History questions not worth their own thread II
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madviking
north american scum
How was Prussia able to defeat Austria so quickly during the Six Weeks War? Did Austria not deploy enough troops to fight with the Prussians or something?
Seven Weeks' War. 
The simple answer is that the Austrians lost one campaign and decided that the war wasn't worth continuing the fight; they were far from totally defeated. Mobilization speed also played a role, as did the Prussians' superior organization abilities in certain areas. Neither side had stockpiled enough supplies for a longer war. Contrary to popular opinion, certain technical advantages that the Prussians had did not translate into a guaranteed quick win.
The longer (and better) answer involves reading Dennis Showalter's book The Wars of German Unification.
The simple answer is that the Austrians lost one campaign and decided that the war wasn't worth continuing the fight; they were far from totally defeated. Mobilization speed also played a role, as did the Prussians' superior organization abilities in certain areas. Neither side had stockpiled enough supplies for a longer war. Contrary to popular opinion, certain technical advantages that the Prussians had did not translate into a guaranteed quick win.
The longer (and better) answer involves reading Dennis Showalter's book The Wars of German Unification.
Ajidica
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So then what is the non-migrationist response? I understand that the WRE allowed different barbarian tribes to settle in the Empire, but was the WRE so impotent after the Rhine Invaders that they were unable to stop the Vandals from taking North Africa? I read a book by Peter Heather (can't remember the title) where he asserted that after North Africa was lost, the situation just became a downward spiral for the WRE and they were basicaly screwed after the ERE was unable to retake Carthage.
It is my understanding that the Prussians were better trained and had better weapony.
It's a reference to 468, silver.
Heather is probably the most famous exponent of a kind of modified migrationism, revamped to get rid of the stink of Nazism and German nationalism and outdated 1920s concepts of migrations, peoples, and so forth. His explanations are decent, but his main thesis - that the arrival of the Huns caused a "domino collapse" in the peoples surrounding Roman territory, who started streaming into Roman territory, creating a security threat that destroyed the Empire - is somewhat flawed. For good explanations of the last century of the WRE that aren't migrationist, look at Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 and Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides.
The loss of North Africa specifically had to do less with the crisis stemming from the Rhine invasion of the first decade of the fifth century - which had mostly been solved by 420 or so, as even Heather will tell you - and more with the civil war that erupted over control of the imperium in Rome after the death of Constantius III (423), which got worse with the death of Honorius (425). Until the 430s, the Roman central authorities could do little to deal with the Vandals in North Africa. Subsequent efforts to take North Africa back (in 439-40, 457, and 468) ended in defeat, each due to contingent events - one was aborted because of the security threat of Attila, one because of a successful surprise attack, and one because the wind changed.
I personally would not say that the WRE was 'doomed' until it stopped fighting. One might locate that in 471, when the offensive of the Emperor's son, Anthemiolus, against the Visigoths in southern Gaul was defeated. Evareiks, the Visigothic leader, also successfully defeated the army of a Roman ally, the mysterious Briton Riothamus. Another might locate it in 475, when Iulius Nepos' planned offensive into southern Gaul was aborted by the revolt of Orestes and Nepos' dethronement in favor of the (in)famous Romulus Augustulus. And one might even argue against the very concept of the fall narrative, objecting that a division into Western and Eastern Roman Empires is a modern artifact which has no place in a discussion of late antique Roman politics, and a fundamentally silly thing to talk about.
The non-migrationist response would be that most of those "barbarian" kingdoms weren't really all that "barbarian" anyway, that most of the "barbarian" military forces were probably comprised largely of Romans, and that it's deeply unclear as to how much autonomy most of the "barbarian" tribes even had before the last decade or so of the WRE.
Heather is probably the most famous exponent of a kind of modified migrationism, revamped to get rid of the stink of Nazism and German nationalism and outdated 1920s concepts of migrations, peoples, and so forth. His explanations are decent, but his main thesis - that the arrival of the Huns caused a "domino collapse" in the peoples surrounding Roman territory, who started streaming into Roman territory, creating a security threat that destroyed the Empire - is somewhat flawed. For good explanations of the last century of the WRE that aren't migrationist, look at Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 and Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides.
The loss of North Africa specifically had to do less with the crisis stemming from the Rhine invasion of the first decade of the fifth century - which had mostly been solved by 420 or so, as even Heather will tell you - and more with the civil war that erupted over control of the imperium in Rome after the death of Constantius III (423), which got worse with the death of Honorius (425). Until the 430s, the Roman central authorities could do little to deal with the Vandals in North Africa. Subsequent efforts to take North Africa back (in 439-40, 457, and 468) ended in defeat, each due to contingent events - one was aborted because of the security threat of Attila, one because of a successful surprise attack, and one because the wind changed.
I personally would not say that the WRE was 'doomed' until it stopped fighting. One might locate that in 471, when the offensive of the Emperor's son, Anthemiolus, against the Visigoths in southern Gaul was defeated. Evareiks, the Visigothic leader, also successfully defeated the army of a Roman ally, the mysterious Briton Riothamus. Another might locate it in 475, when Iulius Nepos' planned offensive into southern Gaul was aborted by the revolt of Orestes and Nepos' dethronement in favor of the (in)famous Romulus Augustulus. And one might even argue against the very concept of the fall narrative, objecting that a division into Western and Eastern Roman Empires is a modern artifact which has no place in a discussion of late antique Roman politics, and a fundamentally silly thing to talk about.
That is only partially true, and only helps in describing why the Prussians won, not why the war ended so quickly.Ajidica said:
madviking
north american scum
Seven Weeks' War.
My bad...It seems rather uncharacteristic of a large state to give up on a war so quickly. Why would they allow their younger brother, essentially, to pass them by, and become the head honchos up north.
How much did the Italians and the confrontation of fighting a two-front war effect their decision to bail so quickly? Could Prussia have gobbled up more land, e.g. southern Germany or even Bohemia?
Well, the Habsburgs didn't abandon their interests in Germany all at once. To some, the period immediately after 1866 was one in which they would lick their wounds and be ready to fight along Napoleon III's side against the NDB in the next war. Notably, Franz Josef appointed a Saxon, Friedrich von Beust, to be his chief minister in the aftermath of the 1866 war, and Beust wasn't one to take the whole thing lying down. But then the Ausgleich happened, and suddenly Austria was more or less bereft of the resources to challenge the Prussians without serious help. And the French ended up not being bold and giving that help. I would say the Habsburgs only really abandoned their German pretensions for good in 1870-1, when the French decided to screw around in the Saarland instead of launching the bold offensive into southern Germany that they had originally planned.
The Italian thing is kind of interesting. Notably, the Habsburgs conclusively won their campaign against Italy. Geoff Wawro, whose articles on how crappy Austrian military infrastructure was are well-known, has argued that part of the reason the Bohemian army lost to the Prussians was because most of the good officers went south to Italy in peacetime, where the weather was nicer, the wine tasted better, and the women were easier. In concrete terms, the Italians' participation didn't necessarily swing the war in Prussia's favor, though. After all, the Austrian army in Italy could have moved up to Vienna to block the Prussians' way, having conclusively defeated the Italians at Custozza; combined with the pressure of the remnant of the Habsburg field army in Bohemia, the Prussians might have found themselves in a bit of a bind. Franz Josef just figured that the strain of the war wasn't worth potentially keeping Habsburg influence in Germany at its then-current rate.
As for whether Prussia could have got more, well, I doubt it, mostly because the Prussians didn't want more. Bismarck wasn't interested in Bohemia, and he knew that it wouldn't exactly endear him and Prussia to the rest of Europe. Besides, a longer war would mean a greater likelihood of French intervention on the side of the Habsburgs, and that would be all kinds of bad for Prussia. It's theoretically possible for the Prussians to have wrung more territory or concessions out of the Habsburgs, I guess, but I don't really consider it very likely or viable.
madviking
north american scum
Wow. Thanks Dachs.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Oh, I agree. My point was that "Romans" were the people from Latium. The other Italic tribes were Roman as long as they were under Roman authority. I'll admit I usually hear the traditional stories of what happened in the west, so my knowledge is a bit flawed here, but I still get the impression that "Roman" just became a meaningless term over time so the only people worth calling themselves "Roman" were either those who could trace their lineage or just the citizens of Rome.
Well, that's only if you view "Roman" as some kind of genetic construct or something. Identity doesn't really work like that, especially Roman identity. Hell, even the original Romans who founded the city of Rome were a disparate group of outcasts and wanderers - so the founding myth goes - not some autochthonous mass.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
I lost my original post, so let's try take two. You make a very good point. I'm going to try and argue my point from the other end because something tells me we might not be that far off.
My point was that the term "Roman" did not signify much in itself compared to the way we would use "Persian" or "English" today. Roman meant that they were a Roman citizen or they spoke Latin and tried to follow Roman customs. It was a term that had a meaning only when there was a practical use for the term. Someone in France or Britain could be a Roman as well. But, after the fall of the Empire, such terms had no force. People who were Roman could adopt a new title and become French instead (I'm compressing about 1000 years of history here, so forgive my simplification).
My point was, unless you're referring to people who could trace their lineage directly from the city of Rome (which was always too small to constitute a "nation" in the modern sense), there was little basis to form a cohesive group that could form a nation-state like you can with some other ancient empires (even if the idea of this cohesive group is a modern construct).
My point was that the term "Roman" did not signify much in itself compared to the way we would use "Persian" or "English" today. Roman meant that they were a Roman citizen or they spoke Latin and tried to follow Roman customs. It was a term that had a meaning only when there was a practical use for the term. Someone in France or Britain could be a Roman as well. But, after the fall of the Empire, such terms had no force. People who were Roman could adopt a new title and become French instead (I'm compressing about 1000 years of history here, so forgive my simplification).
My point was, unless you're referring to people who could trace their lineage directly from the city of Rome (which was always too small to constitute a "nation" in the modern sense), there was little basis to form a cohesive group that could form a nation-state like you can with some other ancient empires (even if the idea of this cohesive group is a modern construct).
I more or less agree with you, but with the caveat that "Roman" in this context wasn't that much different from, well, any "national" identifier before the age of nationalism. The same thing happened with the Greeks of Anatolia (who mostly seem to have once been Cappadocians, Bithynians, Lycaonians, etc. even earlier) and in Central Asia with all kinds of people.
Quackers
The Frog
I heard that one slave would follow around the Roman Emperor whispering into his ear something like "your only mortal" or something along those lines.
Is this true/myth? When would this occur? What exactly would the slave say?
Is this true/myth? When would this occur? What exactly would the slave say?
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
It wasn't the Roman Emperor, it was a Roman general that was granted a Triumph. As I understand it, the idea was to remind them that they weren't a god and shouldn't act like one. Of course, once the Greeks started bestowing divinity on Romans, the slave's words didn't have much effect.
I think the quote is about right from what I've heard. I don't know the source of this description of triumphs, though, so I'm not sure how accurate it actually is.
I think the quote is about right from what I've heard. I don't know the source of this description of triumphs, though, so I'm not sure how accurate it actually is.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
"Memento mori" is the most famous version, which translates as "remember, you are mortal" or "remember your mortality". (It's also a particularly gloomy genre of art.) As Louis says, it was to stop generals getting too big for their boots, and remembering their place as servants of the Roman state.
Quackers, you've probably heard the legend that Marcus Aurelius paid a servant to follow him around saying that every time he was complimented, which is a common misconception these days. Louis XXIV and Traitorfish are correct about the real source.
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