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Conspiracy theorists were ecstatic, most of everybody else was happy to learn that Kennedy vetoed the idea.
History questions not worth their own thread II
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Conspiracy theorists were ecstatic, most of everybody else was happy to learn that Kennedy vetoed the idea.
Well the coalition was DVP, Z, SPD and DDP, so the alternatives would've been someone from the SDP (Hermann Müller, twice Chancellor, or Robert Schmidt, vice-Chancellor under Stresemann) or DDP (Otto Gessler perhaps), presumably (given that Wirth was the leader of the Centre Party, and had just fallen).
Note that these are all random guesses.
I'm not sure how well a communist state right in the middle of Europe would be received. Not very well, I'd imagine.
Also, the relationship with Moscow would be an interesting one to ponder. Would the KPD still be in thrall to Moscow, or would it become something different.
Also, the relationship with Moscow would be an interesting one to ponder. Would the KPD still be in thrall to Moscow, or would it become something different.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
That depends on how the rest of Europe goes...
If was that early, I don't imagine that the Communists would end up quite so reliant on Moscow for direction. It may well play the part of senior power in a Communist alliance, but without the tremendous power disparity seen in post-war Central and Easter Europe, there's no reason that other nations would become puppets.
I suppose that depends on how hardline the KPD went. Unless they found a convenient excuse- military insurrection allowing them to intervene as "peace-keepers", for example- they would have a hard time swinging the invasion of a peaceful, democratic socialist country with either the international community or with their own population. The French were pretty war-weary at that point, and had a pretty powerful Communist Party of their own.
Dude, you realize this is 1923, right? Ruhr Crisis? The French are already there, along with their Belgian buddies; the Boche being Commies just adds icing to the cake.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Ah. Forget about that little complication.
Who would that scholar be ? Is that total at any one time or in the course of an entire century ? That seems like utter nonsense, when a good proportion of eastern Europe was on the march. Even with a semi-nomadic economy, these tribes practised slash and burn agriculture, and there was plentiful game and herds. These lands had supported kingdoms with more than that in an area the size of Moldavia. There are too many contemporary independent sources, aside from Christian chroniclers of Chalons, that point to the Goths continuing to field armies of around 50,000, despite repeated defeats. That being said I don't think it was several millions. I would say the Visigoths alone hovered around 300,000, and that was after continuous warfare as they moved through the Balkans, Italy, and France.
That would be Peter Heather, the most well-known modern exponent of migrationism (at least in the West). For Heather, a "large" grouping of barbarians would number 10,000 warriors, and he argues that the vast majority of migrations did not involve "large" groupings of this kind. Heather believes that the sources suggest "that around 110-120,000 armed outsiders played some part in bringing down the western Empire" - and this is a total, extended over a hundred years of narrative from 376 to 476. Many other scholars (e.g. Halsall, Goffart, Kulikowski) endorse much smaller numbers, or argue against any possibility of reasonably estimating a total at all for various reasons.
Taking army-size totals directly from the late antique sources is frankly passé, and has been for the past hundred years since Hans Delbrück really created modern Western scholarly military history. (The Chinese still await their own Delbrück, from what I know.) Logistical analysis has discredited notions that even armies greater than 50,000 or so men could be easily supported in one place by classical states with well-developed military infrastructure systems, much less organizations with much poorer and ad hoc logistical support structures like, say, the Goths. This is ignoring numbers that are even prima facie ridiculous, such as Hydatius' record of 300,000 casualties at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields in 451. Outside of the logistical analysis, scholars who specialize in literary tropes point out that many chroniclers in the classical and medieval period threw up large numbers not necessarily to indicate that precisely that number of people were involved in something, but to indicate that the number was unusually large. Or sometimes, numbers were inflated to make a political point about the strength of one's armies. Sometimes sources use more realistic numbers, and the effect is interesting. For instance, Ricimerus once was forced to confront a "major" raid on Italy that involved only a few hundred Thuringians, and the defeat of which seems to have secured his political position for quite some time.
I don't doubt these scholars are well, quite scholarly. But when it comes to the numbers game, even the best can trick themselves or others in interpretation. In essence I just think it is an error in estimation. There are usually fairly easy and objective ways to test this, and these assumptions do not pass the test.
First, a lot of the barbarian warfare on the borders was pretty low intensity, as you suggest, small raiding bands. They don't even appear in any estimates, but over a hundred years certainly add up. If you consider the low estimates for the big confrontations, the number of barbarian casualties would exceed this estimate of 120,000. And I'm talking low estimates that have been arrived at by a number of authorities since the 19th century. Even if I were to subtract a 50% error margin from these estimates, I would still exceed that number, and that's not counting the little ones.
Secondly, barbarian tribes had a very high proportion of combatants to total population, when compared to long settled simple town folk. No surprise there, it actually somewhat mitigates your argument that these barbarian 'hordes' were quite small, and townships quite defenseless. But not only that, the tribes had a reasonably high birth rate, such that despite being occasionally crushed and suffering hardships, they could replace their fighting men, almost every generation. That's a lot of men in 100 years. Otherwise I guess all the campaigns against the same tribes, which involved emperors themselves, or their magisters and consuls, were just skirmishes or fabrications. But it certainly seemed to be a big concern to them at the time.
Thirdly, your claim that 50 million imperial citizens could not adequately defend themselves against such small armies would make no sense. It would imply that the Empire itself, was not able to field an army more than ten or twenty thousand, when we know they hired barbarian armies that alone exceed that number. Plague, population decline, breakdown in regional authority, etc. would explain the gradual reduction in Roman fighting strength, but not to that extent. Even worst case, front-line troops became militia, with barbarian auxillaries. But as I recall you tend to downplay the apparent weakness of the late Roman Empire, and the role barbarians played, either in its defense, or its collapse. Which kind of leaves an empty argument, when you consider that what was left of the Roman Empire, was a collection of pretty large barbarian states..with barbarian garrisons, armies, and sometimes fleets.
Its very passé, if we are talking about guys like Herodotus. (Honestly the guy wasn't all that bad, there are some good nuggets in the manure pile. Its just that whenever he was in doubt he multiplied by 10 to be on the safe side). But what about Thucydides, or maybe Procopius ? Plutarch would be borderline in some cases. I know they are not from the relevant time period, I go by the modern ones. But these are examples of sources that had no interest in exaggeration, and when there are no estimates at all, modern historians tend to take the low road. Thats what I'm going by. And I agree 50,000 is huge in the classical era, you didn't see that every day. I am not an expert on the logistical argument, but it seems pretty tricky, there isn't an established number that a given terrain and technology level could support, only maybe a range. Add other dynamics like seasons and movement, it's well...A case in point; if a city of a million can survive indefinitely on grain imports from abroad, don't underestimate the size of armies it can raise. In the case of the Goths, I would say 50,000 was their peak strength, and not all experienced front line troops at that. But it rarely if ever, dropped below 30,000 in those hundred years. These were the size of armies they detached from their main encampments. Again, since almost every able bodied man could be a soldier when required, I assume around 10% of their people were engaged in war, and hence a tribal population of about 300,000. I don't think you would say these numbers are extreme. (there are some estimates that seem to indicate 300,000 fighting men !) They showed up on the borders of Rome as starving refugees, looking for grain subsidies in exchange for a defense pact. But once they went on the rampage, do you not think the granaries, towns, fields, and pastures of an empire of 50 million could support them ? They supported themselves by plunder, and they probably grew as they marched, attracting odd nationalities, vagabond bandits, mutinous Foederati, runaway goth slaves, arian christians, god knows what. Yet from all accounts, when it came to warfare they were not a rabble. Even before 376 they had pretty disciplined, cohesive forces on occasion; some armoured units, uniform equipment, strong cavalries, etc. They were usually still outclassed by Roman armies before 410 anyway.
Yeah I already rejected the Chalons sur Marne example so lets not go there. Plataea is another one - but I haven't seen any of those old estimates, even for Adrianople, in print anywhere for a long time, unless its to make a comparison with a modern estimate.
Point taken. But still the only way I can rationalize all this with what Peter Heather is saying, is that maybe he is restricting his analysis to those barbarians who actually struck a fatal blow against Rome, not the 80% who lost. As a minimum Genseric had maybe 10,000 warriors when he first landed in Africa, and 20,000 when he sacked Rome. Alaric must have had the same or a bit more. Fritigern's 30,000 at Adrianople, and so on. Even so, there were at least 5 'big' Germanic nations: Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Burgundians, Then how many medium ones: Saxons, Jutes, Thuringii, Alans, Suebi, Heruli, Gepids ....and they kept turning up. I won't count the Huns, officially not part of the Volkswanderung ! Its kind of bizarre when I think about it. Some of them moved around several times, living off tribute and the lands they conquered, as the citizen population's ability to regenerate their own needs slowly dwindled. But in most cases I don't think they crippled the countryside, they could plunder a city, and make a return visit in 10 years or so, then it was someone else's turn ! Eventually it became easier to settle down and start building something again instead of taking and destroying.
PS Suebian count Ricimer ? So when was that episode - he actually had quite a career himself. His band at the start probably would have considered a thousand Thuringians a pretty big deal, if he still had other commitments to garrison. He had varying fortunes but once invested could raise some pretty big barbarian mercenary armies; big being relative to 1,000. He was seating and unseating emperors. Rome was already defenseless when he took it in 472.. but I don't think he lasted long.
Other people would know far more about this than me, but this is the impression I've gotten from my reading on the subject.
Direct democracy in the particular cantons had a detrimental effect on women's suffrage. Each canton got to vote on the issue independently, and in most of them the men simply said no. There was no incentive for politicians - except for female ones - to push for suffrage as happened elsewhere, and no real way to force reforms on the populace if it didn't want them. And most men could simply tell their wives they'd voted yes, and it was that nasty guy from across the street that must have voted no.
Its also worth noting that participation in WWI and WWII had moboilized women economically and brought them into their workforce, and after the war was over, well the men tried to push them back to their traditional domestic roles but now posessing economic power they were far more influential. Its notable that a lot of countries granted suffarage in the wake of WWI and WWII such as the US and Britian.
It might also have something to do with the decentralised nature of the Swiss cantons. That allowed pockets of conservatism to maintain themselves in a broader national context that, by and large, allowed women to participate. I'm sure we could dig up some towns in the South that would without Federal Government input return to Segregation given half a chance. This isn't much different in texture if not tone.
So much for not being worth its own thread. Jesus, this is a long post and the format is very meh.
Interesting that immediately after putting forward the prima facie absurd number of 50,000 warriors for the Goths, which hasn't been batted around by anybody in modern scholarship seriously, you claim to have such a familiarity with casualty estimates for all recorded engagements in a hundred-year span to be able to reject Heather's numbers out of hand. Intriguing.
Comparing total military deaths with these estimates may sound like a good idea, but the problem is that the source material is frankly so patchy as to make that a fruitless endeavor. Even for the larger engagements, the best we have are estimates of total strength; casualties, let alone fatal casualties, are virtually impossible to get, and those that people do throw out there are almost totally baseless by the very nature of the beast. So this particular criticism doesn't make sense.
But as to what you're actually saying: huh? What point, exactly, are you trying to make here? These barbarian tribes theoretically had a high birth rate (possible, but that does not translate into a large population by any stretch, and is hardly axiomatic), could replace their fighting population within a generation through natural increase alone (unproven), and therefore this is why we see the same groups cropping up repeatedly in battles against the Romans. Pretty vague! It's not even clear which groups, in particular, you're talking about. But even if I'm to take your comment at face value, there is an alternative explanation for the reappearance of the same groups over and over again: they never really suffered heavy casualties in any of those military engagements, and thus were relatively unharmed by the "constant" fighting. Not sure what this is supposed to prove one way or the other, either.
As for troop-numbers and the reliability of ancient sources, in general, the classical numbers are infrequently any good for troop-numbers in large-scale engagements, and this problem is exacerbated for late antiquity. Thukydides and Prokopios are outside the scope of the fall of the West, so I don't know why you're bringing them (or Herodotos) up. More relevant to criticize/defend the numbers given in Hydatius, Victor of Vita, Prosper of Aquitaine, Zosimos, Olympiodoros, and so on.
Except those casualty figures actually wouldn't exceed that number if you use, say, Heather's estimates, if he had any for total deaths.
Interesting that immediately after putting forward the prima facie absurd number of 50,000 warriors for the Goths, which hasn't been batted around by anybody in modern scholarship seriously, you claim to have such a familiarity with casualty estimates for all recorded engagements in a hundred-year span to be able to reject Heather's numbers out of hand. Intriguing.Comparing total military deaths with these estimates may sound like a good idea, but the problem is that the source material is frankly so patchy as to make that a fruitless endeavor. Even for the larger engagements, the best we have are estimates of total strength; casualties, let alone fatal casualties, are virtually impossible to get, and those that people do throw out there are almost totally baseless by the very nature of the beast. So this particular criticism doesn't make sense.
I'm not the one making this argument. I am myself rather emphatically not a migrationist; while I concede that people were moving around, I do not assign the migrations a starring role in the events of the fifth century, and I have a totally different view of precisely what these groups of people were that were moving around anyway. This is Heather's neo-migrationist argument that I'm attempting to elucidate for you, generally regarded as the most realistic modern formulation of the argument.vogtmurr said:
But as to what you're actually saying: huh? What point, exactly, are you trying to make here? These barbarian tribes theoretically had a high birth rate (possible, but that does not translate into a large population by any stretch, and is hardly axiomatic), could replace their fighting population within a generation through natural increase alone (unproven), and therefore this is why we see the same groups cropping up repeatedly in battles against the Romans. Pretty vague! It's not even clear which groups, in particular, you're talking about. But even if I'm to take your comment at face value, there is an alternative explanation for the reappearance of the same groups over and over again: they never really suffered heavy casualties in any of those military engagements, and thus were relatively unharmed by the "constant" fighting. Not sure what this is supposed to prove one way or the other, either.
Again, not my argument, it's Heather's. This is what happens when you butt in in the middle of a conversation. He lays a great deal of stress on the circumstances immediately surrounding the Gothic conflict in the 370s and the Rhine invasion/Gallic civil war/Gothic war redux in the 400s and 410s, and recognizes the role of Roman internal fighting, although continuing to emphasize that the migrating groups were the chief agents of Rome's problems. This makes his case slightly confused. I fully agree that the attempt to give agency to these groups is implausible, and that's one of the reasons I reject the migrationist argument.vogtmurr said:
You are confusing a total number of troops at the disposal of a given state and the total number of troops concentrated in one location. They are radically different things. Rome had at its disposal several hundred thousand soldiers in the fourth century; due to the logistical problems of concentrating them, the Romans could not put more than perhaps 50,000 in the same place, and even that number is generally higher than the actual sizes of field armies you see in the fourth century. In the case of the migrationists' Goths, Vandals, and so forth, however, they are essentially the same.vogtmurr said:
As for troop-numbers and the reliability of ancient sources, in general, the classical numbers are infrequently any good for troop-numbers in large-scale engagements, and this problem is exacerbated for late antiquity. Thukydides and Prokopios are outside the scope of the fall of the West, so I don't know why you're bringing them (or Herodotos) up. More relevant to criticize/defend the numbers given in Hydatius, Victor of Vita, Prosper of Aquitaine, Zosimos, Olympiodoros, and so on.
Why do you think that way? Where did the number of 50,000 come from? Is it an ass-pull? If you're going to disagree with the established historical authorities on this question, you generally require some reason to do so other than "those numbers are too small and undramatic".vogtmurr said:
Indeed.vogtmurr said:
You will remember, of course, that many of the people you're differentiating, Heather actually has as the same people. He considers the forces of Alareiks to be identical to the combination of Tervingi and Greuthungi, for instance. The Hasding-Siling-Alan group that sacked Rome in 455 would be correlated with the dudes hanging out in Hispania in the 420s, and comprise the majority of the Rhine invaders of 405/6. That cuts down on the numbers somewhat. Your estimates for some of the groups are higher than his are. His total formulation, rather rough, is as follows:vogtmurr said:
It was some time during the reign of Anthemius - 470, I think. And his 'band' was, in fact, the Roman field army in Italy, because he was patricius of the Western Empire.vogtmurr said:
A very good point. Probably explains the similar situation in Leichtenstein as well.
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