Around what time in history do you mean?
History What are some of your most contraversial takes on history?
- Thread starter Winston Bush
- Start date
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Not to interrupt, but isn’t this more appropriate for the General AH thread? Because this thread is for controversial opinions about OTL history, as opposed to conjecture about ATL scenarios.
TheRomanSlayer
Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
I posted this in the wrong thread by mistake. I'll move it.
Deleted the post in question.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
What was the worst take that you got that year?
Yeah, Ukraine certainly needs some better heroes, which it ironically got as a result of this current war.
Well actually one of the startup links I got this morning points out that revisionism - in the broader meaning of the term - is the basis of all history and goes back at least to its earliest western origins in ancient Greece.
The other question on this issue is how much different were the Mongols compared to other conquerors at the time? For instance before they came on the scene Muslims and Christians had been slaughtering each other in the Seljurk invasion and resultant crusades - when they weren't indulging in brutal inflight. Similarly conquerors in India, China and other areas tends to be brutal in areas that resisted their conquest. Was the level of destruction in the period of the Mongol conquests simply because they overran so many areas in a short period of time coupled possibly with as a small group that faded from history and conquered peoples with much greater populations and more complex and autocratic as those societies emerged from Mongol rule they damned their conquerors?
Also of course the biggest source of death their associated with and which might not have occurred without them came not from their conquests but from their period of relatively peaceful rule. As this made much easier the spread of the bubonic plague.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
I do believe Mongols may have been an outlier, at least for Europeans. Christian Europe in fact had very strict rules of combat which were designed to reduce suffering of innocents. They weren't always honored, but it was expected that civilians for example would enjoy a level of protection that was simply not there in the warfare of, say, antiquity - or against non-Christians. Basically, you had bellum hostile and bellum Romanum. Bellum hostile governed warfare between Christians, and you had rules such as how and to what extent the victor was allowed to pillage the captured city, how surrendered soldiers were to be treated, and most importantly, how civilians were to be treated. It was basically Medieval version of Geneva Conventions. As a result, warfare between Christians was comparatively limited and rather civilized.
Against pagans, such restrictions did not apply. There we have bellum Romanum - warfare with no limits and no restrictions, which is basically what you had described. But while that was theory, in practice even the warfare between Christians and pagans was often governed by rules and laws of war. The only times when there were absolutely no restrictions were wars against heretics - hence the devastation of Albenigian Crusades and the Thirty Years War.
The thing about the Mongols is that their reputation for brutality was substantially exaggerated by their own contrivance as an intentional measure of psychological warfare. Mongol troops were extremely disciplined and would not sack or loot a city at all if it surrendered once its field armies were defeated, but conversely they would sack the place brutally if surrender was refused, and at the same time, would ensure that a number of survivors escaped to tell the story.
Here's another unpopular historical take:
The French victory at the (First) Battle of the Marne in September 1914 was an absolute disaster for Russia in the long(er)-run since this drastically lengthened World War I and thus paved the way for the Bolshevik coup in Russia as well as for decades of subsequent Communist and Nazi misery in Russia. It would have been much better for Russia had France quickly lost World War I to Germany. For that matter, France itself didn't emerge so hot from the aftermath of World War I either, but at least it actually won the war. That said, though, even France was put in a much weaker position for the next round of fighting in 1939-1940 considering that it ultimately ended up losing three of its main allies by then, specifically Russia, the US, and Italy.
The French victory at the (First) Battle of the Marne in September 1914 was an absolute disaster for Russia in the long(er)-run since this drastically lengthened World War I and thus paved the way for the Bolshevik coup in Russia as well as for decades of subsequent Communist and Nazi misery in Russia. It would have been much better for Russia had France quickly lost World War I to Germany. For that matter, France itself didn't emerge so hot from the aftermath of World War I either, but at least it actually won the war. That said, though, even France was put in a much weaker position for the next round of fighting in 1939-1940 considering that it ultimately ended up losing three of its main allies by then, specifically Russia, the US, and Italy.
That's basically assuming that a loss at the Marne would have resulted in a quick WWI victory for Germany, which is by no means assured. It would have been a huge blow to France, possibly knocked it out of the war entirely, but there's every probability that the remaining Entente powers would have fought on.
It's possible that Germany could have been stopped short of Paris even if it would have won a tactical victory at the Marne due to Germany's weak logistics. But it all depends on what the French do: Do they evacuate Paris or decide to defend it at all costs?
And Yes, Russia might fight on initially, as might Britain, but it simply won't be able to hold out against the full might of the German military for more than a couple of years. And the longer that it will hold out without failing to achieve a decisive breakthrough in the war, the harsher the peace terms are going to be for it.
They are french. Obviously, they will fight to the last and lose.
That is a silly meme take considering that historically, they won a great victory over the overextended and overrated Germans.
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Technically speaking, Germans have always been overrated as soldiers.
A *look at the 10th and 11th centuries* yes, very overrated.
I remind you that the Germans did not succeed in conquering small Poland which was a principality when they were a powerful and highly developed Empire. The fact that there was a march to the east resulted only from the fact that Boleslaw Rogatka sold the land of Lubush to Brandenburg to have for his knightly adventures.
For 300 years, the highly developed Empire was upended by a tribal principality. To later be controlled for more than a century by that principality's cousins, the Bohemians.
The fact that they are so popular is only due to the fact that they managed to publicize their victories in the 19th and 20th centuries so well that it seemed to everyone that this was always the case.
And comparing the French and Germans. Well ask, the French have been the biggest adventurer and soldier in Europe for centuries. The defeat in 1871 and 1940 was a shock to everyone.
No less the value of the French soldier has always been much higher than the German.
Frankly the value of most soldiers in Europe was higher than the German. It's just that Germany had a nose for good commanders and a good economy holding up their entire war effort during WWI and WWII.
It's really quite bizarre how the meme reputation is France is super terrible at war and Germany is amazingly good, when the reality is that France has won far more major wars than Germany.
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
You know, fanboys of the German army of WWI and WWII are just very strong and fascinated by the great strong Germans who fought the whole world for 6 years. That's why they spread memes so much, and what's worse is that the history of the 20th seems much closer to us than the earlier eras, and the most famous in that era were the Germans hence such popularity of the Superpower!Germany.
That's why we have such memes as France forever surrendering, or Poland forever getting a beating, and unstoppable Germany and unbeatable Russians.
When you look at the history of these nations we have something different. Namely, the ultimate massacrator of anyone they wind up with in the form of France, and an unbeatable Poland that is capable of destroying anyone despite its unfavorable power ratio.
Germany, on the other hand, looks like a good worker and a hopeless soldier who in truth anyone who isn't German is capable of beating them, while at the same time they are perpetually at odds with each other, and Russians who act as a punching bag for their neighbors for centuries.
That is the issue. In 1870/71 France was alone and saw its field armies defeated, its government overthrown and capital besieged but still fought on for quite a while. Here France is in a powerful coalition and such wars tend to be long because one power struggling can persuade itself that fighting on is worthwhile because their allies are doing better and their side will win in the end.
Even if Paris was to fall to a German army that was pretty much exhausted by this time and its can't quickly be liberated then they can still hope to hold on in western and southern France. They would be gravely weaken with further losses of manpower and resources but for a while at least they should be able to hold on and continue the war. Its likely that in this case the CPs will win and given the German war plans the terms at least for France are likely to be very harsh, as also probably for Belgium as was planned OTL.
It would be bad for France if it occurs as their likely to lose and be very badly treated. However you might be right for Russia, especially if it makes peace quickly and loses minimal lands, say probably their Polish provinces. They still have the problems of the idiot Nicholas II in charge and his lack of understanding of the need for reform but could recover a lot more quickly without the OTL destruction.
Calvin Coolidge was a great president and an even greater American often wrongly attributed to the depression by FDR's cronies he was truly the last small government advocate that actually was telling the truth and did everything he could to cut down on spending down to being picky on postage packaging paper.
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