History questions not worth their own thread IV

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Or Bayern is Bavaria. Or Roma is Rome. Moreover the same reason London is Londre in French and Londres in Spanish.

The best for me is how in English we say Dutch, but the Dutch call themselves Nederlands

 

[History_Buff]

Do they? I'd always sort of wondered, since the Germans already call themselves Deutsch.

 

[sophie]

Do they? I'd always sort of wondered, since the Germans already call themselves Deutsch.

Well we used to use "Dutch" to refer to all Germans, including the Hochdeutsch and the Niederdeutsch. This is why they're called "Pennsylvania Dutch" even though they speak German. Eventually the term came to refer specifically to the speakers of the Niederdeutsch branch which we know today as Dutch.

 

[Dachs]

It seems quite common to spell Hanover instead of Hannover in English. Why?

Well, in my case, it was a typo. But as other people have noted, the single-N variant is the standard way they've done it. Why the English chose to drop the one N as opposed to keeping it, I can't say.

Actually, I was expecting the value to be much larger in comparison to the yearly budget. Wasn't the budget in the US at the time very small (the aversion to paying taxes and all that.). And if it was little more than one year's worth then the actual sum wasn't very impressive.No wonder Napoleon managed to blow it all so quickly.

Let's not swing the pendulum too far the other way. Napoleon's military undertakings were of a scale not seen in continental history in, arguably, millennia. It would be ridiculous to expect the Americans to finance this armament in toto, especially considering that the United States, while a reasonably wealthy country and quite important already in terms of the Atlantic trade, was still not all that populous and did not possess the kind of population or financial base of a Britain or France. It was a fairly sizable sum and Napoleon basically got it as a gift, without having to give up anything he actually possessed or could reasonably possess given a bit of effort.

That's one of the reasons why the Republicans sucked so much. Not that they impoverished the country to support Napoleon's war machine; the fiscal effects of the purchase agreement, while certainly not particularly good, were not all that debilitating, at least not compared to the economic suicide masquerading under the name "Embargo Act". It was more that the Republicans gave Napoleon the Antichrist (not to put too fine a point on it) this money basically for free, for no other reason than that they expected him to use it to defeat the British.

That comparison to Hitler someone make in other thread wasn't adequate just about the way he handled diplomacy. His handling of finances must also have been atrocious, he kept pillaging the places he invaded to finance his wars (with the english helping carrying the booty to France in at least one occasion, btw).

Say, was the french government running out of money anyway by 1814? I'm asking because of the Hitler/Napoleon parallels. He too got his opportunity to rise to power after the previous regime failed to handle an economic crisis. He too claimed to have sorted out the finances of the country and had others to do it for him, and those did it by confiscating a lot of stuff from newly-declared public enemies.

That someone would probably be me, although I certainly didn't originate the comparison. Napoleon's poor finances are indeed something of a trope in the literature, with many funds wasted on corruption, useless dead-end projects, and the creation of Napoleon's new aristocracy. But the thing is that he had those funds and more to spare because of his European colonies - what some call the "Continental System". Until he began to suffer military defeats and lose the ability to draw on Central Europe for contributions, Napoleon didn't need to worry about his cash flow and could throw as much of it away as he wanted. Europe, not France, and certainly not Napoleon himself, was footing the bill.

Napoleon's empire did undergo something of an economic hiccup in 1810 and 1811, but Napoleon himself resolved this reasonably adeptly by ending the fiction that the Continental System was aimed against Britain. He permitted British trade to France under strictly regulated semi-secret auspices in order to keep his coffers filled and the metropole reasonably well supplied with British goods, while denying this trade to the rest of Europe, the real economic target of the system. After this, the Empire did not begin to suffer financial problems until 1814, as you said. Napoleon was able to raise two vast, well-trained, and well-armed armies in 1812 and 1813 without sending the empire into fiscal collapse, and even in 1814 his problem was more the lack of trained manpower at his disposal than a lack of monies with which to pay and arm his troops.

Well we used to use "Dutch" to refer to all Germans, including the Hochdeutsch and the Niederdeutsch. This is why they're called "Pennsylvania Dutch" even though they speak German. Eventually the term came to refer specifically to the speakers of the Niederdeutsch branch which we know today as Dutch.

pennsilfaanisch deitsch

 

[r16]

I I'm curious as to whether there's any current revisionism around the raid these days. I've heard some theories that, despite it being a general cock up, the raid was in fact targeting important crypto stuff. I've never heard much more than that, but it seems plausible now that the documents might finally be nearing declassification.

mostly something big enough to get the Germans commit their entire FW-190 holdings in the West to the fray where they could be shot down by the massive numbers of RAF fighters so that Americans could dare to penetrate Germany with B-17s . In '42 , not '43 and beyond .

 

[Arakhor]

Well, I have always spelt Hannover with two Ns but then I have to put up with red squiggly lines telling me that that's not how you spell "Hanover".

(At least I don't get that Habsburg/Hapsburg.)

 

[Leoreth]

I don't know how it developed in other countries, but standardized spelling even of proper names wasn't really a thing in German until around 1900. So I guess it's just a case of what spelling randomly spread abroad and then arbitrarily stuck around in their respective languages.

 

[Flying Pig]

That happened earlier in English, although an academic recently reconstructed Richard III's accent by reading his letters and using the spellings he chose to infer his pronunciation of words.

 

[dutchfire]

Well, in my case, it was a typo. But as other people have noted, the single-N variant is the standard way they've done it. Why the English chose to drop the one N as opposed to keeping it, I can't say.

I was surprised since you usually manage to use a latinizations of words that, when googled, give this sub-forum as a first hit. So I expected some obscure reason here too.

I think Hanover looks weird, since it suggests a Ha-no-ver pronounciation, with a long a.

Well we used to use "Dutch" to refer to all Germans, including the Hochdeutsch and the Niederdeutsch. This is why they're called "Pennsylvania Dutch" even though they speak German. Eventually the term came to refer specifically to the speakers of the Niederdeutsch branch which we know today as Dutch.

Even today, the local dialect here is closer to Dutch than to Bayerisch or Schwäbisch.

 

[Domen]

What are the most well-documented Medieval battles which involved European forces (at least on one side) - which are described in the most detailed way, by many sources, and have been researched by historians very thoroughly? Where the course of battle, size and composition of armies are known?

 

[Flying Pig]

At a guess, Agincourt, Hastings and Bosworth probably feature quite highly on that list.

Crécy too. Froissart's description of John of Bohemia's fatal charge is very famous.

Was thinking of mentioning that one, but thought that more than three English ones was pushing the boundaries of statistics a little.

 

[sophie]

At a guess, Agincourt, Hastings and Bosworth probably feature quite highly on that list.

Crécy too. Froissart's description of John of Bohemia's fatal charge is very famous.

 

[say1988]

I was surprised since you usually manage to use a latinizations of words that, when googled, give this sub-forum as a first hit. So I expected some obscure reason here too.

I think Hanover looks weird, since it suggests a Ha-no-ver pronounciation, with a long a.

As a person who grew up about 10km from Hanover, Ontario I always found Hannover to look weird. I also wondered why the German postmaster who named the town after where he grew up spelled it differently. My best guess would be that both spellings were used in German and the two languages standardized in different ways, like a large number of differences between British and US English.

 

[Domen]

but thought that more than three English ones was pushing the boundaries of statistics a little.

No - why should it be? But of course I hope that someone will mention also non-English battles. And - generally speaking - I have an impression that majority of Medieval battles are not very well-known (i.e. we only know very general outlines of what happened in those battles).

It seems that little is known even about some of really big battles (but not famous - due to scarcity of sources).

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Some contribution to this list on my part too - many battles of the Hussite Wars are relatively well-described.

And a lot is also known regarding the unique and original tactics invented and used by Hussites.

 

[Flying Pig]

Indeed; casualty estimates in particular are hard to get simply because there was nothing written down to notify of them save, if lucky, a report to the effect of 'thousands of our men perished'. The course of what happened is usually quite well-known, and the sizes of the belligerents generally known to within a ballpark (40,000 rather than 4,000) if not exactly. My thought was that, statistically, although English battles will tend to be better-researched (since there has historically been a larger English-speaking historical community than other languages, and many of them, given the later position of England in world affairs, can be said to be more influential than most other battles), it is unlikely that the top four are all English. Perhaps Constantinople would count? I've recently gotten hold of a large and classic book on the Thirty Years War, so will read it and maybe find a few in there.

 

[Domen]

Some of the most well-documented battles of the Hussite Wars (1419 - 1434) were the battles of Usti (16 June 1426) and Lipany (30 May 1434):

Course of the battle Usti 1426 (according to A. Michałek, "The Crusades. The Hussites", Warsaw 2004):

Spoiler :

Course of the battle of Lipany 1434 (according to A. Michałek, "The Crusades. The Hussites", Warsaw 2004):

Spoiler :

================================

Something about the Hussite Battle Tactics - "Hussite Battle Tactics and Organisation" (in English):

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/matthaywood/main/Hussite_Tactics_and_Organisation.htm#Army Organisation

And such a movie depiction of the battle of Sudomer (March 25, 1420) - from Czech historical movie "Jan Zizka" (1955):

Part 1 (with English subtitles):

Spoiler :

Link to video.

Part 2 (with English subtitles):

Spoiler :

Link to video.

And of the battle of Vitkov Hill (June 12 - June 14, 1420) - from Czech historical movie "Against All Enemies" (1956):

Spoiler :

Link to video.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

I think a big question that needs answering is what exactly does, "well documented" actually mean. Are we talking about in terms of coverage in contemporary material or modern research. Domen, you list a bunch of battles but only give modern citations for them.

 

[Domen]

Are we talking about in terms of coverage in contemporary material or modern research. Domen, you list a bunch of battles but only give modern citations for them.

Both in terms of coverage in contemporary material AND in modern research. This is to some extent related - because with scarcity of contemporary material (primary sources), modern researchers are also not able to write much about such events (unless speculating).

you list a bunch of battles but only give modern citations for them.

Yes - sorry for only quoting secondary sources regarding those Hussite battles, but I haven't read any Czech primary sources from that era (however - I trust in what authors of books about the Hussite Wars wrote about those battles basing on primary sources).

And indeed the Hussite Wars are well-documented in contemporary material, as they were an important and shocking event for Europe.

You should remember that the Hussite Wars were mostly crusades - and thus much of Europe was involved, including the Papacy.

There were in total 5 anti-Hussite Crusades (all of them officially called by the Pope if I remember correctly):

- first in years 1420 - 1421,
- second in years 1421 - 1422,
- third in year 1422
- fourth in year 1427
- fifth in year 1431

All of them were repulsed by the Hussites (the main enemies of the Hussites in all those crusades were: the Holy Roman Empire and Hungary).

During intervals between individual crusades and after the last one, the Hussites were organizing their own devastating "incursions" against:

- Slovakia
- Silesia
- Germany
- state of the Teutonic Order

And pretty much all of those incursions were successful. So the Czech Hussites remained unbeaten and unmatched on the field of battle. But in 1434 a civil war between the Hussites broke out - the more moderate group (Utraquists) defeated the more radical group (Taborites) at Lipany.

After the victory of the more moderate (and more conciliatory) Utraquists - a peace treaty was signed and the Hussite Wars came to an end.

The Hussite Wars saw the first usage of gunpowder weapons on a massive scale in European history - including especially handguns. Enough to say that as many as around 10 percent of Hussite infantry were handgunners, even as early as year 1420. And many others were crews of artillery guns.

From the wikipedia article about the Hussite Wars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars

The hussites defeated four German crusades from Holy Roman Empire and wars were notable for the extensive use of early hand-held gunpowder weapons such as hand cannons.

The 5th anti-hussite crusade was also repulsed - in the battle of Domazlice (14 August, 1431):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Domažlice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars#The_fifth_anti-Hussite_crusade

And such an excerpt from the wikipedia article about Jan Zizka:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Žižka

The Czechs called the handgun a píštala, and anti-infantry field guns houfnice, from which the English words "pistol" and "howitzer" have been derived.

Another of important innovations introduced to European warfare by Jan Zizka were mobile wagon forts.

The Hussite Wars also undermined reputation of the Pope, of the Emperor, of the Catholic Church - and thus inspired the Reformation.

=====================================

The course of what happened is usually quite well-known, and the sizes of the belligerents generally known to within a ballpark (40,000 rather than 4,000) if not exactly.

Oh I wouldn't be so sure about this. I mean you are most probably right with "usually" - but sometimes even this is not quite-well known.

There are some Medieval battles regarding which we basically know not much more than just who won there and when it was fought.

In some other battles we know the general outline of how it was fought - but we don't know details, as well as sizes of armies and casualties.

and many of them, given the later position of England in world affairs, can be said to be more influential than most other battles),

I don't exactly understand how the fact that some country became important much later, can influence the importance of battles fought by this country much earlier. How can the importance of a particular battle be changed "post factum"? This is not possible. Of course something different is to discover - after long time - that a particular battle indeed was important, as it influenced the course of history. But this isn't "changing" its importance - only realizing it.

And I don't think that battles such as Agincourt or Crecy influenced the course of history to any considerable extent - they did not manage to change the outcome of the Hundred Years' War, which was won by France. They are pretty much examples of great, but unexploited or wasted victories.

However - here we are not dicussing battles that changed the course of history, but the most well-known ones. So please let's stick to this.

And as such well-described battles - Crecy and Agincourt surely qualify. Granted.

============================

Derailing into Off-Topic about importance of various battles for a moment once again:

Whether Bosworth 1485 influenced the course of history - is up to debate - was it really so important what dynasty ruled over England?

Had the House of York / Richard III of England won at Bosworth - could this change the history of England?

I've recently gotten hold of a large and classic book on the Thirty Years War, so will read it and maybe find a few in there.

But the Thirty Years War was fought in years 1618 - 1648, and I was asking about Medieval battles.

This is already Early Modern Era, so doesn't count - let's say that we are talking about battles fought prior to year 1492.

 

[Ajidica]

I've been toying with making an Alt-Hist where the Soviet Union continues supporting Israel instead of switching support to the Arab Nationalists. If I remember correctly the USSR supported the creation of Israel because Stalin believed Britain was the largest threat and was seeking to break the Anglo-American Alliance.
Does this idea have merit and do you guys know of any books/articles/other helpful stuff I could use?

 

[Yui108]

That's one of the reasons why the Republicans sucked so much. Not that they impoverished the country to support Napoleon's war machine; the fiscal effects of the purchase agreement, while certainly not particularly good, were not all that debilitating, at least not compared to the economic suicide masquerading under the name "Embargo Act". It was more that the Republicans gave Napoleon the Antichrist (not to put too fine a point on it) this money basically for free, for no other reason than that they expected him to use it to defeat the British.

Do you feel it would have been wiser for the Americans to simply demand, or even occupy the Louisiana territory?