I didn't say it was a good rebuttal, but it was one i bumped into through ars technice article, the comment section actually has some decent arguments against it.
When reading the "To put my cards on the table, I will say that I have always thought (and to some extent still do) that the fascination with women warriors, both in popular culture and in academic discourse, is heavily, probably too heavily, influenced by 20th- and 21st-century desires", first thing came to my mind was "And is your opposition to the concept based on 10th to early 20th century dislike of the same?".
Which is where my comment on much of history coming from people who don't know shit comes from.
Century ago, Moses was seen as a historical figure (he was not), while now it is accepted (by most people in relevant fields) that Moses was fictional.
edit-
The rebuttal is a pretty good example of arguing against the warrior status almost purely on basis of sex.
A man found in such a tomb, almost certainly a warrior.
A woman found in such a tomb, maybe people just liked her enough to give her a warrior burial.
Nyysjan on
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Yeah sorry if I came off as hostile there
And I agree, my thought was essentially "well why is the idea of female warriors so threatening"?
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Err, it's worth pointing out that blog post has achieved prominence because the author is Judith Jesch, a professor of viking history and author of books such as "Women in the Viking Age."
So I think the idea that she's threatened by the idea of female warriors is maaaybe misreading her point.
Kana on
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
And brightly coloured uniform enabled better battlefield coordination in eras without long distance communication.
And fewer "friendly fire" accidents.
There was also a mix of uniforms for different types of regiments. While line infantry (which couldn't have been stealthy even if they tried) and cavalry generally wore pretty eyestabbing colours (the red of the british, blue&white of the french, pure white austrian, Olive&white russian and bluecoat prussian) the skirmishing light infantry were a lot less conspicious.
The grey-black of the prussian jaegers, the dark blue of the french voltigers, russian skirmishers in undyed wool and the dark green or grey of the austrian light.
It's crazy to me that like, even up through at least the early to mid 1600s that army uniforms weren't a thing. It just seems like such a given to me, but that is clearly due to my perspective of living in a very industrial age where mass production is trivial. But the idea that each noble raising their own part of the army got to dress them however they would like, and then everyone on the same side would just put on the same colored armband or something similar just sounds insane to me. Warfare sounds chaotic enough with uniforms!
Well. Considering that such things as "standing armies" and "actual logistics" were also not really a thing...real logistics weren't even implemented until the Franco-prussian war.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Which is funny, because campaigning armies in ancient times did have actual logistics. Alexander the great? His entire campaign was a campaign of logistics, with the army following coasts and rivers for most of the time in order to meet up with their supply ships. Not surprisingly he's one of the few exceptions to "never conduct a landwar in asia". 'cause he did it rather successfully.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Err, it's worth pointing out that blog post has achieved prominence because the author is Judith Jesch, a professor of viking history and author of books such as "Women in the Viking Age."
So I think the idea that she's threatened by the idea of female warriors is maaaybe misreading her point.
Kinda depends on how badly women as warriors as anything but extremely rare anomaly would be against her research.
Scientists are just humans, they can be wrong, and even defend old ideas to the point of unreason, just like any other human.
And brightly coloured uniform enabled better battlefield coordination in eras without long distance communication.
And fewer "friendly fire" accidents.
There was also a mix of uniforms for different types of regiments. While line infantry (which couldn't have been stealthy even if they tried) and cavalry generally wore pretty eyestabbing colours (the red of the british, blue&white of the french, pure white austrian, Olive&white russian and bluecoat prussian) the skirmishing light infantry were a lot less conspicious.
The grey-black of the prussian jaegers, the dark blue of the french voltigers, russian skirmishers in undyed wool and the dark green or grey of the austrian light.
It's crazy to me that like, even up through at least the early to mid 1600s that army uniforms weren't a thing. It just seems like such a given to me, but that is clearly due to my perspective of living in a very industrial age where mass production is trivial. But the idea that each noble raising their own part of the army got to dress them however they would like, and then everyone on the same side would just put on the same colored armband or something similar just sounds insane to me. Warfare sounds chaotic enough with uniforms!
Well, in the west at least most of the combat was melee combat or very short range skirmishing, so it wasn't as big of a deal, usually people would be your neighbors or trained with you, so "It's Bob, don't stab Bob" was enough. When you started getting guns, crossbows, longbows, etc that could shoot hundreds of yards it got to be more of a problem, but it was still formation fighting at that point, and they did have things like flags to help.
It kinda amazes me how far a head the Romans seemed to be with regards to military organization and logistics compared to every one else in the region. I'll admit it's been a while since I read about it but the Late Republic seemed to have the whole "rasing and supporting an army" thing mastered at a level you don't see in Europe again for a thousand years.
There was one real issue I read being raised against the woman-warrior viking article (I think it was on ars?) that was more clear cut: the grave had been excavated by pre-scientific bumblers and there is real doubt as to what remains actually came from which graves. So it would be difficult to know if the set of female bones they tested were from the same grave as the artifacts.
I mean, the governments (such as they were) that succeeded the western roman empire were much smaller and less powerful, and faced substantial population decline. Education in general declined substantially (the former western roman subjects mostly didn't know greek), which probably had negative consequences for any nascent public administration that might have emerged.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
There was one real issue I read being raised against the woman-warrior viking article (I think it was on ars?) that was more clear cut: the grave had been excavated by pre-scientific bumblers and there is real doubt as to what remains actually came from which graves. So it would be difficult to know if the set of female bones they tested were from the same grave as the artifacts.
Not true. The grave was one of the first graves that were scientificly excavated and well documented. The location of each find has been sketched, and each find tagged.
While some items have disappeared since 1880 (for example the skull is missing) the tags on the bones matches the tags in the excavation records. In addition to that, some Osteologists have noted for 50 years that the bones could be female.
Not to mention that they took TWO separate samples, one from a tooth and one from a legbone. The genetic tests on both samples were unmistakably female. The chance that both were misplaced and mistagged is...
Considering how well-regarded the excavation has been (for its era) until it turned out to be *gasp* a woman, I smell desperate scrambling.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It kinda amazes me how far a head the Romans seemed to be with regards to military organization and logistics compared to every one else in the region. I'll admit it's been a while since I read about it but the Late Republic seemed to have the whole "rasing and supporting an army" thing mastered at a level you don't see in Europe again for a thousand years.
Well, yes and no. It was very effective on a short term basis against enemies, but it was also Roman Military Organization that shitted up the Republic and ultimately the Empire too. Mainly that there was no effective check on a legion deciding "Our commander is the best, put him as emperor(so he can give us free gold and land!)" and totally upending the entire civil power structure. This was constant during the late republic/triumvirate/civil war period and the crisis of the third century, and ultimately you just can't keep that up forever without society breaking.
Also the Romans were great at logistics and organization but I would probably argue that Alexanders Macedon, the Persia of Cyrus and Darius, and the Assyrians on a good day were right up there with them. Sure Alexander's empire fell quickly to politics, but the fact that there were Greco Indian and Greco Buddhist kingdoms lasting for centuries after says a bit about how solid the systems were
Romans were impressive at logistics, sure, but so were Carthagians, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, etc...
Large militaries and logistics that follow are a thing that require a certain level of civilization and centralization.
When rome collapsed, there simply was nobody left in europe who could wield armies at that scale, and it took a long time until european nations became able to do so.
Romans were impressive at logistics, sure, but so were Carthagians, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, etc...
Large militaries and logistics that follow are a thing that require a certain level of civilization and centralization.
When rome collapsed, there simply was nobody left in europe who could wield armies at that scale, and it took a long time until european nations became able to do so.
Greeks not so much, unless you mean the Macedonians. Remember the Spartans backed off invading the Achaemenid Empire because supplying that kind of long distance invasion was not possible for them.
Egyptians, Assyrians, Achaemenid Persians, Carthaginians (more mercenaries then home grown troops) were pretty good at logistics.
Romans were on another level at their high point. The Assyrians couldn't conquer Egypt without half their territory revolting. Romans conquered most of the Eastern Mediterranean coast as an afterthought. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus wasn't that bad. At least as a strategic general.
A big factor was also population sizes in terms of access to military age men in their territories and across italy. Rome was effective militarily for a number of reasons, but one of those that gets overlooked is because they could lose entire armies and just field another one a year later.
And brightly coloured uniform enabled better battlefield coordination in eras without long distance communication.
And fewer "friendly fire" accidents.
There was also a mix of uniforms for different types of regiments. While line infantry (which couldn't have been stealthy even if they tried) and cavalry generally wore pretty eyestabbing colours (the red of the british, blue&white of the french, pure white austrian, Olive&white russian and bluecoat prussian) the skirmishing light infantry were a lot less conspicious.
The grey-black of the prussian jaegers, the dark blue of the french voltigers, russian skirmishers in undyed wool and the dark green or grey of the austrian light.
It's crazy to me that like, even up through at least the early to mid 1600s that army uniforms weren't a thing. It just seems like such a given to me, but that is clearly due to my perspective of living in a very industrial age where mass production is trivial. But the idea that each noble raising their own part of the army got to dress them however they would like, and then everyone on the same side would just put on the same colored armband or something similar just sounds insane to me. Warfare sounds chaotic enough with uniforms!
In the Franco-Prussian war where the "rules" of an armed combatant came about because of the rumor that French soldiers were wearing civilian clothes attacking the German army
Romans were impressive at logistics, sure, but so were Carthagians, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, etc...
Large militaries and logistics that follow are a thing that require a certain level of civilization and centralization.
When rome collapsed, there simply was nobody left in europe who could wield armies at that scale, and it took a long time until european nations became able to do so.
Greeks not so much, unless you mean the Macedonians. Remember the Spartans backed off invading the Achaemenid Empire because supplying that kind of long distance invasion was not possible for them.
Egyptians, Assyrians, Achaemenid Persians, Carthaginians (more mercenaries then home grown troops) were pretty good at logistics.
Romans were on another level at their high point. The Assyrians couldn't conquer Egypt without half their territory revolting. Romans conquered most of the Eastern Mediterranean coast as an afterthought. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus wasn't that bad. At least as a strategic general.
One of the reasons the Romans could do that is that their king/emperor could be pretty darn far away without diluting the authority of their governors.
The assyrians could basicly only send a major army into the field at the approval of their king, which means that if the king was on campaign in "far and distant lands" then people went "Well, this fucker is off in far and distant lands, isn't this the right time to murderize our much less divine governor and get independent?" and because the king was in distant lands the rebellion had 4 months to steamroll before the ruling elite could do anything effective about it after contacting their divine king.
In Rome it was basically "Rebellion? MY CHANCE TO INCREASE THE GLORY OF ROME AND MAKE MY NAME IMMORTAL!" and some Governor/Senator (or group of senators) raised an army and went on rebellioncrushing. This without diluting the authority of the senate or emperor to any significant degree, because the inofficial and traditional job description for senator basically said "If Rome is threatened it's your duty to go rebellioncrushing". Authority was a lot closer, and people knew this.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Romans were impressive at logistics, sure, but so were Carthagians, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, etc...
Large militaries and logistics that follow are a thing that require a certain level of civilization and centralization.
When rome collapsed, there simply was nobody left in europe who could wield armies at that scale, and it took a long time until european nations became able to do so.
Greeks not so much, unless you mean the Macedonians. Remember the Spartans backed off invading the Achaemenid Empire because supplying that kind of long distance invasion was not possible for them.
Egyptians, Assyrians, Achaemenid Persians, Carthaginians (more mercenaries then home grown troops) were pretty good at logistics.
Romans were on another level at their high point. The Assyrians couldn't conquer Egypt without half their territory revolting. Romans conquered most of the Eastern Mediterranean coast as an afterthought. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus wasn't that bad. At least as a strategic general.
The Greeks honestly won the Persian invasion more than anything due to the hoplite, you couldn't design a better hard counter than a hoplite to the kind of forces the Persians used. And it was still a close run thing. The Persians were at their height every bit as large and populous as the Rome, lasted a good while, and had a similarly developed provincial system. And of course Alexander was a step ahead of the Persians in logistics and organization. I don't know who would win in an Alexander vs late republic/early empire fight (probably the Romans, but who knows, Alex might have come up with some crazy combined arms force to counter legionaires). Really though the interesting thing isn't that the Romans were so good, which they definitely were, but that things went downhill so fast in the west, something that definitely did not occur in the east. When Achemaenid Persia went down, they left a ready made just add water empire for the Selucids, Parthians, and Sassanids after them. The Romans didn't, even in the East the empire was a shadow of what it once was, and in the west, where you had a similar situation to the Parthians of a seminomadic tribe coming in and taking over, the Parthians picked up right where things left off and got up to speed wheras the various Germanic tribes that took over western Rome did not.
I would for sure disagree that the eastern empire was a shadow of anything at least until the Arab conquests. Between the conquest of Justinian and whole lot of building and reform projects it was as successful as anything that came before it.
In the west the biggest thing was the post Roman kingdoms letting the tax systems fall out of use and moving to land based system. Its just a ton less effective.
Roman Trade in the west was pretty badly shafted by the Crisis of the Third Century, and various economic reforms didn't help reverse increasing self sufficiency of local areas. Therefore less money to do stuff like be a big empire or employ regular troops. The east was always the richer part, crammed full of ancient cities and directly tied into the Silk Road, so economically they held on a bit longer until that last war with the Sassanids.
I would for sure disagree that the eastern empire was a shadow of anything at least until the Arab conquests. Between the conquest of Justinian and whole lot of building and reform projects it was as successful as anything that came before it.
In the west the biggest thing was the post Roman kingdoms letting the tax systems fall out of use and moving to land based system. Its just a ton less effective.
Well, I'm not sure I would agree, the Conquest of Justinian was a high point, but outside that you definitely had a move away from a classical system towards a more medieval system. Restriction of trade, loss of ability to project force, a shift from an urban centered system to a more fortification and countryside based system outside Constantinople (There were good reasons for all these things, with the huns and various goths sitting outside your walls it's hard to maintain a functional trade system and cosmopolitan economy, but still). Certainly there were high points and low points but even considering the basically mutually suicidal war with the Sassanids it says a lot that the Arabs just a couple of centuries after the west fell were able to go from being essentially a non-entity to walking in and taking half the empire and sieging Constantinople itself. The Eastern Roman empire was a steady decline from the beginning with one huge bright spot in the middle.
I would for sure disagree that the eastern empire was a shadow of anything at least until the Arab conquests. Between the conquest of Justinian and whole lot of building and reform projects it was as successful as anything that came before it.
In the west the biggest thing was the post Roman kingdoms letting the tax systems fall out of use and moving to land based system. Its just a ton less effective.
Well, I'm not sure I would agree, the Conquest of Justinian was a high point, but outside that you definitely had a move away from a classical system towards a more medieval system. Restriction of trade, loss of ability to project force, a shift from an urban centered system to a more fortification and countryside based system outside Constantinople (There were good reasons for all these things, with the huns and various goths sitting outside your walls it's hard to maintain a functional trade system and cosmopolitan economy, but still). Certainly there were high points and low points but even considering the basically mutually suicidal war with the Sassanids it says a lot that the Arabs just a couple of centuries after the west fell were able to go from being essentially a non-entity to walking in and taking half the empire and sieging Constantinople itself. The Eastern Roman empire was a steady decline from the beginning with one huge bright spot in the middle.
In the sixth century the byzantines were still projecting power in the same places they were when the eastern empire was born and still importing huge quantities of grain into the same huge capital.
Even assuming that the Arab conquest was because of fundamental change in Byzantine strength you still had an empire that could lose 3/4s of it wealth and bounce back which seems to me to point to a pretty strong system.
Honestly. The eastern roman empire was pretty darn powerful until constant warfare in the 11th century gutted the Trebizond regions and Anatolia.
They could recover from a lot, but having their entire supply of quality cavalry mounts destroyed within a generation absolutely crushed their very cavalry dependant army. That their deathrattle took another 300 years is a testament to the strength of the east roman empire.
The arab invasions in the 7th century struck hard, but the fact that they recovered from it (recovering turkey, taking the balkans and contesting italy) is pretty much a sign of their continued vitality.
Honestly, Syria and the Levant were nice territories to have, but not more than that. Despite their riches they did not provide key strategic resources. Anatolia on the other hand...
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
And brightly coloured uniform enabled better battlefield coordination in eras without long distance communication.
And fewer "friendly fire" accidents.
There was also a mix of uniforms for different types of regiments. While line infantry (which couldn't have been stealthy even if they tried) and cavalry generally wore pretty eyestabbing colours (the red of the british, blue&white of the french, pure white austrian, Olive&white russian and bluecoat prussian) the skirmishing light infantry were a lot less conspicious.
The grey-black of the prussian jaegers, the dark blue of the french voltigers, russian skirmishers in undyed wool and the dark green or grey of the austrian light.
It's crazy to me that like, even up through at least the early to mid 1600s that army uniforms weren't a thing. It just seems like such a given to me, but that is clearly due to my perspective of living in a very industrial age where mass production is trivial. But the idea that each noble raising their own part of the army got to dress them however they would like, and then everyone on the same side would just put on the same colored armband or something similar just sounds insane to me. Warfare sounds chaotic enough with uniforms!
But what uniform would you pick? You could be fighting the neighboring lord one year, and others next year. And the armies for each could be vastly different. You cant reclothe your army each time
The death f feudalism allows unified and uniformed armies
And brightly coloured uniform enabled better battlefield coordination in eras without long distance communication.
And fewer "friendly fire" accidents.
There was also a mix of uniforms for different types of regiments. While line infantry (which couldn't have been stealthy even if they tried) and cavalry generally wore pretty eyestabbing colours (the red of the british, blue&white of the french, pure white austrian, Olive&white russian and bluecoat prussian) the skirmishing light infantry were a lot less conspicious.
The grey-black of the prussian jaegers, the dark blue of the french voltigers, russian skirmishers in undyed wool and the dark green or grey of the austrian light.
It's crazy to me that like, even up through at least the early to mid 1600s that army uniforms weren't a thing. It just seems like such a given to me, but that is clearly due to my perspective of living in a very industrial age where mass production is trivial. But the idea that each noble raising their own part of the army got to dress them however they would like, and then everyone on the same side would just put on the same colored armband or something similar just sounds insane to me. Warfare sounds chaotic enough with uniforms!
But what uniform would you pick? You could be fighting the neighboring lord one year, and others next year. And the armies for each could be vastly different. You cant reclothe your army each time
The death f feudalism allows unified and uniformed armies
Not to mention that until the late 17th century most armies had a very very large number of mercenaries in them.
I mean, the swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus was trained in swedish tactics and firing drills and for its era it was a wonder of coordination, mobility and firepower, but it was still 60%-90% mercs (primarily german and scottish mercenaries).
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Honestly. The eastern roman empire was pretty darn powerful until constant warfare in the 11th century gutted the Trebizond regions and Anatolia.
They could recover from a lot, but having their entire supply of quality cavalry mounts destroyed within a generation absolutely crushed their very cavalry dependant army. That their deathrattle took another 300 years is a testament to the strength of the east roman empire.
The arab invasions in the 7th century struck hard, but the fact that they recovered from it (recovering turkey, taking the balkans and contesting italy) is pretty much a sign of their continued vitality.
Honestly, Syria and the Levant were nice territories to have, but not more than that. Despite their riches they did not provide key strategic resources. Anatolia on the other hand...
Egypt and later Sicily was a huge loss.
It shut down the free grain immediately and ended with the Constantinople only having 50,000 people in it from a peak of half a million (tho it was still the biggest city in Europe).
If I could ask a broad question: what caused the decline of the Ottoman empire? I mean you see periods where other nations entered decline but they came back from it. Everything after 1700 seems to go downhill for the Ottomans.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
I believe the prevailing theory is that once the Janissaries stopped having strict recruitment requirements and moved away from being both a civil and elite military institution into just being administrative, it weakened the empire both through corruption and a simple lack of military force
If I could ask a broad question: what caused the decline of the Ottoman empire? I mean you see periods where other nations entered decline but they came back from it. Everything after 1700 seems to go downhill for the Ottomans.
The idea of the nationstate. Pretty much every multi-ethnic empire without a strong national identity ended up being dissolved (Ottoman empire, Austro-Hungarian empire, French colonial empire, Brittish Empire) over the first half of the 20th century. While Brittain was riding the wave of being the strongest industrial power in the world the Ottoman empire had no such crutch.
The 18th and first half of the 19th century featured strong anti-turkish resentment which in combination with a corrupt administration and an increasingly traditionalist, decadent and corrupt military meant that the Ottoman empire had to spend a large amount of resources on internal conflict. The second half of the 19th century saw an upswing, both in terms of industrial power, political reform and military reform (for example the Janissary corp was dissolved and the New Model Army was instituted, the power of the Beys was reduced and the constitutional power of the central authority was strengthened).
The turn of the century on the other hand the tension caused by reordering of Ottoman society exploded into a series of internal revolutions, which in combination with a series of ill-advised military adventures caused the collapse.
A sort of negative description of Turkey is that it's the PTSD of the Ottoman empire. Turkey as a nationstate is paranoid of all the things that caused the collapse of the Ottoman empire. It's terrified of other nationalities within its borders, it's completely unwilling to take even one step back concerning territory that it considers Turkish and at least until recently it desperately wanted to be Western.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
If I could ask a broad question: what caused the decline of the Ottoman empire? I mean you see periods where other nations entered decline but they came back from it. Everything after 1700 seems to go downhill for the Ottomans.
The idea of the nationstate. Pretty much every multi-ethnic empire without a strong national identity ended up being dissolved (Ottoman empire, Austro-Hungarian empire, French colonial empire, Brittish Empire) over the first half of the 20th century. While Brittain was riding the wave of being the strongest industrial power in the world the Ottoman empire had no such crutch.
The 18th and first half of the 19th century featured strong anti-turkish resentment which in combination with a corrupt administration and an increasingly traditionalist, decadent and corrupt military meant that the Ottoman empire had to spend a large amount of resources on internal conflict. The second half of the 19th century saw an upswing, both in terms of industrial power, political reform and military reform (for example the Janissary corp was dissolved and the New Model Army was instituted, the power of the Beys was reduced and the constitutional power of the central authority was strengthened).
The turn of the century on the other hand the tension caused by reordering of Ottoman society exploded into a series of internal revolutions, which in combination with a series of ill-advised military adventures caused the collapse.
A sort of negative description of Turkey is that it's the PTSD of the Ottoman empire. Turkey as a nationstate is paranoid of all the things that caused the collapse of the Ottoman empire. It's terrified of other nationalities within its borders, it's completely unwilling to take even one step back concerning territory that it considers Turkish and at least until recently it desperately wanted to be Western.
I agree with this, along with probably a good amount of meddling and general fuckery by the European powers towards the end in various places (Egypt, Crimean War, etc). You definitely see a lot of areas that were totally fine for 2 or 3 hundred years under ottoman rule start rebelling en mass around the late 18th and 19th century though.
Edit: The rise of Russia and Safavid Persia as major powers was a very big deal as well, as it essentially sealed off routes of expansion and meant that instead of only really having to focus on the inevitable Austrian-Polish alliance in the balkans they now had to worry about major, militarily equivalent or near equivalent powers on three fronts.
I just find it odd that the Ottomans we're the sick men of Europe right up until the end, lacking in industrialization and the effects of it. It's just weird to be that aside for the most part no one inside the empire tried to right the ship. Their we're attempts from what I've seen, but they either don't stick or come far to late.
If I could ask a broad question: what caused the decline of the Ottoman empire? I mean you see periods where other nations entered decline but they came back from it. Everything after 1700 seems to go downhill for the Ottomans.
A major influence was the growth of the Atlantic economies and trade network devalued the red sea and overland routes, coupled with running out of easy conquests for economic game. The ottomans didn't have a nice coherent border to their east and south like the European powers (sans Russia) did which created constant drains of resources.
Outside of the Bosporus the Ottoman countryside is either really fucking hilly or desert, and they lacked easily exploited fossil fuels. You see a similar industrialisation lag in most of Iberia. The massive growth of northern european population in the 19th century came from winter wheat and wet potato cultivation - not something you can apply to the mediterranean climates - in 1770 russia and the ottoman empire had comparable populations, in 1870 russia had double the number of people. Then on top of that they had institutional decay in lots of regions and constant pressure from European powers.
As an aside the 'sick man of europe' is a propaganda term applied to lots of states on lots of occasions, not really something you should take as a serious quantification of capabilities at any particular moment in time .
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
Happy 80th Birthday to THE HOBBIT. Here's the man himself, reading the chapter that introduces Gollum:
Could you imagine though how the world politics would have looked like if the Ottoman empire hadn't collapsed? If they had held on for even 50 more years they would have had significant portion of the worlds oil supplies to back up their economy (perhaps even the vast majority of they had tightened their fist on Saudi Arabia). WWII would have been even more of a clusterfuck though since both Germany and Russia would have been on their naughty list.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
400 years of continual warfare interspersed by a short alliance of convenience during WWI against Russia. The german states had always backed up Austria against the Ottomans during the Balkan conflicts.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Posts
When reading the "To put my cards on the table, I will say that I have always thought (and to some extent still do) that the fascination with women warriors, both in popular culture and in academic discourse, is heavily, probably too heavily, influenced by 20th- and 21st-century desires", first thing came to my mind was "And is your opposition to the concept based on 10th to early 20th century dislike of the same?".
Which is where my comment on much of history coming from people who don't know shit comes from.
Century ago, Moses was seen as a historical figure (he was not), while now it is accepted (by most people in relevant fields) that Moses was fictional.
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The rebuttal is a pretty good example of arguing against the warrior status almost purely on basis of sex.
A man found in such a tomb, almost certainly a warrior.
A woman found in such a tomb, maybe people just liked her enough to give her a warrior burial.
And I agree, my thought was essentially "well why is the idea of female warriors so threatening"?
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Jesch
So I think the idea that she's threatened by the idea of female warriors is maaaybe misreading her point.
Well. Considering that such things as "standing armies" and "actual logistics" were also not really a thing...real logistics weren't even implemented until the Franco-prussian war.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Which is funny, because campaigning armies in ancient times did have actual logistics. Alexander the great? His entire campaign was a campaign of logistics, with the army following coasts and rivers for most of the time in order to meet up with their supply ships. Not surprisingly he's one of the few exceptions to "never conduct a landwar in asia". 'cause he did it rather successfully.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Scientists are just humans, they can be wrong, and even defend old ideas to the point of unreason, just like any other human.
Well, in the west at least most of the combat was melee combat or very short range skirmishing, so it wasn't as big of a deal, usually people would be your neighbors or trained with you, so "It's Bob, don't stab Bob" was enough. When you started getting guns, crossbows, longbows, etc that could shoot hundreds of yards it got to be more of a problem, but it was still formation fighting at that point, and they did have things like flags to help.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Not true. The grave was one of the first graves that were scientificly excavated and well documented. The location of each find has been sketched, and each find tagged.
While some items have disappeared since 1880 (for example the skull is missing) the tags on the bones matches the tags in the excavation records. In addition to that, some Osteologists have noted for 50 years that the bones could be female.
Not to mention that they took TWO separate samples, one from a tooth and one from a legbone. The genetic tests on both samples were unmistakably female. The chance that both were misplaced and mistagged is...
Considering how well-regarded the excavation has been (for its era) until it turned out to be *gasp* a woman, I smell desperate scrambling.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Well, yes and no. It was very effective on a short term basis against enemies, but it was also Roman Military Organization that shitted up the Republic and ultimately the Empire too. Mainly that there was no effective check on a legion deciding "Our commander is the best, put him as emperor(so he can give us free gold and land!)" and totally upending the entire civil power structure. This was constant during the late republic/triumvirate/civil war period and the crisis of the third century, and ultimately you just can't keep that up forever without society breaking.
Also the Romans were great at logistics and organization but I would probably argue that Alexanders Macedon, the Persia of Cyrus and Darius, and the Assyrians on a good day were right up there with them. Sure Alexander's empire fell quickly to politics, but the fact that there were Greco Indian and Greco Buddhist kingdoms lasting for centuries after says a bit about how solid the systems were
Large militaries and logistics that follow are a thing that require a certain level of civilization and centralization.
When rome collapsed, there simply was nobody left in europe who could wield armies at that scale, and it took a long time until european nations became able to do so.
Greeks not so much, unless you mean the Macedonians. Remember the Spartans backed off invading the Achaemenid Empire because supplying that kind of long distance invasion was not possible for them.
Egyptians, Assyrians, Achaemenid Persians, Carthaginians (more mercenaries then home grown troops) were pretty good at logistics.
Romans were on another level at their high point. The Assyrians couldn't conquer Egypt without half their territory revolting. Romans conquered most of the Eastern Mediterranean coast as an afterthought. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus wasn't that bad. At least as a strategic general.
In the Franco-Prussian war where the "rules" of an armed combatant came about because of the rumor that French soldiers were wearing civilian clothes attacking the German army
One of the reasons the Romans could do that is that their king/emperor could be pretty darn far away without diluting the authority of their governors.
The assyrians could basicly only send a major army into the field at the approval of their king, which means that if the king was on campaign in "far and distant lands" then people went "Well, this fucker is off in far and distant lands, isn't this the right time to murderize our much less divine governor and get independent?" and because the king was in distant lands the rebellion had 4 months to steamroll before the ruling elite could do anything effective about it after contacting their divine king.
In Rome it was basically "Rebellion? MY CHANCE TO INCREASE THE GLORY OF ROME AND MAKE MY NAME IMMORTAL!" and some Governor/Senator (or group of senators) raised an army and went on rebellioncrushing. This without diluting the authority of the senate or emperor to any significant degree, because the inofficial and traditional job description for senator basically said "If Rome is threatened it's your duty to go rebellioncrushing". Authority was a lot closer, and people knew this.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
One of the biggest civil wars was about getting closer to Rome rather than further away, after all.
The Greeks honestly won the Persian invasion more than anything due to the hoplite, you couldn't design a better hard counter than a hoplite to the kind of forces the Persians used. And it was still a close run thing. The Persians were at their height every bit as large and populous as the Rome, lasted a good while, and had a similarly developed provincial system. And of course Alexander was a step ahead of the Persians in logistics and organization. I don't know who would win in an Alexander vs late republic/early empire fight (probably the Romans, but who knows, Alex might have come up with some crazy combined arms force to counter legionaires). Really though the interesting thing isn't that the Romans were so good, which they definitely were, but that things went downhill so fast in the west, something that definitely did not occur in the east. When Achemaenid Persia went down, they left a ready made just add water empire for the Selucids, Parthians, and Sassanids after them. The Romans didn't, even in the East the empire was a shadow of what it once was, and in the west, where you had a similar situation to the Parthians of a seminomadic tribe coming in and taking over, the Parthians picked up right where things left off and got up to speed wheras the various Germanic tribes that took over western Rome did not.
In the west the biggest thing was the post Roman kingdoms letting the tax systems fall out of use and moving to land based system. Its just a ton less effective.
Well, I'm not sure I would agree, the Conquest of Justinian was a high point, but outside that you definitely had a move away from a classical system towards a more medieval system. Restriction of trade, loss of ability to project force, a shift from an urban centered system to a more fortification and countryside based system outside Constantinople (There were good reasons for all these things, with the huns and various goths sitting outside your walls it's hard to maintain a functional trade system and cosmopolitan economy, but still). Certainly there were high points and low points but even considering the basically mutually suicidal war with the Sassanids it says a lot that the Arabs just a couple of centuries after the west fell were able to go from being essentially a non-entity to walking in and taking half the empire and sieging Constantinople itself. The Eastern Roman empire was a steady decline from the beginning with one huge bright spot in the middle.
Even assuming that the Arab conquest was because of fundamental change in Byzantine strength you still had an empire that could lose 3/4s of it wealth and bounce back which seems to me to point to a pretty strong system.
They could recover from a lot, but having their entire supply of quality cavalry mounts destroyed within a generation absolutely crushed their very cavalry dependant army. That their deathrattle took another 300 years is a testament to the strength of the east roman empire.
The arab invasions in the 7th century struck hard, but the fact that they recovered from it (recovering turkey, taking the balkans and contesting italy) is pretty much a sign of their continued vitality.
Honestly, Syria and the Levant were nice territories to have, but not more than that. Despite their riches they did not provide key strategic resources. Anatolia on the other hand...
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
But what uniform would you pick? You could be fighting the neighboring lord one year, and others next year. And the armies for each could be vastly different. You cant reclothe your army each time
The death f feudalism allows unified and uniformed armies
Not to mention that until the late 17th century most armies had a very very large number of mercenaries in them.
I mean, the swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus was trained in swedish tactics and firing drills and for its era it was a wonder of coordination, mobility and firepower, but it was still 60%-90% mercs (primarily german and scottish mercenaries).
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Egypt and later Sicily was a huge loss.
It shut down the free grain immediately and ended with the Constantinople only having 50,000 people in it from a peak of half a million (tho it was still the biggest city in Europe).
The idea of the nationstate. Pretty much every multi-ethnic empire without a strong national identity ended up being dissolved (Ottoman empire, Austro-Hungarian empire, French colonial empire, Brittish Empire) over the first half of the 20th century. While Brittain was riding the wave of being the strongest industrial power in the world the Ottoman empire had no such crutch.
The 18th and first half of the 19th century featured strong anti-turkish resentment which in combination with a corrupt administration and an increasingly traditionalist, decadent and corrupt military meant that the Ottoman empire had to spend a large amount of resources on internal conflict. The second half of the 19th century saw an upswing, both in terms of industrial power, political reform and military reform (for example the Janissary corp was dissolved and the New Model Army was instituted, the power of the Beys was reduced and the constitutional power of the central authority was strengthened).
The turn of the century on the other hand the tension caused by reordering of Ottoman society exploded into a series of internal revolutions, which in combination with a series of ill-advised military adventures caused the collapse.
A sort of negative description of Turkey is that it's the PTSD of the Ottoman empire. Turkey as a nationstate is paranoid of all the things that caused the collapse of the Ottoman empire. It's terrified of other nationalities within its borders, it's completely unwilling to take even one step back concerning territory that it considers Turkish and at least until recently it desperately wanted to be Western.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I agree with this, along with probably a good amount of meddling and general fuckery by the European powers towards the end in various places (Egypt, Crimean War, etc). You definitely see a lot of areas that were totally fine for 2 or 3 hundred years under ottoman rule start rebelling en mass around the late 18th and 19th century though.
Edit: The rise of Russia and Safavid Persia as major powers was a very big deal as well, as it essentially sealed off routes of expansion and meant that instead of only really having to focus on the inevitable Austrian-Polish alliance in the balkans they now had to worry about major, militarily equivalent or near equivalent powers on three fronts.
A major influence was the growth of the Atlantic economies and trade network devalued the red sea and overland routes, coupled with running out of easy conquests for economic game. The ottomans didn't have a nice coherent border to their east and south like the European powers (sans Russia) did which created constant drains of resources.
Outside of the Bosporus the Ottoman countryside is either really fucking hilly or desert, and they lacked easily exploited fossil fuels. You see a similar industrialisation lag in most of Iberia. The massive growth of northern european population in the 19th century came from winter wheat and wet potato cultivation - not something you can apply to the mediterranean climates - in 1770 russia and the ottoman empire had comparable populations, in 1870 russia had double the number of people. Then on top of that they had institutional decay in lots of regions and constant pressure from European powers.
As an aside the 'sick man of europe' is a propaganda term applied to lots of states on lots of occasions, not really something you should take as a serious quantification of capabilities at any particular moment in time
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
400 years of continual warfare interspersed by a short alliance of convenience during WWI against Russia. The german states had always backed up Austria against the Ottomans during the Balkan conflicts.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden