'Small War': Battles Were a Rare Exception in War
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
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Battles were less common than often supposed. Military historians, influenced by the 19th century big shots like Hans Delbrück or Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman, looked mainly at major battles. Recent scholarship in contrast stresses the relative rarity of major field engagements. According to the expert for Napoleonic warfare Rory Muir “the great majority of armed clashes were partial combats between detached forces, advance and rearguards and the like, rather than pitched battles between the main bodies of opposing armies […].” One particularly important but often overlooked aspect of early-modern warfare is the so-called small war. This term refers to low-intensity warfare which took place daily in territories surrounding contested frontiers, sieges, and battles. Skirmishing patrols seizing provisions and animals, raiding parties burning down villages and crops to deny them to the enemy, and small warbands destroying production facilities - all this goes under the umbrella term of small war. The expression is, however, misleading insofar that the scale small war was waged on was anything but small. According to the historian Simon Pepper it almost certainly provided the primary experience of war for many soldiers of the early modern period In this Video we are going to explore how modern historiography describes small war and have a look at some illustrating examples.
Patreon (thank you): / sandrhomanhistory
Bibliography
Muir, Rory, Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon, p. 7. New Haven /
London 1998.
Pepper, Simon, Operational Art: Communication, Cannon, Small War, in: Tallet, Frank/Trim, D. J. B. (Ed.), European Warfare 1350-1750, Cambridge 2010.
Satterfield, G. Princes, Posts and Partisans. The Army of Louis XIV and Partisan Warfare in the Netherlands 1673-1678, Leiden and Boston 2003.
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Just wondering, is this where the concept of "Guerilla (spanish for little war🤔) Warfare originated?
Gorilla warfare 😉
too bad they only take credit cards, otherwise I'd be on board
A history of weapons is not available in my country, apparently lol rip
Small Wars are a way of life in Calradia.
bannerlord less so then warband
So is Drinking from your Skull.
Away with you vile begger.
*The village has been looted. A handful of souls scatter as you pass through the burnt out houses.*
You can keep your small wars. Just give me my butter.
If only nations put their villagers in the town center on time
If they only would have used the bell....
@@AGS363 bell is a noob mistake, they should have microed better
What is going on.
@@masv1pe694 age of empires jokes
@@dukeragereaver2208 it wouldn’t be a bad total war joke either. I like the flexibility of the statement lol
"peasants who raid the highways are based"
- Gian Giacomo Medici
Based and peasantpilled
Robin in da hood
Peasants are always based
From the Sanfedisti, Tyroleans and even the Maoists and the Vietcong, peasants will be based.
A part that's overlooked a lot in pop culture. Ironic when you consider how pop culture also likes to focus on a small band of "heroes", because it could emphasize raids on supply lines/protecting supply lines while highlighting the role of a handful of characters.
Everything you said. 👍🏼
pop culture is just shitty in general tbh
Not quite as glamorous as fighting in a big pitched battle, and it's a bit harder to view the protagonist as a hero when he's looting villages.
@@ingold1470 Vikings have a monestary or five to discuss with you.
Yea. Its hard to make the "good" side look good while pillaging and raping...
everytime one hears "an army living of the land" as napoleon often did, it meant pillage, large-scale pillaging
Depends if you are in your own land or on an enemy one
@@alexmag342 yeah, but in your own country, you can buy food more easily, most of the time, by the way, are you Portuguese?
and that happened due to low supplies too,it's not like the looted things everyday.
@@maximilianolimamoreira5002 i'm quite sure that one of the main job descriptors of the Hussars and other light troops was "foraging" for the army, and i doubt that they picked berries to do that
Edited, and still so poor orthography ...
The 17th century novel Simplicissimus follows the life of an ordinary soldier doing these things and does it rather well. It's worth reading.
Da li je prevedena i na nasem jeziku?
@@aleksapetrovic6519 Jeste tebra, ja sam je čitao za faks. Uzeh je iz biblioteke germanistike u Beogradu, ali je dosta star prevod a prestara knjiga, tako da verovatno možeš da nađeš na internetu pdf džabe
Osim toga ja imam video od 2 sata gde sam prepricao i analizirao celu knjigu. Prosto jer mi se svidjala.
ua-cam.com/video/9UTe0c10Zo8/v-deo.html
@@nebojsag.5871 Hej! Czy to serbski? Dużą część mogę zrozumieć. Pozdrawiam ciepło :)
@@user-vr8qd4hk6y Hej! Drago mi je! Pozdrav!
thanks a lot for the recommendation!
Poor ¨Man hugging woman¨ figure, it was attacked by raiders from all time periods
No matter which time period you go, terror always exists in history. A few months ago, and maybe even now, North Ethiopia had Eriterian soldiers enter and they killed and raped Tigrains in massacres. CNN did a pece on them. Very gruesome eye witness accounts. And the yemen civil war rages right now. As well as organ harvesting and mass rapes in Chinese Xianjiang concentration camps. So many humans are dumb, allowing and doing these horrible things. Maybe we all have the ability to be monsters.
I was gonna make a little joke, but wtf are these replies.
Anyways, here's my joke.
"Man hugging woman figure" is the greatest victim of war.
@@skyhappy Sounds horrendous, but can you cite your sources regarding this alleged massacre of Tigreyans by Eritreans in a conflict which if I may say was started by a major attack of the TLF on a major govt military base. This conflict is sparsely covered by MSM and the similaritied between Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine conflict with the Tigray conflict is too obvious to ignore, solidifying my skepticism of the narrative. I cite my sources of info from the recent articles of 2 established geopolitical analysis channels which are the Duran, and Geopolitics in Conflict . I highly recommend both of them. Citing news from CNN does not place you in good light believing them despite its history of proven falsehoods which includes your accusation of industrial level organ theft against China, again just an unsupported statement with no shred of hard evidence. Quite unlike the less publicised involvement of Camp Bondsteal and the KLA and MEK terror group regarding the murder of Serbian POWs and civilian abductions to facilitate the real Industrial level organ theft and sale on the black market. Even the Albanian puppet leader of Kosovo Hachim Thaci has been recently indicted for the crimes, with 4 doctors from NATO countries being charged and incarcerated by the ICC. You can look these facts up for yourself. Don't allow yourself to be made a fool of, question and scrutinise.
@@Kulayyu CNN literally went in and interviewed survivors. They were on the ground.
@@skyhappy Fair enough if they were actually on site, howeverI would suggest having at least two sources at a minimum, from opposite ends of the political factions or at least a neutral source. This allows for more available info to collate, compare, and consider. You also have a deduced outcome or opinion made from your own personal judgement and critical thinking. Isn't that a better method, rather than quickly accepting something they are just relaying from somebody else. I'm not being mean or rude to you with this amusing anecdote during the Portland protest/riots , this is aimed at CNN. Do you recall that black male CNN reporter who was calmly broadcasting on site as well BTW. He was saying that a calm and peaceful protest is all he could observe, however if you look behind him you see people fleeing looting or fighting. Burning cars, and buildings as the main background. It was truly surreal, not merely just a lie, it was a big fat " Pho phuc lie"!
Nice video, makes a lot of good points. I think the Spanish Reconquista is a great example of such small warfare. The constant raiding and counter raids by both sides in this conflict went on for hundreds of years. For the people of Spain it became a way of life really. It honed their martial abilities to such an extent that their armies became simply the best in the world, for a period of time.
Source
Absolutely and this what lead to the tercios and change in tactics which followed .
Often tercios were organised around small towns who forged their martial prowess during the conflict you described .
Spain became an incredible war like society and this directly tied to the conquest of America .
Basically trained soldiers who's way of life since birth was war and they had no enemy anymore and no real opportunities in life in the Extremadura in Spain .
So they went on adventures in the new world with nothing to lose and everyone knows the end of this story .
@@JayzsMr Don´t forget the Almogavars. Literally :" The ones who wage war"
They were mountain and frontier people who organized themselves in order to defend themselves from islamic raids (the word "almogavar" is suposed to be from arab origin), and naturaly evolved by adopting the tacticts and methods of the ones who were atacking them, to the point where the stopped farming or raising kettles, and whent to live exclusively from looting, pillaging, and working as mercenaries, during several generations........
Under the crown of Aragon, they spread terror and devastation through the mediterranean, to the point that in some places, saying "I wish you to be chased by the catalunian vengance" is still a thing (in many of this places they called "catalanoian" all people of the crown of Aragon, the same way we call "yankies" all people from USA, althoug in their country this is usually referred only to people from the north of the country).
And not that the other mayor kingdom in Spain (Castilla) had not his own almogavars, it is only that they were occupied fighting the islamic kingdoms in the spanish peninsula, and didn´t have the oportunity to wage war against other external threads, and get as (in)famous as the ones from the Kingdom of Aragon.......
@@jorgebarriosmur yes and there is a theory that these frontier conditions created the togetherness and cooperation which forged the Spanish empire eventually and all other empires which existed in history .
Earlier in feudalism basically only the nobility fought while the rest were farmers but the frontier created a condition where basically everybody needed to know how to fight . Raids and counter raids between Muslim and christian cities were way too quick for the feudal lord to come down from his castle or for the central authority to react in time . So the towns themselves learned how to fight in tight infantry formations with simple weapons like the spear. But the thing is if you have a tight cohesive infantry the superiority of the knights and mounted warfare falls , horses have no chance against a tight Phalanx head on . This eventually meant the end of feudalism and the rise of the civic societies , the peasants or townspeople didn't need the nobles anymore to defend them which untraveled the basic rules of feudalism. It's not about the tactics but the change in societies which made such tactics possible.
@@JayzsMr Not true. Not only nobles fought, mate, feudal armies also employed levies, mercenaries and a few professionals to fill the ranks. Militias were also a thing before the end of feudalism.
What was different in Spain was the Hidalgo system and the emphasis on mobility.
We are Voland's Venators, the drunken Cavalry!
We cannot march, we cannot fight, what wretched knights are we!
But when we see the enemy, our heads are very clear.
We charge straight for their baggage camp and liberate their gear!
Man I wish more games would simulate this aspect of warfare.
Have you been to Calradia friend?
Planetside 2
You gave Grenzers in empire total war
I just want my total war games to properly implement mixed weapon types for the irregular units like the stradiots mentioned in the video. Nothing more badass than a unit that shoots bows/crossbows and throws javelins like you get in mount and blade
@@meatpuppet5036 100% of the early game lol
Can you do a video on spying and informant networks in the past? That is a very under-covered subject.
Invicta is cureently doing episodes on those topics
Pun intended?
Get it? Under-covered
@@jpheitman1 Perhaps.
I think the word skirmish is a really important word when describing some of the 'battles' in history
Pitched battles might have been rare, but when they happened they were often very decisive for the course of the war.
I've been glad ever since I found your channel and subscribed top notch content mate much appreciated
In Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, the word "krabat" means 'a wild one'/'a big one'/'an unruly *something*', and it comes from the word "Kroat", meaning a Croatian mercenary during the 30-years war in 1618 to 1648.
Eric Flynn 1632 the Ring of fire fortunately unfortunately Mr Flint had passed a few months ago but he had a rich legacy a novels and other books written by other authors that are very interesting as an alternate history fantasy it's really good
Krabat is also the name of a folk hero in Eastern Germany
Simple: you don’t want it to cost too much, big battles cost lives and money
Lives? What lives? I only know Human Resources.
Weeeell, yes and no. It depends on the situation you are in. If the war is mainly fought on your own territory then small war may in fact be far, FAR more costly for you. Especially for an extended period of time.
In such a case, a decisive battle may in fact be the quickest and cheapest solution.
Small war, was the main way of fighting when either you were on the offensive and your lands were safe (and let's say the enemy was already beaten or was avoiding open engagement) or when you were defending against a foe you weren't able to (reliably) beat in the open field so an army was forced to use hit and run tactics.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 and small war was fought beacuse of both side lack of forces to defeat each other in decisive battle like 80 years war and 30
@@kokoczoko3135 Correct. I think these would be the main reasons for employing "small war" aside from its regular occurrence in all military operations/wars.
"big battles cost lives and money"
Nah, they don't. When it comes to lives, they were very cheap. Most of the losses, usually the vast majority of them, even among combat troops, happened elsewhere. Money? They still do not. *Keeping* armies costs money. If you achieve a decisive victory and half of your army dies, you are swimming in gold. Not just because you won, but because you don't even have to pay for it!
It's just that only the stronger force wants a battle. The weaker one will refuse it, so there is no choice other than small war.
Also, during the 30 years war, Sweden would more or less convert all cavalry save one regiment to light cavalry. But the swedish cavalry were equally capable of engaging in cavalry charges as in raids. But the finnish cavalry of the swedish army would become infamous for being extra capable and resilient in the raiding war but still hitting hard on the battlefield. They were called Haakkapeliter, a name that actually comes from the the finnish version of the swedish command "Gå på!" which equals "Charge!" In finnish (I will probably slaughter the finnish words now) Haakan Pällee! translates to something like "Cut them down! but it means the same thing in military command as "Gå på!" Probably one of the last things many of their enemies heard was the officer shouting his final order shortly before or just after they had unleashed their close range pistol volley and now drew steel.
It was the haakapellites that finally drove of the Croats at Lutzen and then regrouped and outflanked Pappenheims heavy kyrassiers which they charged and forced to turn front, thereby giving the hard pressed swedish infantry to the right, the Blue Brigade, time to finally reload and reform and thereby turning turning the tide of battle.
I wonder if the English word "hack" is somehow based on this Finnish war cry.
@@cliffordjensen8064
I doubt it. The English word for cutting something with rough blows has been around for a good while and is very similar to both the Dutch (hakken) and the German (hacken) word - indeed, the Swedish word is also similar to these. The English word has been around well before Swedish commanders ever ordered Finnish cavalry to attack.
Croatian unit called the Uskoks used those tactics for centuries. Hasjduks as well altough they were more like outlaws, bandits.
What the hell is up with the British Isles in that map at 4:40? lol it's like Wales and the south west of England couldn't contain their love for each other and swallowed up the Bristol channel.
Love overcomes all bounds
I don't get why all of it is classed as 'England' instead of Britain
@@danieloakley7190 true, although England was by far the most dominant power
@@danieloakley7190 well if it's a map of the commonwealth then just ha ing England would be acceptable.
I was looking for this comment!
There has always been a large amount of 'Small Warfare' going on since ancient days, you see, it's almost usual for one
army to have a numerical advantage, or a technological advancement, or a resources, terrain, or strategic advantage -
that is nearly always the case, and the meeting of the two 'unequal armies', would nearly for sure result in a loss for
the 'smaller' combatant. Therefor, raiding, skirmishing, scouting, patrolling with small bands of elite soldiers has been
a tried & tested way of securing small victories against a much bigger, richer & powerful enemy. These 'little wars'
have since been registered as being named GUERILLAS (little wars) from the Spanish GUERRA (meaning War), and
the skirmishing & raiding, attacking rear guards & avante guards, attacking supply chains & logistics, and usually
taking away any advantage that the enemy can use, THIS IS CALLED GUERILLA WAREFARE, and it can be said to
be a smaller branch, a smaller scale of the dreaded SCORCHED EARTH POLICY, it is the Small Wars (hit & run jobs)
morphing into the acclaimed GUERILLA WARFARE - many, many small wars together equal Scorched Earth Policy.
It still happens in modern history such as Russian and french partisans , VC guerillas , mujadeen and farc etc
I love all of your videos, and I don't want them to change, but this format of discussing an entire concept, rather than a particular battle, is awesome. I know you've done it before, and I love it, but it's great.
Your animations keep getting better and better!
great content, as always and thanks for posting the sources in every video
Very, very good subject!
And I loved all the examples you used!
Damn I dunno why but I love the music you use. It's...really nice.
Oh yeah and I love your vids, haha
I like how he has minimal music when narrating. I only want to hear his voice. Though less would be better.
Glad to see you posting! Quality content
Love your channel! My favourite!
Very interesting and filling a gap that is critical but rarely treated. Thanks for the great work!
Vlad Dracul: I'm not included.....
By including all examples of small war in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Era this video would last a year not 12 minutes.
No mate but hollywood is probs making another movie about you as we speak
@@kamilszadkowski8864 More like a decade.
Portugal and Spain: We aren't included either, guess 700 years of small war against the Moroccans(moors) doesn't count
Better go raid another village with my village knights
Thank you for this video! This is something I've been interested in recently.
Absolutely great channel my man
The content was good... and I was entertained/humored by the movement/animation of the horses legs.
When we look at the thirties year war and how much it depopulated the German countries, I'd say, small war added much more to that than perhaps big army movements. The small war was everywhere.
Could you do a longer video on the history of a-symetrical warfare? I really enjoyed this topic, and find it very interesting, specifically in the time period you covered.
Great Stuff! As always!
really well made episode like allways.
Glad that you mentioned my late countrymen, i still have an old pistol in my possesion that belonged to my anncestors, it probably killed some turks. Grettings from Croatia.
Guard it well. It is an historic artefact of you history.
@@overlordmgcover2262 i know, it would be embarassing if i didnt
Surprised you haven’t been disarmed knowing Europe. It’s crazy how many people will just turn in family heirlooms just to melted down bc they have no respect to their ancestors nor respect for antique weaponry
That's really cool, a shame so many artifacts are lost or destroyed over time. Must be a privilege to own a piece of your own personal history.
@@spaghettimkay5795 indeed, especially when its been in your family, it was literally there when history was created and now it's in the "present". When you hold it in your hand it feels like a time machine or something, kinda hard to describe.
Awesome video! I love your content mate.
6:41 That soldier sneaking out had ne dying with laughter hahah!
interesting topic. Thanks for covering this
Great and unique video as always 👍
Awesome as always
A good example of small war is the Reconquista, we became quite th experts at raiding and harassing moor held lands, even titles were developed for frontier villagers who were given the standing of village knights
I never knew about village knights. What a wonderful bit of information to put out, thank you!
Nicely informative video. Makes one think of what it took to fight a war in this day n time. I've been watching another channel's take on the Hundred Years War and the Chevauchee was mentioned a lot. I find the concept to be really interesting.
That sounds interesting, what channel is it?
@@Zapp_Brannag1n---This channel is called "Kings and Generals." I comment on their video's often. It recently did a video on Joan of Arc's first battle.
no mention about the hungarian hussars. ... most of the western countries estabilished a hussar contingent based on the hungarian patter or built up by a hungarian officer or nobleman (for example the french or the USA light cavalry hussars ..) also the most "cheeky" small war event executed by András Hadik and his hussars during the 7th years war .. quote:
"Early in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), Hadik executed the most famous hussar action in history: when the Prussian King Frederick was marching south with his powerful armies, the Hungarian general unexpectedly swung his 5,000 force of mostly hussars around the Prussians and took their capital Berlin. The city was spared for a negotiated ransom of 300,000 thalers,[2] which he distributed among his troops. For this feat, Hadik was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal. He was also awarded the Großkreuz of the Maria Theresia Order.[2]"
Finally someone talking about Venetian Stratioti! It would be great if you did something more on the Italian Wars sometime.
Awesome video
Very interesting. Thanks
Cool explaination of an understudied topic @SandRhoman . A small correction though: the Deli/Croat/Stradioti shown on the left at 14:19 is carrying his shield backwards. The point of the "wing" is always up and to the back in order to protect, as the immortal RZA recommends, ya neck.
It'd also be great to do a topic on the Ottoman Habsburg borderlands since that's basically what created the Balkans. You've got small war, jousting on the frozen lake Balaton, blood brotherhood and ransom slavery, and all the communities caught in the middle often paying taxes both to the Ottomans and to their Hungarian lords across the border.
Love the art style
11:56 wish we had more stuff on the Serbo-Croat Grenzers
These guys were in a 300 years long raiding duel with the Ottomans
But let's not forget Hajduci, Uskoci, as well as the free tribes of Montenegro!
A lot of analogies can be made to Greek Amartolis, Klephts,
Maniotes ...
And their Ottoman counterparts:
Akinci
Deli
Janissaries
Bashibozuks
Kirdzhalis
Derbendzhis
Seymens...
At first I thought it was a video about the "Small war" in hungary
Some of these stills/scenes are so high quality(3:49, 4:13, 5:15, 6:52, 7:08)! Any way to download some of them to use them as wallpapers, or is this something availabe to partreons?
Take a screenshot and open in mspaint
So Barry Lyndon's first experience with combat was extremely accurate and actually typical for the time period. *Who would have expected firmly researched realism from Stanley Kubrick?
[sarcasm mode disengaged]*
Kiss me boy, for we will never meet again
I'm an descendant of greek "stradioti" fighting the advancing ottomans on Peloponnesos. They were given land in the south of Italy as payment for their service. My real name is an italianified greek name. Many of us in Calabria!
You mean descendant
@@ViktoriousDead Thanks! English isn't my maternal language, if you understand what I mean. I corrected my bad english
Another SandRhoman history vid,POG
Very important topic, and usually overlooked
Small war is still a major part of warfare today. In fact, major battles in modern warfare are arguably a whole bunch of small wars happening all at once in close proximity over a period of time.
Hey that’s what I do in Mount & Blade :)
Gotta raid their villages till they sue for peace ;D
@@Thraim. gotta raid the villages like the dirty Nord you are. The best part is the gap between cutting down peasantry and the cat and mouse game between the usually larger relief forces sent to take you out
@@roguewasbanned4746 really? I take the opposite strategy. Make the villages to love me so that I can recruit their manpower even during a war with their overlords.
very interesting uncovered topic
Dam we all know about the ''watergeuzen'' in the Netherlands, but even as a history fanate i havent heard of the '''Bosgeuzen'' though it makes sense instantly! Love you covering the eighty/30 year wars and all these other topics of that time period.
i love those sneaking animations xD
Small Wars is a term commonly used in professional military journals to describe conflicts lacking planned engagements between major major military units. What you describe is commonly referred in western countries as Special Purpose operations, or irregular/unconventional warfare. A mix of guerrilla, and small unit raiding within the context of either, a big war or a small war.
Very interesting video! Your channel covers topics overlooked by other history channels. Keep up the good work, you know it is appreciated!
I think this greatly explains the shit ton of bandits i face when playing Warband
Yeah, the mount and blade games are unironically the most realistic representation of how medieval warfare was fought.
Stradioti were predominately recruited from Venetian holdings in Albania and to a lesser extent from the rest of the Balkans.Also, the hussar light cavalry was formed only out of Croatians while the grenzen * Border guards * came from a variety of different nationalities including Croats, Serbs ,Vlachs , Albanians and Bosnians. Some bosnian light cavalry akindjis served on both sides of the border if there wasn't a war going on with the turks .
Another great video btw, a topic suggestion 100th-year war between Turks and Venetians
great video. Small war was a big part of the Dutch 80 years war. So called Vrybuters (groups of rebel soldiers and criminal civilians) would raid farm, pillage towns and abducted goverment. These groups would get a letter of marque from Dutch garrison commanders to raid the Spanish hold territories. I find it to be a forgotten part of history but that just makes it so interesting.
btw. I love these videos!
that immortal peasant couple has some serious ly bad luck
Your awesome mate. When people skip your videos then its there loss.
If you are interested in great raiders under Maria Theresa you should look up Baron Franjo Trenk (Franz von der Trenk), he almost captured Friedrich the great and looted his entire warcamp with his unit Trenk panduren.
9:06 "The convoy dragging the artillery North from Siena was attacked by Florentine raiders..." Considering the Florence (Firenze) is the largest city in the region of Tuscany, wouldn't that technically make them
Tuscan Raiders?
You forgot about Lisowczycy (from name of their first commander Lisowski). They were so good in plundering that during Thirty Years War emperor didn't want their service anymore because they plunder also his territories. They were formed during dynastic crisis in Russia and fought on Commonwealth side. They were light cavalry which raided deep in enemy territory. Also they fought as mercenaries in western Europe. Finally were disbanded two decades later because of attrocities commited in Commonwealth territory.
we should add to it - they were an official unit but instead of pay they had right of pillage (similar to corsairs)
after the Polish-Muscovite war ended they were so unruly on their country's land and impossible to control that Polish king happily lend them off to the west
they were so proficient that they were blamed for all attrocities (even those which were not done by them)
they become a "bogeyman" with which German mothers scaried their children for about two centuries past their time
0:55 That's one evil looking horse!
You broke the rule you have to be part of nebula to get a curiosity stream sponsorship
Feeding determines Morale -- who's have thought?
(freely from Bertoldt Brecht: "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral!"
Thats a very weird interpretation of Brecht rofl. "Moral" in that quote would be better translated by "ethics".
@@CG-eh6oe That is the beauty of ambiguity, Mr. Jung. (Also, to me, the two are directly corelated. Thanks for demonstrating this assumption might be faulty).
Edit: Given historical materialism, i suspect that even if it does not reflect his original intention perfectly, der Meister might have agreed with the sentiment...just might, though.
This small war video reminds me of the roman legions with small foraging parties and the like to gather food and information
Is it just me or has the animation improved?
Thanks for this. I'm not a warfare nerd but a history nerd and this is far more the idea than some misleading videos where (for example) they show a big swatch of 'Mongol Red' sweeping across a plan in a few seconds. A quick 10 second briefing on all the towns and cities that 'fell' and the time is just flying. Now, stop and put yourself into some of these scenarios that happened over many years, decades and even centuries. There was no such 'Wall of Mongols' that one minute blew through but (in this example) there was actually entire lifetimes of raids, encroachment, A family tribal battle carried on for many decades over here, over there, maybe 10 years later there was an isolate fight over land. 100 turns of municipal politics, then someone ceded a territory on conditions. A series of raids were actually stopped and 'truced' for decades, then someone else argued something and so on. Too look at it this way: If you went back in time, you wouldn't meet any single person or family who experienced 'war'. But any given person may well recall the time when the raids were happening, another somewhere else would say they did live during the taxation/tribute decades. Somewhere else another would have said they never experienced any 'war' but do recall the time of the land clearings under some administration and so on.
What we do now is we just announce 'They conquered this land before moving to this one!' but really that 'conquering' was a whole process of 'small war' over a very long time, sometimes over many lifetimes or decades or many years of changes.
*i forgot why I picked Mongols but I'm thinking of something often called a 'war' and "mongol conquest" that would have really been many many many decades of small war events before and after anything we can properly call a real field battle of size.
Anyway, we get the idea and I think this is very very good to see someone covering this in YT videos, thanks.
Question though - how much of this "small war" was actually just banditry, and not a coordinated effort at all? Could many of these instances simply have been bandit attacks that wound up helping one side or another?
As far as I understand it small war is meant to require little or no coordination . It is just a matter of letting your men loose on the countryside in small bands to disrupt the enemy any means possible . Maybe several bands would join effort to take down a larger target (armed convoy for instance) kind of like the wolfpacks of WW2 . As for how much is it bandits and how much actual soldiers , I guess that would depend on the target . Bandits sacking a village isn't hard to believe but attacking a military convoy is a diffrent matter .
@@pp-wo1sd But maybe a supply convoy is an even juicier target than a peasant village for one of these bandit groups that is just taking advantage of the chaos in the countryside due to the war and is really on no one's side? How about a bandit gang just happens to intercept the convoy with the month's pay for the troops... Hello! That could be a haul worth 20 peasant village raids - and, overall, a lot less risky... Maybe?
Just some food for thought is all...
Well the distinction between mercenaries in low intensity warfare, and bandits were quite thin and probably fluent at times. Think about the stories of pirates turning privateer, or the Border Reavers on the Anglo-Scottish border.
Raiding and skirmishing by the light cavalry vanguard can be seen as banditry, as it was often assymetrical, aimed at the enemy baggage train and support infrastructure, but it is most definitely centrally organized and professionally led.
Think of it more like guerilla warfare.
A "small" big war? Can I sue historians for false advertising?
What is the source of the use of crossbows within the stradiotti?
"...peasants who raid the highways are based."
I mean, is that anything new? Even the Spartans before the Peloponnesian war relied on razing the enemy countryside to force the enemy to battle or to capitulate. And systematic ultiyear raiding of the countryside before moving in to siege, was the signature strategy of the eastern Roman generals like Nikephoros Phokas or Ioannes Tzimisked during reconquest of eastern Anatolia and Armenia.
This kind of "small war" is also criminally underrepresented in media and games. Take for example Europa Universalis 4, a great game, but sadly doesnt really cover this kind of constant raiding.
Especially in CK2/3. The CK games way overrepresent pitched battles, especially at a time when pitched battles were at an all time low and “small war” and sieges was at an all time high. A single pitched battle could win the entire war in most cases in the Middle Ages, but this is never represented in the CK games.
Knowing what most of these commanders had to know at that time, I would have made it a point to send large numbers of well-equipped irregular forces into enemy territory well before engaging in a large-scale battle, primarily with the aim of softening up the opposition before that battle would come to pass. After all, one can see easily how terrible it was during the Thirty Years War when exactly this sort of activity was the primary combat activity being carried on during the whole course of it.
Additionally, this would be great to Coopt large swathes of the population so that you would have people working with you when it came time to enter those territories with a large Force.
Please do something on the 9 years war
It feels like small wars could be compared with privateers just on land.
Umm, when I looked about my country polish-sweden war, not the deluge one though, there were a lot of maneveuring around on polish lands for years, Polish King didnt have money for mercenaries so they started to pillage propably. Just imagine the amount of small raids done by two armies maneveuring on a land for few years. Also, there were "Lisowczycy" a fast, criminal horse based commando squad that brought terror upon the attacked lands. No slow carriages were allowed!
Thank you for the content and especially that you do it in your own voice. I cringe when I hear the computer voice and a poorly written script by a non English speaker. But I can’t imagine what your great pronunciation of the Italian names you mentioned would have sounded like. Well done.
You should get a VPN sponser cause I tried to watch that series you mentioned only to learn it's not available in my country. What country is it available in? UK?
the small battles and fights were a massive thing,they would slwoly chip away at troops and production of villiges that would make less food and pay less tax seeing as they were burned and sacked
Me looking down my pants: "hear that little buddy"
Good video dude, I've often thought this. Also, where are all the mass graves from all these so called huge battles? When I hear that in ancient times tens of thousands of people fought, I take it all with a pinch of salt. There just wasn't that many people back then to gather them all to fight in such numbers.
Ancient Egypt and other empires had tons of people, and the absolute authority of their rulers allowed them to gather them all at once if needed. The other side of the coin was that losing one big battle often meant losing the war, since they couldn’t recreate another army quickly enough.
I think that’s more because not as many casualties happened in the first place as one might think. I’m not sure about antiquity since my own expertise is in the Middle Ages though. I just know that during the Middle Ages, it was more profitable to capture an enemy knight than it was to kill them, so they did not die in battle often. On top of that, the non-noble class of soldiers had the least amount of morale, and so therefore would be the first to run if they noticed a battle wasn’t going in their favor. They would mostly die as the enemy chased after them scattered across the countryside as they were retreating, so there would be no mass burial for them because of how scattered they were. So it’s not like both sides fought to the bitter end all of the time. Remember, humans were still humans back then, and nobody wants to die for no good reason.
Rory Muir is the joker without make-up 😂
Class
You missed the whole Ottoman advance from 14th to late 17th century . The Hussars was a response for the Ottoman Light cavalry's highly effective and devastating actions.
It really wasnt. It was simply thd adaptation of traditional light mounted archers to the gunpowder age.
Thats what all the newer Total Wars get wrong by only focusing (and limiting the player) on big armies. No skirmishes anymore, its always all or nothing
3:50 why is the horseman having seven fingers?
General Christiaan de Wet was a master of these "small-war" tactics during the 2nd Anglo-Boer War. He was never captured or defeated by the Brits - and was a constant thorn in their side. The successes of the small, rural, Boer-population against the World Power of the day is likely WHY governments are so strict in controlling the availability of guns to civilians today. Whenever someone tells you that "a small armed-civilian militia is no match for a military force" - refer them back to the 2nd Anglo-Boer War.
British didn’t have drones and white phosphorus at the turn of the 20th century
The more technology improves, the greater the gap becomes between civilian militias and professional armies. An angry guy with a sturdy stick is a non-negligible threat to a knight in plate armour. A guy with a sturdy stick is not a threat to a soldier controlling a drone from an air-conditioned shipping container on the other side of town.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs, and yet - neither one of the greatest powers of the modern world could defeat in totality the Islamic guerillas in Afghanistan. Let's be honest - armed militias who know their own home turf will always find ways of hiding and sniping/laying IEDs, etc. There is no question that the military could defeat a militia in an open fight - but I am not talking about "open-fights". I am talking about guerilla warfare. No matter how tech advances - it seems that guerillas cause massive casualties to the military and keep them from "occupying". Attrition I think it's called.
@@andrewlynch4126, the USA - even with all its military might - lost to the Vietcong. To traps made of wooden spikes covered with venom. Etc. Technology only gives you a greater advantage against other military forces - against guerillas I don't think there is an answer. This is probably a good thing - since governments are not so good and benevolent... and sometimes civilians need to take back control from power-hungry technocrats. The only way to fight against a superior conventional force - is by unconventional means.
@@willemvanstaden3292 in regards to Vietnam you seem pretty misinformed on the topic. While the Vietcong did make use of low tech weaponry to oppose the US, they in conjunction with the NVA used some of the most advanced weapon systems in the world at the time. The Soviet Union along with other Warsaw Pact nations gave considerable aid to the NVA although official numbers are still state secrets aircraft, air defense systems, industrial equipment, artillery and so on. The Soviets also trained Vietnamese fighters and technicians to use these weapon systems and more importantly the Soviet Union provided diplomatic cover insuring the US couldn’t wage total war without consequences since the Soviet nuclear Arsenal was enough of a threat to US. So no they did not lose to “traps made of wooden sticks and venom” that would be the equivalent of saying the Germans lost the allies in WW1 because the allies used shovels.
Also the US wasn’t even really defeated they withdrew because the war was unpopular at home and they didn’t really need to control Vietnam anyways. Vietnam lost 1 million people with another half a million wounded US lost 50,000 with 300,000 wounded tell me did Vietnam really win even with all that foreign aid, home field advantage and political cover the losses were staggering.
On Afghanistan the Soviets basically backed out for the same reasons the US did in Vietnam but were in a less advantageous position because the US was far stronger economically and politically. The current conflict in Afghanistan really can’t be compared to Vietnam as the US really doesn’t seem interested in destroying the Taliban so much as controlling the Afghan government, my suspicion is the US “withdrawal” that was recently announced is a merely to punish the Afghan government for stepping out of line and US troops will be back once the Afghans agree to US demands. Even if this is not the case the Taliban hide in caves and strap bombs to their children to make attacking them more trouble then it’s worth more so then defeating the US troops. So sure you can start a terrorist group that hides in the woods and caves and uses suicide bombers but will that really overthrow the technocrats in western countries? I don’t think so, maybe you’ll be a mild inconvenience but I doubt you would do anything but justify greater power grabs against citizens who aren’t complete monsters.
At this point if you really want to stick it to the technocrats learning to use a keyboard to hack or game the stock market will do far more damage to them then Larping as a guerrilla fighter with AR-15s.
4:30 what's the guy in the middle doing with that late 9th-early 10th century Magyar quiver?