Top Ten Medieval Battles

Quackers said:
I have two, I don't know the name of this battle but it was when the Spanish Moors invaded France and I think Charlamagne annihilated them. Why was this important? Well, it could have meant the Islamification of another part of Europe and the end of Christendom. Massive implications. ?
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the number of factual errors in this is kind of astounding, and somehow I find that to be more appalling than the blatant xenophobia being retroactively framed onto a historical period that's completely unrelated to your modern biases.
 
LightSpectra said:
the number of factual errors in this is kind of astounding, and somehow I find that to be more appalling than the blatant xenophobia being retroactively framed onto a historical period that's completely unrelated to your modern biases.
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Quite. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of European pseudo-historians framing every little clash between some monolith called "the West" and some vaguely-defined but apparently huge, scary, evil, "Other" monolith called "the Muslim Empire" or "the East" as a crucial struggle that saved the good, noble, progressive Western European civilization from conversion, slavery, and death.

If the Persians had defeated the Greek states and conquered them, they would've probably been western outposts of the empire for a while, their culture preserved like in any other provinces, and I think Greek influence on whatever the "West" is is massively overblown. Had the Ottomans taken Vienna, they'd still have been up against powerful European coalitions and deep within hostile territory. If the Ummayads had won against Charles "Martel", they'd have been facing a lot of enemies anyway as well. It's not like "Western Civilization" (and it's an exercise in futility to try to define that) was an entity that posted all its forces to fight a single decisive battle against them evil Orientals.

But such nuances are lost on xenophobes and nationalists.

(Disregard the "Orientals" on the bottom. I can't scroll down to delete it. Posting on a Kindle Fire is a pain!)


Orientals
 
Flying Pig said:
Poitiers, for the record, and it was Charles Martel.
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Not to mention that Poitiers was a treasure excursion and not a full-scale invasion, and that Charles' victory had nothing to do with a "Christian vs. Islam" battle of civilization; rather, it was a significant prestige victory for his dynasty during a time where he was highly criticized and unpopular with the Franks and the Church.

Edit: Sniped by one minute.
 
Phrossack said:
Quite. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of European pseudo-historians framing every little clash between some monolith called "the West" and some vaguely-defined but apparently huge, scary, evil, "Other" monolith called "the Muslim Empire" or "the East" as a crucial struggle that saved the good, noble, progressive Western European civilization from conversion, slavery, and death.

If the Persians had defeated the Greek states and conquered them, they would've probably been western outposts of the empire for a while, their culture preserved like in any other provinces, and I think Greek influence on whatever the "West" is is massively overblown. Had the Ottomans taken Vienna, they'd still have been up against powerful European coalitions and deep within hostile territory. If the Ummayads had won against Charles "Martel", they'd have been facing a lot of enemies anyway as well. It's not like "Western Civilization" (and it's an exercise in futility to try to define that) was an entity that posted all its forces to fight a single decisive battle against them evil Orientals.

But such nuances are lost on xenophobes and nationalists.

(Disregard the "Orientals" on the bottom. I can't scroll down to delete it. Posting on a Kindle Fire is a pain!)


Orientals
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How did any of my post read like that?

To LS, is there any merit in what I posted?
 
Quackers said:
How did any of my post read like that?

To LS, is there any merit in what I posted?
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Okay- to be fair, I wasn't really addressing your post so much as ranting against a brand of chauvinistic black-and-white history I despise and see regularly. People babbling on about how the legendary Battle of Thermopylae/Poitiers/Lepanto/Malta/Vienna/Warsaw saved Western Civilization and such. Sorry.:blush:
 
I think it should be obvious as to whether LS thinks your posts have any merit if you reread what he said:
LS said:
the number of factual errors in this is kind of astounding, and somehow I find that to be more appalling than the blatant xenophobia being retroactively framed onto a historical period that's completely unrelated to your modern biases.
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I completely agree with LS here.
 
Quackers said:
To LS, is there any merit in what I posted?
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Um, well I suppose it's a good thing when people post discredited historiographical tropes so they can be swiftly refuted...?
 
It's a shame that - i thought i was really onto something with that :(
 
Quackers said:
It's a shame that - i thought i was really onto something with that :(
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Happens to all of us. This forum has made me much more cautious about stating my beliefs about history and more likely to use good sources. Pretty much all the history books I've read have been roundly panned here and I'm almost paranoid about what books I read now for fear that they're just crap, too.
 
Quackers said:
Second battle was when the Ottomans were also stopped at the gates of..Vienna - again if they succeeded we may all be living in a European caliphate.
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This is a strangely Europhillic ideal from you, Quackers, since at the time Liever Turks dan Paaps was the sentiment of the day in Protestant European places such as England.


(Liever Turks dan Paaps = Better Turkish then Popish)
 
Quackers said:
How did any of my post read like that?

To LS, is there any merit in what I posted?
Click to expand...

I think there is but not in the traditional "East vs West" sense. If the Charles the Hammer (I love calling him that because it makes him sound like a WWF wrestler) did lose the battle, it would have changed the development of the Holy Roman Empire and by side effect the rest of Medieval Europe. And while yes it is true that the Muslim incursion was a glorious snatch and grab run John Hunt Morgan style, most of the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus was done with small bands raiding and snipping more and more land and often time getting lucky and killing someone important in the process.

Muslims taking of All the Europes, not happening, taking over southern France, highly plausible.
 
Traitorfish said:
The post said "Quackers" at the top. That encourages a certain reading. :p
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Surely your confusing me with somebody else?
Whenever you read "Quackers" you know your in for a post of Lovett detail, JR wit and Plotinus' literary grace - level of quality? :mischief:

Phrossack said:
Okay- to be fair, I wasn't really addressing your post so much as ranting against a brand of chauvinistic black-and-white history I despise and see regularly. People babbling on about how the legendary Battle of Thermopylae/Poitiers/Lepanto/Malta/Vienna/Warsaw saved Western Civilization and such. Sorry.:blush:
Click to expand...

Phrossack said:
Happens to all of us. This forum has made me much more cautious about stating my beliefs about history and more likely to use good sources. Pretty much all the history books I've read have been roundly panned here and I'm almost paranoid about what books I read now for fear that they're just crap, too.
Click to expand...

It's cool brah.
These history forums are special in the fact they are about as rigerous as thesis level history at a university. You can't assume or say anything here without back-up. Which is good in a way but idd, makes me paranoid too. Especially since Anthony Beevor, Niall Fergusion and Andrew Roberts are panned here..

Virote_Considon said:
This is a strangely Europhillic ideal from you, Quackers, since at the time Liever Turks dan Paaps was the sentiment of the day in Protestant European places such as England.


(Liever Turks dan Paaps = Better Turkish then Popish)
Click to expand...

I will keep that in mind.

Gen.Mannerheim said:
I think there is but not in the traditional "East vs West" sense. If the Charles the Hammer (I love calling him that because it makes him sound like a WWF wrestler) did lose the battle, it would have changed the development of the Holy Roman Empire and by side effect the rest of Medieval Europe. And while yes it is true that the Muslim incursion was a glorious snatch and grab run John Hunt Morgan style, most of the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus was done with small bands raiding and snipping more and more land and often time getting lucky and killing someone important in the process.

Muslims taking of All the Europes, not happening, taking over southern France, highly plausible.
Click to expand...

Yeah now this is what I was getting at! According to LS it's not right, meh.
 
Gen.Mannerheim said:
I think there is but not in the traditional "East vs West" sense. If the Charles the Hammer (I love calling him that because it makes him sound like a WWF wrestler) did lose the battle, it would have changed the development of the Holy Roman Empire and by side effect the rest of Medieval Europe. And while yes it is true that the Muslim incursion was a glorious snatch and grab run John Hunt Morgan style, most of the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus was done with small bands raiding and snipping more and more land and often time getting lucky and killing someone important in the process.

Muslims taking of All the Europes, not happening, taking over southern France, highly plausible.
Click to expand...
I don't even know that you have to talk about Muslims in southern France. By any estimation, the battle was a fairly key step in the Carolingian assumption of power over Francia, since it cemented their ascendancy over Aquitaine and was a key prestige and propaganda instrument going forward. If Charles Martel were to lose that battle, or even to die, that nice neat narrative of Charles-Pepin-Charles' gradual assumption of power gets derailed rather badly. Screwing up the Carolingian hegemony and the so-called renaissance could be huge for the later history of Western Europe, even if it doesn't result in anything particularly good happening for the Muslims (and I don't think it would have).

Or maybe the Carolingians still win out, but it takes longer. :dunno:
 
Poitiers was over 200 years before the Holy Roman Empire even existed.

These history forums are special in the fact they are about as rigerous as thesis level history at a university.
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hahahaha

I don't know what master's/doctoral program you've taken on history, but it typically doesn't consist of a bunch of Wikipedian-educated amateurs talking out of their ass before being methodically schooled by someone like Dachs/Masada/Owen/Baal/Plotinus.
 
The real question is, what's more fun to read: the disinterested weariness of Dachs' curb-stomps, or the relentless good-naturedness of Plotinus'?
 
Dachs said:
I don't even know that you have to talk about Muslims in southern France. By any estimation, the battle was a fairly key step in the Carolingian assumption of power over Francia, since it cemented their ascendancy over Aquitaine and was a key prestige and propaganda instrument going forward. If Charles Martel were to lose that battle, or even to die, that nice neat narrative of Charles-Pepin-Charles' gradual assumption of power gets derailed rather badly. Screwing up the Carolingian hegemony and the so-called renaissance could be huge for the later history of Western Europe, even if it doesn't result in anything particularly good happening for the Muslims (and I don't think it would have).

Or maybe the Carolingians still win out, but it takes longer. :dunno:
Click to expand...

Or maybe the Jutes spread out from Kent to take over all of England and become the dominant force among the Anglo-Saxons, and then they begin to conquer Ireland, Northern France, and Scandinavia becoming the ruling power over Northern Europe leading them to colonize Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland leading to a Jutish colony in modern Quebec. You never know

All because of Poitiers :mischief:
 
Gen.Mannerheim said:
Or maybe the Jutes spread out from Kent to take over all of England and become the dominant force among the Anglo-Saxons, and then they begin to conquer Ireland, Northern France, and Scandinavia becoming the ruling power over Northern Europe leading them to colonize Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland leading to a Jutish colony in modern Quebec. You never know

All because of Poitiers :mischief:
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I sometimes wonder if alternate histories were invented as some sort of self-flagellation for penitent historians
 
Quackers said:
It's cool brah.
These history forums are special in the fact they are about as rigerous as thesis level history at a university. You can't assume or say anything here without back-up. Which is good in a way but idd, makes me paranoid too. Especially since Anthony Beevor, Niall Fergusion and Andrew Roberts are panned here..
Click to expand...
Not nearly, but whenever I make an assertion here I'm still deeply concerned by the distinct possibility of being dragged outside and shot for stupidity
 
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