I wish I could be as great as Cortez, a conquer, explorer, and entrepreneur.
What is /his/ opinion of this man?
Great man.
>>911059
A sadistic,maniac,ambitious motherfucker, just like almost every man with power in that savage era. Conquer or be conquered.
He is probably still looking for that black gold somewhere in Argentina begging for a coin to a numismatic's collectionist
>>911082
>A sadistic,maniac,ambitious motherfucker
Montezuma was little different. His capture by Cortez did expore a sort of naive innocence in him, though.
As for Cortez, his story is one of the most amazing in all of history, which he accomplished singlehandedly by his wits.
>>911102
>Montezuma
Did I ever talk about him? He is just as bad, if not worse. I have a book with Cortés letters,I know my stuff, but If you want to romanticize the man, go ahead, it's healthy to search for role models.
You are now aware that there has never been a movie about Cortez's conquest..
>>911124
Romanticism has nothing to do with it.
I can see Cortes for the monstrosities he enabled.
The fact is, it was his ambition and strategy that toppled an entire empire and changed the history of a continent foever. Very few men in history can truly claim that.
The fact that he was on the run from the governor of Cuba is often overlooked. He was desperate to press on because if he turned back he was going to be deep in the shit.
He was a great man.
Great is the opposite of good.
>yfw he didn't even have the loyalty of his men without threatening them with death
>yfw the enemies of the Aztecs used them as part of their own machinations
>>911166
Even better, he defeated the spanish meant to capture him, all the while being heavily outnumbered.
>>911163
>The fact is, it was his ambition and strategy that toppled an entire empire and changed the history of a continent foever. Very few men in history can truly claim that.
I don't want to trigger you, but you are still romanticizing him. He won because the Aztecs thought he was Quetzalcoatl coming back from his exodus,partly because Spaniards rode horses and they seemed to be "Godly". When Moctezuma realized the truth he was killed by traitors and the empire fell. Also
>guns
>diseases brought overseas that Indians could not endure
>Gold was used to provoke conflict and made the Aztecs face each other over their own gold.
Oh, and to save me the trouble, don't think I'm defending those bloody Aztec's, they were decadent as well
>>911183
These are the kind of things that get men named great by history.
>>911082
hey kid nice value judgement!
>>911197
> He won because the Aztecs thought he was Quetzalcoatl coming back from his exodus
Nope. The Aztec word usually translated as 'god' is more accurately translated to 'spirit'. Aztecs referred to people by their metropolitan area, so they had no word for the Spanish initially, but as soon as they learned what the Spaniards called home, they started referring to them as Castilians (Caxtiltec).
>>911197
>guns
You mean steel.
America, unlike Eurasia and Africa, was still in the stone age as of 1500 AD.
>>911201
>Doesn't reply with facts or counterargument
>uses ad hominem
Do you even try?
>>911059
I would do the same if I could
>>911205
Well, maybe you confused my term with something else, but I'm pretty sure Quetzalcoatl was a God, the definition backs me up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl
>>911206
I meant that Cortés had rifles to fight the Aztecs though
>>911213
>uses ad hominem
I don't think you know what that is my baiting, /tv/ browsing friend.
>>911206
>stone age
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaximaltepoztli
The Aztecs didn't just suddenly all suck Spanish cock once they turned on Moctezuma. Sure they were weakened, but you're treating it as though the Spanish just showed up, got lucky, and won an empire. They had to fight and fight hard to capture and subjugate Tenochtitlan. And 2,000 men armed with steel, some guns, and at most 500 horses won't make the difference of 100,000 men in battle relying on that alone.
>>911231
>rifles
Go pick up a book
>>911239
Pardon me, I wish I was a t.v connoiseur! I stuck with baneposting and never looked back , I still listen to the UUUU album. Masterpiece.
>>911231
>rifles
No.
Muskets could kill one or two people before they closed the distance, horses could trample enemies, and steel swords and armor were far superior.
If the same war were fought with rifles, you're looking at the situation in colonial wars in Africa.
Interesting little tidbit of info: musketry in the Muslim world was more sophisticated than that of Christendom up until at least 1800. (not that Christendom lasted much longer, but it's not right to say West until after Napoleon)
>>911253
is english your first language?
>>911243
Holy hell. Isn't it weird when you study a subject and completely miss a vital part of it until you are years into it?
I remember asking what a 'tort' was once. Lurk more, faggot.
>>911251
>go pick up a book
Sorry, I apologize, I never pay attention to those details nor I know anything about weapons. It was the arquebus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus
>>911261
Did I fuck up again? I-is it my accent? What gave me away?
>>911254
Well, big mistake of mine I guess, it's nice to know more about those things, I'm more of process kind of guy, but the technical aspect is complementary after all.
>>911270
Technically yes. There are a hundred times a hundred different variations, and you have to keep in mind firearms from not-Europe are among these variations.
I think it's fine to split firearms, long-arms that is, into three broad categories:
>muskets (from invention to c. 1800)
>rifles (from c. 1800 to c. 1945)
>automatics (from c. 1945)
>>911197
>he won because the Aztecs thought he was Quetzalcoatl coming back from his exodus,partly because Spaniards rode horses and they seemed to be "Godly"
If that's how you want to boil down the context.
He led his tiny force of men to face 40,000 tlaxacalns one day (with only one conquistador mortally wounded, an ambush of 10,000 the proceeding night, then 100,000 the next day. And the spanish won.
>hurrr durr muh native allies
Didn't amount to much more than a couple thousand at it's peak, until reaching Tenochtitlan anyway.
I don't care how much superstition and cultural shock factored in. Those battles alone should promote him to one of the greatest military leaders in history.
>guns
>diseases brought overseas that Indians could not endure
Which did little to contribute to Cortes' Machiavellian
>Gold was used to provoke conflict and made the Aztecs face each other over their own gold.
This is a smart move to do.
>>911287
>rifles no longer exist after 1945
>rifles and "automatics" are mutually exclusive categories
How fast a weapon shoots is in no way determinative of whether it is a "rifle" or not. E.g., an "assault rifle". "Automatic" would include both heaver squad weapons (machine guns of various sorts) and lighter weapons (submachine guns), but a fully automatic rifle is still a rifle. The original definition was having a rifled spiral barrel as opposed to a smooth-bore musket, but because that describes all firearms but shotguns nowdays, a "rifle" is simply an individual-sized (not a team weapon) long gun that's not a shotgun. If you say an AK-47, M16, etc. aren't "rifles" because they are automatic I will fucking fight you.
>>911272
It's "TV", "tv", or "television", not "t.v.". No one abbreviates it. You also misspelled "connoisseur" but I honestly can't think of an American that wouldn't, and you used a comma improperly (You do not put a space before the comma).
But hey, you're completely understandable and you're talking to a bunch of autists. Keep improving bro!
>>911304
Rifle and automatic are not exclusive, didn't imply they were. Give me a better term than rifle alone for a non-automatic rifle, and I'll use it from now on.
I agree automatic is somewhat awkward, so give me a better term and I'll use that too.
>>911297
>If that's how you want to boil down the context.
Well, that's EXACTLY what gave him the entrance to start negotiations with the Aztecs! Imagine if they saw the Spaniards as enemies from the start! That would have been a different story for our lovable hero.
>Didn't amount to much more than a couple thousand at it's peak, until reaching Tenochtitlan anyway.
Do you seriously think that local infiltrators didn't play a part on the destibilization of Tenochtitlán?
>Which did little to contribute to Cortes' Machiavellian
I'm not so sure about guns anymore since I've just been debunked in that regard, but if study doesn't fail me diseases played a big part on all America from that time.
>>911305
>I was discovered over typos
Seriously, this day couldn't get any worse
>>911354
>>911328
>hat's EXACTLY what gave him the entrance to start negotiations with the Aztecs!
Yes, and they told the Spanish to leave in literally the first message.
> Imagine if they saw the Spaniards as enemies
They certainly did not trust them and found their presence trouble. And the Tlaxacalans tried to stop them.
>for our lovable hero.
If you wish to continue to be a strawmanning, condescending cocksucker, we can end this now.
>Do you seriously think that local infiltrators didn't play a part on the destibilization of Tenochtitlán?
No, considering I was obviously talking about the battles with the Tlaxacalans.
>>911321
The typical terminology is "battle rifle" or "main battle rifle" for the former and "automatic rifle" or "assault rifle" for the latter. On the one hand I feel that's getting a bit pedantic, but you're right that there is a significant difference in tactical use between a bolt-action or semi-automatic and a fully automatic weapon, and the former tend to be higher-powered but more unwieldly in close quarters. With that being said, much of the use of a modern "assault rifle" (at least for professional soldiers, not spray-and-pray 3rd-worlders) is still in single shot mode, which is why I think the distinction is overhyped.
>>911408
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_rifle
>>911372
Well, it seems that each of us have different versions of what happened. I can't argue with you because I recall a different story.
I'll look into it
>If you wish to continue to be a strawmanning, condescending cocksucker, we can end this now.
I admit that was to spice things up a little.
>>911408
>double taps
>spray and pray
That is also an artifact of the kind of military they're in.
Western boot camp is almost cult-like in it's indoctrination (it breaks all your natural responses to danger and replaces them with ones that keep you alive in battlespace 2016), and third-worlders don't get this training, they don't go into 'battle-trances'.
>>911297
>He led his tiny force of men to face 40,000 tlaxacalns one day (with only one conquistador mortally wounded, an ambush of 10,000 the proceeding night, then 100,000 the next day.
sources?
>>911059
First step to be as great as him. Play the political game like a true pragmatic cunt, and then turn on anybody and everybody until you are the one on top.
Then proceed to be an ever more vicious cunt to everyone you stepped on until death.
Basically get a degree in poly sci or business, and you can be just like the man himself.
>>911493
Cortes himself, along with Castillo.
Cortes exaggerated the numbers even beyond that, as was common with most battle accounts, but experts know the Tlaxcalan king could immediately raise an army of 40,000, greatly adding to that number with time.
>>911530
What experts and what king?
>>911544
I forget, sadly. Poor form for me, but I hope any further research you may do can vindicate this story.
>>911156
it would be butchery
Hollywood a shit
>>911519
Not very virtuous lad
I just wanna clean up on a couple of oversights;
the guns didn't just include "muskets" or whatever u wanna call them. there were also cannons too.
he organized his, and other people's men. he dismantled his spanish ships so spaniards couldnt leave, and made them rebuild them on lake tenochtitlan so he could siege the city. he also cut off the city from anyone entering or leaving, via the causeways, and took montezuma hostage.
and not ONE single mention of Malintzin? idiots.
>>911059
The most based fucker that ever lived. Dead serious.
>>911163
Victory. Excuses. Everything.
>>911228
>...The most important source for all these legends is Book Twelve of the Florentine Codex...
>The idea that Cortes was understood to be the god Quetzalcoatl returning from the east is also presented as fact in Book Twelve. Moctezuma sends gifts for different gods, to see which are most welcome to the newcomers, and then decides it is Quetzalcoatl who has come. There are numerous obvious problems with the story. First, Quetzalcoatl was not a particularly prominent god in the pantheon worshiped in Mexico's great city. The one city in the empire where Quetzalcoatl was prominent, Cholula, was the only one to mount a concerted attack against Cortes...
>Furthermore, in the Codex itself, when the earlier explorer Juan de Grijalva lands on the coast in 1518, he is taken to be Quetzalcoatl. So much for the explanation that Cortes happened to land in the right year, causing all the pieces to fall into place in the indigenous imagination.
>In the Aztec ritual calendar, different deities were associated with each cyclically repeating date: Quetzalcoatl was tied to the year Ce Acatl (One Reed), which is correlated to the year 1519 (among others) in the Western calendar.
>There is no evidence of any ancient myths recounting the departure or return of such a god, but, in the early years after the conquest, discrete elements of the story that has become so familiar to us do appear separately in various documents, with the main character being mortal or divine. The wandering hero is called Huemac or Topiltzin ... he is not given the name "Quetzalcoatl" until the 1540s, and then not in Nahuatl language texts...
>The elements did not all appear in the same narration until Sahagun's Codex drew them together in the 1560s
Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico. Camilla Townsend, American Historical Review
Muskets did not make much of a difference in Mexico, considering Cortes had only about a dozen of them, and they were frequently out of powder. Cortes had twice as many crossbows as firearms. Cavalry and cannon were the decisive weapons on the open field, alongside the skill of the 90% of conquistadors who were armed with only swords.
Cortes was a brilliant diplomat and soldier. There were a dozen occassions where he could have slipped up and been killed to the last man, and the entire map of America would be completely different today. His flaws were lust for riches and glory, and he sought to rob even his own men of those. We are fortunate, as historically interested people, that he was, or else Bernal Diaz wouldn't have been motivated to write his own history.
>>911254
really, wow! Why didn't the Muslims just butt rape us, i mean the Ottoman empire yuge?
I wish I could waste entire civilization.
