Interesting discussion, including the comments below respecting how Barons didn't necessarily want an armed populice because it made it harder for them to stay in power. Does any of this sound familiar or applicable to today (gun control debate)??
Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
141–150 of 180 posts
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I remember correctly (and I'm still looking for a better source than this[1]), the Duke Of Wellington had requested a corps of longbowmen be made ready for use against the French in the Napoleonic wars, but was advised that no one with the skill needed to train them still existed (the training being the most difficult part of the technology). The last use of trained english longbowmen seemed to have been by some o…
> It's hard for me to imagine a pivotal art or technology being lost like that, but I'm willing to bet its not at all uncommon if we look across history. This has happened quite a bit throughout history, actually. Complete social collapse, as has happened many times throughout history, can have a really bad effect on technological innovation. Focusing specifically on the Roman empire (because that's what I'm more fam…
Yes, the Romans really were awesome engineers. They were even more awesome when you realize that they were completely hamstrung by the utterly idiotic Roman numeral system! Can you imagine doing complex calculations in that?
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to compare Mongols to Europeans. The composite bows rely on animal-based adhesives, which are great in cold and dry climates, but fall apart in humid and warmer climates. Also, light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe, specially when you don't have huge, flat battlefields that allow light cavalry to circle any target. In other words, Mongol wa…
Their light cavalry was also fairly effective in forested places like Hungary or Manchuria. Genghis was far from the best Mongol general but he personally achieved some impressive victories by attacking from the rear of his opponent after going over mountains or by luring his opponents up onto mountains after him. But really both light and heavy cavalry were important parts of the regular Mongol forces as well as the…
History has also shown that France gave up their bow technology to the Germans, hampering their bow tech progression (and ultimately harming fellow neighbors to boot).
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Re: "light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe" Not true, as the Chinese cities at the time were much more fortified than Europe. The Mongols were able to plunder the surrounding lands. Also, despite Europe's fortifications, a scouting party led by Subutai of 20,000 horse archers, widely wiped out a much more significant force of Central Europe soldiers,…
Fortified european cities caused a lot of troubled. Most Mongol siege victories in Europe where Pyrrhic, with massive losses that couldn't be replaced that far from their homeland. They ended up controlling most of the Hungarian countryside, but almost none of the key fortified cities, the same in Croatia and other areas, rendering their gains useless, since forces could march out at any time from the multiple forces…
or Europe got lucky and Ogodei died just as Subutai was about to roll over the entire continent (we may never know for sure).
The Hardcore History podcast did a nice series on it.
http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-o...
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I remember correctly (and I'm still looking for a better source than this[1]), the Duke Of Wellington had requested a corps of longbowmen be made ready for use against the French in the Napoleonic wars, but was advised that no one with the skill needed to train them still existed (the training being the most difficult part of the technology). The last use of trained english longbowmen seemed to have been by some o…
Actually one of the points made in the book Guns, Germs and Steel is that technology and inventions aren't developed because there is a need for them. Rather inventions pop up and disappear all the time through history in different cultures. But what makes the technology stay around is that it ends up getting used. E.g. South America did invent wheels, but since there was no ox or horse to pull the invention had not…
I still find that a little mind-boggling, that in, say, pre-Colombian Mexico, they had wheeled children's toys, and nobody thought to scale that up and build a wheelbarrow or a two-wheel dogcart. I mean, they must have been using rollers on some level to maneuver the massive pieces of stone that they used in construction.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Huge, flat battlefieds" were a norm everywhere. Medieval battles were ONLY possible on flat surfaces, as the main force of the time - heavy cavalry - requires that. Besides, Mongols completely plundered Rus' and the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, and most of those lands were and are forests/lakes/swamps. For example, they used rivers in winters to travel through the countryside. Also, after conquering China they also ha…
From what I've read European wars didn't feature much large scale battles of the type done of plains in central asia. Siege warfare, skirmishes, harassment etc dominated. Anyway the mongols used huge number of horses which would need a lot of grass. It is my understanding that that was simply not available to them in most of Europe.
"It is my understanding that that was simply not available to them in most of Europe."
I hate to break it to you, but Europe has a lot more grass than Afganistan or Middle East. Of all problems, the supply of grass was the least of them. The main "problem" that kept them out of Europe was that they as people started to change. They stopped being the frugal people living savagely in tents all around steppe. Little by little they become city dwellers and started to embrace luxury and other "decadent" stuff continuously supplied through tributes, enjoying their life rather looking for new conquests. That's how I come to look at it anyway (the Golden Horde).
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
The quote from Stalin comes to mind, quantity has a quality of it's own.
Yep I also thought of that as I wrote that line. I wonder how that sounded to his cannon fodde^H^H^H soldiers...
It probably didn't sound like anything because it's most likely a misattribution (see the more detailed answers here: https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-it...). Not saying that Quora or Wikipedia are authoritative sources, but many of this sort of alleged quotes by Stalin are usually either what someone thought Stalin might have said, or coined by Western authors writing about Stalin and later misattributed to him.
Most references I've found point to an American saying this quote (or similar) in the 70s.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#148Because France was playing Orc and researched lighter throwing axes instead.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's hard for me to imagine a pivotal art or technology being lost like that, but I'm willing to bet its not at all uncommon if we look across history. This has happened quite a bit throughout history, actually. Complete social collapse, as has happened many times throughout history, can have a really bad effect on technological innovation. Focusing specifically on the Roman empire (because that's what I'm more fam…
Yes, the Romans really were awesome engineers. They were even more awesome when you realize that they were completely hamstrung by the utterly idiotic Roman numeral system! Can you imagine doing complex calculations in that?
I guess they also might had some math tricks that made it easy, tricks that you may now count as another "art" lost. But then would you try to rediscover some art about how some people dealt with something imperfect (because they had to) or you would rather look for something better that doesn't require clever tricks in the first place? Now I come to think that (at least) some loses present opportunity value in themselves!
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#150>Yet the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) lasted longer than a hundred years—plenty of time for England’s enemies to learn that their defeats were heavily influenced, if not caused, by the longbow.
Didn't England lose the Hundred Years War? At least looking at the map before and after - it lost everything on the continent, incl. last remnants of Angevin and Normandy lost to France, with France rising up significantly bigger and stronger as a result of the war.
While long bow is a nice nostalgic weapon, the crossbow is technologically more advanced, and in our civilization technology wins :
"Plate armor that could be penetrated by large crossbows, but was impenetrable by longbows, was uncommon in Europe until about 1380"
(funny that while a child i was initially making bows, yet soon switched to making crossbows - and they were interesting until i made my first single shot handgun at the end of the 1st grade :)