But you knew that.
Battles?
I've only got a couple of battles left that interest me. Sometime in the autumn - probably September - I'm going to work up the 1683 Battle (and Siege) of Vienna, the High Water Mark of the Ottoman Empire.
In June I think I may do Cynoscephalae, the 197BC encounter that put paid to the phalanx for the next 1500-odd years until the Swiss reengineered it.
July will be the naval Battle of Hansan Island, one of Admiral Yi Sun-sin's many asswhippings that convinced Imperial Japan to leave the Hermit Kingdom alone (at least, until it didn't...). I might also do something on the Battle of Talas River, the 751CE engagement that may (or may not) have helped check the Tang China influence in Central Asia and may (or may not) have helped strengthen the Abbasid Caliphate. Good tale full of treachery and intrigue.
October is probably going to be Sekigahara, just because I'm a huge Kurosawa fanboi and I loves me some classic samurai sword-and-geta epic. I may also do the Battle of Buxar, the fight that solidified the John Company hold on India after Plassey.
November? معركة القادسيّة, al-Qadisiyyah, 636CE, the fall of Sassanid Persia and the real beginning of the Rashidun and, later, the Abbasid Caliphate.
Later this month I'm FINALLY going to get around to doing the next part of the Chaco War. Seriously. Promise.
I've only got a handful of "The Army I Knew" posts left, mostly because they're just largely Reserve and Guard stories of the late Eighties and Nineties and the early Oughts, and, as such, not nearly as much fun as my regular Army tales. I've tried to think up any Tales from The Sinai I may have forgotten but I think you've got them all...
Plus the usual ash-and-trash. I've been busy writing soccer for Slide Rule Pass, so that won't show up here, but I suspect that I'll have some Portland material just because...well, it's Portland and I love Portland. Or Oregon, and I'm proud to be a Beaver, too...
Any other suggestions? I'm willing to discuss.
Hope all here are enjoying a good 2017!
9 comments:
Shanghai, 1861, and the Society of God Worshipers
The Changmao, the Coolie Kings? Fascinating period, and huge in the history of Asia.
Let me look at the history, but I think you're right and that'd be a good example from that timestream...
Fantastic selection, can't wait to read them.
Have you done anything on the 30 years war? The other conflict period that always piques my curiousity is renaissance Italy - mercanry armies hired by city states to seize land from neighbors, ensuring a return on investors funds, also fueling a military technology bubble etc etc...
I can understand why you might not be in a real hurry to finish with the Chaco War. It's really hard to find a war that's more depressing, outside of automated corpse factories like the Peloponnesian War War, the 30 Years' War, and WW I.
I would so love to see your writeup of Cynoscephalae! I'm still trying to wrap my brain around just how, almost a century before the Marian reforms, the Romans managed to smash what was considered previously to be the absolute best military organization in the entire Mediterranean Basin.
Same goes for Hansan Island. Yi Sun-sin has got to be one of the most underappreciated commanders in history.
I wonder if you've thought of writing up the Hukbalahap Insurrection. I chanced across a US Army history of that one a few years back, and was stupid enough not to make a local copy. The way I read that, either Ramon Magsasay, his US advisor, or the pair of them, seem to have been authentic geniuses. Real "political generals" in the absolute best sense of the term, making tactics serve an achievable set of strategic goals from start to finish. And I've wondered since, just how much of that is true.
I did Pavia some time ago, for me the classic "Italian Wars" fight; medieval meets modernity, treachery, heroism, and tactical cunning head-on with utter battlefield derpitude. And the whole thing ends up being, effectively, meaningless because battlefield success isn't followed up with diplomatic initiative. Fun read, but not really a great teaching/learning tool...
I'd be interested in the Huks just to learn more of the period; not familiar with it and the PI fighting moulded a lot of the guys who led the U.S. Army into WW1. Good idea; thanks!
Or in the Huks' case, Vietnam...
Before doing anything else, change your diapers and invest in a pacifier. Your shitting yourself and whining about Trump is soiling the internet.
Too bad that this schmuck was probably a driveby.
So he probably never got to find out that he'd taken a knife to a gunfight.
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