Lest We Forget
(from D. R. Ranshaw) You know, there’s a great scene in John Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur that is very germane to the topic I want to touch on today. (Excalibur’s script drew largely from Sir Thomas Malory’s epic poem Le Morte d’Arthur, written in 1485 AD, which deals with the life and death of the legendary King Arthur.)
In the scene, Arthur’s knights have all just assembled following their victories over the last barbarian tribes still opposing them. It’s a heady moment for the knights, because it marks the culmination of all their endeavours to unite Britain under a single king — Arthur — and to bring an end to the bloody chaos and barbarism that have endured for centuries in Britain after the Romans withdrew their legions and stabilizing influence. So, knights being knights — i.e. a little rough around the edges — their exuberance overflows. Just a tad. And Merlin, Arthur’s wizard and seer extraordinaire, gets jostled around. Just a bit. Which is probably not the smartest thing the knights described above could do. (J.R.R Tolkien has a character in The Lord of the Rings dispense this little pithy gem of advice about wizards to Frodo: ‘do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.’ Oh, yeah. Indeed.)
So, in line with that, Boorman’s Merlin does not take kindly to this jostling. He sends a jet of flame roaring from the tip of his staff and swings it menacingly ‘round the circle of overexcited knights, warning them to shut the hell up and pay attention. Or words to that effect. This is what he actually says:
STAND BACK! Be silent! Be still!… That’s it… and look upon this moment. Savour it! Rejoice with great gladness! Great gladness! Remember it always… for you are joined by it. You are One… under the stars. Remember it well, then… this night, this great victory. So that in the years ahead, you can say, ‘I was there… that night… with Arthur… the King!’ For it is the doom of men that they forget.
Nice little speech, delivered with great panache by Nicol Williamson, who played Merlin. And that last line is truly great. It’s almost a throwaway, but if you pay close attention to it, I think you’ll agree, it’s a gem.
For it is the doom of men that they forget.
Yesterday was November 11th, which in Canada is Remembrance Day. In the USA, it’s Veterans’ Day. In the UK, it’s Armistice Day. And so on. In all cases, it’s a day when we remember the end of that terrible conflict, the First World War. (And, of course, later on we tacked on the Second World War. And Korea. And… sigh. Our propensity to add to the list seems woefully endless.)
The young man poised confidently — perhaps even jauntily — in the picture above for the camera, is my maternal grandfather, Robert Francis Clews. He was a corporal in the Royal Artillery, and was a professional soldier… not a conscript who enlisted in the first heady days of the Great War, as the 1914-18 conflict came to be known. He was in the first wave of British troops dispatched to France after war broke out in August of 1914… a war that left many politicians (…and civilians… and soldiers…) scratching their heads over just how the assassination of the heir to the crumbling Austro-Hungarian empire could ignite a conflagration that would engulf not just continental Europe, but many countries in the rest of the world as well.
Those first British soldiers who traversed the English Channel in August 1914 were called the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), although the German Kaiser Wilhelm had another name for them: he called them ‘that contemptible little army,’ a name the survivors proudly adopted, as veterans of the BEF called themselves ‘the Old Contemptibles.’
I never actually knew my grandfather very well. He and my grandmother came over to Canada to visit us twice, if memory serves, the first time when I was four and the second when I was nine, and we visited them in England once when I was 11. Then he died, very suddenly and unexpectedly, a couple of years later. What I chiefly remember about him is a rather stern old man who was not particularly easy to talk to as a young child, and I regret that, because I’m sure it would have been very rewarding to have gotten better acquainted with him. However, I do remember him. Especially on November 11th. I look at the two World War One medals of his I inherited, hanging in their frame on the wall of our family room, and I look at the picture of the young man at the top of this entry, and I wonder what was going through his mind when the picture was taken. And I remember.
So why do we remember? Because we need to. Because it is the doom of men that they forget… and they shouldn’t. They mustn’t. Because, to quote the famous philosopher George Santayana, ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ 100 years after the First World War, and only 73 years after its much more terrible younger sibling, the Second World War, we’re seeing so many of the awful ideas and beliefs and populist dogmas that caused those conflicts springing up yet again. It’s like we’ve already forgotten.
So we remember. We must. We cannot forget.
Or we’re truly doomed.
Oriskany
(Caption Artwork) Detail from the painting “Oneidas at Oriskany. Here is Oneida warrior Han Yerry with his wife Tyonajanegen (Two Kettles Together), fighting as his wife loads his guns. The Oneida Indian Nation commissioned this painting to commemorate their part in this most horrific battle. In a nutshell, it’s the Patriot militia and the Oneidas fighting the British, Loyalists, Hessians, and Indian Allies.
DON TROIANI ART PRINTS, GO TO : https://artofdontroiani.com/
Under the command of Brigadier-General Nicholas Herkimer, the American relief column came up the Mohawk Valley and initially consisted of approximately 800 militiamen and between 60 and 100 Oneida warriors. In response to news of the column’s advance, Brigadier-General Barry St. Leger dispatched a force of roughly 500 men under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Johnson to intercept them. Most of Johnson’s force were Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Mississaugas warriors led by Sayenqueraghta, Cornplanter, and Joseph Brant.
Johnson’s men successfully ambushed Herkimer’s column in a small valley about 6 miles (10 km) east of Fort Stanwix, near the Oneida village of Oriska. The British victory cost the Americans approximately 465 dead, wounded, or captured, while Johnson’s force suffered only 93 men killed, wounded, or captured. Herkimer was also mortally wounded. The morale of Britain’s Indigenous allies was damaged when they discovered that an American sortie from Fort Stanwix had looted their camp during the battle. This was a contributing factor in Leger’s decision to abandon the siege two weeks later.
The battle also marked the beginning of a civil war among the Iroquois, as Oneida warriors under Louis Cook and Han Yerry aligned with the Patriot cause, as did the Tuscarora. As the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga were allied with the Loyalist cause, this led to armed conflict between the two factions. The battle’s location is known in Iroquois oral histories as “A Place of Great Sadness” and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. A monument at the Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site marks it.
Above: From left to right, we have a Loyalist soldier of the “King’s Royal Regiment of New York”, A Hesse Hanau Jager (a German riflemen), and some Natives fighting for the British. The Oneida Indian Nation commissioned this painting to commemorate their part in this most horrific battle. In a nutshell, it’s the Patriot militia and the Oneidas fighting the British, Loyalists, Hessians, and Indian Allies.
Slaves
“Wolves/Raiders of the Mohawk Valley”, by Don Trioiani. The painting wound up with two titles. Here are two women taken during the attack while the raiders enjoy the spoils.
Even though it’s politically incorrect to speak of it, the Indian tribes (all Indian tribes) took captives/slaves. Usually, they were women of childbearing age (breeders) or young men who could replace warriors fallen in combat or killed by diseases that ravaged the tribes. They fought wars, called mourning wars among themselves as well, to replenish the ranks.
Viking Evolution
Don’t forget the 1066 invasion of England and the subsequent conquest…
Yes, I know that the Muslims run England now, but there was a time when they didn’t.
Medieval Rus
Many people still confuse medieval Rus’ (Ruthenia) with modern Russia, but they are not the same — not historically, politically, or culturally. Rus’ (also known as Kyivan Rus’ or Ruthenia) was the name of the ancient state founded in Kiev in the 9th century by a Scandinavian dynasty of Rurikids (Igor and Olga — Ingvarr and Helga in Old Norse — were the founding couple). It was one of the most developed European powers of its time: a Christianized, literate, and trade-rich civilization that connected Byzantium with Northern Europe.
By the year 1100, Kiev was the fourth-largest city in Europe, several times bigger than Paris or London.
Moscow, on the other hand, didn’t even exist until 1147, more than two centuries after Kiev was already a flourishing capital. Its founder, Yuri Dolgorukiy, was a descendant of Kyivan rulers — and his grave is in Kiev, not Moscow. You can literally visit it today. Moscow began as a remote colony of Rus’, a place where Kiev’s royalty sent their least important members to govern what was then considered a wild frontier.
For hundreds of years, the territory around Moscow was known as Moskovia (Muscovy). It had a very different history and political trajectory. After being conquered by the Mongols in 1237, Muscovy remained a vassal of the Golden Horde and later of the Crimean Khanate for over 450 years, paying tribute and adopting much of the political culture, administrative structure, and even vocabulary of its steppe overlords.
Only in the early 1700s, under Peter I, did Muscovy rename itself the “Russian Empire”, deliberately appropriating the name Rus’ and its history to create the illusion of continuity. This was a political rebranding — not a historical fact.
There is no direct political ancestry between modern Russia and Kievan Rus’. Moscow was a Rus’ colony for less than a century before living under foreign domination for over four centuries. If anything, its autocracy, militarism, and imperial expansion reflect the legacy of the Golden Horde far more than the democratic traditions and European orientation of ancient Rus’.
The truth is simple but important: Kiev, not Moscow, is the cradle of Eastern Slavic civilization. Ukraine, not Russia, is the rightful heir of Rus’.
The Tax Structure
A principle of “no deductions or credits anywhere” sounds clean and fair in theory, but in practice, it would kneecap the very industries that build the country’s physical backbone. Tax deductions for things like intangible drilling costs or depletion allowance aren’t handouts; they’re timing adjustments that recognize reality.
Industrial companies, especially in energy and heavy manufacturing, often spend millions or even billions of dollars for years before generating any revenue. Exploration, permitting, equipment, and site development are all upfront costs that may not pay off for a decade.
Allowing companies to deduct those costs isn’t special treatment; it’s how the tax code avoids punishing long-term capital investment. If we stripped away those deductions, the result wouldn’t be “low rates and fairness.” It would be less exploration, fewer refineries, and a sharp drop in domestic energy and manufacturing investment.
The companies with the deepest pockets would survive, but smaller and mid-size producers—the ones that keep competition and innovation alive- would vanish. The deductions aren’t loopholes; they’re the difference between a capital-intensive economy that builds things and a purely financial one that trades them.
Bullet Points:
** Zoltan told his people: “Oh, and uh, one more thing,” Mamdani said toward the end of his video post. “Remember how I told you a few months ago to stop sending us money? You can start again. This transition requires staff, research, and an infrastructure that can meet this moment, and it will be made possible by the people who built and believe in this movement. So I hope you will make a generous donation.” Somebody always has to pay. And Mamdani’s asking for you to do it.
** APEC is one of the few spaces where Taiwan still shows up, so when Japan treats Taiwan like a regular participant, Beijing freaks out like a jealous ex who just saw you on a date.
China’s reaction? The usual copy-paste outrage: “Serious violation… gross interference… solemn protest…” But here’s the irony — China can’t afford to lose Japan right now. The PRC’s economy is tanking, and Asia is quietly hedging against Beijing.
Watching China “lecture” Japan on diplomacy is like a bankrupt man scolding his neighbor for buying lunch. Meanwhile, Taiwan handled it with class. Lin said it was “very normal” for Taiwan to meet other APEC participants. No drama. Taiwan didn’t even need to provoke China. Its very existence as a functioning democracy is the ultimate provocation. Because the truth is, every time a leader meets Taiwan, every time a democracy says “we’ll talk to whoever we want,” China loses a little more of its imaginary control.
** Why did Senate Democrats hold the line for 40 days during the recent government shutdown before finally buckling? The crux: it wasn’t just brinkmanship for the thrill of it. The Democrats were determined to shield their marquee legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and specifically the expanding, emergency-style taxpayer subsidies that undergird its viability. Behind the shutdown drama lay a deeper calculus: rising insurance premiums (nearly 30 % in one year alone), the looming expiration of emergency subsidies at the end of 2025, and the fear that without a fresh infusion of federal funds, the ACA would begin unraveling on the Democrats’ watch. In short, the shutdown was less about an epiphany over deficits or process, and more about political risk management. That is, can a party whose identity is anchored in a landmark health-care program afford to let that program fall apart? So they held out, hard, until the pain of the shutdown built up—and then they folded, one might say reluctantly but pragmatically.
Identify the Ship
1
2
Getting the class will be close enough, unless you’re extra ambitious.
3
She didn’t always look like that.
4, 5, 6
This may be a tough one, but you have two photos and three ships.
Veteran’s Day Bonus ID: 7
You get a hint: Known as “Old Funny Fins” or “Daniel Dumpster”
Parting Shot
AOC and Zoltan
End
3 is H M S Cumberland a County class cruiser 1928 to 1978.
Yes, and in the photo, she’s more or less de-milled.
1 – USS Chicago
2 – USS Raleigh – Raleigh-class amphibious transport dock
3 – British Royal Navy HMS Cumberland
4 – Japanese Navy Fubuki class destroyer Sagiri
5 – Japanese Navy Nagato
6 – Japanese Navy Mutsu
7 – USS Daniel Webster
SLAP! Well done, ML Thomas!
Identify the Ship:
1. USS Chicago (CG-11)
2. USS Raleigh (LPD-1)
3. HMS Cumberland
4/5. IJN Nagato and Mutsu
6. A Fubuki class destroyer, perhaps Sagiri
7. USS Daniel Webster (SSBN-626)
Of course, the shutdown also lasted until the election to motivate leftist voters.
If the Dems caved earlier, and were seen as sellouts, as they are today, many leftist voters would have stayed home out of frustration.
“Leverage”
Their latest operative word. Disgusting, but somehow gets a free pass.
Have I told you I hate politics, mainly because of this kind of baloney, let alone every single one of them lie with the ease in which we breathe (h/t Prager).
Shut down.
Long game prepping for the mid-terms. Bad strategy, IMO, not being a leftist.
There are two additional reasons the Dems caved now.
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Next week and the following week are the big food shopping days for Thanksgiving. And the Dems realized that keeping the Shutdown going was seriously going to impact those sales, and the impact would be on them and not the Republicans and Trump.
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The second reason is that after Day 61, all furloughs can become permanent firings. And which party would be most affected? Well, the Dems, of course, which make up a significant portion of the federal workforce.
Yes, their perceived losses exceeded any possible gain and the Republicans could have repealed the filibuster, which would have lasting impact at least until the mid-terms, which are not guaranteed to reverse the majority in either house.
Not nearly as funny as the Daniel Webster; On Vet’s Day, I’m reminded of the Naval airship Acron’s 73 crew members and passengers that lost their lives on its 73rd flight, 4.4.1933. Features included “aircraft carrier” capacities and an infamous “spy basket.” A fuselage with no wings. The whole dirigible experiment, with one craft actually logging a million miles is a nearly forgotten era of high risk flying.
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Back to subs; how often do the nuclear powered vessels need waste / rods, cells changed out? The question relates to future grid structures possible with SMR’s. If it’s safe for this source of power 100’s of fathoms under water or large ships, AND if cost effective; will campuses, bases, and communities be allowed this “independent” power source en mass ?
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h/t for the underline spell check feature. I deserve an F yesterday, trying harder!
About the reactors on subs and such.
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For years, I’ve been puzzled over why we don’t have the reactors used on aircraft carriers widely spread around like you say: campuses, bases, and communities. The advantage of these is that they have a National Stock Number, and a production system that makes everything. Everything from design to the production team exists, we “just” crank up production (yeah, I know “just crank up production” isn’t that easy). Navy reactors have a perfect safety record. The only disadvantage is aircraft carriers have the entire ocean as cooling water, and we’d have to supply cooling water to them.
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The latest and largest model reactor in an aircraft carrier appears to be the A4W, capable of 104 Mega Watts (MW) each; two of these powerplants go into a Nimitz-class “supercarrier”. How much power is 104 MW? A typically sized American house probably consumes, at peak, in the vicinity of 20 kW. 104,000/20 is 5200 homes, which says a residential town of around 15,000 people could be powered by one of these reactors. In reality, you rarely run your house at full capacity, so more houses could run on one of these reactors. Two of these reactors, the complement on a Nimitz, could power a town of 10,000 homes.
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I know our host is in the SMR biz, and this may be a moderately obscene idea.
just a simple thought (between eye drops):
somehow I remember seeing a “huge” ocean of water (coolant) running from Buffalo, NY to Green Bay, WI and Chicago, IL; might be able to power the entire mid-West – and then some.
of course bird killers off the Mass coast are a far bettter use of our energy dollars (I would really like to know who made $$$ off that ridiculous Middle Ages scam)
we. my country, the United States of America, have huge heat sinks: the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of America to run these reactors to power towns/homes along our coasts
someone please tell me: where the h*ll are our brains – are we sitting on them?
Windmills – Please!
For years, I’ve been puzzled over why we don’t have the reactors used on aircraft carriers widely spread
Because that would obviously work. Then the environmentalists who want humanity living in caves could no longer agitate to shut down the greatest contribution to radioactive pollution in the atmosphere, coal powerplant smoke.
Some SMRs could use light water (regular water), but why? The Arizona reactor complex at Palo Verde uses wastewater from Phoenix – light water reactor.
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CANDU – Canadian-designed nuclear reactor that uses heavy water as both a coolant and moderator, allowing it to use natural uranium as fuel instead of enriched uranium. This design enables them to be refueled while operating at full power, and they are used for electricity generation in Canada and other countries like China, India, Argentina, Romania, and South Korea. Their key features include pressure tubes instead of a single large pressure vessel and the ability to use natural uranium, which reduces fuel costs and eliminates the need for enrichment facilities.
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The more advanced SMRs use liquid sodium or liquid graphite as a moderator. They’re low-pressure reactors. All of them have advantages, but these moderators don’t require water. They’re completely self-contained.
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Naval reactors have the availability of inexhaustible supplies of salt water that acts as a coolant. In some cases, they have a liquid sodium moderator (enriched uranium in a low-pressure system).
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My point is that there are a number of options when looking at modern nuclear generators.
I’m surprised that the subs don’t leave a thermal trail.
Depth tends to dissipate any trace of that. The old Russian boats used to leave a radioactive trace.
I think the hull and propulsion hydrodynamics are
built to mask the thermal trail through dispersion,
etc.
– Kle.
Rigid airships work, until they don’t. What doomed the giants was that they were giants. Weather at the front of the airships could be radically different at the rear of the airships. Which, of course, was death to the giants. Pert near every one of them died because of differing weather conditions bow to stern.
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Especially in the United States, because our weather tends to be more… frisky and changeable than other places.
Always loved airships, especially the Akron and Macon.
Biggest problem with those ships was their extremely low
max altitude of about 5000 feet. Overall length was almost 1/5
of max altitude…
– Kle.
Well I learned a couple things.
USS Chicago. Only got that ID because my mother’s brother served a hitch aboard her as a cook. He shipped out from Long Beach in January of 1946.
No, no, no, LL. Britain is run by clowns.
And in other news, Trump is about to take the BBC down. I’m quite happy about this because that will save me £15 a month license fee.
Why is your television licensed and taxed by the government? Is there any other place in the Free World that does that?
So they can control the content and spin (eg. The despicable Caroline Flack media approach to tabloid journalism, which isn’t journalism at all but propaganda for money, coupled to a complicit and corrupt police inquiry that lied. No one goes to jail for lying and fabricating, but she’s dead from despair.)
Only the Brits, that I know of, but probably elsewhere, too.
I remember when I was in the United Kingdom for some four years, many years ago, I had a television. Never paid the licence fee. Had the television set in the corner of the lounge room which backed on to the neighbours lounge room where they had their set. My thought was that, since the two sets were so close together, if the detector van cruised past they would think it was only one set (I knew the neighbours paid their licence fee). Dn’t know if it worked or not, but never had anyone knocking on my door.
I didn’t pay the tax either when I lived in Old Blighty some years ago. My justification for not paying it was more on moral grounds than on any other basis. I was quite surprised to find that it’s still in effect. A person came to my door – I think it was in Edinburgh demanding that I pay the fee. I came out of the door, backed up by ferocious 62 Commando friends and they drove away, discretion being the better part of valor.
Juliette, you’re still paying the commie TV tax?!? I have to agree with LL.
Talking about 1066, there is a cconection between Kiev and Harald Hardradi(the hard) who was a Norwegian who as a young man escaped with his life to Constantinople where he was involved with the imperial guard. He ended up marrying the daughter of the prince of Kiev who backed his return to Norway and his later attempt to invade England in 1066 and was defeated by the English king who then had to force March his army to meet the threat of Willian the conqueror where he was defeated. Rather first invasion weakened the English army and helped William win.
Talking about 1066, there is a cconection between Kiev and Harald Hardradi(the hard) who was a Norwegian who as a young man escaped with his life to Constantinople where he was involved with the imperial guard. He ended up marrying the daughter of the prince of Kiev who backed his return to Norway and his later attempt to invade England in 1066 and was defeated by the English king who then had to force March his army to meet the threat of Willian the conqueror where he was defeated. Rather first invasion weakened the English army and helped William win.
>There is no direct political ancestry between modern Russia and Kievan Rus
Fair enough. But what deep connection is there; what kinship, what shared ties of history and culture and blood, are there between the rulers of the current nation-state of Ukraine, and the Kievan Rus? Or putting aside history, what connection with the average Slavic Ukrainian on the street, for that matter?
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>Our propensity to add to the list [of foreign wars] seems woefully endless.
Can we at least try to get only into wars that are in the interests of “SPQA” and not solely in the interests of what goes by many names, but let’s call it “The Money Power”?
We should have drained Iraq of oil when we had the opportunity.
So we remember. We must. We cannot forget.
Or we’re truly doomed.
IMHO: we’re truly doomed.
As a veteran who volunteered (and would gladly do so again), as long as the politicians (whose sons never seem to make to the front lines) keep beating the drums; as long as the ammo manufacturers (whose sons never seem to make to the front lines) build up new stocks making gazillions of $$$; as long as the young sheep (remember: I BAA too) see our flag as a symbol of something that must be defended (whether or not it’s threatened by goat-sucking ” naked natives on foreign shores) war will continue.
just my pain-med-induced view.
a war that left many politicians (…and civilians… and soldiers…) scratching their heads over just how the assassination of the heir to the crumbling Austro-Hungarian empire could ignite a conflagration that would engulf not just continental Europe, but many countries in the rest of the world as well.
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English king and German king, cousins, meet at their age’s version of Bilderberger. After gambling and drinking and wenching, one says to the other, I’ll tell my subjects you’re attacking me, and you tell your subjects I’m attacking you. Then we’ll both be war kings and more powerful and popular, and we can get away with killing off those successful and ambitious challengers from the middle class.
Yeah, it worked.
> the difference between a capital-intensive economy that builds things and a purely financial one that trades them.
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This is probably the most important idea in a post full of ideas. Finance capitalism is the death of our civilization. So much for actual continued improvements in wealth, quality of life, greater/healthier lifespan, etc. Because we aren’t prioritizing making (or even maintaining) stuff, but rather “trading” symbols, while “The Money Power” takes a slice off of the top of every transaction. Over time, the slices accrue geometrically, and somehow we end up with the same tiny under 1% of the population owning 90% of everything. Is finance necessary? Of course it is for any even reasonably advanced civilization, but it, and those who control the system, should not be our masters.
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And as to cousin kings pulling one over on the rest of the world, if only. The flower of England and of Germany was worse than decimated by WWI. Did the admittedly inbred traditional European nobility come out of WWI stronger? Quite the opposite. But the finance types did very very well. And the real winners of WW2 were not the Allies. WW2, or rather the legal maneuverings and manufactured mythology after WW2, vastly strengthened their vile grip on the power they were beginning to openly accrue post-WW1.
If you’d like to watch a good movie (IMHO) regarding colonial/Indian warfare, might I suggest Love and Courage, the Battle of Bushy Run. Free on TUBI.
Trump said he’ll probably sue the BBC like he did 60 Minutes. $1B.
The BBC said they’ll just up the License/Tax on the public to cover the cost of paying President Trump.
The various historical battles where large groups of troops on the march get destroyed in ambushes is fascinating. One would think scouts, recon so on locate large ambush groups. One can grasp not finding a handful of snipers but hundreds of aggressors is a different scenario. Roman’s at Teutoburg forest, Braddock crossing the Monongahela in Pennsylvania and the Oriskany NY are good examples.
*
Great artwork the last few days.
Part of the problem pre-portable radio is, well, no radio. In a tight woods full of brush, poplar or lodge-pole pine, visual distance and sound distance is minimal. Forests can suck up sound like crazy, or amplify like crazy. Moving a large group through and it’s hard for scouts to actually scout (Ask the Romans about the Teutoberg Forest…) and respond and relay intel.
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Any whistles or bugles or loud calls or gunshots as signals were contraindicated, of course.
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Portable radio and now sat-nav and sat-com are a Godsend to the modern fighter.
The Indian contingents were ambush fighters almost always. There is a shock value to it and it worked much of the time.
Me? Even though the last infographic’s disturbing, I hope 47 sues the BBC into oblivion.
Happy Veterans Day, shipmate.
Ah, the Normans. ‘Given’ the lands that became Normandy (land of the North men) by Charles the Simple (Stupid) who really had control over those lands on parchment only, not in reality, in 911AD and by 914AD were fulfilling their requirements for tithes and payments to the French Crown.
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Their entry into Italy and Sicily was blocked by the locals, the Byzantines and the muslems (often hired by the Byzantines as mercenaries.) The Normans did the logical thing and conquered and married into the locals.
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Oftentimes the Normans were outnumbered and won after ‘white cloaked knights came and joined them for the final fight and then rode away.’ Almost like God himself wanted the Normans to win.
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The Normans brought the Romanesque Renaissance to France, and initiated a religious renaissance also.
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Their adoption of the couched lance (held under the arm) while also using the traditional held over the shoulder stance (easier to stab down into infantry) made them shock cavalry and gave them ability to smash even the French King’s army.
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The miracle of the Norman Conquest of England is that they were ready to go earlier in summer but a massive storm came and damaged and sunk many of the ships needed. Repairs and replacement forced the Normans to go later, which meant they arrived after the Norwegians under Harald attacked northern England (and ending up dead at Stamford Bridge.) The Normans landed in southern England and moved north and met Harold Godwinson’s army at Hastings and, well, by Christmas William was crowned King of England. All because a horrid storm stopped the Normans from arriving when they wanted to.
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Norman history is full of these ‘coincidences’ and odd occurrences. Their first big battle in the First Crusade has been partially attributed to Normans preferring male horses (that were stuck on ships way too long) and the muslims preferring mares. So, yes, horny (think Marines) horses landing in a foreign land and lots of good looking females running around and, whoohoooo!!!!
The Arabs preferred horse archery to the Norman heavy horse lance charge. There is something about heavily armored riders knee to knee riding into you that is very disconcerting.
It shakes the land and the heart.
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Been the target of thundering herds of armored beasts in the SCA. Feeling the land bounce is a rather interesting moment. But it never, probably due to its less-than-lethal nature, struck fear into me. I saw people around me get scared, but apparently it made me smile a weird grin. I had guys come up to me after pounding and stomping me into the ground and comment that they’ve never seen someone smile and laugh while getting dogpiled. Eh.
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Not that I want to find out for real.
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Arabs also prefer hit-and-run and slashing attacks. Which mares are very good for. Stallions are good for power charges. Light cavalry vs Heavy cavalry. There is a difference. If the Heavy can make contact the Light dies. The Light, being light, can maneuver to avoid contact. It’s what the Mongols excelled at, except they had their own Heavy cavalry to smash their enemies in the side with. The Arabs gave up heavy shock cavalry, something the Medes and Persians excelled in.