I just picked up Benson Bobrick’s “East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia”, and while I’m only a few pages in, it seems quite good so far. I don’t have any choice quotes to share with readers yet, but in the meantime you can enjoy ZenPundit’s review of a book on the Russian Civil War general Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian Ungern von Sternberg, who went all Colonel Kurtz in his fight against the Reds across Transbaikal and Mongolia. Hat tip to John Robb. For more light-hearted fare, there is the late Soviet era animated film about the Polmors, Laughter and Grief by the White Sea, available on google video.
UPDATE: Pretty early on I’ve found a mistake. Describing Yermak’s expedition against the Khanate it is said “Indeed, it was their military superiority through firearms that would prove decisive, as it had for Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru”. Firearms were still fairly primitive in Cortez’ time, they were not the primary armament of his forces and primarily served to amaze the natives rather than play a major role in military tactics. The horses and steel armor plus weapons were more important factors (along with the fact that Aztecs were used to fighting with the aim of capturing their opponents and had thoroughly pissed off other tribes in the area). Think the last rather than first member of the triad “Guns, Germs and Steel”. Speaking of which, I wonder if differences in resistance to various diseases played a significant role in Russian expansion to the east. The Siberians were not isolated from large agricultural civilization like New Worlders but rather had some connection to China. China or Mongolia is supposed to have been the source of the Black Death which ravaged Europe, though I don’t know how much of a problem it was in east asia.
August 1, 2009 at 10:30 pm
TGGP, are you a white nationalist?
August 2, 2009 at 1:42 am
No, I don’t have a very high opinion of nationalism (though as a radical pluralist I accept nationalist tendencies), I don’t believe whites constitute a “nation” and don’t consider my race/ethnicity to be a very salient component of my identity. The title of this post was inspired by the phrase “The Great White North”, which I believe was a recurring sketch on SCTV that I never actually saw. Admittedly, much of Siberia is not actually arctic (technically Archangelsk by the White Sea might not be either, but close enough), indeed the lowest portion is a hot desert. But most people associate it with ice and snow anyway, and furthermore its sheer size also makes it similar to Canada. Finally, the linked book review is about a general in the White (as opposed to Red, or maybe Green or Black) army and is also titled The Bloody White Baron. That last bit may be a reference to race, a la “Great White Hunter” or “White Rajah“.
August 2, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Lets bear in mind that, as late as 1776, that noted military-expert, Benjamin Franklin wanted to arm the Continental regulars with long-bows, rather than muskets.
The Cossack’s were armed with hackbuts, which were low-velocity had a naturally slow rate of fire.
Though I’m no expert on far-Eastern history, it’s pretty well-known that the Chinese were using such weaponry quite effectively, against the Mongols at least two centuries before Yermak’s expeditions.
Personally, I’d like to see a more unbiased and iliberal account of the White Baron’s extraordinary career.
Guess I’ll have to do it myself.
August 2, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I did not know that about Franklin. Surprising.
Best of luck on your revisionist biography.
August 2, 2009 at 3:47 pm
It actually isn’t surprising that longbows might have been considered almost equivalent to rifles in 1776. The muzzle-loading firearms of that day had such a slow rate of fire that whatever accuracy and range advantages they might have had over longbows were probably not all that decisive.
Peter
August 2, 2009 at 5:23 pm
The English were actually slow to adopt guns in part because they had so many Welsh longbowmen (you can see the effects of training the weapon in their skeletons). The initial advantage giving firearms to light infantry was not that the weapons were more effective, but that they were much easier to use than crossbows, much less longbows. That was a while before the war of independence, by which time guns were standard issue.
Muskets are distinct from rifles. Most British troops used “Brown Bess”, which had horrible accuracy such that they weren’t really aimed so much as pointed in the general direction of the enemy and fired en masse. The simultaneous release also provided for a nice smoke cloud, although I suppose their enemies would have known from their m.o that they’d be charging in with bayonets shortly after anyway. There were actually only a scattering of frontiersmen who had rifling in their guns and so were able to pick off individual enemies from a distance (it surprised the Brits when this happened to their officers) and preferred to act as irregulars.
My old post on how British tactics were actually sensible and effective is here.
August 4, 2009 at 7:09 pm
[…] Posted by teageegeepea under Uncategorized Leave a Comment Beginning chapter 8 I see that again, Benson makes errors when he ventures from Russia to discuss the New World. He claims that native […]