"Holocaust was a hoax"

[Traitorfish]

@Domen, he is just saying something to antagonize you, not really because he has a point to make.

Maybe we should get back to the topic of the thread. By the way, i still got no reply about Domen's (and the wiki article's) claim that the second Northern War can be seen as causing Genocide against the Polish-Lithuanians.

It's already been pointed out by a few people that "genocide" refers to the destruction of an ethnic group as an ethnic group, not simply to the mass-killing of people who happen to be from a certain ethnic group. If that were the case, the Thirty Years War would have been a genocide against Germans, conducted by Germans.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's already been pointed out by a few people that "genocide" refers to the destruction of an ethnic group as an ethnic group, not simply to the mass-killing of people who happen to be from a certain ethnic group. If that were the case, the Thirty Years War would have been a genocide against Germans, conducted by Germans.

Another genocide by Germans? Not a major shock there ( ).

On a serious note though: Regarding the Northern War, i think that it can be claimed that the plan actually was to destroy most of the Polish-Lithuanian (the country) population, and not just to win a war. It does seem that the war had already been won when Russia entered it, since effectively Poland-Lithuania was under nearly utter control by Sweden and Russia soon after that. So it can be argued that the massive killing of the people there was not actually due to some will to cause the war to be won; it seems way too excessive to be justified in this way.

 

[Domen]

Another genocide by Germans?

Don't forget the Herero and Nama genocide (aka Namibia genocide):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4OZ7Xc5pWQ

Regarding the Northern War, i think that it can be claimed that the plan actually was to destroy most of the Polish-Lithuanian (the country) population, and not just to win a war.

The plan was also to destroy the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a state:

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

Treaty of Radnot was a treaty signed during the Second Northern War in Radnot in Transylvania (now Iernut in Romania) on 6 December 1656. The treaty divided the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth between the signing parties.

According to the treaty:

1) Charles X Gustav of Sweden was to receive Royal Prussia, Kujawy, northern Masovia, Samogitia, Courland and Inflanty
2) Bogusław Radziwiłł was to receive the Nowogródek Voivodeship
3) Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg was to receive Greater Poland
4) Bohdan Khmelnytsky was to receive Ukraine (territories between Batoh and Novhorod-Siverskyi)
5) George II Rákóczi was to receive southern Polish territories, mostly Little Poland (including Kraków)

One of the main results of the treaty was that George II Rákóczi invaded the Commonwealth in January 1657. Due to changed geopolitical situation the treaty was never fully implemented, as the Commonwealth recovered and threw out the invaders. The treaty is seen as a precursor to the 18th-century partitions of Poland.

This was a planned partition of Poland - but the plan failed.

It does seem that the war had already been won when Russia entered it,

Nope. Russia entered the war BEFORE Sweden.

Russia invaded Poland in 1654. Sweden invaded in 1655. Brandenburg in 1656. Transylvania (Rakoczi) in 1657. Russia invaded with 100,000 troops. Sweden with 68,000 troops (peak strength in 1656). Rakoczi with 25,000 or more (supported by 10,000 Cossacks). Brandenburg with 10,000.

 

[Lord Baal]

The destruction of a state is not genocide. The destruction of a people is. I have not yet seen any evidence that the - admittedly stunningly brutal, by the sound of it - Northern War was an attempt to destroy the Polist or Lithuanian people, so much as eliminate the state's resistance to foreign occupation.

 

[Domen]

Well probably you are right. It was not a genocide but killings were on a "genocidal scale".

Let's also mention the massacres (including pogroms of Jews) carried out by Khmelnytsky's rebels in 1648 and following years.

But it was also not "a genocide proper" - they murdered Jews not because they were Jewish, but because Jews were servants of Polish and Ruthenian magnates, and Cossacks + some of the local Orthodox peasants who supported them hated those magnates (and their servants).

so much as eliminate the state's resistance to foreign occupation.

At the beginning the arrival of Charles X Gustav of Sweden was not perceived as a foreign invasion by many Poles. He was considered as a claimant to the Polish throne - and many would like to see him on the Polish throne, because they considered John II Casimir Vasa as an inept king.

This is why resistance to Swedish "occupation" at the beginning was negligible in many areas.

Many cities and even a few entire regions (e.g. Greater Poland) opened their gates to the Swedish army without resistance.

Polish forces loyal to John Casimir Vasa lost a few opening battles and after that they lost the will to resist Swedish forces and most of them also betrayed to Charles Gustav (those defeats were perceived as only further confrmation of John Casimir's ineptness as a king and as a commander).

After those defeats, John Casimir was forced to escape from Poland to his lands in Silesia (he owned two duchies in Silesia).

Even those who initially supported John Casimir against Charles Gustav, mostly betrayed to Charles Gustav after this.

Only later - when Swedish forces started to pillage captured territories - people realized the fact that it was an invasion, not a "raid for Polish throne".

The fact that Swedish forces devastated many Catolic Churches and attempted to capture the Jasna Gora Monastery (which - however - managed to repulse the attackers) also contributed to the overall bitterness and dissapointment with behaviour of Charles X Gustav.

All those Swedish crimes and their barbaric behaviour towards "conquered" population contributed to outbreak of uprisings in many places of Poland (peasants played a very important role in those uprising - which means that they preferred being ruled by Polish nobility rather than Swedish oppressors).

Also majority of Polish forces (both regular forces and levy en masse) who sided with Charles Gustav, now again started to resist Swedish forces.

It should be noted that candidates for Polish throne arriving with their own armies to Poland, was not something completely new. For example in 1588 Archduke Maximilian III Habsburg entered Poland with his own army because he lost the election to Polish throne (but he still had many followers in Poland, who would like him to win the election). Maximilian was, however, quickly defeated in the battle of Byczyna by Royal Chancellor Jan Zamoyski:

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

 

[Traitorfish]

Well probably you are right. It was not a genocide but killings were on a "genocidal scale".

That doesn't really mean anything. There are 1.3 billion Han in the world, and around 50 thousand Faroese. If I attempted to physical annihilate either ethnic group, it would be genocide and thus of "a genocidal scale", despite the fact that one represents a fifth of the global population, and the other would barely register in most major cities.

 

[Lord Baal]

That doesn't really mean anything. There are 1.3 billion Han in the world, and around 50 thousand Faroese. If I attempted to physical annihilate either ethnic group, it would be genocide and thus of "a genocidal scale", despite the fact that one represents a fifth of the global population, and the other would barely register in most major cities.

This. You can certainly claim that a disproportionate number of people were killed in the Northern War than in similar conflicts in the region at the time, but that's all. It's more than enough.

 

[Kyriakos]

This. You can certainly claim that a disproportionate number of people were killed in the Northern War than in similar conflicts in the region at the time, but that's all. It's more than enough.

I can see why to people actually being the descendants of those of whom vast numbers (40% of the entire population?) were killed in Poland-Lithuania would see this in a different light. And i tend to agree with them on that.

 

[Lord Baal]

I can see why to people actually being the descendants of those of whom vast numbers (40% of the entire population?) were killed in Poland-Lithuania would see this in a different light. And i tend to agree with them on that.

A subjective view of an issue does not make that view more correct than an objective view. The objective view is that it was not genocidal. Subjective viewpoints are messy, which is why objective viewpoints are much preferred in this sort of historical analysis.

Really, this argument is based around the definition of a word. It's not open to interpretation.

 

[Kyriakos]

A subjective view of an issue does not make that view more correct than an objective view. The objective view is that it was not genocidal. Subjective viewpoints are messy, which is why objective viewpoints are much preferred in this sort of historical analysis.

Really, this argument is based around the definition of a word. It's not open to interpretation.

Still, in my view, and i am sure in a vast number of other people's view as well, a huge massacre of the scale of the one against Poland-Lithuania in the Great Northern War should be recognized as being of the same importance as the Jewish Genocide in WW2, given that it is on a relative scale (probably even more people in Poland-Lithuania died then than Jews in ww2, in a similar amount of time) and similar brutality.

And it is not that good that most people do not even get to hear of it, unlike the more known crimes against humanity.

(edit)

 

[Traitorfish]

Still, in my view, and i am sure in a vast number of other people's view as well, a huge massacre of the scale of the one against Poland-Lithuania in the Great Northern War should be recognized as being of the same importance as the Jewish Genocide in WW2, given that it is on a relative scale (probably even more people in Poland-Lithuania died then than Jews in ww2, in a similar amount of time) and similar brutality.

The significance of the Holocaust is not simply the number of deaths, but the nature of the killing. The Holocaust was deliberate, targeted and systematic in a way which the deaths associated with the Northern War- or, for that matter, the Eastern and Chinese theatres in World War Two, were not, and it is from that rather than its sheer scale which it derives its notoriety.

 

[Kyriakos]

The significance of the Holocaust is not simply the number of deaths, but the nature of the killing. The Holocaust was deliberate, targeted and systematic in a way which the deaths associated with the Northern War- or, for that matter, the Eastern and Chinese theatres in World War Two, were not, and it is from that rather than its sheer scale which it derives its notoriety.

I agree with your point there, but my own point was that the vast massacre in the Great Northern War is virtually something most people do not even know by name, unlike the Holocaust. And i do not think that is signifying anything justified.

Surely the Holocaust deserves to be remembered, but so does any other incredible crime against humanity. It is not really good to argue that particulars which only existed in the Holocaust, should make it somehow "more important". Afterall, i am pretty sure that now it is far more possible that massacres like the one in PL in the Great Northern War will happen again, realistically, and not something like the germans of ww2 did to the jews. So with that too in mind i maintain that we arguably should give all such horrible crimes a somewhat proportional amount of interest.

 

[Traitorfish]

It very unlikely that most of the deaths associated with the Northern War were as a result of "massacres". Assuming that the war was in its broad sweeps like contemporary wars in Western Europe, with which I'm a bit more familiar, most of the deaths would have resulted from disease, starvation and exposure associated with wartime upheaval rather than a result of violence. In that period, with such low population densities and such slow-moving and concentrated armies, the only time that you'd find enough civilians in one place to commit large-scale massacre was when capturing a fortified town, and they represented a very small part of the overall population. The only people in a pre-mechanised world capable of committing slaughter on that sort of expansive scale were steppes nomads, and even they couldn't be everywhere at once.

Even setting aside the peculiar characteristics of the Holocaust already mentioned, you're simply comparing unlike to unlike.

 

[Kyriakos]

Even setting aside the peculiar characteristics of the Holocaust already mentioned, you're simply comparing unlike to unlike.

Nice phrase there, i was not aware of it (although the phrase, you will agree too perhaps, is a bit on the peculiar side of things )

Regarding the point, i do not know almost anything about the GNW and little about war in that era. Maybe more information should be sought though, anyway as i stated my original question was indeed whether the claim by Domen (and the wiki article on the "Deluge" in Poland) had value in regards to making the GNW in Poland something akin to a massive massacre - if not a genocide, as it seems it cannot be called that.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't recall the exact content of Domen's posts on the topic, but if he described the Great Northern War as akin to a massacre, then he was simply incorrect. The scale deaths associated with the Great Northern War appear to have been a product of the extent and duration of the war, which left much of the population as refugees, while heavily disrupting agriculture and shattering the trade-routes which might have brought in replacement foodstuffs. This is certainly consistent with other wars in this period, while the alternative, that it was a result of direct violence, is utterly without precedent before the 20th century.

This is a period, remember, in which most military causalities resulted from disease, starvation and exposure. What army could possibly have been so efficient in their slaughter, and what civilian populace so hardy in their endurance of famine, plague and weather, as to allow for even the possibility of a massacre on this scale?

 

[Yeekim]

What army could possibly have been so efficient in their slaughter, and what civilian populace so hardy in their endurance of famine, plague and weather, as to allow for even the possibility of a massacre on this scale?

Participants in the war certainly utilized scorched earth tactics deliberately and to rather large extent.

I don't think there is much difference whether some villagers died from "plague, starvation and exposure" while hiding in the bogs after their houses and crops were burned and livestock slaughtered or whether they were killed in more straightforward manner.

 

[Traitorfish]

There isn't much difference, but there is a difference, and it's in that difference that analogies to the Holocaust fall apart. The Holocaust represented the deliberate and systematic extermination of ten million people, which sets it apart from even the most shockingly inhumane application of scorched earth tactics.

 

[Domen]

but if he described the Great Northern War

The Second Northern War, not the Great (= Third) Northern War.

In the Great Northern War (which was 50 years later) population losses were also very large though.

while the alternative, that it was a result of direct violence, is utterly without precedent before the 20th century.

It is obvious that not all of the +/- 5,000,000 deaths were the result of direct violence, but large part of them were.

But to claim that it is utterly without precedent before the 20th century is not quite true - ask Hulagu or Tamerlane for example.

 

[Domen]

The scale deaths associated with the Great Northern War appear to have been a product of the extent and duration of the war, which left much of the population as refugees, while heavily disrupting agriculture and shattering the trade-routes which might have brought in replacement foodstuffs.

When it comes to the Great Northern War (in 1700s) - all of these factors and direct violence as well.

There are examples of Swedish and Russian forces murdering populations of entire villages as punishment for hiding food from military requisition.

So you had a choice - give all your food to soldiers and die from starvation, or get killed by those soldiers...

During the siege of Torun in 1703, Charles XII executed entire population of a nearby small town.

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Poland-Lithuania lost ca. 40% of population in period 1648 - 1667 and then ca. 20% - 30% of population in period 1701 - 1719.

In 1720 it is estimated that population of Poland-Lithuania was reduced to just 6.5 million people (high estimate).

When it comes to population losses in period 1648 - 1667 there are more detailed historical sources though.

Population losses in period 1701 - 1719 are harder to establish than those in 1648 - 1667.

Losses in period 1701 - 1719 included epidemies (wars were usually followed by epidemies) in years 1707 - 1713.

 

[Kyriakos]

I meant the Second Northern War in my other post... Sorry for the confusion (i mentioned the Polish "Deluge" too, which directly refers to the Second Northern War)

It makes my point somewhat though, that the Second Northern War, while including such incredible attrocities, is virtually something most people do not even know about...