General History Questions thread

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The communists in Russia went from a zeal about a world revolution to "socialism in one country" in ~ 5 years and everybody just shrugged and went with it. The actual Cold War never escalated into a hot one. It easily could have, but it didn't. How did declaring war on the USSR help Germany to repay debts? Did they (hope to) capture a hoard of gold or get a leveled reward from the quest giver? The IOUs were (afaik) mostly held by German companes and individuals. A consolidated dictatorship can deal with this. Monetary reform, or just defaulting because **** you, we can. Soviets did it with Imperial Russia's debt after the civil war too and in the end got away with it.

Brits may prefer whatever they want. But as Jhessail said, Churchill's rhetoric was never really put to a test. The BEF was evacuated, cash&carry did continue, lend-lease was enacted. Sure the Navy could protect the islands and most colonies indefinitely. But why? What is there to gain by remaining at some sort of permanent sitzkrieg with Germany, when you can just admit it's what it is and get on with it, since Germany doesn't really want anything from you.
 
What if this bridge and road had been completed?
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That's surprisingly cohesive despite how drunk I was!

Aren't you contradicting the rest of your post? There is always so many variables, major decisions are made based on imperfect information distorted by lack of data, biases, impulsivity. There's also dumb luck. People stroke out, planes with important people randomly crash, kings fall in love with American women and abdicate.
Yes, that's true. In this context, what I meant that there is no way for WW2 to proceed historically and then BANG there's some big point of change and the Nazis end up winning everything they want. That's impossible and for one good reason:

The Atom Bomb.

It doesn't matter if Germans break out of Stalingrad and bleed Russians tank armies to death in Kursk. It doesn't matter if Kesselring and Rommel get their wish over Italian objections and Malta is taken out, allowing DAK to have a proper supply situation for once in its short lifetime and thus put up a proper fight at El Alamein. It doesn't matter if the Germans push through the naval bombardment in Anzio and throw the Allies to the sea. It even doesn't matter if the Atlantic Wall holds and somehow Overlord fails.

Because by late summer 1945 the Americans will have the bomb and the Germans will never have enough fighters to stop a single B-29 flying from the UK from dropping it on Berlin. And that's that. Maybe Hitler isn't in Berlin and the Germans keep fighting but that just means there are more radiative hot spots in Central Europe after the war. Sure, the details change and the cost of the war changes but the ultimate outcome is the same. Germany was nowhere near to developing the bomb and they didn't have the resources to finish their fledgling project in any reasonable timeframe. Japanese weren't even on the same page and the Soviets had no clue. It took the immense resources of the US, UK, and Canada joined together for several years to make it a reality. Soviets only caught up in the 1950s thanks to a massive espionage effort and knowing what to look for.

Now, if you take the US out of the war, things already change radically. Now it becomes possible for Germany to bleed the Soviets out. And it's probably possible to wear Britain out - they didn't give up with Napoleon though that took decades so who knows if they would make a deal with Hitler eventually. Or yeah, Adolf has a seizure, Göring overdoses and Hess takes over before Himmler has enough power to crown himself and he scales back things. Basically, any significant change to the outcome of WW2 requires significant changes to a lot of things, many of them taking place before the war, hence my earlier line that "Germany winning WW2 is impossible".
 
In my opinion (and I don't have anything in particular to back this up, so excuse me) but I think Nazi Germany could have dominated Europe, it's just that attempting it militarily and through occupation was always going to fail. :razz: Nazi Germany would have had to be less Nazi and more Germany, but this is a slight deviation from history to say the least.
 
Jhessail: fair enough. The alt-histories where This One Small Thing changes and then everything unfolds according to some supposed iron laws of history are dumb.
 
Hey, guys, does anyone have any sources of buckler (or a very small round shield, any way) used during the 13th century? Most of my online searches showed heavy use in late 14th and 15th centuries, but I've also seen some re-enactment actors using bucklers with ~1250 AD costumes. And those guys tend to take their hobby seriously.
 
This is the first thing that came up for me after googeling "buckler depiction"

I haven't read the text though. Maybe it is worth a read.
To me as an unprofessionell, the armor looks to fitting with 13th century.


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Well, as early as the 12th century there is evidence of the use of this versatile little shield. In the first known swordsmanship manual, the "Eskirmye de bokyler" (Buckler Fencing) already tells us that its use was quite widespread in the 12th century, and its illustrations show different throws between knights armed with swords and deflecting their opponent's blows with a small buckler.

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Trani cathedral. circa 1180
 
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So I am interested in the armor of the early 14th century and cuir bouili armour for the legs, arms and even torso seems to be a thing in Europe back then - especially in italy.
So I was wondering about alternatives.
So my question is: was scale armour used aswell?
/ was scale armour used in the early 14 century in Europe?
 
So I am interested in the armor of the early 14th century and cuir bouili armour for the legs, arms and even torso seems to be a thing in Europe back then - especially in italy.
So I was wondering about alternatives.
So my question is: was scale armour used aswell?
/ was scale armour used in the early 14 century in Europe?

Absolutely, in the form of scales or tegulated system. Take a look at this link and scroll down to the 14th century.
 
I have loads of the literature lying arround about this period, so luckily i have a quick response for this.
Yes, but not as often, the leftovers of the traditional early medieval scales were mostly on the neck protection of the early 14th century helmets. I'll shoot you a PM with a link of just 1 of the most relevant books i have in PDF that contain these illustrations, excavation images and the rest of the data, among many others, and leave couple of Illustrations here from different sources.
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It would've still been called the Kingdom of England, as I recall. He directly pretended to and usurped the English throne. Unless you're asking for how to say 'Kingdom of England' in the Norman language, in which case I can't help you there.
 
From what I understand Normandy and England were basically separate holdings because Normandy was still a part of the Kingdom of France, so William calling himself King of Normandy would have been an affront to the French king. He would have been titled "King of England and Duke of Normandy" in the same way that Richard I and other Plantagenets would have been "King of England and Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine".
 
hey guys, i've got a few curious question about history of SEA. i know there are probably are not much of a SEA historian here, but i'll give it a shot.

keep in mind i'm talking about more of an indonesian classic history here, that is about 7ad to 13ad. in the HIndu-Buddhist kingdom period. which influenced heavily by India. but some of my point might be applicable to SEA at the time

okay, so about hot climates, i understand we build our building as it was (full of open structures) with the woods and the open structures, but we at least had walls to defend an area, now, i remember that one candi (temple) that has a wall looking figure (its in the book "Candi Seri Jawa" forgot to bookmark the page) my question is, wall, is pretty important, so surely they made it with stones instead of woods? but why the lack of wall's remain discoveries?

and my second question is, i had this idea in my head, by reading some of the inscription, and just by reading everything in general, that land warfare in classical period is pretty chill, by that, i mean, no large scale battle such as Battle Of Cannae with 80,000+ men involved, that conclusion came from my thought that literally all they talk about is just religious tales, religious ceremonies, family trees, and achievement with some of the fabric thin war tales in between them, i remember reading one inscription about the kings achievement and the only war achievement that is there is just "for they had win against kingdom of wengker" or something close to that line. Point is, since the very start of our history, our people is used to guerrilla warfare, and no long campaign such as Alexander or Hannibal, this is because there isn't anything much worth fighting over inland, except for influence, so you can monopolize the shore, where the money's at. would that be the right conclusion? what's your take in inland warfare?

Third, so i found this image of kris handle depicting raksasa in an armor from majapahit era, my question is, is this the kind of armor they used? and also, i already knew that the use of armor in indonesia is fairly common (for the upper class at least), but why rarely did the carving, or statues depict any armor at all? finally why is the discovery of armor remains are virtually non existent? beside waju rante thing of 18 ad

now why i didn't ask this in my local platform instead? well, i did, and you have to know that the amount of pseudo history our general public had is.. insane. so my question somehow got turned into religious debate. so im asking you guys, which i consider professional.

also, do you guys have any other recommendation where i can ask such question? sorry for my bad english!
 
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What's the deal with the gaps in buttoning of ACW general/officer uniforms? I mean, why - what was the inspiration, purpose or any other reason such a style came to being?

I thought maybe they wanted to leave a gap so their belt would not interfere with buttons but the gaps are not in a position where a belt would go. Another thought that maybe they used that gap to put orders or messages under the coat. But then the gap should be a tad bigger. Well, I am lost. I also do not recall such a style on any other uniform in any era - European uniforms would just have a continuous line(s) of buttons. If it really was fashion, where did it come from?
 
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