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This might be the best "TIL" I've ever read.
SE++ Forum Battle Archive | PDT is not PST | DRUNKSTUCK: A Homestuck recap
The reason for the project:
What sets my teeth on edge - apart from the utter arrogant shittiness of 'reimagining' somebody's spoken testament in the first place - is how much better the original speech was. It's pithy, eloquent, and doesn't fuck around. I won't comment on the dialect, but the rewritten version abandons clarity of argument for pathos, and is weaker for it.
Tell you what, I had no idea that during the European Reformation and Counter-Reformation period (so like, 15th-16th century), Poland was incredibly tolerant. Like, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, they all got on. In 1554 when a a bishop visiting sentenced a Protestant to death for stealing the Host and passing it to some Jews (allegedly), an angry mob of Catholics turned up... to forcibly free the Protestant and the Jews, and briefly siege the delegate's lodgings for the insult. And they did this repeatedly! A quote from Jan Tarnowski at the time, "it is not a question of religion, it is a question of liberty."
But it gets better! In 1580 a Calvinist called Marcin Kreza stole the Host from a Catholic priest (in a Catholic country, during the Counter-Reformation), spat on it, trampled on it, fed it to a passing dog, all in front of the King (a Catholic King, during the fucking Counter-Reformation), who told him reproachfully not to do it again.
It's extraordinary, really. Incredible. We should be taking a leaf out of the book of the Renaissance Poles I reckon.
don't worry, it's now a crime to argue that the polish government was possibly complicit in war crimes associated with the holocaust
wait...
Without people, you wouldn't have dogs.
Checkmate.
Compelling argument.
Backing up just a bit though, in April 1863 a French Army is besieging the city of Puebla being supplied by caravans from the port of Veracruz. A major caravan is getting ready to set out so a small detachment of French troops set out to scout the road and make sure it was safe. This detachment consisted of 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, Foreign Regiment (later named Foreign Legion), understrength due to casualties from disease and totaling 62 enlisted, 2 Lieutenants, and Captain Danjou, who had volunteered to go with as 3rd Company had no acting Captain. After a thoroughly miserable march, near the abandoned village of El Camerón, 3rd Company spotted 200+ Mexican cavalry and withdrew into a walled hacienda on the outskirts of the village for cover. The cavalry reported the presence of French troops back to their commander Colonel Milán. Milán decided he needed to eliminate the French so they couldn't report spotting his troops, who were in fact planning to ambush the supply caravan. Somewhere around 600 Mexican cavalry surrounded 3rd Company and demanded the surrender of the vastly outnumbered French force. Captain Danjou replied, "We have ammo, we will not surrender."
The fighting began in earnest at 0900, a bit before noon Danjou was mortally wounded, Lt. Vilain assumed command of the 40 or so remaining Legionnaires. Shortly after Col. Milán arrived on the scene with the rest of his forces. There were now around 2000 Mexican troops besieging 40 Legionnaires penned into a walled stablehouse. Milán offered Vilain another chance to surrender, "Merde!" was the only reply. The fighting resumed. Eventually Lt. Vilain too was killed, Lt. Maudet taking command. By 1800 there were only 5 Frenchmen standing, and even scavenging the dead and wounded they were down to one shot each. Lt. Maudet gave his final order, the Legionnaires fixed bayonets fired a volley and charged.
Maudet and another Legionnaire, Private Catteau, were shot down, but a Mexican officer, Col. Combas stopped his troops before they killed the other 3 and offered another chance to surrender, Corporal Maine, senior surviving Legionnaire, agreed if the Mexicans would care for their wounded. Combas replied, "One refuses nothing to men such as you." Combras brought the captured Legionnaires to Milán, who asked where the others were. When Combras told him the 3 were all that had surrendered Milán exclaimed, “That’s all that is left? These aren’t men, they are devils!”
In the end, 24 Legionnaires, all wounded, survived the battle and received medical care from the Mexican Army doctors. They were allowed to keep their arms and were freed in a prisoner exchange later that same year. None of the officers survived though, and Captain Danjou's prosthetic wooden hand (recovered by the Legion later), is one of the French Foreign Legions most treasured artifacts.
That's his hand
Fernao Lopes was a mercenary who was working out of Portuguese-occupied Goa. During a rebellion against the Portuguese, him and a number of other mercenaries (many of whom had converted to Islam or were married to local women) took up arms against the colonists. As these things go, the rebellion was quashed and the mercenaries were surrendered to the Portuguese on the condition that they not be executed for treason.
This agreement was not respected. Most of the men were tortured to death. Somehow Lopes survived, despite the fact that, uh, I'll leave out most of the details, but uh most of his face wasn't left when they were done with him.
Eventually he stowed away on a ship and baled out in Saint Helena (yes, that Saint Helena) where he lived a Robinson Crusoe-esque life. His best friend was a chicken.
In time people spotted him and tried to establish communication with him and he was brought back to Europe where the Pope absolved his sins (because that's a thing). He then asked to be allowed to go back to the shack he kept on the island (no word of whether the chicken was still there or not).
Probably just lost in the intervening years, but I prefer to think it got shot off.
Oh no, fool. There's about seven more hours and six more Crusades to get through.
There is a passage that describes the eating of undercooked Saracen buttocks.
Undercooked?! You one of those well done meat loving heathens?
Then the production company takes this as a sign to churn out more and more sequels, each getting progressively worse.
Then after a break, the production company tries to reboot it, using the newest hip actors, except no one ever wanted a reboot.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
gotta
get
that
holy land
We've always been at war with Egypt Constantinople
Why in the first one is still a good question
And then there were the Crusades against the Cathars and the Baltic pagans.
It's surprising how few Crusades actually targeted the Holy Land.
Also sick loot. Gotta grind for those papal drops, that's why they ran the same area so many times.
And then they tried to Crusade against the Ottomans in Europe. It....did not go well.
Reading descriptions of the early Crusader armies, it always strikes me how similar they read to the types of mass migrations of people that bothered the Romans so much in the late Imperial era.
Like, with Roman history we identify with the Romans, and so we think of the people moving in as invading barbarian hordes.
Then we identify with the European Crusaders, and so we think of them as like a Proper Army and shit, with clear military objectives.
But a lot of the descriptions of what they actually did and how they operated sounds far more similar to those previous barbarian hordes than any sort of organized military operation.
Probably Eastern Europe