthians. Crassus was famously defeated by the Parthians at Carrhae, and Antony led a failed invasion into Parthia while a triumvir. \n\nThe Parthian army was based on a feudal model, controlled by the king but in reality a large formation of many different strong noble families. Most of the army was composed of cavalry, mainly horse archers along with a smaller force of heavily-armed cataphracts. For example, the force of Parthian commander Surena that fought Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC was made up of 10,000 horse-archers and 1,000 cataphracts. Parthian armies also included infantry made up from the poor, but these were never influential in any way at all and so have little tactical relevance. According to Lucian the basic unit of the Parthian army was a *dragon* of 1,000 horse-archers. The decimal model is quite prevalent in horse-archer armies, but we have no other evidence for this claim, and Lucian was no historian.\n\nThis cavalry force obviously operated in a very different way from Rome's infantry based army. We get a glimpse of Parthian tactics at Carrhae. In this battle, both sides expected an easy victory. The Romans had crushed every other eastern army they had faced with ease recently, and the Parthians were equally scornful of the Romans. Surena expected the Romans to be scared at the sight of his cataphracts, but was disappointed by the disciplined Roman infantry, who showed no signs of fear.\n\nIt seems that usually the Parthians simply expected the sight of their cataphracts to scare the enemy, and apparently they wore cloaks over their armour that they would discard right before battle, either as protection from the sun or to shock the enemy with a startling reveal of their glimmering scale armour. \n\nTherefore, at Carrhae Surena had his horse archers bombard the Roman troops all day. Despite thousands of arrows, the Roman troops suffered relatively few casualties, mostly wounds, due to their armour and shields. Their morale stayed intact as well. \n\nThe Romans held up very well in spite of the horse-archer bombardment, and the troops were comparatively safe as long as they maintained discipline. However, Crassus made an ill-fated attempt to drive away the horse-archers, led by his son, who was cut off and killed. Dispirited, Crassus ordered a retreat, which soon degenerated into a routing mob as the horse archers surrounded the Romans, who began to panic. Carrhae was a decisive Roman defeat, and it made the Parthians very confident in themselves and scornful of the Romans. However, the Parthian army is often over-estimated in our sources, and they weren't truly as powerful as they would have liked to think.\n\nCrassus's problem was that his army was unbalanced. Later Roman encounters with the horse-archers remedied this. For example, Antony brought many light missile troops with his Parthian expedition. A foot-archer will always out-range a horse-archer, and Antony's troops suffered little from horse archers. When the Romans were well prepared, usually the Parthians had to content themselves with shadowing the Roman marches, and depend on attacking their extended supply train. When Roman troops had enough supporting missile fire, they were very safe from horse archers, who became more of an irritant than a real threat.\n\nRome did sometimes have horse-archers in her armies, but it was never a major part of them in this period. I know that later Roman armies included more horse archers, but like I said I don't really know enough to be any authority on that. However in our period Rome tended to bring auxiliary troops into her army based on the native's methods of fighting, so many Roman armies in the east had horse-archer auxiliaries. \nFor example, Arrian's army that fought the Alans, a steppe people, had horse archers in it. However they were only really a supporting wing and the Romans never adopted this tactic beyond in a minor supporting role.\n\nI hope that this makes sense, I can elaborate more if need be. I'm not very good at organizing my answers on this subreddit yet, haha.\n\nSources: Plutarch's *Life of Crassus* & *Antony*, Adrian Goldworthy's *The Roman Army at War 100 BC - AD 200*\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccke0fo", "ccked12", "cckfd5p" ], "score": [ 6, 15, 2 ], "text": [ "... because times change. It's useful to study how people thought and lived and why things happened the way they did in eras very different from our own, so we gain insight into what might happen in future circumstances very different from our own.\n\nE.g., American History is only a few hundred years old, and until recently has been in a state of near constant expansion and growth in power. What happens when that is no longer true? There aren't that many former large empires to look at for comparison. If you want a large sample size with a wide variety of conditions and responses, that pretty much requires looking beyond recent local history.\n\nNot to mention to gain understanding in how we got to where we are now. How can we understand American History, with so much of our government and culture based on the Enlightenment, if we don't understand the Enlightenment and how it came to be? How can we understand the Enlightenment if we don't understand European history, the Renaissance and its origins, or the Greek and Roman history they idolized and tried to model themselves after?\n\n\"American history\" didn't start as a tabula rasa with the first European settlements. How can we understand the colonization of the Americas without examining at the social and political conditions of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries? How can we understand at those conditions without looking at the Protestant Reformation, and the centuries of Catholic/Protestant war? How can we understand that without understanding the role of Roman Catholicism in the development of European cultural identity and government in the post-Roman period? And how can we understand that without understanding the development of Catholic Church, and by extension the development of Christianity, and even further the development of the Abrahamic traditions as a whole? And how can we understand that without considering everything from the rise of the Roman Empire to Zoroaster?\n\nAnd of course, there's more to the world than America. How can we understand the politics and motivations and cultures and interests of countries more than 237 years old, if we disregard national histories that start before the 15th century?", "I don't actually feel as if I need to defend medieval history for its social relevance - the fact that I enjoy studying it is really enough for me. It should be obvious that medieval history presents special problems of understanding, in particular in relation to the number of sources, and I have always liked grappling with these.\n\nI also don't buy the distinction you seem to be making between history which \"has direct implications... and directly affects what occurs today\" and that which doesn't. This is partly because I believe that the medieval period genuinely does affect today - you could think about the roots of the British constitution and legal system in terms of Magna Carta (1215); or the development of the English language via Middle English including the cultural legacy of the medieval period via Chaucer; or the way in which we link modern events to [those from medieval society](_URL_0_); or the ways that [modern culture](_URL_1_) draws on medieval tropes. Drawing this sort of distinction reduces history to a monocausal discipline which just considers immediate context, and I don't think that actually captures the past very well. \n\nI'm also not sure how compelling a justification the one you use is. For one thing, I really don't think that people reading history necessarily apply the lessons of the past to the present - this is a bit crudely determinist for me.\n\nA good introduction to the value of medieval history is Marcus Bull's *Thinking Medieval*.", "Medieval history is world history - sounds like a non-answer, but in reality, there is a lot to be said for the study of Medieval history.\n\nTake for example the Magna Carta which was forced upon King John in 1215. It was a refutation of divine right and established, amongst other things, the right to trial with a jury of peers and certain property rights, as well as the famous *habeas corpus* wherein charges must be leveled against the offender or he must be set free. Sure, the Magna Carta only really applied to the elite, but wait! There's more:\n\nThe Black Death which ripped through Europe created, amongst other things, a drastic change in society, especially for peasants. Lords and their retainers, monks, priests, nuns, and all the trappings of hierarchical rule died just as easily as peasants *but* there were more peasants and an increasing demand for labor. Some peasants left serfdom or their municipalities and started new lives. Those left behind were invested with more freedom and power, even becoming \"lay\" lawyers in their own right. Re-enter the Magna Carta...slowly, over time, the peasantry and their local village courts in England began to try cases that were too small for the lords to take notice of. They used similar procedures (including juries) that lords expected under the Magna Carta. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the practices of lords and peasants were becoming parallels of each other and eventually melded into English \"common law\" (not a written set of laws, but merely common practices which are so entrenched, they are respected as if they were written laws).\n\nThe schism between Catholics and Protestants in the late Medieval/Renaissance period, while demographically destructive, laid the groundwork for Enlightenment thinkers' attitudes towards religious tolerance as well as peoples' relationships with their governments, especially the idea of the sovereignty of people and the ownership of property.\n\nThomas Jefferson's declaration was based upon John Locke, John Locke's ideas were based upon (among other things) the *Magna Carta* and therefore it could be argued that without Medieval History, you can't understand why people in the Enlightenment, Revolutionary War,and even today do what they do.\n\nIn essence, I would argue that while we look forward, we must also look further and further back in time lest we lose our way; we may think ourselves geniuses and giants compared to those in the Medieval (or Classic, or Ancient, or pre-historic) periods, but their genius is the foundation of our happiness and without them, we would not live in the world we do today (or hope to tomorrow)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cyk7mjm", "cyk86o4", "cykapd9", "cyke73d" ], "score": [ 4, 60, 5, 3 ], "text": [ "Which Latin America? We all have different histories you know. ", "I don't know that I can answer the question as written for \"most of Latin America, from what appears to be independence to the present day\", but I think I can point to some important differences that might help you think about the question you're asking. For the sake of brevity I'll stick to Spanish America, because Brazil is a whole different thing, and I'll just refer to \"America\" in your question as the US. \n\n- The independence of the United States was a purposeful, top-down effort led by a motivated elite; it was deeply rooted in international instability, but not, I would argue, primarily caused by it. The independence of Spanish America was, in large part, a product of a power vacuum created by Napoleon's sudden conquest of Spain. In the important power centers of Spanish America, this meant that various groups surged uncertainly into authority over the 15-20 years of Napoleonic instability, including an explosive, highly intolerant attempt to re-assert authority by the recently restored Ferdinand VII with the support of other counter-revolutionary European regimes. So while in the British colonies you had a relatively brief period of war with a decisive end, and a (weak, but functional in important ways) independence government with reasonable legitimacy waiting to step in, in Spanish America the best case scenario was to be far enough away from a power/economic center that you were mostly left alone for the decades of warfare and disorder. Which creates a neat catch-22 since those remote locations like Costa Rica were not going to become the sort of regional powers people have in mind when they ask this question. Because we lack (afaik) comprehensive evidence for how generalized support for US independence was, it's tough to really track that ebb and flow, but as you'll see in the next points, at least it wasn't like the upper classes were hopelessly alienated from the middle and lower classes in terms of their goals, which were basically \"change as little as possible and don't give an inch to the poor or underprivileged\" more than broad ideas of independence. Why was this?\n\n- The power vacuum situation in South America meant that, for all practical purposes, South America's major countries were simultaneously embroiled in the equivalent of the US Revolution and Civil War, at the same time, for a period of at least two decades on-and-off. That means issues of race, caste, class were being negotiated (Bolivar's rebranded independence movement after Haiti, Mexico's Hidalgo vs Iturbide branching paths, Peru's post Tupac Amaru II mentality was firmly in place, etc) simultaneously with basic questions of chain of command, forms of government, economic structure. This meant that people who Had Stuff in Spanish Latin America felt they were in a very scary place compared to US elites, and you can easily see why competing thrusts at low-consensus republics that shut out these new ideas or military dictatorships coming in and out of power would lead to difficult precedents, and far from \"taking care\" of major questions of governance like the eventual US Civil War, really only set in place the potential for cyclical discord, often tied to individuals rather than institutions, in many countries (see: *caudillismo*). \n\n- Timing. Ideologically, the Euro-American world was a very different place in the early 19th century versus late 18th, due in no small part to the US revolution but also to the French Revolution and, importantly, the semi-successful revolt of enslaved persons in Haiti. Combined with the uncertainty and the outbursts of change in social order in various independence movements (again, Hidalgo and the undercurrents that would lead to Bolivar v2), and you have that situation I described in the first point. Which is that the leadership that would take power from Ferdinand VII's (unwilling) hands was, in most ways, profoundly conservative and reactionary in motivations that simply weren't present for US leaders/elites in their ascension to power. \n\nI could go on, but that gives you three big things I think are important in considering the process of independence in the two regions. Why things evolved differently from there would really benefit from a country by country breakdown, as (for instance) Mexico's evolution into its 19th century and 20th century forms is much more deeply enmeshed with American intervention than, say, Argentina, to cite just one important factor in its \"instability\" over time. Apologies for the big generalizations above, but I hope they get the job done. \n\nFurther reading:\nRodríguez, Jaime E. The Independence of Spanish America. Cambridge University Press, 1998.\nHalperin-Donghi, Tulio. The Aftermath of Revolution in Latin America. Harper Torchbooks, 1973.\nBulmer-Thomas, Victor. The Economic History of Latin America since Independence. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003.\n\nSome more specific works that do well addressing this question in their areas\nWoodward, Ralph Lee. Central America: A Nation Divided. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, USA, 1999.\nWalker, Charles F. Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780-1840. Duke University Press Books, 1999.\nYoung, Eric Van. The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Mexican Struggle for Independence, 1810-1821. 1st ed. Stanford University Press, 2002.\nJiménez, Iván Molina, and Steven Paul Palmer. El paso del cometa: estado, política social y culturas populares en Costa Rica (1800-1950). Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 1994.\n\n\n\n\n", "While I know Niall Ferguson is not the most unbiased person out there, I would at least bring out a point he makes about northern american British colonies compared to Latin american colonies. He argues that in British colonies, more people owned land, property rights were better enforced and there existed a more representative method of government for the landowners. New colonists could also settle new lands and become new landowners, which was much less the case in Latin America, where huge swaths of land were owned by nobles/landowners. This meant that it was possible for people to rise from being a poor immigrant to a landowning and vote-casting member of the society. He then argues that this democratic government with the rule of law led to economic prosperity and greater stability.\n\nAnother point i was taught in geography lessons back in high-school was that while the Latin-American colonies were mostly extraction-type colonies (a relatively small european population with a lot of native and African slaves extracting either metals, wood or crops from the land to be sent to the centres of their respective empires, North-American colonies had more European populations, that tried and wanted to distance themselves from their homelands (often fleeing persecution and poverty) which led to more self-sufficient economies. This later led to rising industry and a diversified economy. After independence the latin american nations largely retained their etraction-based economy that has a lower potential added value than a diversified and industrious society that the north-American economy evolved into. This diversified economy allowed more people to enrich themselves (not only had you to own lots of land and slaves to become succesful), but there existed other ways to create wealth (working as a payed worker in industry, agriculture, construction). ", "So I come at this from a background in political science and law. I would point out that America wasn't exactly stable or dominant until after the World Wars. The pre war history seems full of violence, insurrection, riots, economic depression, political suppression, and all the other hallmarks of a generally rough place. Land mass, resources, recent and massive industrialization, and the fact that Europe was in shambles after the wars allowed America to assume the role of a global superpower. But it wasn't always coming up roses. By contrast, I remember studying how the post-revolutionary regimes in Latin America generally took an authoritarian form, where industry and decentralized power structures combined with small land area to produce an environment where supression was used as a tool for development, by a coalition of military leaders and technocratic elites. The idea of decentralization seems to trace all the way back to Spanish colonization, where again population control and rule-by-elites was paramount for maintaining a steady flow of raw material exports. I have always personally considered the later-arising \"bureaucratic authoritarianism,\" as it is commonly described, to be a product of anti-idealist regimes that want to play \"catch up\" with more developed powers, with a pragmatic approach that views civil liberties as secondary to economic growth. \n\nOf course, through a modern lens, we can't discount the negative effect, intentional or not, of having the United States looming over the back yard. Many regime changes that have occured in the region were sponsored by the American government, but always as a tool for promoting solely American interests - not the creation of stable governing structures. \n\nJust some thoughts! It is a very complicated question." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d9osgvj" ], "score": [ 91 ], "text": [ "Hi, you may be interested in a couple of posts from [the FAQ](_URL_2_):\n\n* [Were the tombs of South American civilizations the booby-trapped nightmare we see in entertainment?](_URL_1_) - South & amp; Central America, Egypt\n\n* [Many fantasy/historical computer games and RPGs feature \"dungeons\", ie a large labyrinthian set of tunnels, rooms, traps etc. Is there any historical basis for dungeons?](_URL_0_) - various labyrinths & amp; catacombs\n\nIf you have follow-up questions, since these posts are archived, just ask here & tag the user's username to notify them" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/13r37l/many_fantasyhistorical_computer_games_and_rpgs/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/23jd10/were_the_tombs_of_south_american_civilizations/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/monuments#wiki_were.2Fare_there_actually_tombs_filled_with_deathtraps.3F" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbnc0rg", "cbnd755" ], "score": [ 5, 2 ], "text": [ "Late Ancient Hebrew did this a ton. Many names were Greek. Variants of \"Alexander\" were especially popular. Other names were Aramaic, but the two languages are so similar that distinguishing them in names is often difficult. Yiddish does this two. Many of the names are Hebrew names or Hebrew words, and though some of them correspond with ones generally used in Europe, they come straight from the Hebrew, rather than through Latin and/or Greek, so they're not really recognizable.", "Many Indian Hindu names are from Sanskrit even though Sanskrit is virtually a dead language like Latin, especially names derived from Hindu gods & goddesses. Sanskrit's influence on the numerous Indian languages is however very varied. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cz1b9x5" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "It's mostly logistical issues. A sultan traveling from Istanbul to Mekka would need a huge army for protection. Traveling there and back would take months even years with a massive entourage which would destabilize the government back home and probably any province they pass through." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d4g22w7" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "The design is specified by a 1930s law. The alignment of the star is such that one of the points of the star points directly left. So it's aligned \"exactly\" on a horizontal axis -- relative to the crescent -- rather than a vertical axis. See _URL_0_ and the sources cited therein." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/tr.html#con" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clmqb36", "clmrtzz", "clmsep9", "clmsu6x", "clmvf4k", "cln2olu", "cln3wg5" ], "score": [ 87, 68, 14, 1199, 40, 5, 2 ], "text": [ "Just to clarify, you took a high school history class where your instructor referred to it as a \"false flag attack?\"\n\nCan you elaborate on what your instructor said? Did he or she use an actual history book referencing this? Or was it mentioned as a theory in passing?", "I think it could be described as \"mixed.\" In other words there is no consensus.\n\nThere have been a number of investigations into the incident. Officially both the Spanish and the U.S. did investigations in 1898, which came to different conclusions. In 1911 the U.S. removed it from the harbor, and took the opportunity to redo the investigation more thoroughly. And the evidence from these three investigations has been pored over for more than a century, with no definitive conclusion.\n\nThe general conclusion has always been the same; the reason the Maine sunk was that its main powder bunker exploded. But what set that off is what people argue about. And given the length and depth of the argument, it seems clear that no definitive answer exists. It could have been an accident, set off by the coal bunker. It could have been set off by a mine outside the ship. And yes, it could have been set off by a small explosive inside the ship.\n\nBut a false flag operation seems implausible to me. The McKinley administration already had enough support to go to war. In fact McKinley seems to be one of the last people to be in favor of war. And the Maine wasn't mentioned by McKinley as a Casus Bellus when he asked for a declaration of war. I suppose it is possible that one of the jingos in the U.S. created the incident to force McKinley's hand. Or it is possible that McKinley was *so* Machiavellian that he pushed he country to war, while appearing opposed. But that seems unlikely.\n\nWhile somewhat dated now (it was written in 1976) *How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed* by Admiral Rickover is the traditional go to for the subject.\n\nEdited for spelling and to correct my slander of Admiral Rickover.", "Secondary question: Where are the remains of the USS Maine now? ", "**The current academic consensus is that there is no consensus.**\n\nLet's review.\n\n[There have been four major investigations into the sinking of the *Maine*:](_URL_0_)\n\n* The first took place in 1898, immediately after the sinking. The McKinley administration created a naval board of inquiry that concluded unanimously that the ship was sunk \"only by the explosion of a mine situated under the bottom of the ship at about frame 18, and somewhat on the port side of the ship.\"\n\n* The second investigation took place in 1911. President Taft ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to study the wreckage. Never to do anything by halves, the Corps built a cofferdam around the ship's wreckage, pumped out all the water and examined the exposed hull. Hundreds of photographs were taken, and the Corps removed much of the wreckage. A revised board of inquiry reaffirmed that a mine sank the ship, but it concluded the mine had detonated at a different place.\n\n* The third investigation came in 1974, when Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy, asked historians to re-examine the case. The historians dredged Spanish archives and consulted with foreign militaries about their own experience with internal explosions. They consulted professional engineers to analyze the 1911 photographs and took into context the \"natural tendency to look for reasons for the loss that did not reflect upon the Navy.\" This study resulted in [*How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed*](_URL_1_). That book concluded the explosion was, \"without a doubt,\" internal.\n\n* The fourth investigation came in 1999 and was conducted by the National Geographic Society. NGS commissioned a study by Advanced Marine Enterprises, which conducted the first detailed computer modeling of the disaster. AME stated that a coal fire within a bunker could have raised the temperature within one of the *Maine*'s magazines to hazardous levels within a few hours. As to a mine strike, AME found that even a simple mine consisting of 100 pounds of black powder and a contact fuse could have sunk the ship. \"If so, the mine must have been perfectly \nplaced, which under the circumstances would have been as much a matter of luck as \nskill.”\nWhile it did not discount either option for the *Maine*'s destruction, AME ultimately concluded (based on the 1911 photographs) that there was more evidence in favor of the *Maine*'s destruction by a mine.\n\n[Let's review the competing evidence for each side, and you can make up your mind](_URL_2_).\n\nFor a mine detonation:\n\n• The Maine carried a type of bituminous coal that rarely spontaneously combusted.\n\n• Bunker A16 was not situated by a boiler or any other external heat source, and spontaneous combustion does not occur unless there is a heat source to speed up the process. \n\n• When Bunker A16 was inspected the morning of the disaster, the temperature was only 59 degrees Fahrenheit. \n\n• The Maine's temperature sensor system did not indicate any dangerous rise in temperature on the morning of the last inspection. \n\n• Discipline on the Maine was excellent, and regular inspections of coal bunkers for hazards, as well as the implementation of precautions for preventing bunker fires, were diligently carried out. \n\n• A number of witnesses stated that they heard two distinct explosions several seconds apart. If anything else besides a mine had triggered the magazine explosion, then witnesses would have only heard one blast, because the only explosion would have been that of the magazines. \n\n• The only reason that two explosions would have been heard is if something besides the magazine had exploded, such as a mine.\n\n• Divers who examined the bottom plates of the Maine reported that they were bent inward. This was subsequently confirmed with 1911 photographs.\n\n• Divers spotted a large hole on the floor of Havana harbor, something that would not have occurred with a magazine explosion. Those are directed upward, toward the path of least resistance. \n\nFor an internal explosion:\n\n• Spontaneous combustion of coal was a fairly frequent problem on ships built after the American Civil War. Coal was exposed to air, oxidized and began burning. The heat was transferred to the ship's magazines, causing an explosion. \n\n• The *Maine*'s bituminous coal was more subject to spontaneous combustion than anthracite coal. Furthermore, higher moisture content increases the danger of spontaneous combustion. The *Maine* had spent most of the previous three months in Key West or nearby, where tropical moisture predominates.\n\n• Bunker A16 had not been inspected since 8 a.m. The explosion occurred around 9:40 p.m. There was ample time (12 hours) for a coal bunker fire to smolder into a disaster. \n\n• From 1894 to 1908, more than 20 coal bunker fires were reported on U.S. Navy ships. \n\n• No one reported seeing a geyser of water thrown up during the explosion, a common sight when mines explode underwater.\n\n• No one reported seeing any dead fish in the harbor and these would have been seen if there had been an external blast. \n\n• Inward bending of the plates could have been caused by water displacement occurring at the same time the front of the ship was breaking away from the rear.\n\n***\n**ADVERTISEMENT:** Read and subscribe to /r/100yearsago", "The *Maine* may not have suffered a boiler malfunction or an intentional attack [be it an external mine/torpedo or an internal act of sabotage].\n\nThere is a third possibility: ***Spontaneous detonation of explosives***.\n\nThe *USS Maine* was equipped to fire armor-piercing shells from its big guns, and the explosive type used in these big shells was wet gun cotton. This is a type of high explosive which would have to be prepared for firing, and so warships had to carry a large amount of it on board in their magazines [a magazine in this context being a specially designed part of the ship where explosives & munitions are stored].\n\nThe volatile nature of gun cotton varies with temperature & humidity. Wet gun cotton ready for firing in an armor piercing shell is relatively inert. But this also means a warship that has traveled from say a cold part of the world to the equator or vice versa, is going to have to have its explosives on board monitored and serviced to keep it within a safe range of temperature & humidity. If some of the explosive falls into an unsafe range it can spontaneously detonate. Once that happens, the whole magazine can go off and destroy the ship fairly quickly.\n\nWet gun cotton was eventually phased out and replaced with things like fulminate of mercury, Maximite, Dunnite [aka Explosive D], Shimosa, cordite, and many other formulas. All of which were so close to each other chemically that there were some pretty intense legal battles over who had actually invented them & was worthy of being compensated with royalties.\n\nI mention this because there is a famous incident that would give credibility to the idea that the *USS Maine* was destroyed by spontaneous detonation: The Japanese warship *Kawachi*. In 1918 the warship exploded. Like with the *USS Maine*, it happened quickly in the same forward-portion of the ship, resulted in the total loss of the ship, and much of the crew. And this was hardly a one-time only event. As Norman Friedman lists off in Naval Firepower (2013):\n\n > \"At first, nitroglycerine made the new powders quite unstable. The French lost two battleships, Iena and Liberte, to their Poudre B. It was recognized as the culprit only in 1911, after a spontaneous powder explosion and fire on board a small boat carrying some of this powder away from a French battleship. Many other ships were lost to similar explosions; examples include the British HMS Vanguard (1917), the Italian Leonardo da Vinci (1916), the Russian Imperatritsa Maria (1916), and the Japanese Kawachi (1918) and Mutsu (1943). Wartime explosions were often attributed to sabotage at the time, probably largely to avoid raising safety questions in the minds of sailors aboard the surviving ships.\" [285]\n\nWhether the US tribunal investigating the *Maine* believed it was spontaneous detonation or intentional malice, do you really believe they could have politically gone on out and publicly said that either, 1- They didn't actually know what happened, or 2- That it was an unavoidable consequence of using the high explosive formulas of the day [something that every ship in the navy had no choice but to carry]?\n\nSuppose someone makes the argument that the *Maine* was destroyed in a so-called \"false flag attack.\" At worst this would involve what, the United States somehow destroying their own ship, so they could use it as an excuse to fight a war with Spain? Yet when President McKinley went to congress to get authorization for fighting a war, the *Maine* was not used as a justification. Instead the actual argument consisted of the belief that Cubans needed to be allowed to self-govern. This is why the Teller Amendment stated that the United States would leave Cuba in event of Spain being defeated, instead of annexing the territory. If the loss of the *Maine* was required for getting into a war, you would expect it to be used as the justification for said war regardless how that destruction came about, wouldn't you agree?\n\nAnother problem, is that these warships were extremely important to national defense. The United States possessed a single battleship fleet, and it was usually in the Atlantic out of concern for the European powers. The United States lacked enough capital ships [that's the bigger warships] to protect both coasts. When Teddy Roosevelt put the capital ships on their famous white fleet tour around the world, this left both coasts of the country exposed to invasion. John Costello writes in The Pacific War (1982) that Kaiser Wilhelm had actually offered Theodore Roosevelt to put part of the German Imperial Navy off the Atlantic coast to protect it from aggression during the publicity stunt [TR turned the offer down].^1 The amount of time and cost it took to build every one of these larger warships, not to mention the political constraints on how many the Navy was given permission to build, all make the idea of destroying the *Maine* intentionally a very unsound one.\n\nNo one had anticipated that the United States would be able to defeat the Spanish at the Battle of Santiago Bay so easily [no warship lost versus 5], so going into the war the assumption was that every large warship was going to be extremely important, each playing a vital role with their biggest guns. The whole premise for the large warships was to make ships as heavily armored & heavily armed as possible, so that these extra big guns could fire armor piercing shells, which would poke a hole in the enemy ships causing them to quickly take on water and sink possibly after suffering a single good hit. That's what the academic theory was, on paper, in the academy. What really happened? Nothing at all like that. The US Navy destroyed the Spanish fleet using their mid-sized rapid fire guns. These guns, instead of sinking ships, were destroying everything above the hulls, causing them to catch fire & become disabled. The United States Naval Institute concluded that rather than phase out some of their mid-sized guns in favor of exponentially larger guns, they might want to return the 8-inch gun to service in future warships.^2 A complete 180 from what the established academic theory was. However, the addiction of supersized warships & their supersized armor piercing shells continued well into WW1, and debate whether *that* was a good idea is a whole other story.\n\n1. John Costello, *The Pacific War*, Harper Collins (1982) 27.\n2. \"Proposed Armament for Our Three Latest Battleships,\" Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, Vol. XXV (1899) 664.", "Further to the excellent comments above, the French Navy suffered from a remarkable number of warship losses from spontaneous combustion of unstable ammunition, the same kind of propellant as the USS Maine used for her secondary armament. The battleships \"Iena\"and \"Liberte\" both blew up in harbour with the causes attributed to spontaneous ignition of propellant. There was also the loss of HMS Doterel at Punta Arenas, the Brazilian battleship \"Aquidaban\" at around the same period. Later examples, all attributed to spontaneous combustion of over-heated propellant, include HMS Bulwark, HMS Natal, IJNS Mikasa and IJNS Matsushima.", "Does anyone know how many US ships the Spanish sank with mines during the war?" ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "http://www.loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/pdf/Maine.1898.pdf", "http://www.iprr.org/reviews/Rickoverreview.html", "http://www.dcte.udel.edu/hlp/resources/overseas/competing_evidence.pdf" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0ky8yk" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "This can be a bit confusing, so I will use *italics for Latinized Russian* and **bold for English translations**\n\nIf you're asking about the Eastern Front of WWII, the single massive continuous front (geographic area) is known by Russians as Великая Отечественная Война (*Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna*), meaning **Great Patriotic War**\n\nThe **Patriotic War** (*Otechestvennaya Voyna*) would be WWI, which is also sometimes known as Вторая Отечественная война (*Vtoraya Otechestvennaya Voyna*), or **Second Fatherland War**, with the **First Fatherland War** being the war of Napoleon's invasion, which confusingly was the original **Patriotic War**\n\nConfusingly for English-speakers, the **Great Patriotic War** consisted of several military units also known as фронт (*front* in Latinized Russian), which in this case means a Soviet military formation equivalent to an army group of most other militaries, and not the geographic area you are asking about. You can see [the flag on the right in this video](_URL_0_) says \"1 БЕЛОРУССКИЙ ФРОНТ\" (*1st Belorussian Front* in Latinized Russian), which most accurately translates to **1st Belorussian Army Group** in American English\n\nBecause of the two meanings for \"front\", it would be confusing to read, \"The **Eastern Front** had many *fronts*.\" The proper translation would be, \"The **Great Patriotic War** involved many **army groups**, some of which were named *1st Belorussian Front* (**1st Belorussian Army Group**), the *2nd Belorussian Front* (**2nd Belorussian Army Group**), and *1st Ukrainian Front* (**1st Ukrainian Army Group**).\"" ] }

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[ [ "https://youtu.be/2gZdQ1i312I?t=238" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c8iow3x" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Actually way later, up until WW2 right by conquest was recognized as international law. \"War of aggression\" as a crime was only codified in the Nuermberg Principles after WW2 and made a UN resolution in 1974 (UN resolution 3314). \n\nThe principle of Right by Conquest was first diminished in the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) which was, in a very basic summary, a group of countries promising not to declare war to resolve their differences. It didn't work, the nations still went to war, they just didn't declare war, but it was a first step towards the establishment of \"War of aggression\" as a crime under international law." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dchr4qz", "dci4b9n" ], "score": [ 18, 7 ], "text": [ "Not to discourage further discussion, but see /u/uncovered-history's answer in [this post](_URL_0_). He also addresses the Continental Army uniform question a little further down the comment chain.", "I answer this exact question in the post that /u/ForExes mentioned. Essentially, it's a myth and I quote one of the leading historians in the field who wrote about Arnold. Please let me know\nIf you have any follow ups" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4mjp43/did_benedict_arnold_regret_his_decision_to_join/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0s3vs0" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Roman law during the late Republic and most of the Principate made no distinction in punishment between free people of different social rank. By Roman law all Roman citizens were guaranteed the same legal rights, and the only important distinction in court was whether one was a Roman citizen or not. In cases of civil law (i.e. lawsuits) this was *the* only distinction, as slaves could not sue or be sued. In lawsuits the nature of punishment (which almost invariably consisted of a fine) could vary, depending on what exact crime had been committed--it was determined by the judge, either calculated by him or drawn from tables. This fine did not change according to the social status of a citizen at court, and such a distinction would've been both impossible and contrary to Roman legal ideals. \"Plebeian\" does not mean \"anybody who's not a *nobilis*.\" \"Plebeian\" just means anyone not descended from one of the original senators, a very tiny hereditary club that got tinier over time and which had already lost pretty much all its privileges by the end of the 4th Century--the Conflict of the Orders is considered to have ended in 287 with the passage of the *lex Hortensia*, but in reality the major issues (plebeian right to run for magistracy, etc.) had all been secured fifty to a hundred years earlier. By Caesar's day only 14 patrician families still had existing lines, out of more than 50 that we know of originally, and the most of the members of the senatorial class were plebeians. Indeed, since legally one consul each year had to be a plebeian at least half of the consular *nobiles* were also plebeians. Such men of standing as Cicero, Pompey, Crassus, Cassius, Cato, Brutus, Lepidus, Antony, Hortensius, etc. were all plebeian, and it becomes immediately clear that during the late Republic social status was not equivalent to social order, and that the category of patrician and plebeian cannot have been useful in cases of determining punishment. In cases of criminal law the punishment was generally the same for everyone. As criminal law tried capital crimes (murder, treason, etc.) the penalty was almost invariably death, or occasionally *infamia* (loss of citizen rights). The manner of execution might differ according to what crime was committed and whether the convicted was a citizen or not, but beyond that there was no distinction.\n\nI should mention exile separately, though. Exile was not an actual *punishment* during the late Republic and generally during the Principate. During the late Republic exile was not a punishment that could actually be sentenced in court, it was a voluntary punishment. A citizen could voluntarily go into exile to escape the death penalty in a criminal case. He could go into exile before criminal proceedings actually began, but generally exile occurred either shortly before sentencing or in the space between sentence and execution (the *trinundinum*, which could last up to a month or so). So we see, for example, Milo fleeing to Massilia to escape being put to death for the murder of Publius Clodius. By the late Republic anyone who fled a criminal proceeding or the execution of sentence by leaving Italy was considered an exile, but the status of \"exile\" was only applied after the fact, not before--after the criminal fled Italy an *interdictio* would be passed denying him the right to fire and water, that is to say the rights and status of a Roman citizen and a free (or even living, since the death penalty was applied to those who returned to Italy) person within Italy. Officially this was the only type of *exsilium* going way into the Principate, although in point of fact Augustus introduced a couple of new penalties that, while not legally exile, were essentially the same thing. The most common was *relegatio*, which existed during the late Republic but wasn't really used. Under the emperors *relegatio* is used far more often, and it consisted of banishment to a particular place (like the island that Julia was sent to). Tiberius introduced a slightly different version of this penalty, the *deportatio*. There were also a couple of other kinds of *de facto* exile that weren't really exile *per se* or were illegal--this includes fleeing proscription or the illegal (as it was a *privilegium*) *lex Clodia de exsilio Ciceronis* that exiled Cicero\n\nThis is not to say that social status and wealth did not matter as long as citizenship status existed. That's not really true. Obviously in cases of civil law the penalties imposed on the poor would generally be different (if the law allowed it) from the penalties on the rich. In cases of criminal law, though, all penalties were the same, although Roman citizens could not be executed by certain means (crucifixion). During the later part of the Principate, however, we start to see the establishment of the *honestiores* and *humiliores*, social groups that did not exist in the late Republic. The concept probably existed in the late Republic, but it was a social idea that members of the senatorial class or the equites, though largely of the same order as the rest of the population, were not really of the same class--only in the later Principate, especially among the Antonines, does the legal distinction between the two start to emerge. There appears to never have been a legal definition of an *honestior*, and since by the Antonines the social orders had long since stopped being meaningful and the acquisition of magistracies was no longer a good indication of social rank it appears that it was largely left up to the judgement of the court and the emperor. *Honestiores* were exempt from certain penalties in criminal cases, particularly a replacement of the death penalty with *rogatio* (the beginnings of this practice can be seen as early as Augustus). Oddly, by the Antonines it seems that crucifixion had been re-introduced as a penalty for some citizens--*honestiores* were exempt from it, but *humiliores* might be crucified, which was not allowed as a punishment for any citizen in the earlier Principate or the Republic. *Humiliores* could also be sentenced to *damnatio ad ludas* or *ad bestias* or *ad mortem*, whereas *honestiores* could not. But the legality of these proceedings is kind of fuzzy, and this period is not one that I'm especially familiar with--during the late Republic, which is what I know about, criminal penalty was the same for all citizens, no matter their social rank" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ch7zppe", "ch80pjs" ], "score": [ 2, 6 ], "text": [ "We're allowing this question despite our 20-year-rule, because the events straddle the 20-year line, and most of the time in OP is in-bounds. But it's particularly important to not let any answers get into current politics, or the situation closer to the present. Thanks!", "Oh, there's absolutely indication that they intentionally committed genocide.\n\nIn fact, it's internationally recognized as such today.\n\nIf you'd like background on the conflict itself, please check [this thread here](_URL_0_).\n\nEdit: I realized it might be helpful to give you the account of what actually happened in Srebrenica, to make it more effective in explaining how the conclusions were made. My mistake, I don't know if you actually know them!\n\nIn 1993, the UN protection force in Bosnia (UNPROFOR) was tasked with protecting \"safe areas\". One of these safe areas was the Muslim enclave around Srebrenica. In March of 1994 (after agreeing in October 1993), the main force of the Dutch was deployed under UN command to this enclave. One company was stationed in the city, the other in the Potocari compound outside Srebrenica.\n\nOn the 5th of July, 1995, General Mladic of Republika Srpska (basically, the Bosnian Serb army) attacked the enclave. On the 11th of July, they took the city, and the Dutch troops in the city retreated to the Potocari compound. This caused a mass exodus from the area, with 5,000 staying inside the Potocari compound and around 27,000 outside. UN command determined that these people would have to be evacuated, so the Dutch commander began negotiating with Mladic for the evacuation. The Dutch also chose to expel the 5,000 staying inside the compound, which they have accepted responsibility for as being partially responsible for the deaths of those people. Over the next two days, Mladic's forces removed all the people outside and inside the compound via bus and truck, saying they were helping in the evacuation as promised. While they were removing them, they also conducted executions of men who were around military age, and rapes of women. Local UN employees were unharmed generally speaking, if they had UN cards (contrast this with the Rwandan genocide, where the Belgian troops were targeted gruesomely to get the UN to withdraw).\n\nAs people were getting onto the buses and trucks that were going to Bosniak-held territory, the men of military age were separated out. Some younger and older were also separated out, even as young as 14. They were killed, executed.\n\nWitnesses also noted cruel killings of children who were crying, women, and other forms of sexual abuse and torture.\n\nSome buses never made it to the Bosniak territory, and were seen driving away from the Bosniak territory, though it had women on it (not military age men, like the other killings). It's assumed that those on the buses who didn't make it were all killed.\n\nThe Serbs have admitted that they planned and carried out mass executions of the men of military age, which is damning evidence of genocide.\n\nTo get into some of the international recognition, first, before I explain why it was regarded as a definite genocide:\n\n* [The US recognized the actions of Serbia in that entire 1992-1995 span as genocide in 2005](_URL_1_).\n\n* [The ICTY tried Karadzic for genocide in 2010 [PDF Format!], and ruled that Srebrenica was a genocide.](_URL_2_).\n\n* [The ICJ ruled that Srebrenica was a genocide, but that the Serbian government was not responsible or complicit in it](_URL_5_)\n\nSo we know that there's a pretty sizable agreement that this was a genocide. Even the [UN Secretary General agreed it was a genocide](_URL_4_).\n\nNow, how do we know it was definitely a genocide? Let's look at some documents on the subject.\n\nFirst, the US Congress resolution on the subject says this:\n\n > Whereas Bosnian Serb forces deported women, children, and the elderly in buses, held Bosniak males over 16 years of age at collection points and sites in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control, and then summarily executed and buried the captives in mass graves;\n\nThis is pretty crucial. The fact that they separated males over 16 years of age and then summarily executed them is evidence of premeditation in carrying out the massacre. Now, how is this a genocide? Alone, it might not be considered as such, because it's not carried out with the intent to destroy the whole group, or they'd have killed women, children, and the elderly. However, the genocide convention that defines genocide says this:\n\n > ...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: \n\n > (a) Killing members of the group; \n\n > (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; \n\n > (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; \n\n > (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; \n \n > (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. \n\nThere are a few things to note here. There is the question of preventing births, there is the question of destroying *in part* a group, which is clearly done in Srebrenica, and there is the question of severe physical and bodily harm done.\n\nNow, let's look at the ICJ case.\n\nThe ICJ, while clearing Serbia of genocide, notes that it failed to prevent genocide. That is a *de facto* admission that it was a genocide. How did they reach this conclusion?\n\nIts decision, for the record, said this:\n\n > The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995.\n\nNow, again, how did they determine this to be genocide?\n\nThe case itself is [long [PDF Format!]](_URL_3_), so I'll try to slim it down for you to the important bits if I can. Of course, I recommend you read it; there's a lot of information I *won't* be able to cover.\n\n > At the same time, it also endorses the observation made in the Krstic´ case that “where there is physical or biological destruction there are often simultaneous attacks on the cultural and religious property and symbols of the targeted group as well, attacks which may legitimately be considered as evidence of an intent to physically destroy the group.\"\n\nThis observation was made by the ICTY.\n\nNow here's where it gets into the nitty-gritty. Page 190, if you're following along.\n\nThe Court pretty summarily rejects most arguments that relate to a lowering of the birth rate via male/female separations, rape, etc. It doesn't accept these arguments as constituting the genocide. However, it did examine the Srebrenica Massacre, on page 164 (it's mentioning the Appeals Chamber decision).\n\n > By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group that was emblematic of Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity. The Bosnian Serb forces were aware, when they embarked on this genocidal venture, that the harm they caused would continue to plague the Bosnian Muslims. The Appeals Chamber states unequivocally that the law condemns, in appropriate terms, the deep and lasting injury inflicted, and calls the massacre at Srebrenica by its proper name: genocide.\n\nThis is pretty damning. The court, in examining the actions of those involved, found this. And yes, that is how it went down. The men, as I said, were separated out, and killed in mass executions. Over 20% of the town's population was killed by the time it was over. Muslims were specifically targeted. Those who were deported or otherwise detained were either subjected to harsh conditions as refugees (as the Serbs knew they would be) or were held in camps that the ICJ notes were detestable in conditions and cleanliness and food/water provided.\n\nThere's little doubt that there was every indication for a genocide in Srebrenica today, and though the Serbian government has never officially said so (likely due to pride), it's a fairly clear-cut thing to most everyone who studies the issue. I highly suggest you look at the events themselves again and you'll see what I mean. However, just looking at the attempt to destroy a part of the population (the military age men, though it is also said that it was all men), it qualifies as a genocide under the Genocide Conventions.\n\nSources not cited in-text:\n\nKILLINGS AT SREBRENICA, EFFECTIVE CONTROL, AND THE POWER TO PREVENT UNLAWFUL CONDUCT\nTom Dannenbaum\nThe International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 3 (JULY 2012), pp. 713-728" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/22tgvg/can_someone_explain_the_bosnian_genocide/cgqbsvp", "http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr109-199", "http://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/cis/en/cis_karadzic_en.pdf", "http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/91/13685.pdf", "http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=1570", "http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/02/26/idUSL26638724._CH_.2400" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dbdfua2", "dbdnj9o" ], "score": [ 2, 9 ], "text": [ "Most of the goods were shipped in to France. By 1944 German Naval power was not what it used to be and while there were still attacks on supply convoys the Allies did a decent job of establishing Naval dominance. As they moved forward they also established supply bases on the mainland so as not to stretch supply lines as well as massive logistic backing behind each unit. Especially interesting is their concept of airborne units where the entire unit staff is dropped with supplies.\n\nThere's a very good book about the history of military logistics by Martin van Creveld called Supplying War if your interested in that (_URL_0_).", "Logistics were always a key factor in the planning of Overlord. Prior experience showed that capturing ports was difficult as they were a natural focus for defensive efforts, and once captured extensive work would likely be needed to repair sabotage and demolitions carried out by the defenders. Supplies would therefore have to come over the beaches initially, assisted by the artificial Mulberry harbours, until sufficient ports could be taken and cleared. An initial plan was for US forces to have Cherbourg operating by D+11, with a push into Brittany to take Brest and construct a new facility in Quiberon Bay around D+54. (Figures from *Logistical Support of the Armies: May 1941 - September 1944*, Roland G. Ruppenthal).\n\nAs it was Cherbourg only fell at the end of June, and rather than three days it took three weeks for the port to be cleared; Col. Alvin G. Viney described the damage done to the port as \"... a masterful job, beyond a doubt the most complete, intensive, and best-planned demolition in history.\" (*Cross-Channel Attack*, Gordon A. Harrison). The majority of supplies therefore came over the beaches until August when Cherbourg was fully operational, some minor Normandy ports were opened, and Operation Dragoon started to make southern French ports available. The beaches remained in use, though with less traffic as weather worsened, and as the Allies pushed east along the channel coast heavily fortified ports such as Le Havre and Rouen were besieged, captured and repaired.\n\nAfter initial slow progress, behind initial estimates, the breakout from Normandy happened far quicker than expected; by mid-September, about three months into the campaign, Allied forces were reaching objectives they were only planning to capture after a year. Antwerp was captured at the start of September with its docks intact but could not be utilised until the Scheldt estuary had been cleared, which only happened in November, Market Garden proving something of a distraction in the meantime. Ports in Brittany were scarcely used, with Brest heavily damaged and the planned facility in Quiberon Bay not built; by 1945 Antwerp and the Southern French ports were handling about half the supplies being landed, the rest coming into Cherbourg, Le Havre, Rouen and Ghent (Figures from *Logistical Support of the Armies: September 1944 - May 1945*, Roland G. Ruppenthal). \n\nOf course the supplies had to get to the front line after being landed, and the unexpectedly rapid advance caused major logistical headaches. The French railway system had been heavily targeted by the Allied air forces in the run-up to Overlord to prevent German reinforcements being rapidly deployed, and though plans were in place to reconstruct it these could not keep up with the speed of advance. Improvisation was therefore required, primarily in the form of truck convoys; the most famous route for these was the Red Ball Express from Cherbourg, though others including the White Ball from Le Havre and the ABC from Antwerp were also established.\n\nFor further reading Ruppenthal's *Logistical Support of the Armies* is available online ([Volume I] (_URL_1_) and [Volume II] (_URL_0_)), the planning and execution of Overlord being a major theme.\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.amazon.com/Supplying-War-Logistics-Wallenstein-Patton/dp/0521546575" ], [ "http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Logistics2/index.html", "http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Logistics1/index.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "crywzai" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Yes.\n\nConsumerism is generally linked to the rise of industrial production and wasn't a phenomenon (at least outside the upper class) until the late 19th century. Before then you had such figures as Adam Smith, David Hume, Ricardo, Marx, Quesnay, Colbert etc all writing on economics. Adam Smith is considered the defining founding father of modern economics and industrial era economics based much of its premises on the works of Smith and Ricardo." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c42jjxq", "c42jntb", "c42r3ii" ], "score": [ 2, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "The Philippines were important as a strategic outpost in Asia. The US leaders saw China as a market for their goods and they didn't want the European powers to control it alone. Therefore, a base in Asia was important. McKinley probably thought along these lines too.\n\nEspecially McKinley depicted the annexation also as part of a \"civilizing mission\" and the shouldering of the \"White Man's Burden\". \nDon't forget to read the official *Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation*: _URL_0_", "My understanding is he was sort of painted into a geopolitical corner. He hadn't really intended on taking the Phillipines, but now that he had them he couldn't give them to anyone else (because they'd just use them as a base for competition in China), couldn't give them back to Spain (because we had just beat the pants off of them and it would seem like a really pussy thing to do), and couldn't give them independence (because he thought they were a bunch of ignorant savages who couldn't govern themselves). Plus at that time period pretty much any island in the Pacific was useful as a naval coaling station and storehouse for supplies, much less somewhere like the Phillipines where there was the potential for a functional colony rather than just a lagoon and a beach to pile stuff on.", " From 1895 to 1900 imperialism develops very rapidly for the United States with 1898 becoming a turning point due to territorial acquisition after the Spanish-American War. You also have to understand what was going on in America at the time. The context is important because then you know what factors McKinley was dealing with therefore what he was thinking.\n\n**Policy Context:** There are two competing ideas in policy in the 19th century isolationism vs. the sphere of influence ideology. \n\n**Larger Context:** \n1. *There was a European land grab in the 1890s* meaning that Europeans realized their markets were over-saturated with good. In order to fix this surplus they need to find new people and colonies to sell their goods to. In response European nations begin a frantic land grab in Africa & Asia so that these people will be forced to buy \"mother land\" goods.\n\n2. *Social Darwinism* was used in the imperial argument by justifying colonization. Using the \"survival of the fittest\" mentality one nation could argue that some countries are too weak or unfit to rule themselves so it is the responsibility of the stronger countries to take them. This also argued that if colonies/societies are able to be taken over, then perhaps they weren't meant to survive on their own.\n\n3. *Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis* argued in 1893 that the \"frontier was closed\" meaning that Americans had no where to expand and colonize. Policy makers ask themselves \"how do we maintain the idea of conquest?\" and from that they use the frontier thesis as justification to imperialize and take colonies." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.msc.edu.ph/centennial/benevolent.html" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjkthhn" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "British History Podcast. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c6bx9ub", "c6bxjr3", "c6bxkwg", "c6bxuxy", "c6bxwhw", "c6bxyog", "c6byay8", "c6bycfj", "c6bygl8", "c6byjsg", "c6bz3w8", "c6bz760", "c6bz9zd", "c6bzghb", "c6bzh9k", "c6bzk1y", "c6bztve", "c6c0zng", "c6c1jv3", "c6c2izn", "c6c4rmh", "c6c6e3g", "c6cd56w" ], "score": [ 23, 38, 12, 14, 26, 6, 3, 9, 12, 5, 2, 3, 36, 3, 4, 7, 9, 2, 11, 3, 9, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "[The first Persian-Greco war. The Battle of Marathon.](_URL_0_). After their victory, the Athenians and their allies did something that they had never done before, turn the site of the battle into a memorial for all the dead to commemorate the bravery the dead had shown. Normally the dead would have been brought back home on their hoplite shield. You know how in the movie \"300\" as King Leonidas is walking to war, his wife/queen(?) tells him to return with his shield or on it; well that is how the Athenians viewed their dead, as far as my research seems to stress. So turning the site of the battle into a memorial site for the dead was pretty much unprecedented.\n\n", "The winter war perhaps? _URL_0_\n\nLittle Finland beating off the might of Soviet Russia. 70k casualties against soviet 323k.", "I am not a professional, but I understand that [the Vietnam War](_URL_0_) ended with the surrender and withdrawal of the anti-Communist forces, who numbered more than triple the Communist forces.", "The Byzantine general Belisarius, against the Vandals and the Ostrogoths in the 500's AD.", "The Battle of Rorke's Drift comes to mind.", "Fidel's army did exceptionally well against Batista's forces.", "There was a story about the SAS I saw... I'm trying to find it... I think it was during the Falklands conflict - SAS dug in and defended against much larger forces... ", "Battle of [thermopylae](_URL_1_) and the naval battle at [Artemisium](_URL_4_) for the second invasion of Greece by Xerxes.\n\nVarious engagements during the Crusades, specifically the first and third. More so during the 3rd under Richard I of England. \n\nThe Battle of [Agincourt](_URL_0_) under Henry the V of England \n\nBattle of [Gravelines](_URL_3_)\n\nNearly every engagement fought by [Cortés](_URL_2_) in South America\n\n\nThe early engagements of the American Civil War also come to mind.\n\nHope that helps. ", "The Emu war", "The Battle of Long Tan.\n\n108 soldiers of D Comany, 6 RAR vs 2500 NVA (with some VC) in the rubber plantation at Long Tan of Phuoc Tuy province South Vietnam.\n\nThe Australians suffered 18 KIA while the NVA/VC suffered 245 KIA, even though a captured diary later in the war showed that the NVA/VC dead numbered nearer 1000. They had a habit of carting away their dead after a battle if they could.", "The [St. Nazaire Raid](_URL_1_). There's even a documentary about it narrated by [Jeremy Clarkson](_URL_0_). ", "Some early 17th century battles involving Polish Winged Hussars heavy cavalry were fairly remarkable.\n\n\nBattle of Kircholm (_URL_0_)\n\nBattle of Kokenhausen (_URL_1_)\n\nBattle of Klushino (_URL_2_)\n\n\n", "Definitely the [Battle of Watling Street](_URL_1_), where 10,000 Romans decisively destroyed and massacred a very confident force of 100,000-200,000 Britons by funneling them packed tight into Roman wedge formations, trapped by their own army. Then as they retreated they were hacked down by cavalry and ran into their families who came to watch the battle, who were then also massacred. \n\nHere's a video about it: _URL_0_", "_URL_0_\n\nbattle of lthe lechfeld... combined german forces annihilating the hungarians that were the dominating warforce of that time", "Prussia had a lot of victories like these in the 18th and 19th centuries.\n\nIn the Seven Year's war, the [battle of Rossbach](_URL_1_) followed by the \n[battle of Leuthen](_URL_0_).\n\nIn the Franco-Prussian war, the [battle of Mars-la-Tour](_URL_2_).", "The Cuban Revolution of 1959", "[The Battle of Kluszyn](_URL_1_) (1610) is a great example of the well-trained and equipped [Winged Hussars](_URL_0_) defeating a force that outnumbered them 5 to 1.", "I'm sure someone else can elaborate more, but many of the \"Fireforce\" operations by (then) Rhodesian forces are pretty classic examples of small disciplined forces defeating larger forces. ", "I'm absolutely shocked that no one has mentioned this yet, but the Spanish Armada's defeat at the hands of the Royal Navy was quite stunning. Also incredibly significant because it broke the back of the Spanish Empire, and started the rise of British Colonization.\n\nAlso, the [Battle of The Teutoburg Forest](_URL_0_). Coincidentally I went and toured the exhibit when I was vacationing in Germany this summer without even realizing the historic significance of the site. Really awesome battle, and a surprisingly thorough museum nestled in the middle of no where.", "[The Lost Battalion](_URL_0_) of the US Army during WW1.", "[The Six-Day War](_URL_0_) was the first thing that came to mind for me. The Israeli forces were less than 1/2 of the Arab forces and yet they still managed to take quite a lot of territory. The only caveat is that this was most likely due to technological differences than discipline differences.", "William Walker _URL_0_\n\nbasically showed up in Nicaragua with 60 people and took over the country. He had Vanderbillt's financials support and was joined by another 300 once he arrived, but still pretty incredible. I'll let you read the details, it's a pretty interesting tale.", "Anything involving New Imperialism and the Gatling Gun." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter_War" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Fall_of_Saigon" ], [], [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Aztec_Empire#Massacre_of_Cholula", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada#Battle_of_Gravelines", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Artemisium" ], [], [], [ "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgF0R4dhUqk", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kircholm", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kokenhausen", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Klushino" ], [ "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-j4UAC0Y4Y", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Watling_Street#battle" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lechfeld" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leuthen", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rossbach", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mars-la-Tour" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_hussars#Winged_Hussars", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kluszyn" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoberg_Forest" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Battalion_\\(World_War_I\\)" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)#Conquest_of_Nicaragua" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c48nntu", "c48wpih" ], "score": [ 5, 2 ], "text": [ "He's both technically but in my biased opinion he's a freedom fighter. Though he could have planned the rebellion slightly more I believe, like asking a local slave in the dead of night on what he thought the slaves would do perhaps, but really Brown was never going to achieve the full liberation of the slaves as he wanted to. Regardless he's an inspirational figure.", "It's extremely hard to evaluate him from a modern moral standpoint. On the one hand, he killed a lot of people and essentially sought to start a rebellion against his country. On the other hand, he was rebelling against a patently oppressive system and demonstrated incredible moral courage to do what he believed was right. Few people have literally died for the sake of human freedom, and he is easily one of their number. In some respects, he reminds me of the July 20 plotters in Nazi Germany; they knew they were almost certainly not going to win, but they carried through anyway because they believed what they were doing was right for the sake of humanity.\n\nAt the same time, objectively evaluating his legacy, I think it's safe to say he encouraged the tensions (e.g. fear of slave revolts) which culminated in the Civil War. Without him, a very disastrous war might potentially have been averted. It's difficult to say how things would have turned out. But overall, judging by intentions, I would regard him as a hero; judging him by results, I would say he was actually probably detrimental more than anything else." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "chusi6h", "chw07e2" ], "score": [ 20, 2 ], "text": [ "To build a bit on /u/Sherbert42's answer: teleology (in a historiographical sense) is a form of historical enquiry which attempts to construct a narrative view of history as a progressive march in one direction; towards an inevitable end point. \n\nTo give one particularly notable and illustrative example of teleological thinking: look at 'Whig history', a school of thought [described by Herbert Butterfield](_URL_0_) which argued that all history can be considered as an inexorable march towards enlightenment/liberalism.\n\nThe problem with the teleological approach is that it tends towards sophistry: to use the Whig history example again, the idea that British-style liberal enlightenment is the apex of human progress, and that the eventual convergence of all history on that point is an inevitability, is deeply problematic. \n\nThe idea that you can divine a perfect (or in any way satisfactory) linear narrative in history become ludicrous almost as soon as you start to interrogate it to any depth. The construction of these teleological narratives generally involves highly selective use of evidence, straw men and the complete dismissal of countervailing viewpoints or interpretations.\n\nWhat always surprises me is that this prism for understanding history hasn't entirely gone out of fashion. Butterfield wrote *The Whig Interpretation of History* in 1931, about historians mostly of the 19th century, but Francis Fukuyama's 'End of History' theory in the 1990s owes a lot to these ideas: the idea that the fall of the Soviet Union represents the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy as \"the final form of human government\".\n\nEdit: as someone else pointed out in the comments, I mangled my understanding (misread old notes from uni and clearly wasn't paying enough attention) of Butterfield's place in the Whig canon — as a critic and taxonomist, not a part of the canon. Duly corrected/now going to go hang my head in shame.", "OP here, Thank you all of you for such thorough and thought provoking replies and comments. " ] }

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[ [ "http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/literature/general/Butterfield%20\\(Herbert\\)%20The%20Whig%20Interpretation%20of%20History.pdf" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e74of12" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "They did...it's all over the sources...\n\nThe Parthians crossed the Euphrates only twice. In 51 Cicero feared a Parthian invasion into Cilicia, but it did not materialize, and the brief Parthian campaign following Crassus' defeat fizzled out quickly. Plutarch claims that Pompey reached out to the Parthians for asylum, but he ended up going to Egypt instead and the Parthians were not active on the Roman frontier for most of the 40s. A Parthian campaign in 41, led by the younger Labienus, was initially successful, but they were disastrously defeated by Ventidius Bassus, losing the crown prince Pacorus. The Caesarians' success at Philippi allowed Antony to launch a large expedition into Armenia, which was not particularly successful but was not followed by a Parthian counterattack. Though wars were occasionally fought in Armenia, and the Romans successfully invaded Parthia a few times (under Trajan and Septimius Severus, for example), the Parthians did not again cross the Euphrates. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c6x9xov", "c6xa8mk" ], "score": [ 3, 8 ], "text": [ "Where did you hear this if I may ask? ", "Well life expectancy is a very skewed statistic, because infant mortality deflates it substantially. The upper-classes could expect to live to the beginning of what we'd call \"old-age\" (about 60s, 70 and above was more of a gamble) if they weren't taken ill or killed in battle. It's possible- there would be plenty of old knights over the age of 50 to take part- but it seems unlikely. Maybe your source meant a third of knights in England were over 50 at the time of Agincourt?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cvgln73" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "They were a political party formed in the wake of public outcry over an incident where some Masons in NY state were accused of kidnapping and possibly killing at fellow Mason (named Morgan) who had published an expose on the initiations.\n\nThis was in the 1820s.\n\nThe Anti-Masonic party was the most successful third-party in US history, coming in second in a Presidential election!\n\nHowever, after the failure to win their bid for the highest office, the party began to unravel. The damage to Freemasonry being done, the party found that it was too divided to last.\n\nFreemasonry would not fully recover until later in the century during a period that lead to what's now called the Golden Age of Fraternalism, and spawned countless fraternities modeled on Freemasonry and also saw Freemasonry itself return to and in many ways surpass its former strength.\n\nThat period lasted until the early part of the 20th century, and the decline that followed (esp. during the depression) didn't rebound until after World War II." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfibp3v" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "After the US colonized the Philippines the Catholic Church was disestablished, and was no longer the official religion. When that happened there was a large influx of Protestant missionaries of all denominations to the Philippines. Today, Protestants make up around 10% of the total population in the Philippines, with about 9 million people. While Protestantism was introduced to the Philippines during the period of US colonialism, it wasn't necessarily due to a push from the US government. It really was due more to missionaries acting opportunistically after the disestablishment of the Catholic Church. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cbuylm1", "cbv5sdn" ], "score": [ 6, 7 ], "text": [ "Slaves in Greece were not a rare thing to see. It is certain that rural slavery was very common in Athens. It is estimated that every citizen in Athens had at least 1 slave so, to answer your question, high class people were not the only ones to have slaves.\nA slaves principal use was for agricultural purposes usually but if there was a wealthy slave owner with dozens of slaves then there would be a foreman who oversaw all responsibilities of the other slaves. I haven't heard that slaves were \"in the family\" but you thought right when you questioned whether they do no manual labor. ", "It's a simplification, and simplifications like this are only going to make sense with respect to some benchmark; perhaps that's the context of your friend's view. But without context, there isn't really much to support her.\n\nEstimates of the slave population in Classical-era Greek states are exactly that, estimates, but those estimates normally range between 60% and 80% of the total population. One census reported from the late 4th century BCE would put the figure at nearly 87%. Even if we're sceptical of that figure, it's still a *lot* of slaves.\n\nSome did serve functions as valets, child-minders, scribes, and so on. These ones certainly fit your friend's model. But you don't have to look far to find slaves in manual labour. There were also public slaves, responsible for things like cleaning up obstructions and large messes in the streets: so far, not too bad. But an awful lot of farmwork was done by slaves, and it's much harder to believe that they led a happy fulfilling life.\n\nAnd there were some really awful slave positions around: for example, in Athens the silver mines at Laureion were worked exclusively by slaves, precisely because conditions were so appalling that any worker would have a pretty short lifespan after going there. Tens of thousands of slaves worked the mines, because the mines were so lucrative for Athens, and because slave-owners could actually lease unwanted slaves to the mines for a steady income. In Sparta things were even worse in a way, though perhaps not as intensely awful as silver mining: every year the ephors would ritually declare war on their helots, there were occasional mass slaughters, and adolescents were trained to go stealing and killing among them. Slaves could also be recruited for warfare: both Athens and Sparta used slaves in this way (though their treatment of the slaves afterwards varied a lot: after the naval battle at Arginousai, Athens officially freed all the slaves who had fought in the battle; in Sparta, a group of troublesome helots who had served in battle were rounded up under the impression they were going to be freed, and then slaughtered).\n\nSlaves had no rights and could be tortured, deprived, and killed without recourse (the only limit was on doing these things to *someone else's* slave). When testifying on a legal matter, slaves' testimony was only valid if extracted under torture. So sure, *some* slaves had cushy positions. But it's certainly not a lot that I'd choose." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cx5w03h", "cx6cu62" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Been asked before a few times. The term for this is [Single Combat](_URL_0_).\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_", "I've talked about this wrt feudal Japan [here](_URL_0_). Also, a more common thing seen pre-Sengoku era was still duels between opposing soldiers, though not in the sense of 'champions' but rather pairing off two sides during the battle." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_combat", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/183dk7/are_there_any_cases_where_two_leading_individuals/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f46ls/at_the_beginning_of_the_film_troy_a_battle_wasnt/" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3j92pc/its_common_in_historical_fiction_for_leaders_of/cunpmqn" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d15aysl" ], "score": [ 22 ], "text": [ "Swedish M26 Army Helmet seems to be the one, \n_URL_0_\n\nHeres some info on it. \n\n_URL_1_" ] }

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[ "http://imgur.com/a/YdWYV" ]

[ [ "http://nuke.combat-helmets.com/Portals/0/2010/SweM26-65a.JPG", "http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=129470&sid=b22be6cd242320fa9b5210b97804bf97" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cxsal8i" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "*I speak of the Middle Ages.*\n\nIslam doesn't really have monasticism. Within Sufism, Islam's mystical tradition, we can see some parallels to Christian monasticism, but fundamental differences remain--they are, at heart, different institutions with different roles to play in their respective religions and societies.\n\nAccording to Christian tradition, the roots of monasticism lie in the late antique Egyptian desert, where so-called Desert Fathers (and Mothers!) were inspired to (in theory) leave \"the world\" behind, and move into isolated (in theory) caves or rough buildings to focus on their spiritual lives and relationships with God. Two things happened: one, they were seen as holy and people from nearby villages/cities came to them seeking advice and consolation. Two, they started to form their own communities. First, communities of hermits who sometimes came together; eventually, communities who devoted as much time to seeking God *as a community* (in group prayer) as on their own. And, eventually, these communities developed formal Rules to regulate their daily lives.\n\nThat is what we typically mean by \"monasticism\" in Christianity: a group of people, typically single-sex (although \"double-houses\" of women and men, isolated from each other but living side-by-side, are a western medieval thing in certain times and places), who swear permanent vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; wear a uniform; and follow a rigid daily schedule of group prayer, individual prayer, and some amount of time for work. \n\nAs a social institution, monasteries own land, play power politics, are played with *in* power politics among bishops and secular lords (donating land to a monastery to keep it out of someone else's hands), offer a place for noble and royal widows to finish out their lives without needing to remarry (and thus preventing their lands from leaving the family), provide charity, and intercede between their patrons and God. In the early Middle Ages, monasteries were *crucial* in spreading and anchoring Christianity across pagan Europe. They were centers of learning, literacy, and libraries throughout the medieval world. As a religious institution, monasteries allow monks and nuns to nurture their inner spiritual lives--Christian mysticism largely, though not exclusively, comes out of the monastic tradition.\n\nSo in Christianity, mysticism tends to emerge from monasticism, or is just one part of it. Conversely, Sufism is the inner or mystical dimension of Islam, and in some cases, we can see some parallels to monasticism within that mysticism tradition.\n\nThe Sufi tradition generally consists of disciples or students under a leader. As you might expect, this idea of a teacher with a group of students, appointing one as their heir upon their death, does lead to the development of *tariqa* or orders of Sufism. \n\nUnlike the rigid, exclusive, vowed communities of monasticism, however, Sufi orders are fluid. People can join them, leave them, adhere to multiple traditions at the same time! They are collective teachings of ways to build your individual relationship with God. The Christian monastic orders can also be seen that way, but they are exclusive, for-life, and consider the full way of life as part of building that relationship.\n\nAdherence to Sufi orders can manifest in many different forms. In some cases, particularly in north and west Africa, where an entire people or branch of a people will follow Sufi principles. Some Sufis will live independently and come together or meet with the teacher. But in other cases, we do see Sufis living in community. I stress that this is not the formal vowed life under a Rule of Christian monasticism. Neverthless, *zawiya*/*tekke*/Sufi \"lodges\" of the Middle Ages resemble their Christian counterparts in some ways.\n\nStructurally or architecturally, the zawiya complex provided lodging for their Sufis, a school (zawiya simply means madrasa/religious school in some parts of the Arab world), space for daily prayer, and sometimes institutions like lodging for visitors or hospitals for the sick and indigent. You would find equivalents for all of these in medieval Christian monasteries! Zawiyas, though, reflected Sufism's individualistic focus much more than their Christian counterparts tended to. While most Christian monastic traditions did not allow individual cells or space for private prayer until later in the Middle Ages (Christianity also has an eremetic or hermit tradition, though), Sufi zawiyas frequently offered both. And again, vows and the rigidity of monastic Rules were not part of life in a zawiya.\n\nSufi zawiyas did, however, mirror Christian monasteries in their missionary function. Both individual Sufis and established zawiyas played crucial roles in the expansion of both Islam and literacy in the early medieval (and also rather more modern) world.\n\nIslam and eventually Sufism are born and cultivated partially in lands very familiar with either western or eastern forms of Christian monasticism--including, of course, the Egyptian desert itself. Were the Sufi zawiyas inspired by the Christian monastic communities their founders were well aware of? Was it simply the case that the medieval Mediterranean world shared enough circumstances that educated religious communities as beacons of charity and missionary work filled a necessary niche in both? Or was it a mix of the two? As you can imagine, influences between Christian monasticism, Sufi zawiyas, and the mystical tradition within the two religions (and Judaism as well) remains a rather hotly debated question.\n\nOverall, it is wrong to say medieval Islam developed monasticism. But a closer look reveals that within Sufism, institutions did develop that paralleled contemporary Christian monasteries in several important respects.\n\n*My apologies for not including the Buddhist, Hindu or Jain monastic traditions in this discussion.*" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cynm0iz" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "My own area of study is the armour of high and late medieval Europe. So my answer will focus on that, not on the Early Middle Ages. I mention this caveat because the economics and social organization of Europe were very different between 600 and 1450, and this effected things like how armour was made, which in turn effected the time it took to make it.\n\nMy source for this is Alan Williams' The Knight and the Blast Furnace.\n\nA mail shirt might have between 28,000 and 50,000 links, depending on the size of the links and the length of the skirt an sleeves. Some mail was made of alternating riveted and solid links (IE, something like a washer). This was quicker to make, and modern estimates suggest it would take around 750 man-hours to manufacture. If a single laborer worked 10 hour days, this would take 75 days to make (not including sundays and feast days). However, laborers often didn't work alone, and workshops would include division of labor to speed up the process. So the actual time to manufacture a shirt would often be less than 75 days, even if it represented 750 hours of labor - how many people worked on a shirt, and how well they collaborated would determine the actual time of manufacture.\n\nFrom the 14th century onwards, mail is increasingly made of all rivetted links, perhaps because it allows a tighter weave with thicker links and thus makes mail more protective. Rivetting all those extra links would add around 250 man-hours of labor, for a total of 1000 man-hours.\n\nThis made mail rather expensive, as you can imagine. In the beginning of the 14th century mail shirts bought in Bruges in Flanders were the equivalent of 60-130 days wages of a common soldier on campaign. In the early 15th century mail shirts bought from the Westphalia region of Germany were the equivalent of around 25 days wages, which is a good deal more affordable. At least some of this reduction in price may have been due to the re-use of mail - mail is easy to recycle, alter, cut up and repurpose. Many surviving mail shirts shows signs of alteration from decades or more after they were first made, and smaller pieces of mail armour like standards (collars), sleaves, skirts and gussets (underarm guards) may well have been made from older mail shirts that were cut up. So a lord buying mail shirts for his retinue might not be buying new mail, but 'remanufactured' mail.\n\nAs a final aside, the first step to making mail is making some form of wire or at least some thin piece of metal that can be bent into a ring. The quickest way to do this is to draw it - basically pulling an iron rod through a series of hole in a 'draw plate', creating a wire of a given thickness. This process is first mentioned by Theophilus in the 11th century, but mail with links of fairly even thickness dates as early as the 8th century. Some medieval mail is made from 'wire' of less even thickness, which may have been made through other processes like cutting strips from flat pieces of metal and then twisting them. I mention the manufacture of wire because while it isn't included in the calculations above, it is important to keep in mind that this was labor that needed to be performed before mail could be made - even though it wasn't necessarily performed in the mailmaker's workshop by the mailmakers themselves. Improvements in making wire made mailmaking faster and mail more affordable.\n\nEDIT: A final note is that mailmaking and making plate armour were different crafts, and at least in larger cities like London were represented by different guilds.\n" ] }

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[ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqOE_OHEP0" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "c7mdt9d", "c7me061", "c7mfhud", "c7mibe5", "c7mqvif" ], "score": [ 34, 3, 14, 9, 3 ], "text": [ "First of all, the Germans never used the word 'Blitzkrieg' themselves and did not have a specific doctrine around deep penetration or strategic battle - as you can see from from them turning back from Warsaw to deal with the Polish counterattack at Bzura 1939-09-09, the halting of the armoured units in front of the Dunkirk pocket 1940-05-17 and 1940-05-24 and diverting the armoured units from *Heeresgrupp Nord* and *Heeresgruppe Mitte* to help form the Kiev pocket 1941-09-16.\n\nThe Germans had a strong tactical focus, with their *auftragstaktik* and were extremely flexible tactically, allowing them to penetrate enemy lines and advance on the depth. However, they did not have any specific strategic doctrine other than the traditional military ideal of the dual pincer cut-off, famous ever since Hannibal did it in the Battle of Cannae. \n\nThe Germans never managed to get mroe than about 17% mechanisation of their forces - most marched on foot and pulled their heavy weapons with horses, and the difference in speed of these two different kind of units was a constant headache, and was exploited by the allies and Soviets multiple times. As the German armoured units attacked the suburbs of Warsaw 1939-09-08 (losing 70 tanks in the process and learning that tanks were not very good in urban warfare), the untouched Polish Poznan and Pomorze armies gathered at the Bzura River and attacked the German *30. Infanterie-division* that was the only stretched-out flank protection of the German advace. The Germans had to pull back from their attack of Warsaw, go after the Poles and the campaign lasted for another two weeks.\n\n**In essence, the Germans had no blitzkrieg, they were flexible tactically and strived for encirklement strategically, and had severe problems with the armoured and motorised units outrunning the foot infantry.**\n\nThe Soviets did develop a doctrine of deep penetration, but essentially abandoned it during the 1937-1938 purges. While the purges mostly killed off generals and colonels and left the non-senior officers in place, it did freeze the Red Army in place. No-one dared do anything without orders, and tried to replace tactical flexibility with zeal and discipline, which was a recipy for disaster - which the defeat of the Spanish Republican Army (organised along Soviet lines in late 1936 and early 1937) and the performance of the Red Army in the Finnish Winter War 1939-1940 and early in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1942 shows.'\n\nThe Red Army slowly got better at knowing what it was good at and what it was bad at, and how to use what it was good at and compensate for what it was bad at. It created massive breakthough artillery units, shifting them to where they were needed. They knew they could never match the Germans in tactical flexibility, and instead created an operation doctrine, where they would rely on firepower of pre-calculated artillery barrages and massed use of tanks and assault guns to achieve penetration of the enemy lines. Massive reserves would be ready to attach to any attack that showed promise, and attacks that failed was stopped and their best forces moved to reinforce the attack that did well. Once penetrating, the Red Army focused more on destroying the enemy supply, communication and weaker rear units (destroying tank repair shops, supply services, traingin depots, etc.) and capturing important transportation hubs. Other so far untouched enemy units would be forces to retreat to not be cut off, and once out of their entrenchment and unprotected by artillery, they could be an easy prey for another massed attack. Flexibility on a larger scale, it was very effective against the Germans once their ability to conduct large scale armoured warfare had been ground down. The skill in *maskirovka*, the art of camouflage, hiding own forces and making it look like there were substantial forces where there were almost none was also important. The Red Army mastered this art.\n\n**In essence, the Red Army could not match the Germans in tactical skill, and thus built up flexible reserves to quickly shift to any breakthrough. Combined with *maskirovka* this allowed them to decisively defeat the Germans on the eastern front.**", "Both feature combined arms at their core and seek the dislocation of enemy forces through superior mobility, but Blitzkrieg has a tactical focus whereas Deep Battle takes the concept to the operational scale.\n\nYou might want to qualify your question with a temporal frame : Blitzkrieg came to its peak during the spectacular German conquests whereas the maturing of Deep Battle was just starting. While Tukachevski & al. did conceptualize Soviet operational art in the thirties, it is really the brutal and costly experience of WWII that hammered the concept into the shape of an efficient doctrine - see operation Bagration for a summary of that crazy learning process.\n\nI'm posting from memory on a mobile - I'll fetch some sources when I come home to a proper workstation.", "Theoretically, the two approaches are different styles of surface-and-gap warfare. Which basically says, attack the enemy where there is a gap (weakness) in his forces rather than a surface (strength).\n\nThe Germans exploited gaps through recon-pull, the Soviets used command-push.\n\nThe Germans would send out recon units to find weak spots, and flex their main effort formations to take advantage of and break through them. **Recon** units found the gaps, and **pulled** the main forces after them through the gap to exploit the enemy's rear--encircle him, shoot up his logistics, etc.\n\nThe Soviets would say, \"I vant gap here,\" and point to a spot on the map, and they would mass their artillery corps to blow a hole in the line. The **command** created a gap through overwhelming firepower, and **pushed** their forces through it.", "[I drew you a crappy representation of Blitzkrieg versus Deep Battle in MS Paint.](_URL_0_) The graphic you have about Blitzkrieg is different from my understanding of that strategy. My understanding is that, typically, Blitzkrieg attacks at one main point, punches a hole in the lines, and then seeks to effect envelopments/encirclements as the opportunity arises. For instances, punch a hole in a north-south defensive lines, drive deep, and then wheel around either to the north or to the south to create an envelopment around whichever part of the defenders a general chooses. This is in contrast to the dual pronged attack that is pictured in your graphic. Therefore, my representation looks a bit different from yours. (This is not to say that either is the only right representation!).\n \nBased upon my understanding, the big difference between Blitzkrieg and Deep Battle is that the former identifies a weak spot from the get-go, and then seeks to exploit it based upon a singular assault, whereas the latter does not target an existing weak point, and instead seeks to create many weak points through sheer brute force along several points of attack, then push deep to destroy supply lines and create envelopments. Also, it seems to me that Blitzkrieg is somewhat on a smaller, or at least more targeted, scale, whereas Deep Battle is an incredibly broad and huge strategy that requires massive manpower. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.", "A little late to this I see, but I still wanted to share my own perspective- and also attempt to clear up some misconceptions, before I start though – apologies for a longish post, but Military history is my passion, and WW2 OST front is an all consuming passion ;)\n\nThere is a substantial difference between “Blitzkrieg” – the term itself did not exist in the lexicon of the Wehrmacht and Deep Operations, and the difference stems largely from the unique constraints and strengths facing both these nations.\n\n**Background:**\n\nThe Russian army has historically fought (and mostly won) defensive campaigns, using the space of Russia to draw invaders in, before springing the trap shut. With the revolution, Bolshevism as a creed demanded aggression, and being defensive was no longer enough, and with the rise of Communism, also came the rise of the leading figures who propounded the new theory of offensive operations, Frunze, Triandfilov and Tukhachevsky (quoting from memory, so the spellings might be horribly wrong).\n\nThese thinkers (mostly Triandfilov and Tukhachevsky) considered the following,\n\n(1) Can Russia stand upto another war of attrition? It had been successful in the past, but is it a guarantee of success in the future?\n(2) Space – Russian doctrine had always depended on trading space for time, and fighting defensively, but these thinkers challenged the dogma, and postulated that, the same space could also be used for an offensive strategy. As a digression, Zhukov used a reverse variant of Tukhachevsky’s offensive plan, as a 3 echeloned defensive plan (I am of the firm opinion that the Russian’s did not just stumble in the defense, and Father winter saved them, but that is a topic of an entirely different conversation)\n(3) Use strengths – Arty, masses of infantry have always been Russia’s strength and Sov doctrine married these strengths (which till then had been the hallmark of a static, defensive war) to the new doctrine of mobility as proposed by Fuller in the early 20th century, thereby resulting in what we now know as combined arms.\n(4) Weaknesses – Avoid pitched battles on Soviet soil, and take the battle to Western Europe and gain quick victories.\nThis theory \nhowever did not stretch as far as what the Germans did in terms of Radio net connectivity, use of air power etc etc, as Tukhachevsky was unfortunately purged before he could get there, and this entire theory died an unnatural death (until it was revived spectacularly in the counter offensive in Stalingrad)\n\n**What did this result in?**\n\nIt is too simplistic to say that Deep operations was only about battering a line in strength and then hope to break through to the enemies rear. The Sov army (especially post 42) started tailor making itself to this concept, and this is where the role of shock armies come in.\nDeep operations was also about maskirova (spelling?) and in ensuring that they enemy was completely on the backfoot on the chosen area of offensive. For instance during operation Uranus, Gehlen was entirely convinced that the offensive was going to be against Armee Group Centre- we talk about how FUSAG was formed in the UK, prior to D-Day, but Sov Russia created 3 fake armies, built 50 fake bridges (not exactly sure about this number) and entirely fooled German intel into where the strike was coming. This was the case during the Kursk counteroffensive and Operation Bagration as well (other examples of brilliantly executed Deep operations strikes).\nDeep operations was layered as below,\n(A) Shock army – massed infantry, heavy on sapper support backed by a overwhelming arty, mortars, Katyusha’s etc etc. You also had Shftrabats(spelling? Punishment battalions) clearing a path through minefields, but these were a very small component of the force deployed on an offensive. \n(B) Elite Guards Infantry units or regular infantry divisions as well\n(C) Armour\n(D) Cavalry Mechanised Groups\n\n**A** made the strike, these were divisions that were designed to take massive losses ,and their only role was in breaking through German lines – they had minimal mobility, communications capabilities or any of the other requirements for modern warfare. These units where the equivalent of the sledgehammer. \n\n **B** followed through, to deal with the second echelon German troops – this was an evolution in Sov tactics, and evolved as a response to Germany tactics of pulling back to a secondary line to ensure that the Arty impact was minimized (Gotthard Heinricci for instance was a genius at this tactic). \n**C** then completed the rout, and made deep penetrations, by then \n**D** (or also called Operational Exploitation Groups) were introduced into the gap, these were the units who roamed far to the rear of German lines and ravaged the Rollbahn (Armour also did the same, but lack of fuel stopped them long before the cavalry units were stopped).\n\nThe German “Blitzkrieg” also had a similar parent in Fuller’s ideas (some authors even say Guderian was deeply influenced by Tukhachevsky’s ideas – but apart from a couple of lines in Guderian’s memoirs, I have not been able to find a source to this claim), but the nature of this beast was entirely different. The Blitzkrieg considered the following,\n\n(1) Avoid the brutal war of attrition as seen in WW1\n(2) Avoid Static trench warfare, which favoured the combined (and stronger) economies of the allies\n(3) Essential to knockout the allies in the West before turning to the East to avoid a two front war\n(4) Manpower constraints, and use of force multipliers (Heinkel Tactical Bombers, Stuka’s, Panzer divisions) to even the manpower gap,\n(5) Shift in focus from a war with geographical objectives, to one that destroyed the maximum of enemy forces in minimum time.\nThis resulted in what we now know, and see as the extremely successful Blitzkrieg.\n\nIn this, as the German’s did not have the manpower to assault a wide section of the front, the entire force of the thrust was on the Schwerpunkt (again, spelling?) – or quite literally, the point of effort. It was NOT about recon by fire (probing for weakness in enemy lines, and then attacking the weakest point), but again intel played a big role in identifying (before the assault) the joints in opposing Armies, Corps (something like what Napoleon used to use), identifying clearly the lines of axis, and most importantly, about encirclements! The encirclements were planned affairs and the junctions of the pincers pre-defined.\n\nThe fundamental difference was that, Sov planning envisaged the substantial manpower reserves that were always available to it historically, and planned accordingly. Hence, the aim was more…”conventional” in that it did not seek a complete destruction of a large portion of the enemies OOB, whereas German planning was all about successive Cannae’s. \n\nInstead of Arty, the Germans leveraged their way superior CnC capabilities and used arty spotters embedded into each division, along with air spotting by spotters in Fieseler Storches, and used the Stuka’s as a moving arty. The initial attack was itself made by Armour and not by infantry, and the infantry was used to mop up the kessel’s while the armour moved onto the next encirclement / target. The logic in play here was to use all armour at the Schewrpunkt and brute force through the opposition lines, while the Luftwaffe on interdiction missions played havoc in enemy rear. Using infantry might have tangled the lines of communication, and clogged up the roads, and also giving the enemy time to react was the thought process here. It is important to note here though, Deep battle might have not been the success it became without the help of the humble Willy’s Jeeps and Studebacker trucks which immensely helped multiply Sov mobility.\n\nBoth Deep battle, and Blitzkrieg were products of the same thought – mobility over static warfare, and about bringing the war to a quick close, but the execution was as different as chalk is to cheese. In cases where deep operations failed (as in the example of the counter offensive at Moscow), it was entirely because of Stalin’s impatience and over ambition.\nThere seems to be a confusion on Deep operations, and that it involved attacks on multiple axis’, the thing is, those other offensive’s were a part of the maskirova, and meant to keep the German’s from switching reserves, the main scherpunkt (for lack of a better Sov word) was always pre-decided, and studied to the death. Take Op Uranus for instance, the planning for a counter offensive began towards the end of September, the site of the breakthrough was personally surveyed by both Zhukov and Vassilevski (spelling?), and completely pre-decided. The offensives by Chuikov, were more of a distraction to “fix” German troops.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c62rbrz", "c62rgai", "c62rhfe", "c62sdmh", "c62tfs3", "c62txeb", "c62w6m9", "c62wxkg", "c62xwfi", "c6331os", "c634izq" ], "score": [ 17, 14, 82, 20, 29, 8, 13, 7, 8, 9, 9 ], "text": [ "Looks good, kudos to you and the mod team for being awesome and keeping r/AskHistorians a great place to learn about history.", "The rules on \"top level\" comments make sense when the post is an actual question, but not for the other types of permitted posts. How can a comment on a special occasion, meta or project post \"only be a answer to the question at hand\"?\n\nI suggest that you make it clear that this rule only applies to question posts.", " > [W]hile this is a public forum it is not an egalitarian one; not all answers will be treated as having equal merit.\n\nThank you for taking a clear stance on this issue and not pussy-footing around it. I come to this subreddit for content and there really is a very impressive panel of historians to provide that.\n\nAs a history buff, I always get the itch to pitch in my own two cents, but refrain from doing so as there probably is someone who can provide much more accurate information. (I should clarify that I am not implying that I have never found a helpful and on topic response from a non-flaired poster. Just that posts with people speculating and postulating have been on the rise..)\n\nTo the Mods and the panel, thanks a lot for all the work that you put into this subreddit!", "Thank you for the tier system. Its such a breathe of fresh air compared to askscience where everything is so clinical.", "top tier comments should allow for questions directed at OP (e.g. clarification requests).", "Awesome rules. I'm sure they will keep the high quality of this subreddit.", "I strongly prefer not allowing meta posts except from moderators. Subreddits around this size frequently decay to being nearly 50% meta and \"idea\" posts; \"let's talk about downvotes\" (or \"/r/askhistorians: we need to talk\") in particular will happen at least once a week. Just like everyone doesn't have the same subject authority, everyone doesn't have the same moderation or reform authority", "It all seems to be for the better. And I'm glad it's not going to be as strict about non top-tier jokes and speculation as /r/askscience.", "Thank you for continuing to keep /r/askhistorians one of the best-moderated subreddits out there. ", "After the Holocaust denial thread, I just wanted to say thanks, mods.", "These mostly have been the un-official rules for a while that were enforced by moderator and community consensus, we are just writing them down now." ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/y94fc/special_occasion_post_243rd_birthday_of_napoleon/", "http://i.imgur.com/vZveY.png", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/x9c4e/meta_new_projects_incoming/" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "d9d3n6x" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Unfortunately I don't think this an answerable question. \"Arab blood\" does not define Arabness. Arabness is at least partially a linguistically defined ethnicity. That's why dark-skinned dark-eyed [Anwar Sadat](_URL_2_) is just as much an Arab as light-skinned blue-eyed [Bashar al-Assad](_URL_0_) is an Arab.\n\nAside from that definitional issue, our earliest sources, including biblical references, are to \"Saracens\", not Arabs. It's not at all clear who is being referred to when these classical sources are referring to Saracens. For instance while some sources might be using it in the sense that we mean of \"ethnicity\", and therefore define the area of territory occupied by Saracens broadly, others are using an unusually narrow definition, where, for instance, Saracens are the people who live in one very specific place. [This can easily be misrepresented by Arab nationalists](_URL_1_) in cumulative fashion as suggesting that some huge portion of the Middle East was meaningfully \"Arab\" from a very early period. Maybe. I'm hugely, hugely skeptical.\n\nMost of the writers we're relying on for these descriptions in the classical era have never been to the Middle East, have no idea who lives there, and the picture will remain fuzzy until the Arab conquests themselves.\n\nI think the best we can probably do is to say that there were strong tribal connections throughout the region. Quite good linguistic connections. But making definitive statements in terms of percentages for ethnic populations is just not possible." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.eheraldpost.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Bashar_al_Assad.jpg", "https://www.reddit.com/r/arabs/comments/3if0in/the_distribution_of_peoples_described_as_arabs_by/", "https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/77/93077-004-9CEFFCB4.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fgp5izc" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "Frankish hegemony over transrhenan peoples was less due to conquest or overpowering campaigns, and more to a policy of personal relationships, trade, raids and counter-raids that weren't that dissimilar to Rome's policies in Germania and that tended to define sort of a Frankish \"sphere of influence/power projection\" up to the Elbe, but also in Northern Italy, Armorica, southern England and Spain.\n\nWhile Clovis battled against Alamans and Thuringians already in the late Vth and early VIth centuries, it mostly concerned groups established or raiding Gaul, not campaigns going beyond the Rhine. These peoples entering into Ostrogothic protection under Theodoric, the establishment of a Frankish hegemony in Germania can be more easily associated with the reign of Theudeuric I, who ruled the Northern-Eastern part of the Frankish realm and directly at contact with its polities (or raiders, as evidenced by the failed Danish raid of 516, whom defeat made enough of an impression to be accounted for in Beowulf).\n\nThis hegemony can mostly be traced from the reigns of Clovis' sons, especially Theudeuric who ruled over the lands associated with Franks since the IVth century and that was in direct contact with Frisians, Saxons, Alamans and Thuringians. The last two peoples already clashed with Franks during Clovis' reign, but mostly groups that were present in Gaul, the rest benefiting from the powerful and prestigious protection of Theodoric, king of Ostrogoths, a protection that disappeared in the VIth century along the decline and fall of the Ostrogothic kingdom itself.\n\nAs Francia appeared as the most prosperous and powerful polity of post-imperial western Europe and as kings in Italy were unable to really preserve Theodoric's diplomatic network, Franks were a necessary and powerful partner : the first Frankish intervention in Thuringia (with Merovingian kings probably had genealogical relations with) was even made at the behalf of a Thuringian king against another, hoping to get half of it which they did after an obscure situation where the supported candidate died. It's not that they annexed all of Thuringia : a good part was eventually swallowed up by neighboring entities, Germanic or Slavic, and the land within the realm was probably let to local nobles (led by a duke at least in the VIIth century, hinting at an \"ethnic\" rulership even if he was Frankish), poorly settled at best by Franks, with local populations being held tributary. The Thuringian exemple, eventually, can be set for the lot of Germanic principalties under Frankish influence.\n\nRather than a conquest, what was important for Merovingians was their capacity to halt raids, raid beyond the Rhine themselves and obtain both loot and substential tribute, raising auxiliaries and enforce their claims of over-lordship by including them into a personal and genealogical relationship as duces (dukes) although they probably had royal titles (in a system not unlike the Chinese tributary system, local and regional kings in Germany, Wasconia or Brittany weren't considered as such by Franks, who called them counts or dukes). On this regard, the difference usually made between Alamans, Bavarians and Thuringians from one hand; Frisians and Saxons from another one might not be that radical (Saxons, for exemple, being extorted a tribute and considered as rebels when refusing to pay up).\n\nOf course, this was true when the Merovingian kings were able to enforce their rule beyond their borders, bullying their way into submission of local kings (especially under the reigns of Theudeuric I, Clothar I, Clothar II and Dagobert); but at the first sign of weakness, a revolt was always possible as it happened to Clothar I against Saxons (and as Marcomanni did with Marcus Aurelius in their time); even the own successes of peripheral rulers could led them to challenge Franks (such as Radulf, victorious against Wendish raiders and successfully beating Dagobert's Franks).\n\nThis could give the impression that Frankish Germania was kind of an aftertought, but it seems to have been rather the contrary : tributes payed in cattle, horses, possibly slaves were important, levied men served as auxiliaries in Frankish campaigns as soon as in Northern Italy and as late as the VIIIth century. It's just that, as Romans before, Merovingians were content (or had to do) with a fluctuating and warlord-ish relationship where their hegemony had to be regularly reasserted by demonstrations of strength or battle; rather than an effective conquest. That said, even this complex relationship left marks : local dynasties and nobilities were \"Frenchified\" to an extent, allowing Carolingians to maintain genealogic ties with dynasties such as Agilofings in Bavaria, giving some leeway to integrate them further to Francia (establishing law codes, notably, and \"preparing\" their annexation) and serving as model for further conquests such as in Frisia or Saxony : these conquest, as real they were, were also not so much \"efficient\" than brutal and requiring a lot of resources and attention from early Carolingian kings compared to the more light weighted management of Merovingians." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dk9uxoa" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Post this to r/latin--I think they'd get a kick out of it. :)" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d7bzlzk" ], "score": [ 20 ], "text": [ " > Yet both Union and Confederate cavalry corps operated almost exclusively as dragoons. Why was this? To what extent was this affected by the duties of pre-war US cavalry, and/or the lack of a European-style military establishment? \n\nThe ways in which Union and Confederate cavalry came to operate during the war depended a lot on the availability and quality of mounts, the terrain on which the fighting took place, and the quality of training. The quality of Union remounts was appalling at the start of the war, with unbroken horses and those too young or old to ride effectively among other issues, being purchased en masse and poorly taken care of. Until George Stoneman took over as Chief of US Cavalry in 1863, and Sheridan as head of the Union Cavalry Corps, the situation didn't really improve. By the estimates of one French military attachee, Union Regiments went through up to 6 horses per annum per trooper, in the first 3 years of the war. The Confederates were somewhat better mounted initially, the horses often being personal mounts from home, these were irreplaceable and scarce by the later part of the war, 1864-65. So on both sides, poor quality mounts constrained the chances for mass adoption of shock tactics when these were appropriate. Shock action also required a good deal of training, as well as skillful execution to ensure success. Stephen G. Starr indicates that units that enjoyed initial success with the saber were more likely to continue with using it than those who were met with failure. For example, The 17th Mounted Infantry charged Bedford-Forrest's dismounted troopers at Bolger's Creek on April 1st, 1865, despite being raised and designated \"mounted infantry.\" Most units appeared to favour firearms simply due to the ease of training and their being easier to obtain. \n\nThe lack of quality mounts, and the difficulty in training men for shock action compared to dismounted fire action, were further compounded by the terrain in which much of the war was fought. Stephen Badsey lays out the problem quite well:\n\n > The main theatre of war, in Virginia, was by European standards \nheavy ground, hilly, sparsely populated, with large virgin forests. This was scarcely ideal for the charge. The Western Theatre, far larger, saw considerable variation in terrain, but even there, so Colonel Duke of the Confederate Cavalry wrote: \"The nature of the ground on which we generally fought, covered with dense woods or crossed with high fences, and the impossibility of devoting sufficient time to the training of the horses, rendered the employment of large bodies of mounted men to any good purpose very difficult.\"\n\nMassed cavalry charges of divisions or more were very rare (it should be noted that this was historically the case even in Europe), but actions in troop, squadron and regiment strength were possible. A charge didn't even necessarily need to involve edged weapons; troopers with revolvers, carbines or rifles could \"gallop\" a position, charging up to it and dismounting to open fire. Shock action and dismounted action could also be combined quite effectively, as in the case of J.H. Morgan's charge at Shiloh in 1862, and in the clash between Pleasonton and Stuarts Cavalry in 1863.\n\nTo conclude, it might be more proper to say that American Cavalry, Union and Confederate, functioned more as 'Mounted Rifles' or 'Hybrid Cavalry', as 19th and early 20th century British (and Dominion) military writers termed them. In the former case, fire action dismounted was prioritized, but shock action could be resorted to in special circumstances, while Cavalry's scouting role was still central. In the latter case, emphasis was placed on shock action, but combining artillery and machine guns, as well as dismounted firepower. They weren't necessarily Dragoons who simply used their horses for transport, but could display great versatility in their tactics and missions. \n\nSources:\n\n* \"The Obsolescence of the Arme Blanche and Technological Determinism in British Military History\" and \"Writing Horses into American Civil War History\" by Gervase Phillips\n* [Fire and the Sword: The British Army and the Arme Blanche \nControversy 1871-1921] (_URL_1_) by Stephen Badsey\n* \"Cold Steel: The Saber and the Union Cavalry,\" by Stephen G. Starr\n\nThis [essay] (_URL_2_) on Civil War Cavalry from before WWI is worth a read, as is Alonzo Gray's [Cavalry Tactics as illustrated by the War of the Rebellion] (_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://archive.org/details/cavalrytacticsa00graygoog", "https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/244878/Badsey12201.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2001.05.0109" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9u22jd" ], "score": [ 18 ], "text": [ "Because giving it up was a hugely important bargaining chip for peace with Egypt. No one really regarded it as part of Israel (the way the West Bank is), though there were people there who were less than thrilled about being kicked out. Making it demilitarized allowed for Israel to retain a buffer, while still getting peace with Egypt." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dhblp8k" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "What timeframe are you refering to?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cpav2j9" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "hi! hopefully some of the historians in antiquities will drop by with more info, but you may be interested in a few related posts\n\n\n* [How do we know what years certain pre-gregorian historical events happened in?](_URL_4_)\n\n* [How certain are we of what year it is? Were there every any disagreements, like during the Dark Ages or afterwards, of the exact year?](_URL_2_)\n\n* [If an event is recorded to have occurred on a particular date, and I ask you to say with 100% confidence how many days have elapsed since that event, what is the oldest era for which you can do this?](_URL_3_)\n\n* [What is the earliest recorded date that we can determine accurately?](_URL_5_)\n\n* [What is the earliest reliable documented event in human history?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [How do historians work with dates from different calendars? Do you have some kind of unified calendar?](_URL_1_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/q944u/what_is_the_earliest_reliable_documented_event_in/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2lkip2/how_do_historians_work_with_dates_from_different/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xww2c/how_certain_are_we_of_what_year_it_is_were_there/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vr3br/if_an_event_is_recorded_to_have_occurred_on_a/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1obrab/how_do_we_know_what_years_certain_pregregorian/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19pgf6/what_is_the_earliest_recorded_date_that_we_can/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e1comu5" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Hi there, I essentially answered a similar question to yours [here](_URL_1_), and linked to an earlier answer on some more of the legal changes [here](_URL_0_). The legal changes in particular would have had a genuine impact on the day-to-day life of the English people, especially as the legal system turned heavily from restorative to punative justice." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6bale9/how_did_the_norman_conquest_of_england_impact_the/dhl77kj", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8tf1o4/z/e17fsg8" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dj4mkq8", "dj4ngi4" ], "score": [ 3, 3 ], "text": [ "Obviously, there is always a ton to be said on this sort of question, but you might find [this](_URL_0_) response by /u/Cosmic_Charlie informative", "You will be interested in a series we ran a year ago on finding and evaluating sources, particularly parts [1](_URL_0_) and [2](_URL_1_).\n\nThese both feature several of our flaired members discussing where to find the best sources, how to evaluate books, and how to get the most out of secondary sources." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3larxd/how_can_a_layman_tell_how_reliable_a_source_is/cv4sgdy/" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3t1z25/monday_methodsfinding_and_understanding_sources/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3tz8wo/monday_methodsfinding_and_understanding_sources/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e5auhdp" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Part 1 (scroll to my reply to this comment to read Part 2):\n\nThe Jordanian motivations go much deeper than the history of the Hussein family and the Palestinians. Instead, one has to first understand the development of Jordan and the development of the state of Israel to understand their overlap.\n\nOn the one hand, Jordan has participated in a number of conflicts against Israel, including joining the efforts to destroy it in 1948, fighting alongside Arab armies in 1967, and participating in anti-Israel actions in various international forums. At the same time, as you noted correctly, Jordan has been far friendlier to Israel than other Arab states, going so far as to propose ways to avoid war in 1948 (King Abdullah proposing in 1947, for example, a nonbelligerency pact to split the Mandate) and to allegedly even warn Israel of an impending attack in 1973 (King Hussein told Golda Meir in a secret meeting on September 25, < 2 weeks before war, that Syria's military had moved to pre-war positions). Evidently, the willingness to cooperate with Zionist leaderships has extended to before King Hussein's father (King Abdullah I) was assassinated by a Palestinian fearing peace with Israel.\n\nThe roots are both strategic and also demographic. Through a variety of factors, Jordanian leaders have been forced to confront that in many ways, their goals overlapped with those of Israel historically.\n\nJordan, for example, was just as concerned as many other Arab leaders with the prospect of taking over the Arab areas of the British Mandate. However, unlike the other parties, Jordan was also party to the best-trained military in the lead-up to the 1948 war. Its well-trained military was counterbalanced, relative to the other Arab states, by the fact that it was (and has been) the smallest country population-wise of the major Arab belligerents since 1948, meaning it also was the least competitive in gross resources to bring to bear. This meant that Jordan was far more willing than the other parties to conflicts with Israel to accept that a secret compromise might net them better results (i.e. an agreement to gain the Arab portions) than to compete with larger Arab neighbors, such as Egypt or Syria. This was compounded in importance by the fact that Egypt and Jordan were rivals in the lead-up to the conflict, and approached it from different perspectives. Jordan, advised by the Arab Legion's head (a British commander named John Bagot Glubb), believed that the Arab forces were naive to think they could defeat the Jewish forces, and Abdullah was most conscious of this, saying that, \"The Jews are too strong -- it is a mistake to make war\". While other Arab leaders doubted victory, their inept military commands and the Arab League's closest thing to a plan seemed to approach conflict with overly optimistic ideas. As Glubb put it, the war pitch led to a situation where \"Doubters were denounced as traitors\", but only Jordan appeared to be as clearly aware of just how poor the planning/capability was and therefore willing to seek escape from the strictures of war.\n\nBesides the question of gross resources, competition between Arab states, and awareness of military discrepancies, there existed yet another reason why Jordan and Israel often found themselves drifting together. This reason lay primarily in the shifting demographics of Jordan following the 1948 war. The influx of Palestinian refugees from this war into the West Bank and Jordan, and Jordan's desire to solidify its control over the West Bank, meant Jordan had an inherently aligned strategic interest in integrating Palestinian refugees with Israel's desire to see those refugees integrated (to avoid claims for return to Israel in the long-run, a situation that has persisted to present-day). At the same time, Jordan sought integration in a way to attempt to reduce Palestinian nationalism, and to buffer his own claim to the West Bank, a claim that the Arab world largely never recognized (but that Israel, in 1947, was semi-willing to accept in exchange for peace). While this proposal never included Jerusalem of course, the common ground there was far greater than the common ground with Egypt or Syria, who treated Palestinian refugees quite differently and had gained little territory as a result of the 1948 war (and the land they did gain was of questionable value, compared to the Jordanian gains of coveted Jerusalem and arable land). In fact, it is even arguable that as Jordan had gained most of what it wanted, its remaining conflict with Israel was more related to the question of Arab unity (until 1967, of course) than it was to specific claims it wished to make to Israeli territory. Jordan, rationally, feared Palestinian reactions if it sought to overtly accept Israel's existence (amplified by the assassination of King Abdullah in 1951 predicated on this fear), but it also feared Palestinian reactions if it sought too strongly to erase Palestinian nationalism without care. As a result, Jordan's balancing act largely failed: Palestinians never came to view themselves as true Jordanians, were excluded from Arab Legion combat formations, and were barred from high-ranking positions in the civil bureaucracy, for fear of potential coup (particularly since Palestinians made up such a large proportion of the population). Egypt and Syria, on the other hand, remained largely low on gains from 1948, still coveted and fought with Israel over things like water and passageways (such as the diversions of water from the Sea of Galilee/Jordan River, or conflict over the Gulf of Aqaba). Furthermore, Egypt sought (particularly under Nasser) a role of regional hegemony, and opposition to Israel and the West were a crucial component of Nasser's strategy in mass appeal. His ability to gain influence in other countries was also a source of great concern to Jordan, Israel, and the West, which led them to covertly remain more friendly than they otherwise might have. Nasser's rise thereby made friends out of those who had previously fought, and who had also had less disagreement prior themselves." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cxvloye" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Depends on how you define \"civilized\" and \"nation\".\n6th edition of *Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English* defines \"civilized\" as: \"1. a civilized society is well organized and developed, and has fair laws and customs\". In historical use, from what I remember, a civilized state has the following characteristics:\n\n* Urban city centers\n\n* A form of symbolic writing\n\n* An organized government and a taxation system\n\nEgyptians had hieroglyphs as early as around 3 200 B.C, if I recall correctly. However, Egypt has not been existed continuously as it's own nation, the Persians conquered it around 525 B.C, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt (and pretty much everything else while at it, too) from the Persians, and the Hellenes were driven out after the war between Octavian, who would later be known as *Augustus Caesar*, and Marcus Antonius, or Mark Anthony, as his name has been anglicized, and finally, the Arabs conquered Egypt from the Eastern Roman Empire. \n\nAs far as I remember, the Kurds have never been independent, so I am not sure if they really count.\n\n Meanwhile, in the Far East, China has had, according to folklore and tradition, dynasties, and thus governments, and thus taxation, since 22nd century B.C. Written language in China may date back even to [7th millenium B.C] (_URL_0_), but the evidence can be disputed as an anomaly. China, while it has been conquered, has never had it's ethnicity, culture and government system changed much, as far as I know, so I would say that China is the oldest civilization which still exists. " ] }

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[ [ "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ct8y8so" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "St Andrews was unusual in that between 1552 and 1805 they used rabbits. There was a financial incentive for this, because rabbiting was a huge industry when every part of a rabbit had a use and there was always an increasing supply. This benefitted both the landlords who sold on the rabbits and the commoners who caught them - both received financial rewards - but the golf course would have held little revenue for commoners until tourism as an industry developed as we know it today.\n\nMass killing the rabbits was legalised in 1805, as the tourist golfer population and their interest in st andrews was rising. Golf itself was being standardised, and rabbits left too many of their own holes in the course to disturb matches. There was a 16 year struggle between the two sides until 1821 when the foundations for an established course were laid out. \n\nBecause the golf course is known to be over 500 years old, but rabbits were permitted in 1552, I would assume that rabbits were already being used and permission was granted as it was a difficult practice to curb (as is often the way) but it would otherwise have been livestock, probably sheep. Modern grass maintenance arrived in the mid-victorian era when the basic lawnmower was invented, in 1830, so I would again assumed livestock were used until later in the 18th century when St Andrews would have been able to purchase one.\n\nI was able to find [this internet history](_URL_0_) for quick reading, but the 'definitive history' recommended is St Andrews, The Evolution of the Old Course: The Impact on Golf of Time, Tradition and Technology by Scott MacPherson. Hope this was helpful." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.scottishgolfhistory.org/oldest-golf-sites/1574-st-andrews/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "czryy2h", "czs1xb5", "czs2091", "czsa5e3", "czsigh8", "czt772m" ], "score": [ 14, 60, 11, 7, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Hi, quick moderator request for you: could you remove the following section?\n\n > In an alternate world where the USA went communist and Russia went free-market capitalist, would history have leaned more in Russia's favor or not? Would Russian culture ever have striven for free-market capitalism in the first place?\n\nThis subreddit does not permit [speculation on possible alternative pasts](_URL_0_). Rather, those questions would be more suited to one of the counterfactual subs like /r/HistoryWhatif.\n\nThanks!", "In his book, *Predicting Politics*, political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita simulates the Cold War as a battle over ideology between different countries. He allows the *salience* of foreign policy to vary randomly in each run of the simulation; military, economic, and demographic capabilities are set at the outset and then vary over time due to conflict or cooperation between states. Anyway, what his model finds is that most of the time, the USSR more or less gives in and moves to the US position on international ideology. Still, in at least a quarter of cases, the opposite happens (usually because the US cannot assemble a coalition that cares about ideology and it suffers costs from resisting a more-powerful Soviet bloc alone). I'm not entirely persuaded by the simulations, but the model has been reasonably accurate as a forecasting tool, so it's not unreasonable to suppose that if Europe and Japan went to the far left, the US would basically withdraw from intense competition with the Soviet Union, leaving it to set the international agenda. Political science is probably as close to counterfactual history as you'll get, since all cause-effect statements necessarily include counterfactuals (e.g. if A makes B more likely, then B must be less likely absent A). ", "Sadly I have few sources on hand, I'll be writing from memory here, the only source I have on hand is \"*The Penguin History of Russia*\", a relic from when I studied the Russians back in Uni.\n\nAs with most historical conjecture, it depends. Russia would have needed some remarkable stroke of luck to overcome America, something like a Civil War in the states, some Diplomatic Coup or a successful one sided nuclear strike. Russia couldn't compete with America conventionally because of one extremely pertinent point.\n\nRussia's Navy wasn't good enough.\n\nI know it's really Mahanian of me, but Navies are the prinicpal way though which international power is asserted. Without a Navy Russian Power was limited to where their men could march, further limited by the supply trains needed to march/fight wherever they were projecting their power. The Americans could fight anywhere, almost any time.\n\nRussia posed a threat to Europe, but not America. Economically there was never any completion, diplomatically the Russians definitely made gains, but not enough to tip the global balance of power.\n\nSo, in short, the Russian economy and geography stymied any potential attempts to match American conventional power, only though unconventional means could the Russians hope to defeat America.", "Related question: did many Western leaders see the west as having an advantage over the Communist world?\n\nLooking back, it's pretty easy to see how weak the Communist world was. Did anybody see it that way at the time?\n\n\n\nMy very uninformed understanding is that most leaders saw the two sides as equal, or the Communists were winning.", "Depends when exactly you're talking about. Right after the war ended the European allies and Germany were smashed, and yet Russia's military-industrial situation was the best it had ever been. The atomic bomb however was a severe deterrent, so without having to worry about it the Russians could have led an offensive westwards. Unfortunately for them, over the long term the Soviet economy and military didn't age well, and according to sources like Viktor Suvorov, in his analysis of the internal workings of the red army, in the 1960s Soviet officers worried they couldn't beat the West German Bundeswehr, never mind a combined NATO force. In their view the second world war had been their zenith. \n\nThe USSR could also have gone on, like North Korea has, if not for the fact they chose to deStalinise and gradually thereafter loosen the authority and control the Communist party had on everything. Keep in mind the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was because orthodox Communists feared that a free press was more dangerous to the Soviet model than starvation or war. In his book on the invasion (The Liberators) Suvorov makes the point, citing a conversation he had at the time, that since the red army was essential to the harvest, deploying the army abroad that late into the year risked starvation. So in that context it makes perfect sense that the progressive reforms Gorbachev launched were the same sort his predecessors had put down with tanks, and the orthodox Communists had been right that such would be fatal to the system. \n\nBottom line is that the Soviets were unlikely to have won, especially outright, especially given atomic weapons, but they certainly could still be alive today, prolonging the conflict for a very long time, if not for their internal politics unfolding as it did. ", "The better question is whether anyone actually \"won\" the Cold War, or if one actually existed to begin with.\n\nNote that while the Soviet Union has collapsed Russia still exists and still retains a fair number of warheads from the Cold War; and is even expanding the deployment of its delivery systems such as the recent completion of three new ballistic missile submarines. Russia moreover was never \"defeated\" in the same way as Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan - not a single foreign soldier was involved in its collapse; and it can be quite convincingly argued not a single diplomatic or economic move made by the West in fact contributed to the \"collapse\" - everything was decided by the people and leadership of the USSR itself.\n\nWhat has changed is Russia's direct control over Ukraine and other states within the USSR (which has now devolved to partial control), and their indirect control over Central Europe via the Warsaw Pact (which they themselves allowed to be relinquished anyway - Gorbachev could have sent in the tanks any time like the Soviets did in the 1950s. He didn't.). \n\nBut the Cold War wasn't supposed to be about fighting over Central Europe or Ukraine - it was supposedly an ideological conflict between \"capitalism\" and \"communism\". The latter in fact still exists - indeed it had always existed in the West in the form of \"socialist\" movements and still exists in China. Very few people want to admit this though because it will make all of the US chest-beating for the past 20 years about the Cold War \"victory\" seem rather hollow." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_is_this_the_right_place_for_your_question.3F" ], [], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dshkte8" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "There are basically three elements to this. \n\nFirst. While the the Southern Resource Area was oil rich by Japanese standards it was significantly less productive than other areas of the world at the time. In 1940 while the US produced 183 million tons of crude, the Dutch East Indies produced 8 million tons of crude. The rest of the region added a few million more tons. The US and other Allies also had access to the international market which added places like Venezuela (27Mt), Iran (10Mt), Mexico (7Mt), etc. Japan didn’t have access to any of that. So they were stuck using only the oil produced in the SRA and the tiny amounts produced in pre-war territories (mainly Japan and Taiwan/Formosa). Of the world’s 294 Mt oil output Japan had access to around 11 Mt.\n\nSecond. Japanese occupied territories never matched their pre-war output. One the the very last things the European powers did before the area was captured was to destroy refineries and wells. The Allies also focused on disrupting oil production, much like they did in Europe. So air raids were common. I can’t find mid-war production figures at the moment, but between 1940 and 1945 oil production in the Dutch East Indies dropped from 8 Mt of crude, to less than 1 Mt of crude. At no point did Japan ever get more than a fraction of the production the area had before the war. \n\nThird. Japan had a grossly inadequate fleet of tankers. In December 1942, the country as a whole had 58 tankers, with a total carry capacity of around 600,000 tons. During the war they converted a number of other ships into tankers including passenger ships, they captured foreign tankers, and anything else they could think of. In all around 200 Japanese ships served as tankers. But it was never adequate, especially by mid-to-late-war when the submariners began to focus on the tankers. Japan could never adequately get the little oil they had to where they needed it. By late war the IJN was refueling some ships with raw crude directly from the fields rather than trying to transport the fuel to refineries and then back out to the fleet. This resulted in the damage to a number of boilers, due to the high sulfur content of the Bornean crude.\n\nIn short Japan had access to 3% of the pre-war production, never actually achieved those pre-war figures, and couldn’t have transported if they had.\n\nContrast that to the US, who themselves had local oil shortages at times. The US produced 67% of the world’s crude (and had access to about 80% of the global supply). They managed to increase pre-war production numbers during the war, including opening brand new fields. They had a vastly larger tanker fleet to start the war, and built a ridiculous number during the war. Just counting only the workhorse T2-SE-A1 models, the US built 481 during the war. Which alone accounts for about 2.5x as many as all Japanese tankers that served at all during the war." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "drjmtc5" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "So I wrote a post on why horse archers were so effective a couple of days ago:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAs for Roman tactics against them, let's first look at Crassus' campaign. He was a rich man but a horrible commander, and actually was given a good route for his campaign. The King of Armenia offered him safe passage and extra cavalry for his campaign, but Crassus rejected this and instead marched through the desert. One of the most important things to remember when facing an army of horse archers is to avoid terrain that is conducive to their strategies, like the desert, and instead to travel through lands that are bad for cavalry maneuvers, like the Highlands the Armenian king offered passage through. So Crassus chooses the bad option, is led through the desert by Parthian spies without the necessary cavalry support, and ends up getting everyone killed.\n\nOne thing to remember about the Romans is that they adapt, and when they suck at something, they hire someone else to do it for them. During Trajan's campaign 150 years later, he brings along a significant portion of auxiliary cavalry. His units stick to highlands and in his case sail along the Euphrates to avoid fighting horse archers in their natural environment. He uses a tactic much like Richard Lionheart's, where you use a natural barrier to protect your rear, line up infantry in front of significant missle fire, and keep your cavalry in reserve to do measured charges to keep chase off the enemy. Even though he is significantly better prepared, they stop at the Iranian plateau as that would have been a dire defeat for the Romans even with Mauretanian horse auxilliaries.\n\nAs for the Mongols, they did have problems with castles up until their conquest of China and subsequent absorption of Chinese siege engineers. To say they were stopped by sieges in the west is wrong though. They had the capacity to besiege and take castles, but by the time they reach Hungary they are stretched very thin. They do win multiple battles, but have to withdraw because of the election of a new Great Khan. So why didn't they go back and overrun Europe? As I said before, they were stretched thin and horse archer armies work when they can fight on their terms. The Hungarian plain was the end of the steppes. After the Carpathian Mountains, Europe is heavily forested and has swamps and hill country and mountain ranges. It's just not conducive to the Mongol way of war, and unlike China, is not close enough to make the resources needed worth it.\n\nSource: Erik Hildinger \"Warriors of the Steppe\"" ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Persian_Wars#Roman%E2%80%93Sasanian_wars", "https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7kt5sb/what_are_some_effective_strategies_against_horse/", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia_(Roman_province)", "https://youtu.be/bR7VDPUj5AE" ]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7jmpk5/how_did_the_mongols_defeat_armies_with_just/dr8g724" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d46juj8" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "There's always room for discussion, but perhaps this previous topic found through the search function will answer your inquiry.\n\n* [Battlefield 1 Trailer Accuracy](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4i8bj7/battlefield_1_trailer_accuracy/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d43yerd" ], "score": [ 41 ], "text": [ "I'll only speak for one aspect of the Vandals in that, while certainly proving to be just as if not more destructive than the Huns and Alaric's visigoths--in terms of the sack of Rome they actually proved to be far less Vandal-like. \n\nLike when Attilla and the Huns were at Rome's doorstep, Pope Leo I once again rode out to meet the would-be invaders and attempt to turn them away from the city. However, Leo's position with the Vandals was far weaker. They were far closer to Rome than Attila was, and Leo didn't have the benefit this time of an army at his back. Unlike the Huns though, the Vandals were christian. \n\nWhat this is leading to is that when the Vandals did sack Rome, they made an agreement with Leo. They would take what they want--but they wouldn't harm the citizens. They stuck to their word. The Visigoths certainly didn't do that much. \n\nThough, the Visigoths had a far better reason than the Vandals for wishing to sack Rome in the first place. Alaric wanted to establish a homeland for his people--and attempted multiple times to seek some sort of settlement Honorius. Honorius was too stupid or stubborn to accept Alaric's peace offers.\n\nThings are not very black and white in history. While I can't speak of to how the act of vandalism became overtly associated with the Vandals, I can at least say that their sacking of Rome proved to be far less brutal than the other barbarian invasions of the Western Empire." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dhhq2df" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "Oo! A question that I can help answer in part!\n\nFor what it’s worth, I’m not a historian, but I do have a degree in history. I’m currently a law student in Australia, which has a similar Solicitor/Barrister split profession. I can’t speak to how the American profession developed, but I can talk about how the English/Welsh (and by extension, Australian) profession developed separately.\n\nFirst off, currently in England and Wales, solicitors are actually entitled to appear before many Lower Courts, and it’s really only in the superior courts that barristers become truly necessary. However, the profession is still very split in certain jurisdictions in Australia.\n\nThe development of the split profession is largely something of a historical accident.^1 The distant ancestor to the modern barrister, the ‘Serjeants-at-law’, were an import of the Norman Conquest of the 11^th Century. As an aside, this is also why so many older English precedent is peppered with French. From at least 1216, English courts were beginning to limit the rights of audience to ’regular’ advocates’.\n\n**The Initial Split**\n\nUnder King Edward I, the two separate branches were beginning to emerge. A pleading system was established, whereby specially trained serjeants would conduct legal arguments, while an Ordinance of the King placed legal representatives under judicial control, ending the clergy as lawyers in the Court.^2\n\n**Solicitors**\n\nOriginally, Courts would require litigants to show up, plead their case, and receive judgement.^3 However, over time, courts relaxed these rules, and allowed litigants to appoint agents to appear and speak on their behalf. Obviously, lawyers did not appear out of nowhere as a profession, and these agents were not initially professionals.^4 The right to an ‘attorney’ was declared by Parliament in the 15^th Century. \n\nAs the number of cases and the amount of litigation increased in the 16^th Century, the number of terrible, unscrupulous and immoral solicitors increased at the same time. Therefore, in 1605, Parliament enacted the first of what we now would consider to be the solicitor’s standards and practices, requiring written statements for fees, and requiring written accounting for disbursements made on the client’s behalf.^5\n\n**Barristers**\n\nIn England and Wales, barristers operate out of Inns of Court: The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, and the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. These trace their origins to the late 13^th Century, where legal professionals would live, learn, work and socialise together. These societies were the ancestors to the ‘Bar’.\n\nBeneath the serjeants were the ‘apprentices-at-law’ and ‘utter barristers’,^6 who were recognised in 1532 as men ‘learned in the law’, and in 1590 required a ‘call to the bar of an Inn of Court’ as the minimum qualification for rights of audience before a higher common-law court. In 1596, the QC or KC (also known as a ‘silk’) rank of barrister was established, and by the 19th Century, no more serjeants were appointed. Barristers and ‘silks’ now comprised the entirety of the Bar.\n\n**The Formalised Split**\n\nHowever, from the 16^th Century onwards, the Privy Council, the Judiciary, and the Inns of Court themselves began excluding attorneys and solicitors from membership of the higher prestige inns.^7 Because of the way the judiciary works, only those who are ‘called to the bar’ are entitled to appear before the Court to argue cases. By excluding solicitors from membership of the Inns of Court, it essentially made it impossible for them to be called to the Bar, and so restricted the right of appearance to those barristers who were members of the Inns of Court.\n\n**Conclusion**\n\nIt’s really this exclusion of solicitors and attorneys (who have since been combined) that solidified the split profession. Although we can see that the profession had been split to some extent from 1216 onwards, it wasn't made explicitly formalised until the Inns began excluding solicitors, preventing them from being called to the Bar, and removing their rights to appear before a higher Common-Law Court.\n\n**Sources**\n\nA note on sources: These are written from the perspective of American jurists and scholars. As such, there may be implicit bias in regards to the split profession. I was unable to find a British source when I ran an academic search, but I'm sure they are out there.\n\n1. Judith L. Maute, \"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Preliminary Reflections on the History of the Split English Legal Profession and the Fusion Debate (1000-1900 A.D.)\" [2003] 71, 4 *Fordham Law Review* 1357, 1358 ('Alice's Adventures in Wonderland').\n\n2. Ibid 1360, citing Robert Megarry, Inns Ancient and Modern 10 (Selden Soc'y 1972). See also Harry Cohen, \"The Divided Legal Profession in England and Wales - Can Barristers and Solicitors Ever Be Fused?\" (1987) 12 *The Journal of the Legal Profession* 7, 12 ('The Divided Legal Profession').\n\n3. Ibid.\n\n4. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, above n 1, at 1360, citing Edmund B.V. Christian, A Short History of Solicitors 3, 9 (1896) \n\n5. Ibid, 1361.\n\n6. Ibid, 1366 citing Robert Megarry, Inns Ancient and Modern 10 (Selden Soc'y 1972).\n\n7. Ibid. See also \"The Divided Legal Profession\" at 12, citing H. Kirk, Portrait of a Profession 18 (1976)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8xjj2i", "c8xll8y" ], "score": [ 8, 25 ], "text": [ "If this is a question you're interested in, you should read up on [Brithenig](_URL_0_), a constructed language based on the idea that a latin romance language eventually displaced the local languages of Britain. Some of the various discussion boards related to the language have debated your question long and hard.", "We can't know for sure, but it was probably somewhat similar to English in India: it was a language of administration and law, a literary language, and a common language, particularly in the towns. Unfortunately we just don't have enough writing from Britain to know for certain." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brithenig" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c4wvjzp", "c4wwi4p", "c4wwoya", "c4wx7ei", "c4wy0k4", "c4wygg7", "c4wyx50", "c4wztuk", "c4x49s3", "c4xaoby" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "David McCullough's *Truman* is very good.", "Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann may be right up you alley.", "I can only give limited advice about *The Rise and Fall of Communism* as I just skimmed through a few pages of the book in a local Barnes and Noble but it seems to be a well-written book; however, I would also suggest you look at another book about communism that came out not too long ago called *The Red Flag: A History of Communism*, which seems to be a much more entertaining yet still enlightening book (this observation, too, is made from reading just a few pages at B & N). *Nixonland* is a good read but nothing incredibly memorable.\n\nHere's a small list of selections from a variety of topic areas so hopefully one of these will suit your interests:\n\nEdmund Morris's biographies of Teddy Roosevelt are excellent. If you want to continue with TR, check out Douglas Brinkley's *The Wilderness Warrior*, which details TR's campaign for environmentalism. Brinkley is by far the best writer of history I have come across in a long time, so if that book doesn't interest you I urge to look at his other books. No matter what the subject, his books are incredibly engaging.\n\n*Private Empire* by Steve Coll: This book is written by the Pulitzer Prize winning author of *Ghost Wars* and gives a detailed, objective history of ExxonMobil. Very well written and very informative about the strength of ExxonMobil's lobbying power both within the US and throughout the world.\n\n*One Minute to Midnight* by Michael Dobbs. Covers Cuban Missile Crisis and the book's argument is that no one really had control over what was going on. The world could have slipped into nuclear war even though no one wanted that simply because many factors were at play that could not be accounted for or stopped. Great read.\n\n*Guests of the Ayatollah* by Mark Bowden. He's the author of *Black Hawk Down* and writed in a very readable, journalistic style similar to Steve Coll. This book is about the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979 an goes through the 444-day ordeal through the vantage points of the hostages, hostage-takers, and major political figures. Well-researched and maybe the most entertaining read on this list.", "In the Talons of the Eagle", "Why Nations Go to War by Stoessinger.\nThis book gives a broad history of international relations, starting in WWI and going through the Iraq war. Its a good intro, as it provides a broad base of international political theory, and if you find a particular event you are interested, you could find something more specific", "Obligatory question: What languages do you read/speak?\n\nIf German is among them, get anything you can from Jochen Bleicken on the Roman Republic. *The* authoritative work on its law and structure.", "A Political History? If you're of a philosophical bent and interested in the history of ideas consider reading *The Origins of Political Order* by Francis Fukuyama. I suspect this book is going to be fairly influential in academic circles for a long time so wether you agree with it or not you should read it.", "With Latin America, I may be beating a dead horse on this one but I would suggest reading Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara. It provides a great deal of context about the political and economic issues about Latin America through the eyes of Che himself before he became the controversial revolutionary figure that continue to provide divided opinion.", "I would suggest [Diplomacy](_URL_0_), by Henry Kissinger. Say what you will about the man's politics, but the man knows the art of diplomacy.", "*Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist* by Nick Salvatore is pretty interesting and a bit off the beaten path. Debs was one of the most well known socialist's of the early 20th century (ran for president 5 times) and was heavily involved with the IWW." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Diplomacy-Touchstone-book-Henry-Kissinger/dp/0671510991" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjj28ua", "cjj4fs5" ], "score": [ 4, 2 ], "text": [ "Interesting, I always thought about it from the other point of view. If you consider a man to be the best human and a role model to pattern your life on, wouldn't it follow that it should be a very common name? Muslims are supposed to love the prophet Muhammad more than their parents and we know that naming children after people you love is pretty common. With that logic, I think the question should be, why aren't Jesus and Moses more common names?*\n\n*Among Christians and Jews, respectively, of course. They're both relatively common names in the Muslim world (with the Arabic pronunciation, of course).", "\"Jesús\" is very common in Spanish-speaking countries; the English variant \"Joshuah\" is reasonably well known. Here are a few related threads on the popularity of the names \"Muhammad\" and/or \"Jesus\":\n\n* [Why do Muslims consider it alright to name their children after Mohammad, but Christians in most western countries don't name their children after Jesus?](_URL_1_)\n\n* [Why is 'Jesus' not a common name for English language people, but very common for Spanish?](_URL_3_)\n\n* [Was Jesus ever a popular name for boys among English-speaking countries (like how Jesús is for Spanish speaking countries)? If so, when did it stop being common and why?](_URL_4_)\n\n* [Has \"Jesus\" ever been a popular name in the Western world outside of Spanish speaking countries? Why is Jesús popular in Spain but not popular in other Christian influenced cultures?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [Is there a historic reason why Latin American Christians are willing to name their children Jesus, whereas European Christians are not?](_URL_2_)" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sl9ta/has_jesus_ever_been_a_popular_name_in_the_western/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ytmu2/why_do_muslims_consider_it_alright_to_name_their/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1c5s4i/is_there_a_historic_reason_why_latin_american/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1zqscq/why_is_jesus_not_a_common_name_for_english/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/21z27w/was_jesus_ever_a_popular_name_for_boys_among/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e18jurx" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Not quite your question, but [this older link](_URL_0_) might nevertheless be of interest for you." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6o6r8x/do_we_have_any_records_of_recreational_drugs_used/dkfkgd5/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7k8sqs", "c7kaomt" ], "score": [ 20, 2 ], "text": [ "My understanding of how this thing got started (I'm trying to find a citation) is that the number 13 comes up repeatedly in Maya numerology because it's considered a lucky number. The ritual calendar, as you pointed out, uses 13 cycles of 20 days. Using this, the novelist Gary Jennings wrote [a fictional novel](_URL_1_) on an apocalypse based on the B'ak'tun switch. My guess is that some new age nutjob read this work of fiction and decided it was a real prophecy. People then started writing \"non fiction\" books making the same argument.\n\nAside from the fact that the idea has its origins in a work of fiction, and the Maya made no such prophecy, we also place way too much emphasis on the Long Count. I think this is because, of the Mesoamerican calendars, the Long Count is closest to our calendar in that it moves in linear progression from past to present. The other Mesoamerican calendars all move in cycles. This is really a cultural bias on our part. We assume that because it's closer to our calendar that it's 'more advanced' and thus more important than the others. The truth is that the Long Count was only used by the Maya and the Epi-Olmec cultures, and even then it was only used to keep track of dynastic records. The other calendars (like the solar and ritual calendars) had way more relevance to the daily lives of ancient Mesoamericans. And since those are cyclical not linear, they don't ever end. They just keep going.\n\nEDIT: [Here's](_URL_0_) a really detailed breakdown of the whole thing from a reputable source, for those of you that want to learn more.", "Since this is 6 hours ago, i'll give it a try even though i'm not an expert.\n\nOne of the main indications would be that the Mayas wrote the creation date not 0.0.0.0.0, but 13.0.0.0.0. (But numerically it worked as 0.0.0.0.0.) Also, the 13 is an important number, even though i can't say anything about it's specific relevance. But it's also used in the [Tzolk'in-Calendar](_URL_0_), which would be the ritual calendar.\n\nAll that in mind, to what i recall it is correct that in some writings, 20 baktuns are used, as far as i understand, and even counts where the baktuns would be counted upward without end. Sources simply vary on this and this probably implies different systems. Just like the Maya-mythology used common elements but the details varied from city-state to city-state, for instance." ] }

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[ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar#Long_Count" ]

[ [ "http://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/index.html", "http://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-2012-Novel-Gary-Jennings/dp/0765322595/ctoc" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzolk%27in" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chftd2h" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There were several reasons regarding the fleets themselves: Zheng He's fleets were expensive, the Ming were involved in wars against the Mongols and Vietnamese, the government bureaucracy was quite suspicious of how eunuchs dominated the venture, and the emperors were no longer as interested in the prestige of the voyages. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dq5f554" ], "score": [ 21 ], "text": [ "I can reply to the bank question, but not the stagecoach one.\n\nTL:DR: The bank, unless the robbery caused the bank to fail, in which case both.\n\nHere's how banking works: banks take deposits from people and lend out the cash to other people. The deposits are liabilities of the bank - that is, they owe that money to the depositors. The bank has assets, which are the loans it makes and the (much smaller) amount of cash it keeps on hand. One way to understand this is to think of a gold merchant.\n\nThe gold merchant needs a secure place to store the bullion, so he builds a vault. Seeing this, other people with gold pay him a small fee to store their gold as well. Over time, the merchant notices that the gold at the back of his vault just sits there undisturbed, as people take out and deposit gold, they subtract from and add to the gold near the front. Hey, gold is gold, nobody wants \"their gold\". Once the gold merchant realizes this, he starts letting people borrow gold. For a fee, of course. As long as everyone doesn't demand all of their gold back at the same time, that works fine. The merchant only needs to keep enough actual gold on hand to satisfy the withdrawals. That's called \"fractional reserve banking\" and it is what we have today, as well as what they had in the old west.\n\nSo now along comes a robber and takes the cash on hand. It belongs to the bank, but they still need some cash to satisfy the demands for withdrawals by its depositors. But the amount kept in cash is much smaller than the amount of loans owed to the bank. So, as long as the entire town doesn't panic and demand cash, the bank can replace the cash owed to its depositors from the repayments of the loans it has made.\n\nIf, however, everybody wants their deposits back *right now*, that's called a \"run on the bank\". You don't need to be robbed to have a run on your bank - it happened during the Great Depression, too, which is one reason banks were more tightly regulated afterwards. If the run is serious, then the bank will be closed because the bank doesn't have enough cash to pay all the depositors back. In which case, depositors lose money as well." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ffm47l8" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "I can't answer with specific reference to the Roman Empire although I suspect that much of my answer is transferrable from Medieval skills to Roman skills.\n\nFirstly I'd like to challenge the assumption that \"*knowledge and tools for dog training were much less than we have today*\". A good dog trainer needs no tools other than an understanding of the animal, there's no reason to suppose that people of medieval times understood their animals any less than modern non-technological societies do today - and they do so very well indeed. Veterinary understanding has certainly improved but this arguably has little to do with the skills required for animal training.\n\nThe types of dog used in Medieval hunts are very similar to types that we'd recognise today with the exception of modern \"gun dogs\", a type that has come into usage for the firearm hunting that largely replaced hawking.\n\nMedieval hunts would use Greyhounds, a fast, short-burst game tracker that was safe in domestic settings. Alants were also used, they were a larger, stockier greyhounds for chasing larger game like bear but were unpredictable and considered too dangerous to roam free around homes. Mastiffs were used as hunt dogs and quite often as guard dogs, this large and impressive breed was used on the same large game as the Alant and also as a guard/watch dog. Mastiffs were used as war-dogs, although their usage wasn't common in Medieval battles due to their negative effect on horses, you'd be more likely to see a mastiff used by small armed patrols as a first line of defence/offence.\n\nRunning-hounds were used as game-chasers, the breeds were largely similar to the foxhounds of today.\n\nHow well trained were they? From the ubiquitous use of the different types as an integral part of hunts in Medieval England and Europe it seems highly reasonable to presume that they fulfilled their task very well and therefore that they were trained very well, particularly breeds that were required to silently find scent for the hunting party.\n\nIn short: there are a lot of reasons to think that Medieval animal training was as good as it is today - if the use of dogs spoiled the hunt then their use would have ceased rather than perpetuating for hundreds of years.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n*^(Sources:)*\n\n*^(Royal Forests - Hunting and Other Forest Use in Medieval England; Hooke, D; 2011)*\n\n*^(Hunting Law and Ritual in Medieval English Literature; Marvin W; 2006)*\n\n*^(Hunting for the Anglo-Normans; Zooarachaeological Evidence for Medieval Identity; Sykes, N; 2005)*\n\n*^(Special mention, well worth looking up as a contemporary reference:)*\n\n*^(Livre de Chasse (Book of Hunting); Gaston Febus, Count of Foix; c.1388)*" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cugr9lc" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Well, Confession is having your sins absolved, that is, return to a state of grace and avoid a path leading to damnation. A reconciliation, if you will. But there is still a need to make up for the consequences of sin, most notably the offense the penitent has caused to God. Now ordinarily this is achieved after the death of the penitent in Purgatory. But this can also be done by doing pious works or actions, which are indulgenced, and commute this reparation, in whole or in part. That is an indulgence.\n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dig3okt" ], "score": [ 19 ], "text": [ "There are a couple of narratives that attempt to explain this. The traditional narrative proposed by later Muslim scholars is that when the Abbasid dynasty usurped power from the Umayyads in 750 CE, this represented a shift in power from Arabs to the numerically and culturally much stronger Persians. From this, we have two dovetailing explanations of the interest in science: 1) they wished to recover the former glory of the Persian Empire, and 2) in order to gain political legitimacy, they essentially drew together all the various scholarly traditions from their polyglot empire, had everything translated into Arabic and established schools of translation and development, where works of classical Greek, Babylonian, Egyptian and Persian science and philosophy were built upon by succeeding generations of scholars. A proper ruler is one who has a court of scholars, became the principle, so when the caliphate began to fragment, the petty kings all drew to themselves their own scholars in order to seem more kingly. Scholarship itself was something of a meritocracy (for men): even a village lad, if sufficiently able, could be essentially passed up a food chain of scholars and eventually find a position at a court. These trends reinforced each other, plus scholarship had a lot of practical value and applications. The quest for knowledge was supported by some cherry-picked quotations from the Qur'an and Hadith in order to make it appear that a proper *Muslim* ruler had an obligation to support scholarship. This period is held to have ended (again, this is a traditional narrative) around the year 1100 as the notion that a proper Muslim eschewed the natural world in favor of prayer and meditation began to take hold. \n\nBut there are some real problems with this traditional narrative. For one thing, the idea that scientific development came to a halt is provably false: it continued, albeit at not quite such an increasing pace, well into the 16th century CE and only then really began to stagnate. For another (and forgive me, I'm on holiday and don't have sources with me, but the scholar whose work I'm badly summarizing here is George Saliba), the way in which the \"translation movement\" sprang into print in full bloom is unpersuasive: for the initial generation of works in Arabic to have been so sophisticated implies at least another generation of unseen scholars beforehand, and therefore the explanation that the early Abbasids were the driving force is problematic. There's some real driving force(s) for scholarship for its own sake during Umayyad times, one(s) we don't know much about because we don't know nearly as much about the Umayyads as we'd like." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c76xee9", "c76ywmz", "c76z9wv", "c770qpz" ], "score": [ 5, 4, 10, 2 ], "text": [ "Andrew Johnson (president after Lincoln) was born in N. Carolina and grew up in Tennessee. \n\n_URL_0_", "John Hennington, the Postmaster General of the CSA was able to make it back as a Congressman and eventually Senator from Texas, but a quick wiki search shows that most of the Confederate cabinet went into private work.", "General James Longstreet joined the Republican Party after the war and was appointed as the head of Louisiana's Reconstruction-era militia. \n\nHe was despised by many fellow Southerners, despite heroic service in the Confederate cause, especially after the 1874 Battle of Liberty Place - Longstreet, commanding black troops, ordered them to open fire on a mob of white Southerners who were attempting to remove the state's elected government by force. \n\nLongstreet served as a federal railroad commissioner and an ambassador in his later years. He was hounded until his death by Southern critics who (ironically from a certain point of view) thought he was a traitor, and who tried to rewrite history to dismiss his sterling military record.\n\n_URL_0_", "Joseph Wheeler (_URL_0_) was a Confederate general who was later given a command in the 1898 Spanish-American war; between the wars he served as a congressman representing Alabama. Allegedly, in the heat of battle in Cuba, he was heard to shout \"Let's go boys! We've got the damn Yankees on the run!\" momentarily confusing his wars. Further, I remember learning in American History class that the Spanish-American war was an important event in the re-integration of the American armed forces following the Civil War as old enemies fought side-by-side." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Longstreet#Postbellum" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Wheeler" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d196cny" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "A reply to /u/ManicMarine \n\nUgggggghhhhh ... this is such a good question and such a complex topic at the same time ...... ! :D\n\nFirst we must set the scene properly in terms of how the \"military fiscal state\" was [evolving in that era](_URL_0_). He had set up a \"state within state\" system whereby he controlled not only the army and its logistics, but also the collection of \"revenue\" through taxation and other means, to supply his army. In this sense, he was a highly innovative commander. He had come at just the right time, too, as the Imperials needed help in 1625 as Tilly's Catholic League forces were overstretched and Spain's army of Spinola was tied up in the Low Countries, and there were rumors of new movements by Bethlen Gabor from Transylvania. So Ferdinand made Wallenstein \"chief of all our troops already serving, whether in HRE or Netherlands,\" and to \"create a field army, whether from existing units or new regiments, to be 24,000 men in all.\" Now, Ferdinand did not nearly have money to pay for all this, so as the campaign progressed, Wallenstein was rewarded with confiscated estates from HRE princes. At this point, Wallenstein largely followed strategic direction from Ferdinand as he campaigned northwards against Denmark and into the Baltics. As time progressed, his army ballooned in size to around 150,000 troops as it had to not only challenge its opponents, it also had to occupy territories it had conquered. He argued that it was the only way to keep Saxony and Bavaria's princes loyal, not to mention rebellious peasants at various towns and villages. Thus, in order to maintain his army Wallenstein started to impose a fixed taxation system, paid every week, called the \"contribution system\". At the same time he started to sell commission even to criminals and foreigners in order to raise revenue. This led to colonels and captains profiteering and abusing the populace. \n\nThe three aspects above (confiscating estates and giving them to Wallenstein, taxation, selling of officership) started to be an issue with HRE Electors. In 1627, while they met to discuss the Edict of Restitution, they complained bitterly. As there was still war, Ferdinand ignored them. However, by 1630 the complaints could not be ignored anymore. Both the Electors and the Pope complained that Wallenstein's very presence was the only thing in the way of peace. \n\nWhen Ferdinand finally dismissed Wallenstein, it was said that Wallenstein \"seems to have been almost relieved\" as he knew his army was unwieldy and beyond maintenance. He retired to his estates in Bohemia and his erstwhile chief financier Hans de Witte, who had staked his family's fortune on this army, committed suicide. Unsurprisingly, troops of the army became restless and there was mutiny and violence. \n\nOf course, things went badly for Ferdinand as Sweden entered the war, and Tilly was killed in battle. So by 1632, Wallenstein was back as commander of the Imperial forces, and needed only three months to raise a major army. It is said that he took command only reluctantly, past his prime at age 49. Successes immediately followed in Bohemia, Silesia, and Saxony. He made one tactical mistake in Lutzen, but survived albeit with significant losses. Just as before, it was a major issue where to quarter the army. By this point it was preferred to place them in enemy territory such that friendly territory isn't subjected to taxation and violence. In winter 1633-34, Wallenstein insisted to quarter his troops on Habsburg lands in Bohemia for security reasons; following Lutzen, it was really unclear what had happened to the opposing armies and not much was known about their locations. So in a way, he was justified in seeking friendly territory for quartering his troops. This, after a fairly slow campaigning season that appeared to achieve little for Ferdinand. His other excuse was that he had tried to exploit political disagreement between Sweden and Saxony, arranging a cease fire and opening a negotiation. These may have seemed excessive, but not outside the powers which were vested in him at the time. However, at the same time, the campaign of Spain's Cardinal-Infante had just started, except that it was kept under separate command instead of placed under Wallenstein. The sum of all this was the bruising of Wallenstein's relationship with the courtiers in Vienna. Wallenstein had criticized the Edict of Restitution and the HRE's continuing support of Spanish campaigns up the Rhineland to the Low Countries; and he was said to claim he alone would negotiate peace with the Protestants, at least the Lutherans. Now he had his army in Bohemia, his personal duchy, and the sum of all this was the perception of threat. \n\nWhat became remarkable was his extraction of oath of *personal* loyalty from his Colonels. This brought the relationship truly sour, the Ferdinand declared him rebel. But even further than that, the winter spent in Bohemia was also a time of trouble for his officers. There was a so-called \"Prague blood tribunal\" in which dozens of officers were executed for cowardice. So to his officers, he appeared to be looking for a scapegoat for the seemingly fruitless campaigns of 1633. His co-commander Piccolomini had personally requested clemency for an officer, yet this was declined. Even worse, to states of the Catholic League, Wallenstein was seen as an opportunist as he both sold officerships to raise money, and yet offered larger salaries and benefits to poach officers from allied armies of the League. As both his relationships with the emperor soured and so did his relationship with theoretical allies, and so did the loyalty of his men; this offered the perfect opportunity that led to his murder. \n\nSo back to the question: was he a traitor? Circumstances changed around him, both due to him and due to the emperor, the elector princes, and Spanish interest in the Spanish Road and the Low Countries. I think he was caught in the struggle of early-modern europe, and he ended up with an army that nobody could tolerate. In the end it was clear he was likely to have been disloyal, but up to the summer 1633 he was loyal to the emperor. \n\nA further question could be asked, was far, how wide, and how long had he sustained what seemed to be limitless ambition, which some say was to become king or emperor himself. This is an enduring myth of Wallenstein, helped with the fact that he rose very, very highly. But some modern historians have compared his trajectory with those of his peer and Mortimer -- author of several critical books on the 30YW -- agree with others that the choices he made was not out of the ordinary. Mortimer further contended that Wallenstein was a very smart man in his responding to changing circumstances, and indeed the 30YW was a very interesting time. Even going back to his first proposal to raise an army, it should be kept in mind that he was Prince of Friedland, thus he had every reason to back the emperor in defending Bohemian lands. More strongly, some authors have contended that his failure was partly due to his lack of ambition. That if he had done more to control the politics of the court, then he will have been able to leverage the emperor's patronage. \n\nTL;DR Complicated subject, you can judge for yourself. " ] }

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