Saturday, April 14, 2012

Today In History: The _th Battle of ______.

On this day in history, a bunch of guys were wiped out by another bunch of guys in Adrianople...

Which isn't much of a distinction because "Battle of Adrianople" has a disambiguation page at Wikipedia. The battle in question is the one where a bunch of Hungarians handed a good old-fashioned Hun stomping to some EU crusaders under Baldwin I, the latter having ridden out from the then-NATO fortress of Byzantium Constantinople Istanbul, not the other half-dozen historically significant battles that took place on the same godforsaken pied-à-terre.

Real Estate ProTip for residents of Edirne, Thermopylae, Megiddo, et al: If your town has to be referenced in history as the "__th Battle of ___________" with a Roman numeral involving "V" or higher, then maybe it's time to sell out and find a new place to lay your head, Hurricane Annie.

3 comments:

  1. Yes indeed.

    I remember as a young lad was called the "dictionary of battles" and coming across Adrianople, and going to my father and asking, "Dad, who in their right mind would live anywhere NEAR there?" I mean it's not just the incessant battles every time the regime is challenged, but dear god it's armies marching and fleeing
    too and fro, and you KNOW that the actual battles are only the times when something happened that was REALLY noisy.

    There are a lot of places that for the long term benefits of your descendants it is deeply wise to NOT live.

    They are easy to identify in the old world, but an experienced and cynical eye could probably make some pretty shrewd guess about where it's going to drop in the pot when the SHTF in North America

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  2. It is a busy place and John Keegan list 15, so XV. However, centuries went by between some of these battles and there are other places in Europe that aren't that far behind. Besides, good farmland is hard to find.

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  3. also, a busy trade route. they didn't call it capitalism back them but they knew profit when they saw it.

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