History questions not worth their own thread V

[Dachs]

^^Hmm, since you brought it up.. how was warfare in general in Persia?

Kind of a broad question with many different time periods ranging from Alexander to Tamerlane and beyond, but I'd imagine the terrain and geography made things exceptionally more difficult for warfare, movement and supplying of large armies.

A lot of the more powerful Iranian states, like the Achaemenid, Sasanian, and Buwayhid empires, relied on control of Mesopotamia for manpower, but the valleys of the Zagros Mountains include some very fertile areas - along with some areas with excellent pasturage - so that helped too. But a big chunk of Iran is basically a huge bowl with a salt desert at the bottom. Not a lot of stuff there. The most populated areas of the country look like a V, with the tips touching Mashhad and Bandar e-Abbas, and the point resting in Azerbaijan.

Most Iranian states were capable of fielding combined arms forces due to control of both the edge of the steppe/desert region and of that populated, semi-urbanized V. You'd get various kinds of cavalry from nomads and from the major landed nobles around that fringe - the latter of which sometimes deployed as superheavy armored cavalry which is always cool - and various kinds of infantry from the hillmen, urban populations, and farmers in the more populated areas. Exceptions to that are usually fraught with caveats - such as the early Safaviyeh armies, which had at their core the nomads of the Qizilbash movement, or the forces deployed by the first Ashkanian kings, who relied on the far northeast for their power base and didn't have a presence in most of that V, or the armies of Nadir Shah, who made his own rules about warfare anyway.

 

[Domen]

Hard to say, but Polish antisemitism is a relatively young phenomenon. It is not "centuries old".

So, one of the most Catholic countries in Europe missed the whole mediaeval thing about Jews killing Jesus?

As I wrote before, antisemitism in Poland did not have religious or racial grounds, but economic grounds.

Even a seriously anti-Polish, biased article in LIFE magazine published in August 1938 admitted this:

"The present anti-Semitism in Poland, famed for its generous treatment of the Jew, is economic rather than racial."

Admitted the LIFE magazine in August 1938 in a heavily anti-Polish and visibly communist-sympathizing article about Poland (for example author of this article suggests that revolution similar to that in the SU would be a good solution for Poland's economic problems; he also shows the SU as a much more modern and much richer country than Poland, with much better living conditions of population - which as we know isn't true).

However, author of this article - written in August 1938 - predicted that Poland would become the target of Nazi Germany:

He wrote (over 12 months before the outbreak of WW2):

"(...) The late Marshal Foch predicted that Europe's next great war would start in Poland. If Hitler decides that his first job is to isolate Soviet Russia from Western Europe by taking Leningrad, Foch will be proved right. Poland was in fact intended to be a buffer State by the peacemakers who seem today to have broken Europe into pieces small enough for Hitler to swallow easily. (...)"

Other than this, the article is seriously biased and shows the pro-Communist propaganda point of view.

But I will give you the link to this article anyway:

http://books.google.pl/books?id=YU8...0Bs6FgKAH&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Not to say that the article is totally wrong, but it exaggerates and distorts many things.

For example the article provides false (far too high) data on the level of analphabetism in Poland in 1938.

It also exaggerates the hardships of Polish peasants as well as economic and social contrasts.

The article is also wrong claiming that Poland was the poorest country in Europe in 1938.

And author shows his ignorance (or pro-Russian bias) when describing Belarussians and Ukrainians as simply Russians.

He is also wrong when describing the Polish army (one example - he says that the Polish army on wartime strength would number 4,000,000 while in fact the maximum strength which could possibly be mobilized was 1,300,000; when it comes to peacetime strength - 350,000 - the author is correct).

 

[Traitorfish]

You're getting awfully worked up about an article that was published over seventy years ago.

 

[CaptainLost]

This may seem like a weird thing to ask. Anybody know where I can find tables of organization for any countries armies during WWII?

 

[Domen]

You mean Orders of Battles ???

Here you can find some (but only of forces taking part in individual campaigns, not entire armies):

http://niehorster.orbat.com/

 

[Dachs]

T/Os aren't the same as ORBATs. This is an example of a T/O on that site: it's the recommended system of organization for a generic military unit of a certain type, not the specific organization of specific units at the time they participated in a certain engagement.

 

[Domen]

Oh, Ok.

 

[Dachs]

Good resource, though.

 

[CaptainLost]

That's a great site, thanks. Yeah, I guess I did mean orders of battle not tables of organization .

 

[Domen]

Ok. I wanted to ask tables of organization for what sizes of units you wanted to see.

But never mind in such case. I have some tables of organization for German and Polish rifle companies and infantry battalions from 1939.

I also have something for larger units (divisions, regiments) as well, somewhere. German, Soviet and Polish ones.

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

Some of them can be found on the website I linked above, by the way.

 

[JohannaK]

Oooh, fascinating stuff!

 

[CaptainLost]

I'll look around on the site. Does it have tables for below regiment level too?

 

[Domen]

I'll look around on the site. Does it have tables for below regiment level too?

Yes but they are a bit hard to read, because it is text rather than tables / charts in a proper meaning of these words.

 

[Wrymouth3]

As I wrote before, antisemitism in Poland did not have religious or racial grounds, but economic grounds.

I can't comment too much on this since I really don't know much about the antisemitism in Poland before the Targowica and Bar Confederations. I do have a question though relating to how "young" antisemitism in Poland is? How young are we talking? I know the issue really started to blow up after Kościuszko's return from the American Revolution.

 

[Yeekim]

I can't comment too much on this since I really don't know much about the antisemitism in Poland before the Targowica and Bar Confederations. I do have a question though relating to how "young" antisemitism in Poland is? How young are we talking? I know the issue really started to blow up after Kościuszko's return from the American Revolution.

I'm pretty sure that anti-semitism in Poland is older than Poland itself. I mean, there has always been friction wherever different religions meet.

According to wiki, Casimir III (reigned in 1333–1370) "prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism and inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries". Apparently it was somewhat of an issue then.

Later, I believe that Khmelnytsky committed a rather thorough extermination of Jews.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Poland can't exactly be held responsible for Khmelnytsky's actions.

But really what Yeekim said. There has always been issues everywhere two distinct religious groups met, and that held true in Poland as with everywhere else.

However, it would be good to consider the extent of anti-semitism in Poland during this period in comparison to other European countries. Poland has historically been renowned as being a very religiously tolerant place until more recent ages. That is among the reasons why Jews settled in Poland-Lithuania in such great numbers in the first place.

 

[Domen]

I really don't know much about the antisemitism in Poland before the Targowica and Bar Confederations.

What the hell has the Bar Confederation to do with Antisemitism?

Since when is fighting against Russia called Antisemitism?

Or Targowica Confederation (the oppposite of Bar Confederating - betraying to Russia) ???

I know the issue really started to blow up after Kościuszko's return from the American Revolution.

What ??? So Kościuszko brought antisemitism to Poland from America or what are you saying now ???

I mean, there has always been friction wherever different religions meet.

So Anti-Catholicism is equally old in such case.

According to wiki, Casimir III (reigned in 1333–1370) "prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism and inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries".

Never heard of this before - posting a source would be appreciated (wiki is not a source, although it sometimes quotes some sources).

As for kidnapping children - there was such a legend in Medieval Western Europe about Jews, that allegedly they were kidnapping Christian children.

There was also such a legend in Poland about Gypsies - that allegedly Gypsies were kidnapping Polish children.

Now it seems that there was also a similar superstition among Jews, who believed that Christians were kidnapping Jewish children.

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

BTW - such a map showing how Medieval Jews were escaping to Poland from Western Europe, where they were persecuted:

And one more, similar chart - "1000 years of Jews in Poland":

 

[Domen]

There are myths that one of Polish 17th century commanders during the so called "Deluge" - Stefan Czarniecki - carried out pogroms of Jews.

But I have researched some sources and I did not find any confirmation for these claims - on the other hand what I found out is that Czarniecki's troops pillaged settlements (villages and towns) of Greater Poland (which had the lowest percentage of Jews of all regions of Poland at that time) as a revenge for the betrayal of the province of Greater Poland to the Swedish king in 1655 (check wikipedia - the Treaty of Ujscie).

I found this from memoirs of Jakub Łoś (soldier who served under Czarniecki) in this article:

http://elear.salon24.pl/108465,jak-czarniecki-do-poznania-barbura-pogromil-powtorka

"Nasze wojska, nie więcej tylko Wielką Polskę zrabowały, tak pospolitego ruszenia jako i kwarciana hołota, za to że wpuścili Szwedów."

Translation:

"Our forces, both the levy en masse and the quarter rabble, plundered only Greater Poland, in revenge for the fact that they let in the Swedes."

And the same revenge described by one of ethnic Polish inhabitants of Greater Poland:

"O! Jakżeby opisać utrapienia od hołoty kwarcianych naszych. Niewypowiedziane ich zbrodnie, a spustoszenia wsiów i domów szlacheckich. To najcięższa, że im tak Szwedzi, jako wojsko nasze nie dokuczyło."

Translation:

"Oh! How to describe the worry inflicted by our quarter rabble. Unspeakable are their crimes and devastation of villages and of noble manors. But what is the most painful thing, is that even the Swedes were not as annoying as our own forces."

And one more account by an ethnic Polish inhabitant of Greater Poland, regarding crimes of Czarniecki's forces:

"(&#8230 swawoli i rozpuście czeladzi wojskowej, która zabiegając czatami nie tylko wieśniakom, mieszczanom, szlachcie i dworom, ale nawet i kościołom nie folgowali."

Translation:

"(...) lawlessness and debauchery of military camp followers, who organized sudden raids not only against peasants, townsmen, nobility and manors, but even against churches."

When it comes to the term "quarter rabble" ("kwarciana hołota").

It surely refers to camp followers of the "quarter army" ("kwarciane wojsko").

So not regular soldiers, but camp followers and the levy en masse (general levy) were plundering.

And it should be noted, that the "quarter rabble" and the "levies", did it against the will of Czarniecki:

"Czarniecki wszystkimi siłami tego zabraniał, karał, bił, w ostatku zdybanych przy jakimkolwiek ekscesie natychmiast albo sam wieszać się kazał, albo i sam spod uwiązanych na drzewie, albo na wrociech konie zacinał (&#8230"

Translation:

This says what measures Czarniecki applied against "quarter rabble" and "levies" who were taking revenge on population of Greater Poland:

"Czarniecki was prohibiting this with all his strength, he was punishing, beating, as a last resort he was ordering those who were caught red-handed, in any kind of excess, either to immediately kill themselves, or he was hanging them personally."

This account says, that Czarniecki was trying to prevent those crimes very hard, he was punishing, beating, he was sentencing all those caught red-handed to death, sometimes he was even hanging them personally.

But Greater Poland had an opinion of a region which betrayed the rest of Poland in 1655 and allied themselves with Sweden.

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

So nothing specifically about Jews. Only that soldiers of Czarniecki considered inhabitants of Greater Poland as traitors (by the way, as I already wrote, % of Jews in population of Greater Poland was among the lowest in Poland). All of that was in revenge for the treaty of Ujście on 25 July 1655, when Greater Poland betrayed.

Apart from this I also found an article written by Eli Barbur (a Polish-Jewish journalist who emigrated from Poland in 1969 after he was bounced out of the university during events of March 1968) but he gives no evidences, just unsupported claims.

 

[Domen]

In other words - if some Jewish property was robbed or pillaged by Czarniecki's forces, it was not the result of antisemitism, but of the fact that some of Czarniecki's camp followers and levy en masse were simply plundering houses in Greater Poland, in revenge for the betrayal of this region from 1655.

See the Treaty of Ujscie:

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

Krzysztof Opaliński and Bogusław Leszczyński, dissatisfied with policies of Jan Kazimierz, decided to become Swedish allies together with the pospolite ruszenie (Levée en masse) of Greater Poland and betrayed to Charles X Gustav of Sweden.

Moreover - accounts explicitly say that camp followers of Czarniecki robbed peasants, townsmen, nobility, manors and even [Catholic] churches.

So the dark legend of the alleged "Czarniecki - an early example of Polish antisemite" - is a complete rubbish.

Especially, that Czarniecki was actually severely punishing his men for their wrongdoings, even hanging them personally on roadside trees!

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

Stefan Czarniecki:

 

[Wrymouth3]

What the hell has the Bar Confederation to do with Antisemitism?

Since when is fighting against Russia called Antisemitism?

Or Targowica Confederation (the oppposite of Bar Confederating - betraying to Russia) ???



What ??? So Kościuszko brought antisemitism to Poland from America or what are you saying now ???

Yeah, you're badly misinterpreting what I posted. What I meant by it blowing up when he came back from the American Revolution, was that he made it an issue that needed to be scrutinized and attacked, He was by no means Anti-Semitic. I'm sure you've read or at least heard of Storozynski's The Peasant Prince which actually goes into great detail about how Kosciuszko brought the issue before the Sejm, albeit not really being successful, but that's besides the point. The reason I bring up both the Bar and Targowica Confederations was because of the large influx of Anti-Semitic legislature that the magnates attempted to push through, largely at the behest of Yekaterina Velikaya, and Russian nobles in Poland during the Wars of the Bar Confederation.

Interesting note on the Jews in early Poland, the only stuff I really have read about the Jews in the early history of Poland was in the literature of Gallus Anonymous. Of course he notes they are just kind of there, but nothing about the antisemitism, interesting regardless.