Hm. Your Texan buddy has a point. I never quite got why the Northerners were so determined in preserving “the Union”. It’s not like they really needed the South. And the idea that ending slavery motivated them seems very true for certain ardent abolitionists but hard to reconcile with the racism of the North, hardly less than that of the South and the fact that people don’t go to war out of altruism in general…
But indeed if you wanted to preserve the Union, then every act of destruction outside of the confines of a battlefield is another hurdle to overcome after victory, another wound needing healing…
Most conquerors know that. Either you genocide the population of your new conquest or you tread very lightly, using at most a couple of cruel but ultimately symbolic displays, to make sure your newly conquered people know you’re not weak (see The Prince for some good tips around that)
I think the idea that excessive cruelty would compel surrender has been discredited, although it was the prevailing idea at the time (see Impossible Histories pp. xx). I don’t know if anyone has the psychology down, though. Certainly (West) Germany and Japan got treated harshly followed by a generous “reconstruction” period, and they came out as allies. For all I know (and I don’t know much about Civil ar strategy) Atlanta was a fine military target as well, and its destruction was simply enflamed into a barbarous act by postbellum Southern agitators—who were certainly putting their efforts into rewriting history.
Of course, this is the problem with reading history in general. Everything is propaganda. “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
Me, I’m a Union man—enough of one that my prejudices and preconceptions worry me, and I’m tempted to write a post steelmanning the Southern cause, you know, to check myself.
Sorry, I assumed you would be intimately familiar with The Prince but there's no reason you'd be up to its minutia.
In short, Machiavelli does not recommend cruelty to achieve domination but point out that, once you conquered territories, you're going to have a period of time where things are going dicey. Your troops or tax collectors will be ambushed. Reacting too lightly may embolden your enemies while reacting too harshly could easily lead to a broader rebellion.
His solution is to delegate unpleasant punishments to a hireling (to be offered as scapegoat later) and have him perform very limited but very cruel punishment. I can't remember if he gives examples but I imagine something like torturing to death (publicly) a couple of rebels/bandits who attacked your tax collector.
Once calm has been thoroughly restored in the conquered province and the constant policing becomes a bit heavy, Machiavelli then recommends to sacrifice the hireling with notion "oh, I had no idea, he abused the powers I had given him and, from now, justice will be lighter"...
With regards to Germany and Japan, you have a point. I think I know why Germany "worked". One, they genuinely felt guilty for what they had done under Nazi rule and therefore agreed "they deserved it". Two, the Soviet immediately manifested themselves as a very tangible threat and meaningfully worse than the Americans, even after stuff like the fire bombing of German cities. While the Americans more or less seem willing to forgive and forget.
I don't have an answer for Japan. You win that one... :)
I still would recommend a would-be conqueror to either tread lightly and stick to military targets as much as possible or enact a genocide. IIRC, Greeks were pretty good at those when it came to Greek colonies founded by opposing Greek cities. Killing/enslaving previous colonists and then installing your own happened more than once. And Rome treatment of Carthage is world famous.
I'll admit it's been several decades since I read The Prince.
I assume both the Germans and the Japanese were culturally predisposed to doing what the strong commanded, having just come out of their experiments with fascism. And of course both, as you point out with Germany, had Soviets peeking over their borders, and the enemy of my enemy etc
Ha ha! I put a placeholder assuming I'd look up and fill in the actual pages later, but then of course I didn't. Anyway, I meant pp. 373–75. I should probably just edit the above comment…
Sloppy dribbling on this one, point guard. The most plausible scenarios all include Yankee naval/maritime supremacy. The significance of it is casually overlooked by historical hobbyists. But for all we know it was just as crucial to northern victory as, say, the Battle of Petersburg. Not quite as important as Atlanta or Gettysburg but still important enough that if it had turned out differently the course of the war would be strongly effected. But because the North successfully blockaded the South a major X factor - British intervention- was utterly nullified. The outcome woulld’ve been profoundly different if it hadn’t been as effective. But it was also never that close because Yankee seamanship and shipbuilding had reached exceptional levels by then. The South was never going to catch up. The forests of the north lands were dense and profligate. Trees recapture old tillage routinely, so the woods are essentially a permanent natural resource. And the labor conditions are also better: cooler with no malaria. It’s a bit blase’ of you to dismiss the possibility that slavery would not fade away by 1900, when it’s fraternal twin, apartheid, wasn’t extinct until the 1990s.
I think you’re probably right, but I also assume your rightness supports my post? Naval superiority is one of many superiorities the North saw grow between 1800 and 1861. Unless you’re asserting that the Northern navy could have fatally blockaded the South in 1800 (I would assume that’s wrong, but I don’t really have any evidence one way or another) there’s still a crossover year—maybe you’d just put it earlier than I assumed?
I don’t know what Zeitgeist power made slavery wisp away, but the power was certainly there. Confederate diehards who planned to move to Brazil to keep slaves for eternity didn’t get their eternity. Overt slavery had to be replaced by subtler stand-ins: Apartheid, Jim Crow, chain gangs, etc. I’d assume the creepy Zeitgeist power would make the South drop slavery even without a Civil War before the end of the nineteenth century, but…if it didn’t that’s just more reason why a civil war is necessary, and the only thing left to do is calculate the optimum year.
Hm. Your Texan buddy has a point. I never quite got why the Northerners were so determined in preserving “the Union”. It’s not like they really needed the South. And the idea that ending slavery motivated them seems very true for certain ardent abolitionists but hard to reconcile with the racism of the North, hardly less than that of the South and the fact that people don’t go to war out of altruism in general…
But indeed if you wanted to preserve the Union, then every act of destruction outside of the confines of a battlefield is another hurdle to overcome after victory, another wound needing healing…
Most conquerors know that. Either you genocide the population of your new conquest or you tread very lightly, using at most a couple of cruel but ultimately symbolic displays, to make sure your newly conquered people know you’re not weak (see The Prince for some good tips around that)
I think the idea that excessive cruelty would compel surrender has been discredited, although it was the prevailing idea at the time (see Impossible Histories pp. xx). I don’t know if anyone has the psychology down, though. Certainly (West) Germany and Japan got treated harshly followed by a generous “reconstruction” period, and they came out as allies. For all I know (and I don’t know much about Civil ar strategy) Atlanta was a fine military target as well, and its destruction was simply enflamed into a barbarous act by postbellum Southern agitators—who were certainly putting their efforts into rewriting history.
Of course, this is the problem with reading history in general. Everything is propaganda. “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
Me, I’m a Union man—enough of one that my prejudices and preconceptions worry me, and I’m tempted to write a post steelmanning the Southern cause, you know, to check myself.
Sorry, I assumed you would be intimately familiar with The Prince but there's no reason you'd be up to its minutia.
In short, Machiavelli does not recommend cruelty to achieve domination but point out that, once you conquered territories, you're going to have a period of time where things are going dicey. Your troops or tax collectors will be ambushed. Reacting too lightly may embolden your enemies while reacting too harshly could easily lead to a broader rebellion.
His solution is to delegate unpleasant punishments to a hireling (to be offered as scapegoat later) and have him perform very limited but very cruel punishment. I can't remember if he gives examples but I imagine something like torturing to death (publicly) a couple of rebels/bandits who attacked your tax collector.
Once calm has been thoroughly restored in the conquered province and the constant policing becomes a bit heavy, Machiavelli then recommends to sacrifice the hireling with notion "oh, I had no idea, he abused the powers I had given him and, from now, justice will be lighter"...
With regards to Germany and Japan, you have a point. I think I know why Germany "worked". One, they genuinely felt guilty for what they had done under Nazi rule and therefore agreed "they deserved it". Two, the Soviet immediately manifested themselves as a very tangible threat and meaningfully worse than the Americans, even after stuff like the fire bombing of German cities. While the Americans more or less seem willing to forgive and forget.
I don't have an answer for Japan. You win that one... :)
I still would recommend a would-be conqueror to either tread lightly and stick to military targets as much as possible or enact a genocide. IIRC, Greeks were pretty good at those when it came to Greek colonies founded by opposing Greek cities. Killing/enslaving previous colonists and then installing your own happened more than once. And Rome treatment of Carthage is world famous.
I'll admit it's been several decades since I read The Prince.
I assume both the Germans and the Japanese were culturally predisposed to doing what the strong commanded, having just come out of their experiments with fascism. And of course both, as you point out with Germany, had Soviets peeking over their borders, and the enemy of my enemy etc
Ha ha! I put a placeholder assuming I'd look up and fill in the actual pages later, but then of course I didn't. Anyway, I meant pp. 373–75. I should probably just edit the above comment…
Sloppy dribbling on this one, point guard. The most plausible scenarios all include Yankee naval/maritime supremacy. The significance of it is casually overlooked by historical hobbyists. But for all we know it was just as crucial to northern victory as, say, the Battle of Petersburg. Not quite as important as Atlanta or Gettysburg but still important enough that if it had turned out differently the course of the war would be strongly effected. But because the North successfully blockaded the South a major X factor - British intervention- was utterly nullified. The outcome woulld’ve been profoundly different if it hadn’t been as effective. But it was also never that close because Yankee seamanship and shipbuilding had reached exceptional levels by then. The South was never going to catch up. The forests of the north lands were dense and profligate. Trees recapture old tillage routinely, so the woods are essentially a permanent natural resource. And the labor conditions are also better: cooler with no malaria. It’s a bit blase’ of you to dismiss the possibility that slavery would not fade away by 1900, when it’s fraternal twin, apartheid, wasn’t extinct until the 1990s.
I think you’re probably right, but I also assume your rightness supports my post? Naval superiority is one of many superiorities the North saw grow between 1800 and 1861. Unless you’re asserting that the Northern navy could have fatally blockaded the South in 1800 (I would assume that’s wrong, but I don’t really have any evidence one way or another) there’s still a crossover year—maybe you’d just put it earlier than I assumed?
I don’t know what Zeitgeist power made slavery wisp away, but the power was certainly there. Confederate diehards who planned to move to Brazil to keep slaves for eternity didn’t get their eternity. Overt slavery had to be replaced by subtler stand-ins: Apartheid, Jim Crow, chain gangs, etc. I’d assume the creepy Zeitgeist power would make the South drop slavery even without a Civil War before the end of the nineteenth century, but…if it didn’t that’s just more reason why a civil war is necessary, and the only thing left to do is calculate the optimum year.