How the FUCK did anyone convince soldiers to physically engage and fight each other brutally when this was a major style of warfare? Even something like WW1 seems impersonal and easy compared to two masses of men engaging face to face and hacking away at each other with steel. Furthermore, especially how the FUCK did anyone convince anyone who wasn't outright suicidal to assault the walls first in a siege? I imagine the first man up a ladder or out of a tower or through the breach would have almost no chance to live, but someone had to, and did. Madness.
>>438303
literally ignorance
you just tell people what they want to hear rather than what is true
>>438303
Sieges were led by the forlorn hope/verloren hoop/whatever it was called in different nations. They accepted the increased risk in exchange for priviledges, like higher pay and quicker promotion. Furthermore, it was kind of necessary to fight those wars. If an enemy army started campaigning in your country, the peasants generally weren't having a really nice time. So you had to defend yourself and your compatriots.
>>438317
>implying truth is bad
>>438307
That makes sense in the industrial age, but before that I think anyone would understand what fighting is like and the implications of it. You can't convince someone walking into a spear won't hurt, basically.
>Bad war
>Wall of pikes steadily moving in to impale you
>You have no protection besides your own pike and your massive codpiece
>Attack anyways
>>438320
Truth? How is that the truth? War and violence weren't hated nearly as much before the advent of incredibly destructive, mechanical and total warfare of the 20th century. Do you know of any movements during the Medieval period (I include the whole period) that condoned lethal punishment? No, because that was the product of the rise of liberal philosophy (natural rights etc.) during the enlightenment. Have you perhaps read the Nibelungenlied? If you had, you'd have known what I'm talking about - at no point is violence and war considered "immoral". You are trying to view history through a modern viewpoint, through modern values, imposing ideas that didn't even exist at the time upon it. You people are honestly the worst.
>>438326
Exactly. Lately I've been puzzling over how armies could have been made to do this sort of thing for thousands of years. It's not like shooting someone.s
>>438322
i don't think anyone didn't know getting stabbed would hurt but how would you convince the front guys to charge into the massive line of troops and defenses
i really don't think anyone would sign up for what op posted willingly
>>438335
french revolution truly was the pinnacle of development
>>438307
>>438320
>>438322
>>438326
>>438337
>>438340
>>438343
By not having to deal with raging faggots of the likes of you.
>ITT: Those who have forgotten the faces of their fathers.
Those days they needed a reason to be pussies, rather than a reason not to be.
>>438348
>Muh fathers
>Muh country
>Muh king
>Literally die 20 minutes into the battle, accomplishing nothing besides getting yourself skewered
Modern wars are much more horrible in every possible way
I would gladly choose being stabbed to death by spears over being incinerated alive in a tank
First of all they weren't massive pussies, second of all give me a better military tactic to use in the pre-gunpowder era that will win you a battle.
>>438357
Well, you completely missed the reference, I said nothing about any king and countries weren't a thing back then. Kings were the kings of people and not the kings of countries. The last king of France even had the title of "Rex Frankorum"
Literally, King of the Franks.
As for getting yourself, Skewered, pre-gunpowder battles tended to be one-sided with very few casualties on the side of the victors and very high casualties on the losing side due to the fact that the side that broke got mopped the fuck up by the one that didn't. So if you had a reasonable expectation of victory, you went into battle jazzed. If the seemingly deficient side thought that they could pull off an upset, then they too would be all psyched the fuck up. If they didn't think that they could pull it off, most often they were at least willing to try because ancient warfare was fucking brutal to the non-combatants left behind and those defenders would have their families at their backs. That's a powerful motivation.
3/10. Got a couple of paragraphs out of me. Report to /b/ for remedial training.
>>438383
And yet faggots like OP continue to exist.
>>438351 (You)
>>438383
For example, take a look at this sufficiently famous painting.
Look at the facial expressions and tell me, would the same thing happening right here, right now in your city produce the same facial expressions in the bystanders, the authorities, and the victim?
They just didn't give a fuck those days.
It's easy to convince a person to do kill or torture an enemy or criminal when they don't need a reason.
It's easy to convince a person to die when their life is already shit as it is.
Sometimes "Fuck that guy" is all you need. Sometimes a desire to kill is sufficient, you don't need a cause.
Let me also say this: this shit right here hasn't really gone away in THE CURRENT YEAR™, but you need to know where to look...
How else would you explain the suicide bomber attacks you read and see on the news? Blowing up is an intended consequence of strapping explosives all over you, you know.
So look up some documentaries on suicide bombers and you will see why.
You have to realize how much alcohol those guys were drinking everyday
Formations aren't as tightly strung as movies would lead you to believe.
Essentially, every battle back then was decided by who routed first. It was more like a big game of chicken.
>>438400
Thanks, you've really made me rethink this. Any documentary in particular you recommend?
>>438408
Actually very little. Beer back then wasn't nearly as strong as it is now. It was mainly a means of purifying water and adding some starch to the diet.
>>438418
True, but even watered down beer, ale, whatever will get you light if you drink it by the gallon every day and I can only assume soldiers drank the stronger stuff for courage and to warm the blood, that sort of thing.
>>438441
That explains a lot
>>438429
Soldiers drank water that they dropped yeast heavy bread into. Before Hops became a thing that people did, beer would spoil if you moved it more than a few miles. Troops couldn't afford or transport that primo shit.
If you've ever had an india pale ale and wondered why it tasted like fucking asswater scraped out of some /pol/tard's speedbumps, it's because it had to be so loaded with hops to survive the crossing to India for the British administering the country. They were first added as a preservative.
If both sides have morale through the roof, won't they just turn into one big tangled mess of sticks when they collide? What do they do when that happen?
>>438459
A thing called discipline.
You might have heard about it when your parents weren't buying you a car to shut you the fuck up.
>>438415
This one is on female sucide bombers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBLH8YylfZ8
I'll have you pay attention to 16:24 to 17:28.
The girl does NOT believe in the afterlife.
But do notice how she laughs.
Now I'll have you look at this clip from a movie everybody on /his/, me included, hates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKpGddmArs&t=2m27s
Notice how they laugh their asses off.
Familiar, isn't it? This is how seriously they take this whole "life" business.
>>438348
Literal autism right here.
>>438470
How so?
>asking me to select images of a tricycle and giving me a tractor.
You've gone too far this time, captcha.
>>438476
>long-winded wor is awesome lol image macro
>you are all raging homos for not thinking wor is awesome
>muh faces of my fathers
I'd write a proper explanation but just try and find something in that post that wasn't spergy.
>>438303
It's the other way around, anon. How the fuck did anyone manage to convince people to take part in bayonet charges at machinegun nests and die anonymously as one of those millions of casualties?
>>438459
>What do they do when that happen?
Keep going if they're winning or start breaking formation and legging it if they aren't.
>>438500
Is it impossible to become tangled to the point where they physically can't step forward any farther? Because that is what I'm wondering.
"Normal military service in a 19th-century army at war was pretty close to wearing a suicide vest anyway. Fredericksburg, if you were a Federal; Pickett's Charge, if you were a Reb; those were pretty much suicide missions. And the death you could expect was a million times scarier than the one a modern suicide bomber gets. An Iraqi "martyr" can count on instant, painless death. They usually find the bomber's head totally popped off the body--that's how they ID the bomber. So it's basically death by beheading, and it's worth remembering that beheading used to be a privilege in Europe, the honorable death they reserved for VIPs. (Ordinary scum got hanged, a way more embarrassing way to go--that terminal boner sticking out for your neighbors to laugh at--and likely to involve a lot of dangling and gurgling if the hangman got his math wrong.)
Compare that with the suicide mission of walking in formation up Mary's Heights at Fredericksburg, or strolling across the fences into cannon fire at Gettysburg. Or fast-forward to the grimmest war at all for a frontline soldier: 1914, the Western Front. Now that was a suicide mission, going over the top. After a few months they all knew it was totally pointless, too--machine guns beat charging infantry every single time, but the gung-ho officers refused to admit it.
Take a machine gun bullet in the belly out there and you were going to die all right. But not by nice quick beheading. You were going to (a) die of peritonitis if you were lucky enough to be dragged back to your lines; (b) be forgotten in No-Man's land and bleed out, which means freezing to death as your circulatory system loses the power to keep your body warm; (c) be eaten alive, or half-alive, by the rats that swarmed between the trenches; or (d) lie there until the next bombardment sent a shell--just as likely your own side's as the enemy's--to plow up the blood/mud mush one more time and just by accident blow your infected mess of a body into vapor."
>>438307
Ive heard arguments that that's how cavalry drill worked: the whole point of a charge is making the target think you'll smash right through them which is a lot easier if the cavalrymen believe it too
>>438490
Both of those are literary references to books that portray combat as anything but awesome but instead as an experience so intense as to blot out anything that came before it.
Here, I'll give you a hint. The image quote is from a book by Cormac MacCarthy called Blood Meridian. It's on the list of the hundred greatest American novels of all time and it is very much worth your time to read.
On top of that, I made that image myself. The man in the image is Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse now. Again, very much worth your time.
>>438509
>shit happens mang
>>438509
I'd imagine it's quite possible, though one should keep in mind that these men likely had secondary weapons to keep hacking and chopping with if their pike became too unwieldy.
>>438513
Not disagreeing on either count m8, just saying that post reeks of textbook autism if you intended it or not.
>>438520
>these men likely had secondary weapons to keep hacking and chopping with if their pike became too unwieldy
They were called "Swords"
>>438526
Do you honestly think I give a shit?
If you do, how's your first day on 4Chan going?
>>438303
you don't get it anon, the war wasn't less brutal and became more brutal, but the other way arround. In a hundred years people will say how the FUCK did anyone convince the soldiers to shoot themselves with propelled projectiles that penetrate their bodies and rupture their internal organs.
Also, life was shit, there was no internet, only form of entertainment was dancing and drinking, only form of education amongst the commoners was in mythical stories and epic poetry of their people, which all described superhuman romantic warriors, at least in Europe that was the case. Growing up with that, war was the only possibility of achieving anything in life.
>>438528
OK m8.
I'm more confused how line infantry ever functioned.
>yes lad just stand shoulder to shoulder with your buddies in a line while the french muskets blow holes in you
>>438441
It was still an everyday drink in the mediterranean region.
>>438303
How do you convince them today? People do not know. How many recruits know how it is to get shot? The same amount of recruits that knew how it is to get impaled back then. You know that shit hurts, you know getting shot may kill you and still you have people going into it. Why? Because everyone believes he will be the one that will survive. Ambition was always greater than fear, that is why we progress, but the fear is what keeps us alive.
>>438400
Because medieval paintings suck at expressions.
You have latter, more truthful depictions of executions where you have people fainting, vomitting, or turning away along with cheering cunts.
WW1 was far worse desu. Worse not just on the soldiers, but on the homefront. Especially when you see what started happening in the later years with all the mutinies.
I'd rather have one quick battle where I'm standing in a mass of men with a spear where I might get stabbed, then either chase the enemy down or drop my spear and run away. Than face living in the trenches, drenched, muddy, hearing my screaming comrades in no mans land wounded but not getting to go out and help them. Shitting my guts out from dysentery, without even a decent hole to shit in. My foot rotting to trench foot, the constant booming of shell fire, looking over at a landscape of literal hell. Sure you'd get rotated out, but then you'd be back in the thick of it again. For years. It's an experience that nobody would be the same coming home from, and what then when you're home? You joined a pals battalion and half your factory, or hometown is devoid of men.
Earlier wars were brutal, yes. But WW1 topped all of it. It sucked all the previous glory out of war because it was just ugly and it traumatised a continent.
Holy hell OP, agree so much. Also I read that many WW1 soldiers DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE FUCKING VOTE
This is, first and foremost, cuckoldry on a global scale
STIRNER WAS RIGHT
STIRNER WAS RIGHT
STIRNER WAS RIGHT
STIRNER WAS RIGHT
>>438510
i want to slap the author just for the second paragraph alone so bad
>>438606
Or try Paschendale. Where your choice is to walk across a thin chokepoint on a board of wood towards the machinegun fire. Or to walk on the mud in which you'll sink to your death and slowly drown. Your friends not able to save you as it engulfs you and you beg them to shoot you first.
And at the end of it all, what gains did you even accomplish for the lives wasted?
>>438553
>those fingers
goddamn thats creepy
>>438553
We had a whole thread about that. Where were you?
>>438400
>posts a medieval painting as fact.
If I show a film still (photography) from the first star wars trilogy to someone in the future, would he be stupid to take it at face value or not?
Protip: if he/she were to be something like you, he/she would take it at face value and he/she would be stupid as fuck.
Painting, as well as photographs and everything else now, can only be used as fact bearing documents when analysed in context. And even then, no judgement should be thought as definite.
>>438303
WW1 was infinitely more horrible. I'd murder someone with a sword anyday before sitting through an artillery barrage in the Somme.
>>438629
>he/she
stop this shit, its fucking annoying to read.
>>438303
War was seen as a fact of life until very recently.
>>438606
Would be fucking awesome being a young male in a world were a generation of men is missing thou.
>>438303
I didn't see anyone pointing this out, it probably was easy enough to get people around because people didn't know anything else besides what their liege told them. But when it comes to battle, modern estimates only give a small fraction of the total numbers as losses. So they probably routed as easily as they gathered.
I'm actually pretty convinced that medieval armies were more for show than modern armies. But there is no way to prove as everything about them were written from some lord's perspective.
>>438658
>Entire next generation is full of weak pussies because all the strong men died in the war
>>438658
>Would be fucking awesome being a young male in a world were a generation of men is missing thou.
Only single sons and oldest sons were spared the recruitment in order to prolong the families. Young males, mostly second sons, were the ones that were sent to battle. I do not know if it was all around Europe, but I know that from my grandfather who lived through WW1 and fought in WW2.
>>438441
The Romans also mixed their wine with water. The drinking of unmixed wine was considered barbaric.
>>438335
no, war and violence were not compatible with christian values, as much as people tried to make it so with crusades, chivalry and "just war." Nibelungenlied was flaunting pretty pagan values only because the church failed to totally curtail them. The reformation was truly the break when both the catholic and protestant churches implemented a reformation of manners for the lower and upper classes
>>438703
>I'm actually pretty convinced that medieval armies were more for show than modern armies. But there is no way to prove as everything about them were written from some lord's perspective.
how bout you read a book dummy. your idea is not accurate, sieges and burning countrysides was real
>>438303
You really don't have to convince a hormonal 18 year old to hack some faggots up to get glory and pussy.
Of course, the opposite happens and the young people get slaughtered until the vets/rich people arrive, but when you're 18 you think you're invincible.
I guess
you could say
they were
soma sorta
SUUUUUUUUUUUU
SIGGGGGGHHHHHH
SQQQQUUUAAAAAAAAA
>>438758
The christian values took a lot of time to become as ingrained in the populace as they are today, hence today's condemnation of war and any kind of violence. That wasn't the case for most of history, though.
Depends on the period and place, I think typically it went something like this
>On the brink of starving every day
>Ain't shit to do besides work your dick off
>Know you're going to die one day
>See it all the time
>Recruiter tells you if you join the army and kill people you'll get food, money and honor
>Drilled to not run away
>Trained to kill
Likewise for the defenders
>See enemy army in your land, taking your crops, taking your women etc
>Know that if you and your army don't stop them you're just fucked
>Throw yourselves at them with everything you have
I'm painting with a very wide brush here, there are many reasons why individuals or groups of individuals would join in a war, after all, why work for something when you could just take it?
Humans don't seem to mind killing each other if it benefits their progeny and tribe.
>>438303
>How the FUCK did anyone convince soldiers to physically engage and fight each other brutally when this was a major style of warfare?
They didn't.
Pikemen were walls. Pike square was moving wall, but you could fuck it up from the side. The entire point of pike was that only an idiot would engage formation wielding them if he couldn't outmanoeuvre them.
At the same time the most common kind of warfare were sieges(until 18th century or so) and I mean sieges, not storms.
>>438900
>Pikemen were walls. Pike square was moving wall, but you could fuck it up from the side. The entire point of pike was that only an idiot would engage formation wielding them if he couldn't outmanoeuvre them.
I don't remember where or when, but I read something that stated that when pike walls or pike squares came close to each other on the field, they would charge each other, but not with their pikes, they'd drop them and charge each other with secondary weapons such as clubs and axes. I'm assuming if this were done, it was a uncommon and highly situational tactic.
>>438303
Do you prefer to die like a bitch in your house and watch your wife and daughters raped by (insert villain) or do you want to fight for your family, country, king and God ?
see
not that hard
>>438910
See the pic in the OP. That's what happened when pikemen got close to each other on the field.
>>438303
Because you got free reign to rape.
>>438303
I believe there are two answers one is that you had troops who were trained so much that they didn't think everything was second nature and they were cogs in a manchine. The other method would be working up people into a mass frenzy so they could hopefully intimidate and if need be smash into the opposing army. Basically you had to get people not to think either through mass hysteria or rigorous training.
>>438910
Of course they did it like this.
Why would they do it in any other way?
Would they march into each other's pikes? And then what - die row after row until the formation with more men or longer pikes won?
If you've ever marched into some pikemen square with your own pikemen you've did it to scare it off, and then you needed very disciplined pikemen on your own(for instance Swiss).
>>438983
this.
just like in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23_dd4kf5po
(minute 3)
>>438723
>Gerard David
>1400's early 1500's
Still pretty fucking medieval as it carried on the traditions of medieval art.
Needless to say its far from an accurate depiction of an execution. Not to mention ITS THE EXECUTION OF ST. FUCKING BARTHOLOMEW, A CUNT KILLED IN ANCIENT ARMENIA.
>>438303
Honor, money and balls.
Battles were over in hours and wars were won with few battles a year.
>>438553
It's almost as though there was some kind of tactic against which open order infantry were vulnerable.
>>438400
That's the painting of a saint IIRC.
If that Saint even existed it was probably more than a thousand year before the painting was made.
Only guys who had committed regicide were punished in a really cruel manner.
>>438607
The ironic part is, is that those in power are following stirner's philosophy to a point. They generally bow before religious authority (at least in the past) simply to appease that faction which has been exceedingly powerful throughout history, religion has the masses by the balls and if you have the masses on your side then you're pretty invincible. Its a spook you just have to deal with and accept since you can't destroy it outright. (I'm referring to historical times) Treating absolutely everything as your property as long as you have the power to take it and keep it is fine. The problem with following stirner's advice is that you easily transition to not the natural war-of-all-against-all but to tyranny. There will always be someone that plays the game exceedingly well and ends up amassing wealth on way or another and paying people to protect his property from anyone else stealing it, after that you begin hiring people to simply guard You. Once you are in a safer position to defend your person and possessions from outside influence then you must deal other factions that have the same ambition as you. After contending with and sublimating these forces, because you will if you have the capacity, you will become essentially a Lord and your wealth is the limit. This ambitious fellow necessarily wishes to increase his wealth, his possession.
This is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. The problem comes in when these ambitious men wish to establish and order such as hereditary rule. Degeneracy begins.
The Swiss and the Landsknecht actually had different pike techniques.
The Landsknecht would hold it at the end at shoulder height and try to fence with it. The Swiss grabbed the pike about half way and just ran forward doing one trust before dropping it and charging in with a sword. Halberds and those big two handed swords were often used if those pike blocks didn't turn in a mess immediately. The guy with the halberd or sword would move up between the friendly files of soldiers and charged the opposite side which already had their pikes tangled with his own.
>>438303
If we go by your example OP, those are mercenary soldiers, their motivation is gold and rape. Most of the late medieval states used mercenaries, so there was a market for them, burgundian, flemish, german ans swiss soldiers discovered that the pike was an easy to use weapon that was extremely efective against cavalry, so living a life among a mercenary company was not a bad deal: free food, free tents, and spoils of war; you had to pay for your equipment, but that was it, you even had right to a trial in case you commited a crime (and ran fast enough to the cannons). Most of them came back home filthy rich. And if you go in the first row you get double pay! That was enough motivation I guess.
>>438606
And remember, bad equipment: guns without ammo, malfunctioning gasmasks, boots with cardboard soles in winter mountain campaigns, stoves that malfunctioned and ruined your meal, no winter clothes so you freeze to death... And there's Gallipoli.
>ITT edgy /pol/ babies try to convince us that the instinct for self preservation didnt exist before the flintlock
their reasoning being that "hurr everyone is pussies nowadays" as they sit comfortably at their computer
romanticising the past is a meme that needs to die if we're ever gonna have a decent board
>>439055
>easy to use weapon
Not really if you compare it to other infantry weapons used in those days. If anything only highly organized armies managed to use them in an effective offensive manner.
>>439035
Herodotus' Histories is not a Christian book.
I'm commenting on the artist's time, who paints according to what happens during his time, hence the clothing.
I sincerely hope for you that the trolls don't figure out how much spaghetti you fools spill, when an early Renaissance painting is posted.
>>438303
same way they do nowadays OP. aint shit changed. fighting back then was more noble however, if you can call any kind of slaughter that
>>439067
I'm not quite sure I follow your line of reasoning.
The artist decided to paint a grim scene from history. The frequency with which people were flayed at that time is not that high.
>>439067
>Art is always an accurate historical source
This is how we got studded leather, banded mail, and ring mail.
Maybe the artist's goals were something other than making a study of crowd reactions at a funeral? Maybe some of the spectators are modeled after important figures in Bruges, and he's worried portraying their faces screwed up in horror and disgust might affect his pay or future demand for his services?
>>438400
>Look at the facial expressions and tell me, would the same thing happening right here, right now in your city produce the same facial expressions in the bystanders, the authorities, and the victim?
I don't think facial expressions in late medieval painting is a good reference. Flemish painters were usually paid by rich patrons or guilds, so their models were either said patrons or memebrs of the guild, who had to pose for several hours for the painting. That's why all central figures look bored in flemish/dutch paintings.
>>439072
this post is really #woke. Mind if I post it on my tumblr? #knowledge #information
>>439055
>And there's Gallipoli
What was particularly bad about Gallipoli?
>>438303
>especially how the FUCK did anyone convince anyone who wasn't outright suicidal to assault the walls first in a siege?
i always wondered that... how the fuck did they "draft" who was the first to assault the walls and specially how the fuck did they convinced the sad fuckers to do it...
because let's face it, the chances of the first guys assaulting the walls managing to live throughout the whole battle where in the 0.something %
still, i can understand the rest of you doubts and still make some sense of the answers - which are bravado, courage, stupidity and eagerness.
battles usually started with both sides taunting each other and taunted mobs usually get less fearful and will charge without fear at least for before the clash of arms.
and i can see myself fighting during the medieval era since it was pretty much hack & slash and you're odds depended of your m8s but also of your personal skill but i could never see myself fighting in a line battle (cont.)
>>439139
(.cont)
[skill but i could never see myself fighting in a line battle] since dying or living was mostly a roulette thing where you could be killed by a bullet from someone that wasn't even aiming at you. (speaking in general terms about infantry engagements)
still gunpowder era is my favorite era of warfare but i if i was forced to fight during that time i would probably desert and run back home like a little faggot since the only non-completely-suicidal-tier units were the artillery
>>439139
Guaranteed promotion.
>>439148
to get promoted you need to be alive since posthumous promotions usually won't be doing much for you career... and having the entire garrisson throwing rocks, oil, arrows, bullets, cats and even your ladder/siege equipment to the ground makes your survival a very delicated matter.
>>439081
Torture, by any fucked up and disturbing means, was still fashionable in the 15th century.
People were desentitized to its horrors, and had to deal with pain otherwise (regardless of cause i.e. surgical procedures) as anaesthesia was basically science fiction.
>>439099
>Maybe the artist's goals were something other than making a study of crowd reactions at a funeral?
How about portraying the flaying of a corrupt judge?
>>439107
Is pic related bored? Was it because the model was grinning for several hours and it's boring?
Guys, stop. Let it go. Move on.
>>438441
no wine was literally water
>>439061
>not a single /pol/ post
>cries about /pol/ anyway
>>438983
Why would pike squares engage each other at all? Dropping their pikes to attack each other would leave themselves exposed to the enemy cavalry. I don't think this was very common on the battlefield.
>>438748
Spartans had that sentiment too, if I remember right.
>>438562
>was
I want wookiepedia to leave
>>438337
no idea about mercenaries besides probably being broken human beings that saw so much that they wished to die at some degree and until there they would pull extreme stunts to defy death.
but when you're talking about "fair wars" where one or both of the sides think they're right and do it for ideals and/or their nations they probably fight for the men next to them since their lives are so important as theirs and if they fail to fight they will fail to protect their comrades skin.
and in the end it's like that verse from le chant des partisans that says "ami, si tu tombes un ami sort de l'ombre à ta place" which can be roughly translated to "friend, if you fall a friend will come from the shadows to take your place"
to a dying soldier or someone about to do some risky action knowing that it won't be in vain might be a very powerful incentive
>>439158
>as anaesthesia was basically science fiction.
They had what we call opium which was mixed with poison hemlock as a full knock out pre surgery thing. And as sleeping aid, the recipe has been found in over 80 medieval housewife manuals/books as sleeping aid.
>People were desentitized to its horrors,
They had PTSD back then and people commented on the sorry state of some wounded soldiers returning from war. Quite a lot of eye witnesses to battles are described how horrifying the dead were and how lamentable the dying. They paint quite a picture when describing the bloated corpses in the hot Italian summer etc etc.
>>438303
>How the FUCK did anyone convince soldiers to physically engage and fight each other brutally when this was a major style of warfare?
yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do and die
>>439111
>believing in those lies
>misreading paintings that actually show an heroic last stand from men defending themselves from murderous hordes of infants and women
>>438462
what made you so mad sperglord
>>439283
My god why do I hear the Benny Hill when I see that painting? Its not even funny
>>438463
>Notice how they laugh their asses off.
This might also be influenced by the fact that she is nervous about being filmed and so she laughs inappropriately. It happens to a lot of people who aren't experienced in front of a camera.
I'm not saying you are wrong and that she does believe in the afterlife. Just pointing out another explanation for the laughter.
I'm pretty sure she wasn't laughing as she was planning to strap on some explosives.
I agree that the Western idea of the value of life isn't completely shared with other cultures, but the vast majority of humans fear death even if their ideology pushes them through with it.
Didn't people think the world was literally ending during the 30-year's war? Doesn't seem like they were having a good time..
>>439256
>They had PTSD back then
no they didn't.
that is a very recent concept coined during WWI; before that no one even cared about the veterans coming home completely unable to carry on with their lives
also, it's funny that a concept that was initially called "shell shock" suffer such a long way from euphemism to euphemism - and a person went from being shell shocked to have war neurosis/trauma; then it became battle fatigue it was soften a few more times into combat disorder/operational exhaustion and today this is a full fledged syndrome with half a dozen words in it...
so, it's an advancement to acknowledge that this real problem exists and it's not just cowardice (thanks, mr george s. patton) but society as a whole is becoming such a sissy shit that is even afraid to use strong words
>>439303
>benny hill theme
People will do shocking things if they feel they HAVE to do it.
Simple as that.
>>439340
Read Homer m8
>>439380
haven't done it yet - what does he say about the subject?
>>439386
Achilles is PTSDing all over the place.
>>439393
ah the iliad, read an adaptation but a long time ago
but like i said i never claim that didn't exist before i just said it wasn't acknowledged like a real mental state/problem until a very recent time
>>438303
A combination of rigid military discipline and glory?
You've probably walked past people who have been members of death squads or who have been involved in massacres. From Eastern Europe to Central America, this has all happened in living memory.
On top of that, gore is something you can desensitize to. I know I'm 100x less squeamish just as a consequence of rekt threads compared to how I was once.
Didn't read most of the thread but has OP considered that maybe those people enjoyed it? I sure would.
>>439438
>You've probably walked past
Are you serious now? There's always only been a handful of people doing those massacres, it's not like an entire nation went on a murder spree.
>>439446
Shrug. I've met them. They're typically assertive personalities so they end up emigrating in large proportions, plus staying around home where the relatives of the people they killed might just decide to show up one night with a machete ain't the smartest proposition.
>>439453
>Shrug.
Cringe.
>>439164
Fuck off Jesus
>>438303
Because FUCK the other guy. Sometimes you just want to kill the enemy, and that means getting over there and doing it your damn self.
Contempt for your foes means you want them dead, and you won't respect their fighting skill enough to worry they'll kill you.
On top of that, most battles have very few casualties until one side or another breaks anyway.
You're far, far more likely to die if you DON'T engage.
>I imagine the first man up a ladder or out of a tower or through the breach would have almost no chance to live
You'd be wrong. Projectiles will be used to sweep a wall or breach clear of defenders, and the first man is going to be wearing armor. He doesn't need ot kill anyone, just survive for a few moments while more men pile in behind him.
During the 1204 sack of Constantinople, men were literally crawling through holes in the wall, with defenders trying ot kill them, and simply relied on their armor to fend off the spears until they were in.
Towers accommodate several men at once standing abreast, and they charge together-often with archers on a platform above.
Scaling ladders often had a screened fighting platform on the top, or were made so that 1-3 men were already on the top of it as it raised and could instantly rush DOWN onto the walls.
Siege machinery was far more clever than the shitty ladders you see in movies.
>>438303
>How the FUCK did anyone convince American football players to physically engage and fight each other brutally when this was a major style of sport? Even something like baseball seems impersonal and easy compared to two masses of men engaging face to face and hacking away at each other with pads on. Furthermore, especially how the FUCK did anyone convince anyone who wasn't outright suicidal to assault the line first in a play? I imagine the first man to the line of scrimmage would have almost no chance to not get hit, but someone had to, and did. Madness.
>>438500
>>438509
Pull out knives, swords, axes, and kill each other.
Or use fists, foreheads, and teeth.
This is what "bad war" actually was. This is why you'll find that somewhat short swords were common among men with pikes.
This is also why they didn't take prisoners.
Hell, it's why the reserve has halberds-They're not there to break through pikes, they're around to fuck up men who are likely now attacking with knives, swiss sabers, and katzblagers.
>>439492
You don't get killed in football
>>439514
You do from time to time. It was the reason why they introduced pads, because a lot of players were dropping dead on the field.
>>438910
>>438983
>>439205
They'd fucking stab each other with pikes.
You would have ot be FUCKING RETARDED to drop your pikes and charge. Absolutely, pants on head, RETARDED.
There are NO instances, in all of history, of any form of non-pike armed infantry assaulting a pike formation head on and beating it, unless the pikes are badly disordered from being on broken ground.
Not. Fucking. One. Pikes will fucking crush anything stupid enough to get in front of them on the advance, and in square, are near impossible to break unless shot to pieces.
>>439205
Pie unites engaged each other all the damn time. They were the primary focus of the battles they were in until the very tail end of the pike and shot period, and once the oppiosing pikes began their advance, your guns dropped EVERYTHING to inflict casualties on them before they reached your infantry.
If you didn't, you could expect them to do shit like overrun your artillery and turn it on you, rout your muskets or arquebuses entirely-they'd refuse to engage for long without pike support-and completely cockblock your cavalry.
>>439522
So why do they play rugby without that armour?
>>439340
Yes they fucking did. The romans wrote about it.
Shakespeare wrote about it. They just didn't have the name.
My best friend has a TBI/PTSD, and shakespears writing hits so fucking close to what his wife had to deal with, it brought tears to my eyes.
O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offence have I this fortnight been
A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sit’st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage [horsemanship] to thy bounding steed;
Cry ‘Courage! to the field!’ And thou hast talk’d
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;
And in thy face strange motions have appear’d,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.
>>439527
Because rugby is a different sport and many football tackles would be illegal according to rugby contact rules.
>>439527
>armour
>u
Europoop spotted. Please refrain from talking about shit you don't know anything about.
>>439570
>please don't ask questions about things you don't know
>>438303
>Even something like WW1 seems impersonal and easy compared to two masses of men engaging face to fac
It's the opposite around actually.
In medieval combat, when you're going face to face with swords, you're in immediate danger, but you're safe whilst not in combat (like chilling in camp).
During WW1 you were always in danger, every second of your life. A stray bullet, a mortar shell, gas, and you'd be dead without even knowing. It puts a lot more strain on you when you're constantly at the risk of death.
>>438553
primitive notion of closed ranks, see ww1... also those muskets were so innacurate you had to get close to a walking mass of infantry to hit anything... very important when you had to do a song and dance to reload the fucker
Make up some bullshit about honor, God, family, and country just like now.
>>439413
>i never claim that didn't exist before
that's exatly what you claimed
>>439634
>man is born to dare his fortune
That's what people who don't fight tell to people who will
literally the fear of god
>>438337
well for one they knew there wouldent be any collateral damage (unless they raided) they wherent likely to have their brain splattered on the pavment while on patrol from someone a km away
back then you knew where you hade your enemy you could see what weapons he was comming at you with
you could rely on the man standing next to you and the 15 other guys standing behind you
if you got to tired you could just fall back a few lines and relax for a while if they fired arrows at you, you would most likely be able to raise your shield to protect you
now all you get is a distant POP and a sharp pain before you bleed out while your squad mates sit a 10 meters away unable to help you because it will bring them into line of fire
back then you wouldent have to worry about a mortar hitting your bunk while you where sleeping
you wouldent have to worry about a chopper clearing the horizon and spewing a hundred rounds of high explosives at you in less then half a minute
you wouldent have to worry about a IED turning you into a pink mist
you wouldent have to worry about clearing a corner and not realizing that you are standing infront of a machine gun nest untill the first 5 bullets have hit
if anything how can you talk people into war these days
you catch my drift eh?
>>438463
>everybody on /his/, me included, hates 300
I love that movie.
>>438303
Combat casualties were much lower back then they they where for the better part of the 20th century. you had a better chance of getting killed by pestilence or starvation/ dehydration/ exposure while on campaign then in combat.
>>440410
>you had a better chance of getting killed by pestilence or starvation/ dehydration/ exposure
But the main reason for that is how prevalent that kind of death was in general in the ages prior to antibiotics and modern medicine. I wouldn't argue that the lower relative amount of combat casualty has anything to do with combat being less deadly.
Life used to be fucking trash and odds are youd only survive until age 30 anyways, may as well roll the dice and hope you walk away with looting a city.
>>440600
please leave
>>440600
Also vanguard units often got better rewards, such as double pay, or more status for your family. If your son was age 16 it was alright to die.
>>440606
Humans arent as retarded as your revisionist history ordains they are anon. Even peasants know they are merely playing their best hand.
threat of violence against you if you did not comply with orders. constant drilling of what to do in battle. So that it becomes reflexive when you actually have to do it. Then you get marched into position in a large formation. Where peer pressure and the implausibility of escape, forces you to conform and fight.
>>440614
humans are not retarded but you are, as evidenced by your post and the "muh 30 years" bullshit
>>439955
>now all you get is a distant POP and a sharp pain before you bleed out while your squad mates sit a 10 meters away unable to help you because it will bring them into line of fire
Pretty close. Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXCE2jyTGrM
The thing shooting at them with the RIP-BOOM sound is 2 or more mortars (a platoon to a battery), probably shooting HE-VT since the blasts are so distinct and un-muffled, also since they obviously fucked up guys in a trench.
Individual snaps are supersonic bullets passing. Sounds of a fuckload of snaps at the same time(the ripping sound) are bunches of supersonic frag passing. The supersonic speed is why you hear the rip before you hear the boom.
>>438449
Nah german beer in at that times had hops churches in Germany where even tax exempt in hops and the catholic chuch even promoted the use of hop since they belived that it killed libido it was brittish ale that didn't had hops at that time.
>>440609
A vanguard is not the same things as the front line anon.
>>438335
No one is arguing about the morality of killing people or anything like that you idiot. We're claiming that the elite would convince the pleb soldiers to come fight in their wars for "glory and honour" when in reality they'd just die of some horrible disease while sitting in a siege camp.
>>439570
Canadians and Australians use u in words like armour or colour too, m8.
I think the answer's obvious. People are mad.
>>439665
That's what I say to people who haven't fought and I have.
>>438303
Religion.
Period.
>"You fight for gods glory. Your enemy rejects god. If you kill him you get eternal life. If you don't you go to hell."
>>439340
I think Herodotus mentioned a case of probable PTSD among one of the survivours of Marathon.
>>438527
What if some used hatchets? You dont really know if they always used swords
Are there not accounts of Greek hoplites that are blinded during battle due to fear or shock?
>>438859
I bet you think you're funny.
>>440855
I'm assuming that you "fought" in the middle-east, which means you fought for the jewry. Is that what you're willing to die for?
>>438449
>hating IPAs
Sure is /babby/ in here.
>>441441
>Faggot hipster bitch detected.
>>441441
IPA is the ultimate hipster beer. No sense of balance, overpriced, and still tries to sell this lumbersexual shit >muh real men like bitter
Disgusting. Trully a product of late capitalism consumerist society
>Back lines can't see, so they keep marching
>Front line can't retreat because the back lines keep marching
>>441769
MUH /POL/ BOGEYMAN
>>438335
>Do you know of any movements during the Medieval period (I include the whole period) that condoned lethal punishment?
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_and_Truce_of_God
>>438303
By having something worth fighting for.
You have to realize that the vast majority of people back then were illiterate and rarely ventured farther than 10 miles from their hometown.
If someone came along one day offering you more money then you make in a month to sign your mark and even MORE loot and ass (as much you could carry) AND you get paid to travel to foreign lands you only heard about in stories... it's easy to understand how they could convince plenty of idiots to disembowel each other. Especially when life really wasn't all that promising to begin with.
>>438303
What do you think training is for? Only preparation for fighting?
A big part of it is removing your individualism and preparing you to be part of a unit that might get completely wiped out. Preparing to be sacrificed as part of a grand strategy, even.
And aside from just following orders and keeping up with everyone else, there's also the urge to protect oneself in immediate danger/defending the homeland. Even if whoever's in charge has convinced you invading another country is part of defense (which it might be).
Kill him so he doesn't kill you.
There's also patriotism or a sense of duty/honor. But really, most people would probably be more cynical than you'd expect. I'm sure there were some zealots, but really not too many outside of holy wars.
![1[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/t6FfRYj.jpg "1[1].jpg")
