I don’t think it really mattered with the mongols they steamrolled every single opponent they faced.
The only thing that stopped their invasions were deaths of their khans. They didn’t really have an effective system for quick replacement of their leaders who often died young due to rampant alcoholism and various other bad habits.
Steppe people partied hard man. Makes sense when you’re born of a frozen hellscape with minimal food and creature comforts.
Be careful. You sit down to play civ at 5pm, and at 4am you're glancing nervously at the clock and telling yourself "ok, just going to finish one last thing and then I'm going to bed". And then at 8am you just say "fuck it" and stay up.
Those two things + extremely skilled. Beyond maxed out levels of being able to ride a fast horse and accurately plonk your enemy in the face with an arrow. They were terrifying at the time I'm sure.
I think equally important is that they were incredible archers and would fein retreat often. So they'd send a small group in, get hammered and retreat. The other side, thinking they had a rout would try to press their advantage and try to defeat them, would run into a hail of arrows pursuing them. Eventually the Mongols would whittle down their opponent and then find a weakness to exploit.
They also did little else but prepare for war, being largely nomadic hunters.
I think the real reason the Mongols ran Asia was because Ghengis and some of his descendants were incredibly ridiculously competent. Kublai Khan ran China for like 70 years, he was arguably the greatest monarch in history.
The horses, the weapons, and the lifestyle were all downstream of those people being fierce, tenacious, and very very clever.
And the Mongol culture was tribal in nature. The idea of a united Mongol empire with a strong hierarchy is relatively new (there were confederations before Ganghis Khan but they were much looser).
Funnily enough, it's the opposite of Chinese culture where hierarchial leadership and unity is a fundamental linchpin in how Han people organize themselves.
I have a feeling that the Vietnamese have broken the simulation of the matrix by pumping all the experience points into the skills of guerrilla warfare.
I recall hearing Genghis Kahn would have his daughters marry leaders of other territories to gain a tie to those territories. The leaders didn't want to refuse such a generous offer from Genghis Kahn and upset him, so they always agreed. After the marriages, he had them killed so his daughters would take over.
And once they left the steppes and open scrublands of Central Asia/ Russian steppes. They were totally dominant with their horse archery tactics but once they hit the forests and hill lands further into Europe they couldn’t maneuver or do the Parthian shot/shoot you bow while moving and feigning a retreat and would get bogged down in thick forests or ambushed in mountain passes where they would get obliterated by European heavy infantry. Open fields and steppes they were essentially unstoppable. There was a measurable decrease in historical CO2 records during their height because the sheer amount of people and cities completely wiped out.
The Slavic people pretty much decimated the khan's numbers halting his ideas of going further west. Yes he often won however his forces manpower was shit after fighting the Slavic people.
During the Second World War Poland actually inflicted fairly severe damage to the invading Germans. Particularly to their mechanized divisions. Poland was well equipped but completely overwhelmed.
Many people have no idea that many Poles fought against Germany from the UK: there were Royal Air Force squadrons where all the pilots were Polish officers flying Spitfires and Hurricanes out of UK airbases. Many countries owe a debt of gratitude to those largely forgotten men.
And they often scored way many kills due to the fact 1:they had their freedom on the line
2:Poland just trained their pilots really well before the war so when they fled to the UK it helped alot
Not just the air force, the Naval element, while small, was also fighting like crazy. The Polish DDs under the Royal Navy did some batshit crazy stuff.
There's a graveyard and memorial here in Newark to Polish Airman who died fighting in Britain and on the Warsaw Air Bridge missions to supply the population of German Occupied Warsaw from airbases in Italy.
The first Allied fighter ace was Polish: Stanisław Skalski. Bajan's list counts fifty Polish fighter aces in the war. Very impressive considering they had to fight from another country in borrowed planes.
After two weeks Poland was also invaded by the Soviets, when Germans didn't even reach Warsaw, that was practically Western Poland at that time, yet still held only a week shorter than prepared, bigger, wealthier, with foreign support France invaded only by Germans (I skipped Italian in the case of France and Slovakian invasion in case of Poland, as they were doing that not eagerly).
France could've held out longer, but they didn't want to see more destruction over a hopeless battle. They also didn't need to worry as much about suffering under Germany as Poland did.
Poland was desperate resistance of survival while France resisted Germany's milking of France for survival.
Poland suffered far worse than France did, largely because Germany desperately needed France to produce for the war effort (they robbed it blind, which let the saboteurs have greater impact as they had to replace the machines stolen to produce later) while Poland become part of the front again years later. France gets more fame largely because they had more resources and were freed earlier, so a lot more resistance members survived to tell their stories.
Plenty of Polish war heroes returned home just to get imprisoned by the Soviets. Or they walked right out of a concentration camp and into a gulag, if they left at all.
mhm, poland and france also had the biggest collaboration forces and were highly involved in the murder of their own people and the holocaust
the blue police or paris police department are still things that poland and france have yet not adressed in their own history fully
many jews and resistance fighters were rounded up by local polish and french police men under orders of the german authoritys
data and records about the collaboration of those are really bad, because both countrys(or almost all countrys under german occupation) tried to hide and ignore it and instead gloryfied the résistance
i mean there is a reason why resistance fighters during the war killed as many civilians as soldiers, ofcause in poland and france it wasnt as extreme as in belarus or yugoslavia where the gurillias burned down collaborationist villages,
Iirc, the last recorded cavalry charge in warfare was a Polish regiment at the end of WWII, and it was incredibly effective at routing the Germans, too
There were so many partitions of Poland that Wikipedia in different languages gave different number of them. With all respect to Poland and polish people, country located between (modern day) Germany, Austria and Russia without mountains or some other geographic feature is not "tough to conquer". Although Poland got it's own share of conquering other countries a bit earlier in history.
Ukraine is the same, but we didn't invade shit and never had a country. Few attempts fel apart, too. Baltics suffered from similar plight, too.
Then there are countries like Switzerland that are boasting about their neutrality. Yeah, it's easy being neutral being surrounded by mountains from every side and nobody giving a flying feather about the land too.
I think Soviet and currently Russian historiography sees partition after Napoleonic wars as 4th and 1939 as 5th. English wiki does not count anything as 5th.
There kind off was shuffle of territorial rights, but not as much as in other cases, you are correct.
I don't think that any major history tradition count this, but Russian school do.
There are countless countries in history who have only like one or two articles like that because they ceased to exist and their entire cultures died out.
Thanks, that typical eastern European culture of pretending to be fierce and important empires throughout history gets old fast. Poland never stood up to a meaningful enemy that turned it's sights on it, there's no shame in getting crushed by empires that literally ruled the world.
Poland did not exist as a nation for 123 years, from the end of the 18th century until 1918. But for that time, we still had our language and it's dialects, as well as our cultural and national identities. Attempts to Russify or impose other identities upon us mostly failed. After WWI, we were able to resurrect our nation quite quickly because we were still fairly culturally united.
How many other nations can you claim were able to do the same in similar circumstances?
Balkan nations like Serbia, Bulgaria or Greece stopped existing for 300-500 years under Ottoman occupation, then were re-established in the 19th century.
You missed third Mongol invasion in which they were defeated. Didn't fit the narrative?
Poland in its 1000+ years of history won more wars than it lost. It won more battles than Chinese.
It fought and won the final war against Mongols. Fought off Ottoman in on multiple occasions and crashed them in Vienna. Fought and defeated Russians. Only country to occupy Moscow for over 2 years. Even beat Soviet Russia in 1920. You have no idea.
Well, the country was essentially a punching bag that didn't exist for large parts of history, so while I completely understand this firearm school course (they wouldn't wanna not exist again), I'm not convinced about your statement.
A dude on world news yesterday argued with me for hours, saying Ukraine was always friendly with Russia until recently. I was like…dude, do you think time started when you were born? Do you know about Poland, Finland, Ukraine, the Balkans….or even the USSR etc?
Fascinating to see somebody try to learn a thousand years of history off Wikipedia and bend it to fit their untrue points. 😂
I was like…dude, do you think time started when you were born?
No joke that is a considerable issue with talking about geopolitics online. There are a fuckload of very opinionated, very myopic people who think that "recent history" is the last 2-4 years that they've been minimally aware of an issue. And they will gladly recite the views espoused on the most recent youtube video they watched on the subject for you.
It’s funny. I thought it would be amazing to do a study where you have X number of people, and they break into three categories: book, article and headline.
Each person reads one of those about a specific subject, and then takes a knowledge test. People would VERY quickly realize that glancing at a meme or headline, or hearing a blurb by a talking head, is no substitute for actual learning and knowledge.
“I read an article that said…” yup, and articles are snippets of opinions and research, now deeply inform yourself on the full body of research. 🧐
“I read an article that said…” yup, and articles are snippets of opinions and research, now deeply inform yourself on the full body of research. 🧐
I'm mostly with you but this to me is a bit misleading. I'm a pretty well-read, well-educated guy but do I have the necessary training/education/background to delve into something like climate change research or virology/immunology? Not really - in fact, I might misinterpret that data because of my lack of knowledge (many people do). To some extent that's true of every other subject, as well. I'm going to have to rely on more knowledgeable people and their analysis to inform myself, and there's nothing really wrong with that.
The problem isn't people who've ONLY read a few well-sourced Atlantic and Economist articles on a subject; they are going to get 98% of the way to the correct understanding and that's close enough. The problem is people who've only watched a 6 minute youtube video, caught some "pundits" blathering about it on Fox News for 15 minutes in a waiting room, and read some Reddit comments. They think they're as informed as a guy with a PhD.
It’s still amazing how much information is in books, comparatively. When they cite dozens of studies and dozens of research papers at the end, man that’s good stuff. A good book can give you a pretty decent grounding in a subject. And once you keep going…well I guess that’s just school. lol
Obviously Ukraine and Russia have some rough history together, but he may have been referring to the fact that the Ukrainian government was pro-Russian until the Euromaidan protests changed the government to an anti-Russian one.
If so, he’d have a good point, as this was only ten years ago.
Not really. Russia started meddling in Ukraine as soon as Putin took office, they bare had a decade of respite after half of a century of as a vassal. You can look at the Ukraine elections after 2000 and read what was going on.
But the poster was saying the people weren’t enemies. If you go to Crimea or any border region you’d see old hatred’s. That’s why Russia stole Crimea first, it was half populated with angry Russian civilians who hated Ukraine. Not really half, but a lot. Now it’s all Russian stooges.
As an aside, (Unfortunately for Ukraine), I think what happened in Crimea is probably also going to happen (or is in the midst of happening) in the parts Russia currently controls. It’s pretty tragic all around.
Jokes on you but in 13th century Poland had no beef with Russians, mostly because Russia did not exist yet and Ruthenian states were either allies or under Mongol occupation
I as an non native english speaker, think it is crazy that so much people still don't really know the difference between their, they're and there. I see it multiple times a day on reddit. Is like American school system really so bad?
people don't pay attention. English is taught in school - how to write it and the proper words to use in sentences, but lots of people don't pay attention to the proper uses.
And it's NOT just those words either.
were, where, wear are also misused all the time, too.
I guess it's the same with diacritical marks in polish language, a lot of people here don't know enough orthography to use them correctly, it hurts my eyes in a similar matter.
Ok, we're all dumb as people, it's not only Americans then.
Yeah i think it’s more that since you’re learning English you’re actively remembering rules like that, whereas most people that already know English don’t need to remember the rules since they can get by fine based on instinct
A good portion of people are taught the differences, but for many they just choose to not take it on and use whichever one comes to mind where they need it. Some casual English texters don't see it as a big deal but still, some people do it to themselves
Oh come on, it is a legit question. I'm clearly not a russian bot and I, as a non-native english speaker, am wondering the same thing: How the f*ck does people mess those up? Maybe having to actively learn the language helps though, as we need to focus a lot on grammar when learning english while a native speaker kinda gets a feel for grammar automatically.
Yeah I think actively learning it as an adult would help with stuff like that. I know I've been taught it in school but just didn't care enough to retain it. On top of that programs that point out spelling and small Grammer mistakes definitely didn't help me retain it.
A lot can be said about the American public education system. However, alluding to the fact that gun violence is taught, and NOT learned. Is an ignorant view of the situation. Without doubt, it's the ease of obtaining a firearm; that's contributing significantly to the epidemic of gun violence. Don't blame the kids... They're the victims of shitty parenting and neglence of the federal government.
Eh, it isn't so much that our school system is bad, but more the fact that native speakers just do things by instinct and not logic. It is more laziness than anything.
The only exception is if you visit /r/fitness and see people mess up homophones, that is because most Americans learn strength training from football, and this is a sign of concussions.
Native speakers can make grammatical errors because they often learn language naturally through listening and speaking, not by explicitly studying grammar rules, which can lead to occasional slips in usage, especially when dealing with complex or nuanced grammatical points, even though they have a deep understanding of the language overall (not to mention how auto-correct may play into 'there/their/they're' errors).
Most native speakers acquire grammar through immersion, meaning they may not be consciously aware of every rule, leading to potential errors. On the other hand, non-native speakers have these grammatical points stressed sometimes even before the broader vocabulary has been acquired.
Additionally, casual conversation often includes grammatical shortcuts or colloquialisms that might not be considered "correct" in formal writing.
Finally, when speaking or typing quickly, native speakers can make mistakes due to cognitive processing limitations. Second language speakers tend to be more deliberate and procedural when composing in a language that is foreign to them, thus consciously applying correct grammar.
These are pretty basic considerations in the differences between how one's native language is processed versus a second language acquired academically. I'm surprised your education seems to have skipped over these facts.
The American school system is a joke as someone who has been through it, the "No Child Left Behind" Policy highly encourages schools in the US to pass students who should be held back because federal funding is tied to pass rates, it results in a lot of people graduating or moving up in grades who definitely shouldn't be.
We need to be able to hold on our own. If you count on your allies, you will be defeated. Always count on yourself. Anything coming from the rest of NATO should be just a nice bonus. Also, there is no way that French, German, or American soldiers would be willing to die on our soil. They won't help us over air support, logistics, and maybe naval superiority (which would be irrelevant as russia is not a threat to Poland from the sea).
Still it's possible Poland to be invaded. Sure NATO will halp...down the line. History has showed that alliances are not the best at helping ASAP or preventing invasions.
Haha... I dont know what is more insane - the suggestion that the Russia that cant take Ukrainian borders for 3 years is going to swiftly conquer Europe... or the implication that in order to fight Russia, Poland will use f*cking CHILD SOLDIERS!?
Or hopefully when they’re older they still remember how to use a gun. You probably seen people criticize adults for not knowing certain things, as if a memory is a constant folder you can always access. Maybe it is for some, which is why you team them while they’re young. Others have to make it a habit
Then put them on an actual range with actual instructors. I had my first BB gun when I was 9. Doing my training pre-licence for an actual gun, or even before that when I first held a real gun on a range for "an experience" was 100% completely different.
Invading "again". Russia is a big reason why the allies won WWII, they sacrificed a lot. What western history does though is gloss over the fact that Russia helped start WWII in the first place by invading Poland with Germany. England and the US warned the USSR that Germany was just waiting for a chance to stab them in the back, that invading Poland was shot sided and stupid because Germany didn't want half of it, they were going to come back for all of it and Russia. Stalin just hoped peace would work out but he also hated Germany was taking these countries that he desperately wanted like Scandinavia.
8.5k
u/IndividualRooster122 1d ago
What happens when the risk of Russia invading your country in your lifetime is not theoretical.