General History Questions thread

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

The death tolls vary wildly for pre-gunpowder battles. There are a few cases of medieval battles where the army is partially destroyed when routing (impossible to tell if all the men are killed or if they just run to the countryside and never come back), but most of the time the victorious army doesn't seem to inflict massive casualties for whatever reason. I know of a few battles where the cavalry is content with just raiding the enemy camp, sometimes before the battle is even over.

 

[Swissky]

I know I'm late to the party, but in post-fragmentation Kingdom of Poland supposedly up until XVth century 'peasant infantry' (piechota chłopska) was formed from Crown's villages, which were obliged to send one man for every five (some sources say ten), but the other four (nine) were supposed to dress, feed and arm the one that goes to war.

Russia had the one for every ten policy, if I'm mistaken I'm sure Bluehawk will give me a lashing like the serf I am.

I know of a few battles where the cavalry is content with just raiding the enemy camp, sometimes before the battle is even over.

Something something English civil war something captured whilst having dinner in the field.

 

[Bluehawk]

I'm not aware of any formal ratio for levies before the Code of Service of 1556, which obliged a landowner to produce a man, "on horse and in armour complete" for every 100 chetvert's of land they own, something like 5000 square meters. Actually the definition of a chetvert' as a unit of area was variable so it's not very helpful, but the ratio would be much lower than 1:10. But with the adoption of this code, more landowners were being called on to raise soldiers than before, which relaxed the burden on the state treasury.

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

but the ratio would be much lower than 1:10.

lower as in 1:5 or 1:20? This is an oddity of English that I've never consciously noticed before.

 

[Bluehawk]

I meant "fewer per fixed unit". So if the numerator is 1, then the denominator increases (to avoid decimals in a ratio).

Actually without knowing how densely populated those estates were on average, I shouldn't say anything at all about ratios.

 

[nijis]

I'm not aware of any formal ratio for levies before the Code of Service of 1556, which obliged a landowner to produce a man, "on horse and in armour complete" for every 100 chetvert's of land they own, something like 5000 square meters. Actually the definition of a chetvert' as a unit of area was variable so it's not very helpful, but the ratio would be much lower than 1:10. But with the adoption of this code, more landowners were being called on to raise soldiers than before, which relaxed the burden on the state treasury.

Five thousand square meters is a little over an acre. I'm seeing a huge range of estimates for what a chetvert was, but 500,000 m2 = 120 acres should support six households, or 30 people, on reasonably fertile ground. Six households of poor tenants, that is -- 40 acres would be an ideal size for a freeholder. So, three to six households maybe? - but less if the land is marginal.

Note also that in the Anglo-Saxon system, acres represented a fixed unit of crop yield but variable land. So, three area acres of land could go down in the documents as one fiscal acre.

In the Anglo-Saxon fyrd, I believe, normally households would pool their resources to contribute one reasonably well-equipped and trained warrior to the host at the ratio of five households to one warrior. Cavalry cost more. In the 11th century Byzantine system, different troop types were given differently-sized estates to support them. A cataphract had an estate that would normally support 30 families. A lighter cavalryman had an estate that supported 15 families.

***

To sum up, I'd say that most levy systems were designed to encourage a group of farmers to find their biggest, most aggressive member, have him practice a lot between campaigns, and send him off with decent equipment and maybe even a horse, rather than send a half dozen guys with no aptitude for fighting.

There are good operational reasons for this. Medieval armies tended to cap out at 10,000 to 30,000 men, often much less, because anything larger could not sustain itself by foraging along the line of march. Bigger armies take longer to form up for battle and longer to leave camp.

If an army in a battle has a lot of untrained peasants, they're probably from nearby and fighting in defense of their homes, or are camp followers.

 

[Untitled.]

Cool bit of insight.

 

[PotatoKat]

Was there a reason that in late 16th-17th centuries plate armour leg piece is made of lammes instead of singular plate like in the 15th century?

 

[BerserkerRezo]

Wow, I didn't even know that Byzantines had estates for different troop types. I have read that after Byzantines lost all of Anatolia (Modern Turkey) they had a shortage of horses, so they had to arm the sons of the nobles that did have horses.

 

[Mamlaz]

Was there a reason that in late 16th-17th centuries plate armour leg piece is made of lammes instead of singular plate like in the 15th century?

It is a result of merging the tasset with the cuisse.

For some reason, they decided that thigh armor should not be separated from the breastplate, thus, they connected both.

Well, what they really did was prolong the tasset over the cuisse and basically removed the cuisse completely(as medieval people knew it).

That segmented leg armor is basically a prolonged steel skirt.


It had to be segmented because it connected directly to the breastplate, so in order for a man to bend forwards or even sit(or even walk properly), the plates had to be able to overlap;

Spoiler

There are also other arguments, like that the plates then overlap, increasing the thickness, as well as easier maintenance(a smaller, cheaper, damaged plate gets replaced instead of a larger one).

 

[AreJohn]

Somewhat relevant. **** it, it's the history board.
Lindybeige has released a video on the last kingdom.

 

[Swissky]

Crosspost from Random Media thread.

I have to give it to them on the intro, a well made one, reminds me of the Life is Feudal one with Sean Bean. That leather armour which the Dane wears (and which Lindy laughs at) looks like a leather version of the Greek linothorax, or ehh... Dermathorax.

 

[BenKenobi]

How common was stealing (well, obtaining) war machines from the adversary in the cold war? I know it was fairly common in ww2 as that was very hot conflict and there were many people defecting with planes, many not-really destroyed tanks that can be repaired etc. But how common was this during cold war? I think Israelis had quite a lot of chances to get something (and there was this radar-stealing operation) and of course you have all those proxy war and I imagine captured stuff could get shipped to USSR/USA. So, yes, did USA had working Shilka, Hinds, MiGs and all those things (and vice versa) or were estimates of enemy things more of a guesswork?

 

[Paronomasia12]

For intelligence or for actual combat use? Because there's lots of famous cases for intelligence purposes. You've got that defection of a Polish MiG-15 in '53. The British L7 cannon and American M60 tank came about because of the capture of a T-54A in Hungary during '56. The Soviet 115mm cannon and development of the T62 tank was rushed through due to the defection of an Iranian M60A1 to the USSR in '61. But, those Red Square parades that allowed the Soviets to show off their power also allowed the West to analyse the stuff, like that M-4 Bison that led the Americans to believe in a bomber gap, or the appearance of the BMP. And like you say, all those proxy wars led to plenty of development, testing, stealing and analysis of weapons and vehicles.

You probably need more, but I'm not Jhessail unfortunately.

 

[Saxon with a Seax]

Going back to an earlier point, how important was slavery to the various medieval Islamic civilizations, and how did that change over time? How big an impact did the later European colonialism have on those systems?

 

[matmohair1]

how important was slavery to the various medieval Islamic civilizations

As important as it was to other people in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and around the globe

and how did that change over time? How big an impact did the later European colonialism have on those systems?

They turned it from an ancient method of dealing with prisoners of war into a system of endless production,
that is needed to sustain capitalism and it still lingers on today with a different set of names...

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Going back to an earlier point, how important was slavery to the various medieval Islamic civilizations, and how did that change over time? How big an impact did the later European colonialism have on those systems?

It depends who you're talking about. Just being Muslim didn't mean people suddenly were more accustomed to slavery. It just so happens that there were a lot of really fertile areas in the Middle East and Africa which needed people to be farming them all year round, unlike in Europe where farmers were usually just farming for themselves for most of history.
As a result a form of serfdom arose in mesopotamia and parts of egypt which was more akin to slavery, in that it involved moving people around rather than tying locals to the land.

The middle east and parts of Africa were also a lot more economically developed than Europe until fairly late in the middle ages, with a sizeable merchant and noble class, so the demand for house servants was higher. These were usually either steppe people or east Africans. Servant slavery was also around in other economically developed parts of the world like China and India.

You also have slave soldiery, which involved buying or capturing slaves and training them as soldiers from a young age. The most famous example is the Mamluks in egypt, but virtually everyone in the Muslim world practiced a form of it, even up until the late Ottoman empire. It's arguable as to whether this can be classed as slavery though, as the only real obligation they had was to fight for their sovereign. Other than that they had their own land, sometimes held political power in their own right, and could do whatever they wanted within the law.
Just like the above two examples, slave soldiery was just a by product of economic and geographic circumstance rather than Islam itself. A big empire will usually choose impartial foreigners over local levies to fight for them, and there were a lot of big empires in the Middle East.

Euro-colonialism didn't really affect Islamic society much.

 

[matmohair1]

Euro-colonialism didn't really affect Islamic society much.

we lost the Ottoman and Mughal empires for starters, got new dictators, Wahhabist and Salafist blasphemes infiltrated every mosque in the land and don't get me started on modern socio-eco-political shenanigans!

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I completely forgot about India there. But I doubt the Ottoman empire would have been around beyond the 20th century if colonialism hadn't happened.

Plus the roots of Wahhabism were around from the 1300s and even earlier with Ibn Taymiyyah and his many successors. Salafists pop up in droves whenever there is social strife, so even if Europe was nuked off the face off the earth in 1200AD there would still be Salafists and Wahhabists around if the price of bread went too high or something.

I guess it's debatable but in my opinion colonialism didn't have a lasting effect on the general population any more than industrialisation did.

 

[matmohair1]

salafism and wahabism emerged in the 18th century using previous ideas from Ibn Taymia,
which where never taken seriously until they where able to hold power with the help of
the Saudis who served the British then the Americans - Salafies and Wahabies are
there to protect the tyrants and keep the masses at bay therefore protecting
capitalist interest in the region.

In-fact the whole planet would have been better off
without colonialism, which is still a fact of life today in the third world while first
worlders are drugged with bread and circuses - the only thing stopping real
change anywhere, are Western interventions to keep the charade going on and on and on...

I completely forgot about India there.

& China!

Spoiler