Can Rurik be seen as Samo of the East Slavs?
A Germanic foreign trader who lead the local Slavs into forming their first political state or empire.
Anything inaccurate in this comaprison?
Rurik is semi-fictional at best. He doesn't appear in the historical record until centuries after his supposed lifespan, and narratives of his life serve primarily to glorify and legitimise the ruling dynasty. It's not uncommon for powerful families in this period to invent fanciful biographies of their patriarchs, if not simply inventing the patriarch altogether.
I generally agree. Churchill was for standing against Hitler but afaik there was no real peace party in Britain other than Mosley's gang and they were pretty thoroughly discredited by then anyway.
Its my understanding that the Conservatives first choice would've been Halifax, an appeaser, but he was unwilling to accept the post. Both the Liberals and Labour expressed a preference for Churchill and he was popular in the country because of his anti-appeasement stance. The Conservatives had a large majority so in theory they could've chosen somebody else.
Whatever happened to the various Spanish Christian Kingdoms? In all the histories of Spain they get joined under a single Monarch in the late 1400s and never really mentioned again. Are they still an entities today or where they destroyed somewhere along the line?
Whatever happened to the various Spanish Christian Kingdoms? In all the histories of Spain they get joined under a single Monarch in the late 1400s and never really mentioned again.
Some historians would say that Castile and Aragon joined to form Spain in 1479 with the wedding of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, while others would say that they were joined in same dinasty but they were different crowns, so different kingdoms, until the Nueva Planta decrees in early XVI century
Kingdom of Asturias transitioned into the Kingdom of León in 924.
As a simplified explanation, Kingdom of Leon joined to Castile in 1230.
Regarding Kingdom of Navarre, the Upper Navarre, in the south of Pyrenees, was invaded by the forces of Castile and Aragon in 1512. It was considered a Kingdom ruled by a viceroy appointed by the Spanish monarch. After the first Carlist war kingdom was abolished and a chartered province was set up
The Lower Navarre, in the north of the Pyrenees, dinasty was joined to French Monarchy when King Henry III of Navarre inherited the French throne as Henry IV of France, continued independent, until 1789, when the kingdom was abolished.
The case of Aragon is interesting because on top of the Kingdom of Aragon was the Crown of Aragon, which was a dynastic union unto itself of Aragon and Catalonia at first, then of those plus Valencia and Mallorca, then also Sicily and Naples, Sardinia, Athens...
Each territory had its laws and constitutions, and the king needed their respective Estates General (knows as Corts or Cortes, that is to say Courts), with their representatives of the clergy, the nobility, and the royal chartered towns, to levy the taxes for his wars and affairs, with the Estates General progressively extracting more laws and privileges feom the king in exchange. It was a very interesting proto-parliamentarian confederation thingy.
These local laws and customs did not go away upon the union of Isabella and Ferdinand. In fact, there was an agreement somewhere that if Ferdinand sired an heir after Isabella's passing, it would be this one who would inherit the Crown of Aragon, thereby separating the two realms again. If I remember correctly, he did have a child of a second wife, but it died in infancy, plus he had to take over as regent of Castile when his daughter Juana was locked up and his son-in-law died of smallpox, or something of the sort.
In any case, the laws and constitutions of all these disparate realms remained in effect until the decrees of Nueva Planta erased them at the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession, where precisely the territories of the Crown of Aragon all chose to support the Habsburg claimant against the Bourbon king and lost. In the intervening 200 years, the particular constitutions and institutions of these realms became a bit of a nightmare to the Castilian administrators at the court who very openly sought to eradicate them and assimilate them to the political and legal system of Castile.
The paradigm here is the Count-Duke of Olivares in the early-mid 17th century, whose schemes ended up with the 19-year War of the Reapers in Catalonia in 1640, the revolt and secession of Portugal and its Empire, and widespread unrest elsewhere. Still today the limits of many of Spain's autonomous communities are a vestige of those old realms' borders. Some of them, to this day, are still less than joyous to be a part of Spain.
Browsing the Wikipedia artcile about Stephen I of Hungary, I noticed that many of his contemporary depictions show his head surrounded by a red circle that looks like a hollow. He and his dead son are the only two to have that circle in those paintings.
What is that?
It seems that the monarch of Russia had been proclaimed Emperor before it was common, and while the HRE still firmly existed.
Did it spark a controveresy in European politics?
The title of "Tsar" itself originally had an imperial component. Occasionally, when foreign rulers wanted to be polite or flattering, this title was diplomatically granted (just like Britain sent diplomatic messages to the "Emperor of Morocco"). However, it could be just as well withdrawn when these rulers wanted to adopt a colder tone. Peter's adoption of the title was both a part of his attempts to Westernize Russia, and to gain it greater prestige among all other European states. It was not accepted immediately. The Emperor in Wien formally recognized the title only in 1743.
First one to be crowned as such, yes. His father and grandfather occasionally used this title in diplomatic communications.
The first one to officially proclaim himself as "Emperor/Imperator" in his official title (not counting False Dimitriy I, who also occasionally called himself such) was Peter I.
Interesting to note that even this title underwent historical inflation, to the point of the Haitian Empire.
My understanding is that baseball got popular in Japan during the American occupation of the country during the aftermath of WW2. Is this true? Even if it is, I know nothing about the subject other than that and I’m kind of fascinated by it. How did it get so popular in Japan? Isn’t it the most popular sport over there?
My understanding is that baseball got popular in Japan during the American occupation of the country during the aftermath of WW2. Is this true? Even if it is, I know nothing about the subject other than that and I’m kind of fascinated by it. How did it get so popular in Japan? Isn’t it the most popular sport over there?
According to Wikipedia and various tourism sites it predates the US occupation, being introduced to Japan (by an American) in 1872, with the first professional league being formed in 1936. US occupation seems to have boosted its popularity but it was doing well already, perhaps because Japan doesn't seem have any homegrown team sports.
have people read about der T-Tag of 1914 ? Would be really a specialist thing but
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
An invasion scare swept Whitehall in November, infecting both the generals and the admirals. The War Office was apprehensive, seeing in the lull on the Western Front the German chance to detach a quarter of a million crack troops for an invasion. Churchill was of the same mind. 'From 1st Nov. begins the maximum danger period for this country, ending during January when new armies and territorials acquire real military value. During this period, very likely deadlock on land enabling Germany to economize troops for an invasion. If ever to be attempted, this is the time. I am confident of our ability to inflict military punishment if it is tried, but no precaution must be neglected.' Battenberg was in agreement. Fisher, when he returned to power a few days later, seriously expected an imminent invasion. 17 November was the date he chose: the tides and moon then would be favourable for night-time landings. Kitchener predicted an attempt on 17 or 20 November. Jellicoe believed the most favourable time for an invasion or raid was about the 20th.
Naval preparations early in November included bringing the 3rd Battle Squadron down to Portland to join the Channel Fleet. (On 18 November the squadron rejoined the Grand Fleet, but with Rosyth as its new base, after JeIIieoe's strong plea for its immediate return.) Arrangements were made for mines to be exploded and block ships to be sunk in the mouths of undefended harbours. Military precautions included the deployment of some 300,000 half-trained troops along the East Coast. The Admiralty sent Jellicoe 'most secret' orders on 12 November covering the contingency of invasion or raid. If the Germans moved, they would move with their whole Fleet. To cover the landings and to seek a naval battle on favourable terms, the High Seas Fleet would position itself between the main landing, the Grand Fleet, and its own base. The enemy would doubtless
protect himself by minefields, and, as you have so clearly foreseen, will endeavour to draw you on to these and to his submarines before engaging. He will count on your being hurried by panic in England, and by eagerness to bring him to battle .... You will concern yourself exclusively with the destruction of the High Sea Fleet, taking your own time, choosing your own method, and not troubling yourself at all with what is going on in England .... The Channel Fleet and the Flotillas deal first with the invaders and their escort, and thereafter at the earliest moment come under your command for the main battle if it has not been already fought.
Nothing happened, and by 2 I November Fisher was no longer expecting an invasion attempt. He exulted in the 'splendid "dress rehearsal" that the scare had provided'...
[Jellicoe] did suggest various steps such as defensive mining, blocking ships at various rivers and harbours from Harwich to the Firth of Forth, the use of large quantities of petrol for creating surface fires on the water, and preparation for the rapid demolition of jetties by explosives. These measures would free the avy for its 'proper role', the destruction of the enemy's Fleet.
this from Marder (1965)
Spoiler:
The cause of this German inactivity [during August]was not known in Britain, and the stillness created fears that something terrible might be in store. These fears centered on the nightmare of a German invasion, or, more likely, a series of amphibious raids on England’s east coast. (Churchill estimated that up to 10,000 Germans might be landed.) In fact, at no time during the Great War did either the General Staff of the German army or the German Naval Staff ever seriously discuss or plan an invasion of England on any scale, large or small...
and this from Massie (2003)
while ı can't exactly spot the place where ı read 70 000 could be landed on the first wave , reaching 250 000 overall . The numbers are important as Churchill asked Kitchener to guarantee he could defeat the 70 000 by the British Army units on the isles alone , because there was no way to intercept the first wave , while the 180 000 invaders (as released by the lack of action after the end of the Race to the Sea) would have to wait for their turn and the Grand Fleet could be brought to action . Am pretty sure Massie implies but certainly not writes that 70 000 were calculated to be a suicide run by the German cruisers and the destroyers which would remain unmanned or scuttled or whatever as their guns were to dismounted for land action and as it would certainly fail , it would be just a raid .
would like any hints for any modern day discussion of this .
(as ı naturally have the context . One of those good old yarns which are only funny to people ... well ... The bribe offered to "Constantinople" to "deliver" Dardanelles with the mines swept was 500 000 pounds . If the whole Ottoman Empire was surrendered , Ittihad and its good pro-German people would receive 3 millions , with an extra 1 million to spread across by Ittihad themselves to prevent "ramifications" , it was still on the table by March 17th of 1915 . As in actually in the Marder book : "... an extraordinary side venture in February 'to buy the Turks out of the war' by paying up to £4,000,000 to achieve this. Clandcstine negotiations reached the point where two ... agents met with a Turkish delegate at Dedeagatch on 15-16 March. The talks failed because the British would not give assurances that Constantinople would remain in Turkish hands after the war." Instead there were "submarines" in Scapa Flow , the Grand Fleet actually abandoning its then totally unprotected base , (before the Ottomans came in) . During the second one , a torpedo launch was "confirmed" , the cream of the Royal Navy moving away and away to see HMS Audacious "torpedoed" and only returning to Scapa Flow on the 9th of November , to fight the T-Tag fleet . Was actually a mine , but the British submarines of the day were short ranged and U-boots were supposed to be similar and the range was too great and when an actual U-boat went down after attempting to attack Scapa by the end of October , it was felt they had secret bases on Faroe Islands or in Norway . See , the Brits are nuts about their superiority of numbers in dreadnought type ships and they can send only one to the Med , to pass the Straits to sink the Goeben , ably supported by the battlecruiser stuff already in the Med . If Goeben escapes to the Black Sea , it will be Russians then ... Reşadiye , the newer of the two Ottoman dreadnoughts Churchill stole , is an Iron Duke and while Audacious is not , they look quite the same , they would look the same from a periscope . Even better is the thing that the Brits kept telling the whole world that Audacious was alive and well until November 13th , 1918 ... All your man in Switzerland has to do is being an idiot and divulge German war secrets that it was a Steam / Caustic Soda design as openly discussed by Germans in 1913 . 12.5 knots underwater , enough to beat 8.5 knots flow of the entry to Scapa Flow ! Delays it to March/April 1915 . None of them actually happening for real , but the smarties of all times come with pre-conceived ideas . Imagine dat , we could still be wearing the Fez !)
yes . But it made it kinda much faster , when "the only time" a French fleet has ever defeated a British one happened , which was also helped by the British Admiral's desire to protect his profits of selling cannons to Americans .
It would probably depend on precisely why the Americans were unable to draw in European allies. The Continental Congress' decision to make a unilateral declaration of independence was in part a gamble to that end, that it would provide reassurance that the Americans were serious about their strategic and financial commitments, as well as providing a pretext for foreign recognition.
If they had chosen not to take the gamble, some sort of settled peace is plausible. The war was very unpopular in Britain, and most leading Whigs publicly sympathised with the Americans. If the Americans had declined to cross the "point of no return" represented by independence, it's plausible that they could have exerted enough pressure on the British government to force a negotiated peace settlement which guaranteed self-government to the American colonies, particularly as the lack of a France alliance freed the expression of pro-American sympathies of the scent of pro-French sympathies. It would have required a pretty strong run of military luck, but it's conceivable that the British could have been brought to terms.
If the Americans had gambled on declaring independence and it simply hadn't worked, the odds are pretty slim. There isn't a realistic scenario in which the Americans standing alone beat the British militarily, which is what would be required here. The war was unpopular in America as in Britain, and a dispirited public would have exerted a similar pressure to end the war on whatever terms became available. Best case scenario for the Americans is that the war drags on long enough that the British government ends hostilities with some concession to colonial self-government, and the revolutionary leadership are allowed to go into exile rather than to the gallows.
The twist in this second scenario is that colonial governments accepting the reintroduction of British rule doesn't mean that all of their citizens do. What would become Kentucky and Tennessee were effectively self-governing republics during the war, and Vermont was literally a self-governing republic, so it's hard to see that they would relinquish this hard-won autonomy because some periwigs in Philadelphia lost their nerve. The Americans in the Ohio and Tennessee valleys could plausibly be brought under Spanish influence, as in terms of miles-travelled-per day, New Orleans and even Havana weren't much more different than Philadelphia and New York. We'd plausibly see something like the Boer Republics of South Africa, persisting for years and perhaps decades after the "pacification" of the American colonies. I could even see this happening even in the first scenario; the "Overmountain Men" had decided quite early in the war that they weren't taking up arms to clarify the constitutional relationship between colonial and imperial governments, and it's not clear that they would be satisfied with such a clarification.
practically only because electiricity went out and cut the connection and ı hate Xenforo and the way it removes subscriptions ı might say a military non-solution was perfectly feasible to make Britain vulnerable and ı would doubt the Spanish could attract the even more Anglosaxon Americans .
practically only because electiricity went out and cut the connection and ı hate Xenforo and the way it removes subscriptions ı might say a military non-solution was perfectly feasible to make Britain vulnerable...
I can't see any non-military solutions that weren't already employed in our timeline, except for mobilising opposition to the war in Britain, which was somewhat harder to do after the Declaration of Independence. The British Whig position in the American Revolutionary War was somewhat analogous to the position of Northern "copperheads" in the American Civil War, in that they wanted a settled peace to lead to reconciliation, rather than a concession of independence, and the more determined Americans seemed to establish themselves as wholly independent, the less plausible that outcome seemed. Successfully mobilising British opposition to the war would have required the Americans to pivot away from the "revolutionary" path fairly quickly, and to abandon the pursuit of foreign alliances, which I don't think the Continental Congress would have considered.
...and ı would doubt the Spanish could attract the even more Anglosaxon Americans .
Sometimes economics trump culture. The Ohio and Mississippi rivers were the economic life-blood of the trans-Appalachian colonies, and in our timeline, there was a lot of friction with the Spanish over access to the Mississippi. This was one of the primary incentives for the Louisiana Purchase- the vast expanse of land to the West was almost a bonus. If an accommodation could have been made by which these "Overmountain republics" could have had access to Spanish waterways and markets, while allowed to retain their formal independence and their distinct culture (which was as much Scots, Irish and German as it was Anglo-Saxon, and therefore not carrying any necessary sense of fellowship with the Eastern lowlands) than having to wrangle more restricted access to those waterways just to send goods to British markets on the Eastern seaboard, and that despite the British offering no pretence of respecting the political or cultural independence of the American frontier colonies.
There was an incentive for the Spanish: the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys were already recognised as a potential "breadbasket" region, and the question in this era was whether that would feed the cities of British North America, or the plantations of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast. Napoleon famously believed the latter, and only abandoned Louisiana when the Haitians revolutionaries shattered his Caribbean ambitions. The market and strategic value of Kentucky corn outweighed its Calvinistic provenience.
Even in our timeline, the Spanish were successfully encouraging the migration of Protestant Americans into what became Missouri at the turn of the century- including no less an exemplary "Overmountain man" than Daniel Boone, the Revolutionary War hero- so I don't think there was any hard culture barrier between the two that land and money could not tidy away.
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