Projet Mérovingien {or History from French viewpoint} {Next: Deutschland} - - History Thread - The Many Manly Men of History, War and Civilizations

[SoulStar33]

Well, they certainly were barbaric, even though they considered the unconquered tribes barbaric, I mean gladiator games and even making innocent animals to suffer, for entertainment, BUT, except for really modern (even contemporary) laws, weren’t people killed in horrible ways as punishment, weren’t even animals (still are) executed or hunted for some people’s ambitions or pleasure (?) and how much violence and even violent sports we have Today, still for the same purposes, to entertain, …, so yeah they had really horrible tortures and ideas and practices back then, but society really hasn’t advanced that much for centuries, even millenia, in terms of human or animal rights …
I look at it this way, because of their positive actions we had a European and even a Global culture in the first place (with many things inherited, material and spiritual), so if we want, we can see the good in their existence, not only the bad parts and to be honest except for a few cultures, the vast majority were bloody as hell throughout history.
Just to give an example, the romans didn’t like human sacrifice, plus the idea of virtues in the west spread because of their existence and actions (“pagan” virtues and Christian as well), there were many virtuous romans, not just killing machines.
I see Rome as a means to an “end” or rather an important link in our evolution as a Species.
I have studied about the Holy Roman Empire and I personally consider them as a continuation of Ancient Rome, but I didn’t mention about them because I already wrote quite enough; Charlemagne was magnificent, in terms of reviving culture in Western Europe, he brought an early Renaissance through his actions, although, just like the previous Caesars, his actions were soaked in blood, …
I also like England around the Tudors dynasty, although I’m not that familiar with their customs or culture (except some ideas from media); to be honest, England was far better than Ancient Rome, in terms of the quality of life that it offered it’s citizens (the english were the pioneers of Modern Industrialization), although the circumstances and times were different.
EDIT: Still, England took part in the colonial race, they stole so many resources from many many places (at least from a quarter of Earth) and oppressed the conquered populations, …, still, again, I focus on the good that England brought to this world and it has brought a lot of good things (still does).
I will watch the link.
Thank you for sharing.

ANOTHER EDIT, from your link: " -This is called adding. If i have two beans and add two more beans, what do I have?

• Some beans." hilarious - Rowan Atkinson and the others.

@TheAmbiguousSoldier

Me personally I wouldn’t really have a favourite or would of liked to live in the past because everything throughout history were absolutely horrible to live in. The further back you go the worse it gets and the Roman Empire isn’t really something to admire because there ambitions were just pure inhumanity.

I wouldn’t want to live in the previous Eras either (no electricity, no modern transport, no internet, no phones, no cars, no radio, no tv, no modern medicine, no modern rights, no Sapien Medicine, etc.), I only like to study about them.

[SoulStar33]

World GDP 5000 (Top 25 Countries & Empires by GDP (PPP) 1A.D-5000A.D)

Forget the 5000 A.D. part (estimates and pure speculation) and just watch until current times, it is quite a good video (remember that GDP is a modern way of assessing wealth, so anything from the past 1 A.D. up to Renaissance or rather Industrialisation/Industrial World is based on approximations, not absolutely accurate data);

Some Interesting things: India (Cholas, Guptas, etc.) and China (Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms and the following dynasties) were On Top of The World for Most of Our Recent History, the Only Western Powers comparable to those being The Roman Empire, The Byzantine Empire (off-shoot of Rome, it was the surviving Eastern Roman Empire, which lasted for 1000 Years after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire) and The Caliphates which followed Islamic Conquests in the 7th Century, the Caliphs conquered and ruled over the biggest Empires/Territories the World had seen, up to that point; only after the discoveries of Americas and the rest of the World by European Powers, did the West truly started to see a Huge Rise in GDP, especially since the Industrial Revolution, when The West and Russia started to reach their peak expansion(s), economically and otherwise; nowadays we see huge economic/GDP changes, after the American Hegemony, as Asia (China, India, etc.) and other places/powers are now on the Rise (again; full circle?).

[JAAJ]

I DEBUNK Woke History Lesson About Colonialism

[SoulStar33]

It’s only bad when/if “White People” conquered, otherwise it’s perfectly acceptable; I liked the video already, but I’ve just started watching it minutes ago - I like how he mentioned the Moorish conquest of Iberian Peninsula (previous Suebi and Visigothic Kingdoms), plus the fact that they ruled Hispania for Centuries (but it doesn’t matter, they were not originally from Europe, so no crime), then he mentioned the Turks reaching far into Europe and sieging Vienna TWICE, then he mentioned an Actual African Empire, Mali, which subjugated ALL Neighboring Kingdoms and was trading slaves, but, hey, it’s not Europe…, and last, I should mention the Mongols, who created the Greatest Empire by land area (before the British Empire took the first spot) and OMG, were they cruel to those who did not submit to their might, Eastern Europe being one of the furthest conquests of that Colossus…

They massacred huge swaths of people, in all the territories they conquered.

Mongol invasion of Europe

Anyway, I’ll watch further.
Thanks for sharing.

Edit: this is no excuse for the Transatlantic Slave Trade, for Racism or any horrible deed European Empires did to their enemies or even their Colonial Subjects, but it was not Just European Powers who were bad, any Conquering Power did some horrible deeds, some more than others.

And to end on this note: Demonizing ANY People, Ethnicity, Country, Religion or Race is Bad…
And now it looks like in Western media, from movies and internet to books, from articles to Science, Europeans and their Descendants were or Are THE BAD Guys…

[JAAJ]

Some more debunking of woke historical shit…
…very cringe to watch

Metatron is a great history channel btw for anyone interested in Ancient Rome, Medieval and Samurai stuff.

Netflix Cleopatra is Worse Than I Thought. I watched it

Tiktoker Says The Roman Empire Didn't Exist RESPONSE VIDEO

The TRUTH About LGBTQ+ in Ancient Greece - Once and for all

Black Washing History? Troy & BBC Cartoon Debunking

The TRUTH About Black Africans In Ancient Rome

The Woman King EXPOSED! Propaganda LIES VS Historical TRUTH

Were The Ancient Egyptians Black? The TRUTH

[SoulStar33]

He is Awesome!
Thanks for sharing!

[SoulStar33]

@Dr_Manhattan If You are willing to, can you answer any of the following questions?

How do you view France, for example since when/what point in History, would you say “this is France”?

Do you identify France (or the French people) with Ancient Gauls or with the Frankish people?
How about the Romans, how much of the Roman Civilization was embedded/ingrained in France?

In essence, how do you view France and the French people?

Also, what is your view on the Normans and the English, especially in relation/when relating to France?

Is your country the biggest contributor to Europe and European History?

How about the World, how much did France contributed on the World Stage and What Legacy did they leave, both in the past, as well as in present day(s)/time(s)?

Thank You.

[JAAJ]

@Dr_Manhattan

My beard is ready for the Jihad.

Didn’t the Romans teach you French Gauls to shave yourselves?
What happened to civilization?

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ

Didn’t the Romans teach you French Gauls to shave yourselves?
What happened to civilization?

That’s thousands of years old Roman Propaganda.

1. There were no “Gauls”, that a Roman disinformation campaign, it was just a big land with many different tribes (different languages, cultures and ethinicity) and in many of them, the aristocrates already shaved. It’s just easier to trash talk savages.
2. It was never organized into any type of unit until the Franks came out and created the Frankish kingdom.

What you talking about ?
lol

Though they learned how to make simple stuff like barrels from the “savages” cause the Roman had been carving huge stones to carry water for centuries, so…
Shame on who ?

[JAAJ]

Okay, that’s one thing the Romans learned from the savages.
Versus 1000 things the savages learned from the Romans when they “joined” the Empire.
That would probably be an interesting convo for another thread…

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ I wouldn’t mind going into that convo. I always loved history.

We can go into how the Roman started small and copied other. The French did too. Then we can compare the contributions of each and how the French kickstarted the Holy Roman Empire succeeding the the Romans and kept going until the French colonial empire got bigger than the Roman could have dreamed of, terrorizing other European powers until the British came along. The Frankish Jerusalem and The Templar stuff in between (with some loses)

There were some pushes and then each had the man power of their times.

But hey, French people are still the most militarily successful people in history thus far. That’s a fact.

Just not tonight

[JAAJ]

@Dr_Manhattan

But hey, French people are still the most militarily successful people in history thus far. That’s a fact.

That’s interesting, because I always thought it would be rather this one:

More territory, held for a much longer time in total.
Starting at 700 BC and going up to 1500 AD with the end of Byzantium.
That’s 2200 years.

@Dr_Manhattan

Just not tonight

Yeah, somewhen later mate

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ
Go create the thread sometime

China had less territory and held out longer, does that mean they are better ?

The Mongol had more battles and more territory, the Macedonian also had more than the Roman for shorter. France has won the most battles in history with a kick ass ratio, is near the top in empire size in front of the Mongols (Roman’s aren’t even in the top 10 in total territory held at a single time) and the Romans are pretty far behind in number of people killed.

Love the Romans but if going about militarily only, fighting near peers and conquering foreign tribes…

Napoleon alone is far in the lead in term of military success and that was the beginning of the end.

Roman’s didn’t have the most territory, didn’t win the most battles, didn’t last the longest.

[Lunamoon22]

The nerd in me appreciates these history debates

We should make a thread about it, i seriously love history and Geography

[JAAJ]

@Divine_Lotus
Can you please kindly move the last posts related to history to this thread please: History Thread - History, Cultures, Civilizations, anything related - #14 by SoulStar33
Thank you.

[GianLee]

@Dr_Manhattan @JAAJ History!

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ

going up to 1500 AD with the end of Byzantium.

Ahem, 500 years before the official ending of the Roman Empire

Blue thing = baguette team
Then the Islamic Empire was going too strong in the south

Catholics banded together under the orders of the pope

Enter the “Outremer”, Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem also known as Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Muslim called it Frankish Kingdom in their sources.

Tripoli French too, best lands, them holy lands

The others got a little something.

By that point, it was ok for Christians to kill, so the French created , funded, ruled the Knight Templars

Though non-exclusionary with members and chapters throughout Europe, the Knights Templar was a French organisation with a French founder. Furthermore, nearly every Grand Master or supreme leader in Templar history was French, thereby making France the seat of Templar power in Europe.

It’s also the French kings who got rid of them, when they were not busy kidnapping popes

Fast forward

Not gonna break down those victories, would be trash talking.

If knowing that most the generals after Napoleon thought and think he was the best is not enough. Napoleon was the Best General Ever, and the Math Proves it. | by Ethan Arsht | Towards Data Science

Beginning of Napoleonic War, all of Europe declared war on France (which means all the most powerful empires at that time).

So the whole Europe declared war on France,
how did that turn out ?

Spain, Britain, Germanic countries and Russia attacked France, France lost in Russia years later. At the 6th Coalition they won, all of Europe attacked France and lost 5 times, surrendered 5 times. All against one and they started it.

Dude made himself Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire

For centuries Europe’s geopolitics was about limiting the French power.

How do you think we got that bling ?

You can see how savage these people are all the time

First ones to kill their kings and started the whole republic/democracy Europeans like so much.
And they did it nasty in public, cutting heads all day for weeks

Lowest retirement age in Europe, you want to increase it, they burn the streets down. The others accepted.

I saw lines of Germans who get less benefits and already have retirement planned to 67yo react like “hmm, maybe we should have protested too, we don’t like that one bit, no sir we don’t” like they never thought of it. The French president said, “by 2030 you’ll retire at 64yo”, French people got crazy, you can see the madness and outrage in their eyes when the news hit. 4 months, they went at it

going against water canon with farm equipements

It’s like every other year, it happens

They want reasons to fight

[JAAJ]

I believe for a proper discussion we need to first look at specific metrics and/or define and agree what metrics we want to look at for comparison.

I am going to argue in favor for the Ancient Romans as the “most successful empire ever” based on the following metrics:

• % of territory conquered from initially owned base line.
  The challenge here is to define what is the baseline.
  The Romans for sure expanded several Ten of Thousands % from their initial baseline. From a small province to 4.4 Mio km².
  The Mongols or the British Empire would probably win here if we would look only at this one metric – but please pay attention to the rest too and look at it as an overall result of these metrics.

• % of the world population living in the empire at its peak:
  For Ancient Romans it was ca. 30% of the world’s population.
  Again not #1 if looking only at this metric alone, but at least in the Top 5 or so.

• Number of years the empire territory was held.
  For the “Ancient Romans”:
  Early Romans & Roman Republic: 753 BC to 27 BC
  Roman Empire: 27 BC to 500 AD
  Eastern Roman Empire 500 AD to 1453 AD
  = 2250+ years in total
  Again, not #1 if looking only at this metric alone. China or Ancient Egypt would probably win here if looking at this metric isolated.

• Kill-to-Loss ratio of the army:
  Describes the actual success rate of the army.
  I don’t know the exact numbers for the various civilizations but I would argue that Romans were pretty good and had a very good kill-to-loss ratio.
  If you for example look at the Battle of Boudica, were 1 Roman soldier was killed for 200 Celtic soldiers.
  Romans might take actually 1st place here but I am not sure about that.

• The soldier-to-civilians-ratio:
  Indicates how well the army was doing and how many % of the population of the empire had to actually fight to keep borders and order in check.
  I think for Ancient Romans it was something between 10-20% of the population who were military folks.

• GDP and overall wealth level:
  I would argue that the Romans were far ahead compared to any other civilization at the time, like at least 10-20x ahead. GDP maybe 2-3x than that of their neighbours and luxury levels like 100-1000x than that of their neighbours (speaking about public bathes with heated floors, alimony for children, equaducts, public roads etc.)

• Average life expectancy:
  Again, I would argue that it was probably much higher than that of the neighbouring states in comparison for their time.
  Roman medical knowledge was extremely advanced and thus average life expectency was higher than in their neighbouring countries.
  They even disinfected surgical devices in boiling water, something that was only rediscovered in the 19th Century.

• Impact on the world:
  This metric, even isolated, makes Ancient Romans to take the 1st rank:
  Most of the world, or a major part of, TODAY:
  …uses the Roman letters
  …uses the Roman calendar and time system
  …uses Roman based laws
  …adopted Roman based human rights
  …adopted a Roman religion
  …speaks in a Romanic language (including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian)
  …60% of the words in the English language were influenced by Latin or have Latin roots
  …which means that more people Today speak a language with Roman origin than any other language (!)
  …Law, medical and sciene terms – all Latin
  …Roman planet names
  …Roman month names
  …Roman boys and girls names

Metrics which I would NOT consider as viable or useful are:

• % of the world’s land area or total square kilometers conquered:
  Because conquering empty deserts and forests is not an achievement. Holding those is not an achievement either since there is no one to protect these territories from. An achievement is if you can conquer and hold strongly populated and civilized areas over a long time. So area percentage or area in absolute numbers is not a helpful empire success indicator in my opinion.

• Number of battles/wars won, as these usually do not matter because these rarely decide the fate of an Empire. As described above, what matters is the actual result (civilized area conquered and held) combined with the kill-to-loss ratio of the army.

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ

GDP and overall wealth level:
I would argue that the Romans were far ahead compared to any other civilization at the time, like at least 10-20x ahead. GDP maybe 2-3x than that of their neighbours and luxury levels like 100-1000x than that of their neighbours (speaking about public bathes with heated floors, alimony for children, equaducts, public roads etc.)

We’d have to compare with China on this one. I’d like to see something on it.

Also, their empire was bordering water, mountains and desert for the most part. So not has hard to defend.

They also attacked disparate tribes, not countries of similar technological level. Not messed too much with the Persians.
That’s the big problematic thing in comparing.

Cause what they did was similar to the Europeans colonizing remote lands of unorganized technologically behind people.

Also, travel took forever, everything was slower, the hegemonic powers get replaced faster and faster.

In the last 30 years we got internet. We didn’t have satellites 80 years ago. They didn’t evolve that much beside getting richer and switching to stone buildings.

Time moves faster, wars are shorter and deadlier. More empty space on their side.

The casualty rates are increasing at every war even if just based on conditioning and overriding the empathy of soldiers.

They couldn’t organize a defense or communicate easily. Not like the others even wrote anything.

How many metropolis did the Roman have ? Mostly empty space they barely controlled or cared for

[JAAJ]

@Dr_Manhattan

Cause what they did was similar to the Europeans colonizing remote lands of unorganized technologically behind people.

Isn’t being technologically advanced an achievement in the first place?

Don’t all the “wins” and achievements in the end mostly come down to the level of technological advancement compared to other civiliations during the same time?

Technological advancement requires open mindedness, inventiness, rational thinking, planning, organizing, execution, maintaining, motivating humans etc.

@Dr_Manhattan

Also, travel took forever, everything was slower

That makes it even more of an achievement for the Romans, because they did all that without proper maps. The Romans overcame the “slow pace” of their times by building stone roads (that even last to this day).

All technological advancement needs to be looked at in comparison to the technoligcal advancment of the other competitive states at that time.

PS:
The only reasons Europeans were able to colonize other countries is because of tech advantage (war ships, guns, cannons, medicine). They also brought European diseases with them that viped out up to 90% of the local populations before combat would even happen…