History questions not worth their own thread

[Dachs]

Well, him and his possible successor/s would have ensured a personal union between France and England, i.e. retaining these as separate states, united by the person of the monarch.

15th c. demographics and economics says that if the situation doesn't fall apart soon, these monarchs will shift focus from England to France, being richer, more populous and larger.

Scotland and Ireland probably will be able to reach political independence as well, probably. This Anglo-France would have interesting consequences for the Low Countries and for Mediterranean trade, I think, assuming it survived.

You know, Dreadnought, our boy das wrote an alternate history timeline about that very subject. It's a classic.

 

[Dreadnought]

Scotland and Ireland probably will be able to reach political independence as well, probably. This Anglo-France would have interesting consequences for the Low Countries and for Mediterranean trade, I think, assuming it survived.

You know, Dreadnought, our boy das wrote an alternate history timeline about that very subject. It's a classic.

Ah, thank you. I will check it out.

 

[Dachs]

The Emperor Franz I, for instance, was able to invoke his Imperial rights to induce much of the non-Prussian states in the Empire to contribute troops to fight the Prussians in the Seven Years' War.

Was this actually in his capacity as Holy Roman Emperor, as opposed to specific powers as the head of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty?

I believe Franz had the Regensburg Reichstag declare Prussia an outlaw state after the invasion of Saxony in 1756, but I'm not entirely sure as to the precise method.

I can now confirm this, btw; a January 1757 session of the Regensburg Reichstag "banned Prussia from the Empire and declared war on her" in response to the invasion and subjugation of Saxony and the offensive operations in Bohemia of the previous year. I'm not sure about the legal position of the Hannover Electorate.

 

[Atticus]

Not long ago I realized that all the major European capitals are by a river, but away from the sea: London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Moscow and above all Warsaw. Could there be a common reason for this? I guess I could go into history of these cities and try to find out, but I'm too lazy.

 

[Agent327]

That's not typically European, but rather has to do with the importance of rivers; historically rivers are a good spot to start a city (sound familiar?). That such a city might eventually become capital to a nation (while most cities do not) depends on other circumstances.

 

[Lord Baal]

As for why they're inland, rather than along the coast:

Many of those cities were founded at a time when piracy was still a rather sizable problem. A good way to combat piracy was to live nowhere near the ocean. Of course, sea access is still important, so a large river helps as well.

 

[LightSpectra]

Not long ago I realized that all the major European capitals are by a river, but away from the sea: London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Moscow and above all Warsaw. Could there be a common reason for this? I guess I could go into history of these cities and try to find out, but I'm too lazy.

Including, but not limited to: avoiding piracy, avoiding naval blockades, and allowing enemy soldiers to land by your capital city the moment the war begins is typically a bad idea (Lisbon and Venice are two exceptions to this). As for rivers: they're useful for travel, they serve as a gigantic moat-wall, having a source of fresh water is great (plus it means you can generally avoid aqueducts/water systems for the pre-modern era), a large surplus of water generally allows for a more hygienic and larger population, rivers can be used as a power source, etc.

 

[Atticus]

That's pretty much what I thought. The river part is so obvious that I might just as well have asked why those capitals aren't on the coast. But I perhaps should have asked the question differently: is there anything to support that piracy &c is the real reason behind those cities being the capitals? Or is it perhaps only coincidence or only a minor reason for that. Port is major advantage, so there should be very good reason.

I was expecting an answer of the form "There was a rival coastal city, but the inland ended up as capital because of blah blah blah". Change from St. Petersburg to Moscow could be like this for example. But then I understood that even more powerful confirmation for the piracy&c-theory would be "There was no rival coastal city"!

Now the second question is: Why some capitals are by the sea? Lisbon and Scandinavian capitals namely. What separates these from the other capitals?

And Jeelen, you're right, it was indeed Civlization that made me think about this. These guys were smart enough to settle by the river (free aqueduct/+2 health), but dumb enough to not move a square to the coast.

 

[LightSpectra]

Now the second question is: Why some capitals are by the sea? Lisbon and Scandinavian capitals namely. What separates these from the other capitals?

Copenhagen is a bizarre exception that I probably couldn't tell you much about. Most of the Italian states really didn't have much going for them beyond their one big city, so they were more or less forced to locate their government there.

St. Petersburg, Constantinople/Istanbul, Stockholm, Lisbon and the others -- these cities were all very defensible, on the grounds that (a) their respective nations had a significant navy at the time, (b) there was a significant amount of "buffer" land, so while they were by the seas, an invasion by land or sea would've been extraordinarily difficult, (c) they have natural defenses in the forms of mountains, ice and the like, and (d) they were located far enough away from vikings (or, in the case of Stockholm, were vikings themselves) in order to not care about raids.

 

[say1988]

Change from St. Petersburg to Moscow could be like this for example.

Going from Moscow to St. Petersburg in the first place I believe is more of an anomoly.

I believe that the locations, largely for the strategic locations given above, grew to be large and important cities and hence became capitals.

For Lisbon I would wonder if perhaps the threat from the muslims was greater then the threat from any pirates at the time.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Copenhagen is a bizarre exception that I probably couldn't tell you much about. Most of the Italian states really didn't have much going for them beyond their one big city, so they were more or less forced to locate their government there.

St. Petersburg, Constantinople/Istanbul, Stockholm, Lisbon and the others -- these cities were all very defensible, on the grounds that (a) their respective nations had a significant navy at the time, (b) there was a significant amount of "buffer" land, so while they were by the seas, an invasion by land or sea would've been extraordinarily difficult, (c) they have natural defenses in the forms of mountains, ice and the like, and (d) they were located far enough away from vikings (or, in the case of Stockholm, were vikings themselves) in order to not care about raids.

The only "natural" defense of St. Petersburg was Kronstadt island. The capital was relocated to St. Petersburg because Pyotr Velikiy was a Europhile and wanted to glorify the fact that Russia now had a port that wasn't called Archangel'sk. It also had the effect of removing him from all the aristocratic crapmongering in Moscow, much like when the Abbasids moved their capital from Baghdad to Samara, though the influence of the Turkish Guard in the latter's decision should not be understated.

 

[BurnEmDown]

I recently saw the movie "Casablanca" which I'm guessing most of you know about.
In this movie they speak about how the French need support in their revolt against the German occupiers during WW2, and about the French group of people which wanted to revolt against the Germans had their own organization and all that. I've known about these events before I saw the film, but the film was the first time I saw the group's symbol, here it is for those of you wondering: http://www.timboucher.com/journal/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/free-france-flag.gif

Now I've been playing a modmod to Rhye's and Fall of Civilization which is a mod for CIV, the modmod is RFC:Europe. In this modmod there is the civilization of Hungary, with a flag very similar to the "Free France" flag, including the same symbol. Also In several games I saw that Orthodoxy had a symbol very similar to this flag.
So anyway my question is, is there a connection between these symbols and why was this symbol picked for the "Free France" group?

 

[Lord Baal]

The Cross of Lorraine was a symbol on the flags used by Frenchmen undre Joan of Arc during the Hudnred Years' War. Since De Gaulle wanted his Free French to be seen as liberators of France - this time from the Germans, rather than the Engish - he adopted said Cross, mingled it with the French Tricolour, and the Free French flag was born. There is no relation to the Hungarian flag whatsoever, though they might* look similar.

*I have no idea what the Hungarian flag looks like, then or now, and no idea of its history either.

 

[Dachs]

The Hungarian flag also includes a double cross lol. They probably had a common origin in Catholic symbology, or even Byzantine heraldry. These days the French cross of Lorraine is stylized more, i.e. has a shorter top bar than is normal for a double cross pattern, but IIRC it used to have both bars much closer to an equal length.

 

[Love]

Copenhagen is a bizarre exception that I probably couldn't tell you much about. Most of the Italian states really didn't have much going for them beyond their one big city, so they were more or less forced to locate their government there.

St. Petersburg, Constantinople/Istanbul, Stockholm, Lisbon and the others -- these cities were all very defensible, on the grounds that (a) their respective nations had a significant navy at the time, (b) there was a significant amount of "buffer" land, so while they were by the seas, an invasion by land or sea would've been extraordinarily difficult, (c) they have natural defenses in the forms of mountains, ice and the like, and (d) they were located far enough away from vikings (or, in the case of Stockholm, were vikings themselves) in order to not care about raids.

Well stockholm didn't exist in the viking age.

 

[Masada]

As for rivers: (1) they're useful for travel, (2) they serve as a gigantic moat-wall, (3) having a source of fresh water is great (plus it means you can generally avoid aqueducts/water systems for the pre-modern era), (4) a large surplus of water generally allows for a more hygienic and larger population, (5) rivers can be used as a power source, etc.

There's some problems with your assumptions: (1) rivers are not in the whole useful for travel from point A to B travel, in most cases it was slower than using the comparable land route and sea travel is in most cases better served by a harbor rather than a river egress; it was however useful for trade specifically the movement of victuals -- food and drink -- whether from the hinterlands or the sea and other bulk goods. The transportation costs of river or sea trade for bulk goods in almost all cases is exponentially cheaper than land travel. The ability to provide lots of food cheaply with some degree of reliability -- rivers don't dry up for instance -- would in most cases imply a larger population, which in-turn implies a larger tax-base, which in-turn implies a stronger power-base and so-on. If I were to look at the characteristics of capital cities in history, I would expect generally to find them to be the most populous city in the nation. That would help to explain why capital cities are generally cited on rivers or in the absence of rivers near the coast.

(2) I don't think that was a serious concern of the rulers, the value of a river in defensive terms generally declines over-time as the city sprawls out and more bridges are constructed. It may have had something to do with the selection of the site in the first place, but any defensive considerations were probably minimal by the time most of the European states were becoming recognizable.

(3) Except more than a few are built at the confluence of the coast and the river which makes the water rather salty -- London, Copenhagen, Lisbon etc. It also has the same kind of declining utility as (2) we know, for instance, that even early on many rivers were undrinkable because of the effluent both human, animal and industrial that was released into the water -- tanneries and dyers workshops were known to be capable of fouling the water visibly for kilometers and even past that point drinking the water was probably inadvisable!

(4) Same problems as (3). Population often existed in-spite of the rivers, drawing water from wells and springs.

(5) That wasn't a consideration, diverting even a portion of a large river for use in a water mill or fulling mill etc. didn't come into being until long after many of these cities had taken on 'national significance'

Most of the Italian states really didn't have much going for them beyond their one big city, so they were more or less forced to locate their government there.

That's completely the wrong way around. They weren't forced, in most cases, the civil governments of the cities were already existent long before they formed 'states'. It was these city governments that moved out and exercised their power, and not the other way around like most of Europe.

That's not typically European, but rather has to do with the importance of rivers; historically rivers are a good spot to start a city (sound familiar?). That such a city might eventually become capital to a nation (while most cities do not) depends on other circumstances.

In other words: what made a good capital? And why was access to the river and the sea so important to the selection of that capital?

 

[Dachs]

I don't think that the Spree has historically been particularly important for riverine commerce and travel, and its position certainly doesn't help a Brandenburger who would have wanted to travel from one part of the electorate's domains to the other.

 

[mitsho]

It depends on from which time the capital stems from. Madrid for example was a "capital move" into a city which hadn't been that important before. (Corrrect me if I'm wrong, I'm not particularly strong on Spanish History). London or Lisbon on the other hand had been important cities before. Paris actually only became the capital when the strong cities in the South (on the Rhone) declined.

So it's rather difficult to say what benefits a capital city.

First is the question why a city is founded on a river. Much of it has already been said, I would add "Bridge-Possibilities" as well.

Second is the question which city wins the capital contest. As during the Middle Ages (which is the point of reference for most modern european nations) the king moved, he then chose or had to chose the most important city in his kingdom which meant the largest (London, PAris, Lisbon). Berlin is the opposite example. Germany was a state which only formed in 1870, so the point of reference here is not the Middle Ages. This time, a 'conglomerate' of state unified. The capital city of the biggest most important state became the capital. But Berlin itself had been a "late starter" in the German cities... The same with Italy. Milano did lose to Rome for various reasons, actual political strength didn't seem to be one of those. Similar case I see in Switzerland, where with Berne one of the big cities was chosen, but not really the most important one (at the time). Berne itself would also be horrible for your conditions, as it isn't really on a (important) river.

 

[Love]

Or you can create a new city for a capital like South Africa.

 

[say1988]

Rome was chosen out of historical and political reasons, was it not? Milan being too far North.

That is a more modern thing. The same was done in Australia, US, and Brazil (off the top of my head), as political means, the idea being that the new capital is not to closely linked with any one group/region (Canberra and the District of Columbia were created for just these reasons). This would be similar to the choice of Rome in Italy or in Canada a key point of support for Ottawa was that it was on the border between Upper and Lower Canada (in addition to it being a defensible position off the US border).