> Could have stationed his HQ on the East bank of the Volga, instead he stationed it on the Western front lines within sniper and mortar range> Made sure every man in his army was properly dressed for the cold, had a warm place to sleep and had access to at least one hot meal a day.> Never used human wave tactics, despite modern media depicting otherwise. His only advantage besides logistics was manpower and he wasn't going to waste it.> Not above putting hands on officers who wasted men and supplies> Universally loved by rank and file.> Regularly inspected the front lines personally.> Awards and Medals:Named Hero of the Soviet Union, twiceOrder of Lenin a staggering NINE timesOrder of the October RevolutionOrder of the Red Banner, four timesOrder of Suvorov, 1st class, three timesOrder of the Red StarMedal "For the Defence of Moscow"Medal "For the Defence of Stalingrad"Medal "For the Liberation of Warsaw"Medal "For the Capture of Berlin"Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"Medal "For the Victory over Japan"Medal "Veteran of the Armed Forces of the USSR"Medal "For Strengthening of Brotherhood in Arms"Medal "For the Development of Virgin Lands" Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"Jubilee Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy" Jubilee Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin" Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow"Honorary weapon – sword inscribed with golden national emblem of the Soviet Union
>butt naked>a cannibaltruly the greatest of all time
General Chuikov inspects the rifle of Vasily Zaitsev in Stalingrad
>>64881947I'm curious, how did the Soviet Union find so many officers willing to play populist generals? Was it the broad berth they were given to do their thing without trouble from the party? I've always been curious how the Soviets built an army that weren't reactionary fifth columnists (for a while)
>>64882366Technically Bolshevism is reactionary by commie standards, inasmuch as communism is supposed to progress towards greater decentralization and the abolition of the state, so Moscow's hypercentralization represents communism devolving into something more akin to NatSoc, but then every commie state does this inevitably.
>>64882384I guess you have a point, this wasn't the OG Red Army, but the generals didn't defect. Was it the hope of party status?
>>64882399More the realization that Hitler wasn't waging some liberation war and hated Slavs. You either live with a Georgian murdering millions of you or an Austrian doing the same. At least the Georgian was born inside your borders.
>>64882366>willing to play populist generalsImagine accusing one of the nost effective and consequential generals of all time as playing a part
you are all little babies
I defeated the italians 11 timeswith barely more than sticks and stones
>>64882575legend
>>64882570Think he could've rescued Paulus?
>>64882629If Paulus gets replaced by someone competent
>>64882636Hard to know if anyone could have done anything different considering Hitler's standing orders for Stalingrad was basically 'IDK, die lol'
>>64881947The one and only. He had the one thing all great generals need, incredible luck. There's just something so romantic (in the artistic sense) about the whole story. Beginning the tiny expedition as a technical traitor, the burning of the boats, la Malinche and de Aguilar, the clash of civilizations, fulfilling the ancient aztec legend, the night attack on de Narvaez, the nocte trieste, the battle of otumba, the great pestilence, the siege of tenochtitlan, his captive men getting sacrificed on the top of the great temple mid-battle for all to see. His horse even became revered as a local mayan thunder god for a hundred years after, it's like you're reading an epic. Not to mention the endless seething he still causes to this day.I think his own quotes sum him up quite well>What men in all the world have shown such daring?>We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure.Like something straight out of pirates of the caribbean
>>64882679Shenandoah Valley campaign was fucking legendary, the man very likely single handedly stopped the Union advance on Richmond
Julius Caesar
>>64882689He sounds like a fucking character
>>64882706'The die is cast' is such a fucking awesome line before crossing the Rubicon
>>64881947I honestly can't tell whether this is supposed to be bait or what ziggers actually think. It's so crude and full of blatant falsehoods it could be either.
>>64881947I thought that kind of competence and compassion was illegal in the USSR
>>64882689It was as if he was on a mission from God.
>>64882722Just like any army, every once in awhile, talent is actually allowed to advance to its best position.
>>64882710Gay J mastered gambling analogies 2000 years ago, all we can do is pick up his scraps.
BONUS QUESTION:what would your dream General/officer lineup look like? Any year, any era
>>64881947Chuikov was ABSOLUTELY the man for the job in Stalingrad
>>64882722>Lose an eye fighting the French under British command in Lebanon>Early pioneer of commando raids and reprisal actions>Lead the first successful large scale Israeli assault to capture Saini as chief of staff>Frequently go missing during the Sinai campaign to be on the frontline without telling anyone>Go to Vietnam on a tour after getting bored doing parliamentary work and being a member of the Knesset>People protesting and demanding he be appointed minister of defense before the 6 day war >be one off the main driving forces to exploit the successes in the field and pushed for an advance all the way to the Suez canal, the West bank and the Golan heighs. >Cuck prime minister Eshkol from having his photo taken in the walling wall after it was captured>Be an uncompromising warhawk and hardline opposed to any forms of negotiations only to end up panicking and screaming that the 3rd temple has fallen at the start of the yom kippur war>get humbled and turn in to a dove, helping secure the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt>Be a known womanizer, amateur archeologist and antiques thief
>>64882756Wild. The whole thing was a masterclass
>>64882756The definition of MVP season, this is like '98 Chicago Bulls shit
>>64882689>>64882707>>64882724For a better explanation of the events>Starts his expedition as a traitor due to setting sail against the orders of the local Spanish governor who wanted to stonewall the expedition so he could take all the glory and profits>When he lands he burns his own boats so his men realize they must conquer Mexico or die trying>He runs into a native woman named La Malinche and a shipwrecked Spanish priest named De Aguilar who can translate all the local languages for him>The Aztec emperor Moctezuma invites him in, saying that his arrival fulfills some ancient legend about pale bearded men coming from the west>The aforementioned governor sends a force to arrest him, he's outnumbered so he does a daring night attack which succeeds with the captive survivors joining him>He gets back to the capitol and the aztecs want to kill him. He has to lead his men in a daring nighttime dash through the city back out to safety. 2/3rds of the expedition die in the nocte trieste (night of tears)>The Aztecs chase him and the battle of Otumba starts. He's outnumbered over 10:1 and his men are tired and hungry but he doesn't care. He personally leads a cavalry charge into the heart of the Aztec formation, lances the high priest, and takes the command banner. The Aztecs flee the field.>This unlikely victory nets him a coalition of native allies who think he can turn the tide in their wars against the Aztecs.>They besiege the Aztec capitol in the midst of a smallpox pandemic. Groups of Spaniards are used as shock troops leading assaults from their native allies. Any captured Spaniards are dragged to the top of a giant pyramid visible to the entire city and get their hearts cut out and flesh eaten.>After weeks of merciless hand to hand urban fighting, including makeshift spanish brigantines fighting aztecs war canoes on lake texcoco, the Spanish stormed the central marketplace and Aztec resistance collapses
>>64882780This man is the luckiest Son of a bitch on the planet
>>64881947I prefer Rokossovsky tbdesu.
>>64882780I'm honestly not sure which part is the luckiest. Finding a freaking Catholic priest that knows the native languages and Spanish or the plague that the Spaniards brought unknowingly and causing a plague are the top 2 I think. Being mistaken for some dude from a drug dream prophecy is a solid 3rd craziest thing compared to the other 2.
>>64882749I don't often respect Jews, however…
>>64881947This is considered white in russia
>Made sure every man in his army was properly dressed for the cold, had a warm place to sleep and had access to at least one hot meal a day.This is so important when fighting in the winter. Just the idea of being able to eat, sleep or maintain night watch in the warmth with something to eat or a cup of tea would literally mean the difference between life and death.
>>64881947You forgot>was a traitorous weasel who betrayed humanity to fight for the (((USSR)))
>>64882649Manstein did not disagree with Hitler on holding the city
>>64882916The only difference would be Manstein actually blowing his own brains out instead of surrendering like Paulus
>>64882570The nemesis of Herr Tik
>>64881947Lev Roxlin> got his troops trained and supplied> went around in Grozny> didn't get ambushed> set up ambushes> took the city> revealed corruption> got assassinated for doing things right
>>64882366>play populist generalsHere's the crazy part about some of those commie basterds, anon. In my time researching the subject, I have found, disturbingly, that some of them actually believe in that shit, and some of them believe despite lacking all signs of mental illness or retardation.
>>64882780>>When he lands he burns his own boats so his men realize they must conquer Mexico or die tryingNever happened. iirc, they just disassembled them, either to build a settlement, or for maintenance, can't remember which>>The Aztec emperor Moctezuma invites him in, saying that his arrival fulfills some ancient legend about pale bearded men coming from the westInitially he tried to get them to fuck off back over the ocean by giving them gifts, but when Cortes started to march towards Tenochtitlan with the Tlaxcaltecas, Moctezuma invited him and acted like it was his idea the entire time. Lots of weird politics there.>>He gets back to the capitol and the aztecs want to kill him. He has to lead his men in a daring nighttime dash through the city back out to safety. 2/3rds of the expedition die in the nocte trieste (night of tears)Don't forget why the Aztecs tried to kill him. While he was staying at Tenochtitlan he basically had Moctezuma as a hostage, using him to get as much gold and power as possible. When he left to convince the expedition Velázquez sent to join him, he put Alvarez in charge. The record gets kind of murky around here, but what we know for certain was that Alvarez slaughtered a bunch of natives celebrating a festival, women and children included, and this pissed all of the Aztecs off majorly. After this they besieged the Spanish in their barracks, they sent out Moctezuma to try to negotiate, and then he got killed, though nobody is sure by whom.>>This unlikely victory nets him a coalition of native allies who think he can turn the tide in their wars against the Aztecs.Actually, most natives wouldn't ally with the Spanish until after the fall of Tenochtitlan. Before it was essentially just them, the Tlaxcaltecas and the Tlaxcaltecas' allies. Everybody else just adopted a wait and see approach.Shit was absurdly crazy all-in-all. There's a reason why accounts of the conquest serve as the foundations of the adventure genre.
>>64881947>removes injun>regains traitorous secessionists>burns Atlanta to the ground >even whispers of his name make Dixiecrats seethe for 150+ years And no, Virginiafags, you CAN'T have your flag back.>https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/thing/twenty-eighth-virginia-infantry-regimental-battle-flag?hs_amp=true
>>64881947>absolute ultimate military nerd face>Never lost a battle>Probably as good a military commander as Napoleon himself>raped the krauts
>>64883444>got assassinated for doing things rightCan't have competent and especially popular commanders in the RU army, since they might coup the system.
>>64884037>Never happened. iirc, they just disassembled them, either to build a settlement, or for maintenance, can't remember which I'm pretty sure they actually scuttled them into the bay. They also had ships available after they defeated de Narvaez if they did want to bail out and face prosecution back in Cuba but it's a bit more romantic to imagine them burning them on the beach. >Lots of weird politics there. Yeah there was a lot of weird shit going on. On one hand there was the legend (which might have been bullshit) and whatever the fuck they talked about in the shrine, on the other hand he was probably trying to get information on horses and steel, and on the other other hand the Spanish became a wedge issue between different factions of nobility.>Don't forget why the Aztecs tried to kill him.I was gonna but I was already at post limit. It's crazy how the slaughter at the festival has like a dozen different sources across both the natives and the Spanish and they all conflict with each other regarding the details.>Actually, most natives wouldn't ally with the Spanish until after the fall of Tenochtitlan. Before it was essentially just them, the Tlaxcaltecas and the Tlaxcaltecas' allies. Everybody else just adopted a wait and see approach.True but it was still a coalition. I wanted to stress just how many natives there really were. Even though only a handful of groups were actually there, it was still at least 50,000 native warriors depending on whether you want to take the sources at face value or not.
>>64881947He might have been a kiddy fiddler tho, but historical allegations are hard to gauge for accuracy.
>>64882749Evil piece of shit that should have been gassed.
Fuck injuns, fuck bonglos, and fuck banks.
>>64881952Hitler was a master storyteller and liked to subvert expectations much like Rian Johnson.
>>64884067The physical embodiment of "failing upward"
>>64885483That's not a picture of Lee or Pickett though?
>>64884067>too afraid to be naked in front of others due to his dick being too small
>>64881947presented without comment
>>64884067he actually had great respect for the confederate generals and wished for a peaceful and easy reconstruction. Sherman posters are mostly brown communists who sherman would hate and want deported
>>64884067I personally prefer general Thomas>Stays loyal to his country despite being from a traitor State>Wins one of the first Union victories in the war at Mill Springs>Contributes to victories at Perryville and Stones River, securing Kentucky for the Union and boosting Northern morale after Fredericksburg repectively>Saves the Union army at Chickamauga, gets a cool nickname for it>Ensures victory for the North at Missionary Ridge>Crushes the Confederates at Franklin and Nashville, defeating them for good in the Western Theater>Modest (to a fault)
>>64884067Grant was one of the best generals in American History, and arguably the best in the Civil War, certainly better than LeeHe also was a man of great character
>>64882575Since we're talking about the Italian Front, Armando Diaz deserves the spotlight too>Is called to succeed Cadorna after the disaster at Caporetto>Organizes the resistance on the Monte Grappa massif and along the Piave River with what's left of the Italian army, successfully halting the Austro-Hungarian offensive>Understands modern warfare, reorganizes the Italian army>Improves the training and equipment of the Italian infantry, particularly with automatic weapons>Strengthens the elite Arditi corps, supports the development and construction of the first Italian tanks, strengthens the air force, enabling it to dominate the skies, reforms the artillery>Decentralizes command and control system and implements defense in depth>Improves morale by making military justice less strict, improving pay, increasing the length of leave, creating recreation centers for the men (“soldiers' homes”) and implementing various cultural activities fot the troops>Recognizes the need for close collaboration between political forces and the military, maintains good relations with the king and the government>Thoroughly defeats the Austro-Hungarian during the defensive Second Battle of the Piave River>Launches a great counter-offensive, the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, which ends in victory for the Italians, capturing over 5,000 artillery pieces and over 350,000 Austro-Hungarian troops, securing the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and contributing to the end of the war>Is given the title "Duke of the Victory" for his successesBasically the anti-CadornaIn general, I always loved people who manage to overturn a desperate situation through competence and farsightedness (and basic fucking common sense, which is way rarer than people think)
Not really a general for most of his career, but Hijikata Toshizo>born a peasant, he has this weird obsession with becoming a samurai, with this warped idea of what Bushido means>joins a dojo run by a guy named Kondo and becomes an expert swordsman, Kondo and Hijikata are lifelong bros after that>there's a lot of unrest between the Shogunate and pro-Emperor terrorist groups>the Shogunate hires a guy to form a goon squad called the Roshigumi (Ronin Squad) to clear out the rebels on the road from Edo to Kyoto and clear a path for the Shogun to visit with his entourage>Hijikata and the rest of the guys from the dojo join the Roshigumi, march all the way to Kyoto>when they get there, it turns out that the guy who started the Roshigumi was this nutjob who thought he could take the Shogun's goon squad and use them as soldiers for the Emperor>Roshigumi disbands, everybody goes home>Kondo, Hijikata, and the guys from the dojo decide to stick around Kyoto and become cops>they form the Shinsengumi (New Squad), with Kondo as chief and Hijikata as vice chief>they fuck up rebel cells in Kyoto with brutal efficiency, kicking down doors like a SWAT team, interrogating prisoners, killing suspected rebels on sight>Hijikata makes everybody follow the Code of the Shinsengumi, which is baaed around his own fucked-up version of the Bushido Code>If you are wounded in the back, you must commit seppuku. If you get caught gambling or trying to raise money for personal reasons, you must commit seppuku. If you break any minor rule, you must kill seppuku. If you try to leave the Shinsengumi, you must commit seppuku.>about 50 to 100 Shinsengumi members were forced to commit seppuku, including founding members from Kondo's dojo
>>64886713sounds like a wasteful, depressing life honestly
No explanation needed.
>>64886713>later, as the situation in Japan deteriorated and the Shogunate started falling apart, all of the Shinsengumi members were officially made samurai due to their loyalty to the shogun>all of the "real" samurai scorn them because they're just goons from the country>later, as the Boshin War starts and more and more samurai switch sides, the Shinsengumi end up being some of the Shogun's last soldiers>Kondo gets caught and executed by the rebels, Edo falls to the Emperor, the remnants of the Shogunate sail north to Hokkaido>Hijikata goes with them, one of the last of the Shinsengumi still alive>he keeps fighting, cause he's a True Samurai and the Bushido Code says he can't quit>before the very last battle of the Boshin War, he gives his sword and some letters and a death poem to a servant and sends him home to his family>people say they saw him die in the battle, but nobody knows where his body ended up
>>64882749That guy is basically Hitler to the Arabs.
>>64881947Unoriginal, I know, but there's a reason why he's considered the best>>64884104A lot of, if not the majority of Napoleon's Marshalls were great commanders in their own right, but being contemporary to the greatest relegated them to the background, sadly for themFrance always had great military commanders, but she really hit the jackpot at that time
>>64881960I used to be friends with this guy on facebook, really, no joke. He accepted every single friend request he got.
>>64886794I've heard that
>>64881947>dude was the best soviet general ever cause he made sure his soldiers had a place to sleepamazing
>>64884382Good morning habibi
>>64886946>wear coats in winterI don't know, seems kind of decadent to me
US fuckin Grant
>>64882689>>64882780>64882707>>64882724>>64882788>>64882796Obsessive Mesoamerican history anon here, chiming in with corrections and clarifications.Cortes didn't burn his boats, that was an invention introduced by later accounts. He claimed that he scuttled them, but colonial court documents assert that they were dismantled on the orders of his captains (not him himself) to salvage the wood and nails rather then let them rot when at anchor. I believe (though don't quote me on this) that some of the same materials were then reused to build the makeshift brigantines used in the lake assault in the Siege of Tenochtitlan.It's also widely agreed that all or most of the accounts of Cortes's arrival fulfilling prophecies and the Spanish being mistaken as gods are also post-contact distortions, though there is room to debate and argue on some of that, but there certainly weren't legends about white skinned bearded men nor did Moctezuma II specifically thinkCortes was Quetzalcoatl: Cortes's own letters pretty explicitly establish that Moctezuma saw Cortes as human, as seen in pic related. I've never heard of his horse being canonized as a Maya thunder god, if any of you have sources on that, please post themSaying Cortes "ran into" Malinche is too reductive. That kind of his what happened with Aguilar (though it's worth noting that Cortes had heard rumors of Spaniards in the area and tried to set up a meeting with Aguilar, only for him to miss them the first time, and them only happening to run into each other the second, which is yet another example of insane luck), but with Malinche, it's that she was a slave within a Maya kingdom in/near Tabasco, and after the Conquistadors defeated the Tabascan Maya kingdoms and their allies, she was given as spoils to them as part of them surrendering. 1/?
>64887279>>64882689>>64882780>64882707>64882724>>64882788>>64882796Cont:A lot of people incorrectly assume or are told that she was an Aztec slave who resented them, but in reality it doesn't even seem like she was born in an area within the Aztec Empire, even if she spoke Nahuatl (the "Aztec language"). She aided Cortes and co simply because she was a slave and was using what little leverage she had to try to improve her status and position given the situation. The details here given regarding the Battle of Otumba are also incorrect/insufficient: The Spanish were likely not outnumbered 10:1, because in addition to the Spanish forces present, there were also allied forces from the Kingdom/Republic of Tlaxcala, at least a few thousand left at this point. They were outnumbered maybe 2x to 5x over, but probably not 10x, though it's not impossible, I refer people to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pmwda/why_did_the_aztecs_lose_the_battle_of_otumba/ not just re: the number of troops but also in terms of what allowed the Spanish to win in terms of tactics and the Aztec forces perhaps not taking the battle seriously or having poor leadership due to the Toxcatl massacre that >>64884037 mentions having results in the deaths of a lot of commanding officers and other officials that normally would have been managing things. The siege didn't end when Tenochtitlan's central marketplace was occupied (and getting that far took months, there was a lot of slow back and forth with different sides taking control of the lake and different sections of the city, with the Spanish, Tlaxcalteca, Acolhuas etc demolishing parts of the city as they went to try to avoid dense urban combat), because after Tenochtritlan proper was occupied by the invaders, the city's forces and leadership retreated into Tlatelolco, which was technically an adjacent seperate city but in practice had fused into Tenochtitlan and become a sort of fifth city quadrant. 2/?
>64887289>>64882689>>64882780>64882707>64882724>>64882788>>64882796cont:It was only after Tlatelolco was captured that the siege ended. That being said, Tlatelolco's main market is what the subcity was most famous for, so maybe by saying "the city's central market" you meant TlatelolcoThere's a lot of other details that were skipped over that I'd consider important, so I'd point people to the greentext summary of the Conquest I did in this thread here: desuarchive.org/k/thread/64434397/#64446179 which is much longer and more in depthThe main thing that the posts here don't touch on, and nor does >64884037 or >64884338, is the contributions and role local Mesoamerican states had in how events played out. People know that various local states contributed, of course (though why those alliances formed is a constant source of misunderstandings: It was not from Aztec rule being resented), but to what degree is underestimated.Cortes was actively being used and manipulated by local officials and kings like Xicomecoatl, Ixtlilxochitl II, Xicotencatl II, and even Moctezuma II: For example, Xicomecoatl and the Totonacs of Cempoala claimed an Aztec fort was in a nearby city and made up a sob story of Aztec imperialism to get Cortes to help them raid it, but it was really a rival capital of another major Totonac kingdom, Tzinpantzinco. Then they intentionally led Cortes into hostile Tlaxcaltec territory to be rid of them or test them. And then after Cortes and the Tlaxcaltec formed an alliance and were in Cholula, the Tlaxcalteca set up/used Cortes's massacre of the inhabitants to prop up a new pro-tlaxcaltec political faction, putting Cholula back within their sphere of influence when it had recently switched from being a Tlaxcalteca ally to an Aztec one. 3/?
>64887297>>64882689>>64882780>64882707>64882724>>64882788>>64882796cont:And during/in the leadup to the Siege of Tenochtitlan, Tlaxcalctec and Texcoca/Acolhua armies also targeted cities in the valley that helped their political interests even when it got in the way of Cortes's goals and he was forced to go along with them since he depended on their support, etc.There was so much manipulation, lying, backstabbing, and playing both sides that went on during the Conquest, absolutely everybody was playing and using everybody else. It's super interesting but getting into the weeds about it would take forever, so I'll only clarify on it if people are interested, and even then I won't be able to talk about everything. Again, I encourage people to read that dump I did in a prior /k/ thread, I talked about stuff for nearly 40 posts straight and even then I glossed over a lot of things.Anyways, by extension, I don't have a particularly high opinion of Cortes as a general: He had planet-aligning levels of luck helping him in so, so many instances, and all his other expeditions before and after his famous one were failures, which speaks to how much of his success here was luck and the contributions of local allied states, (but even then his and other later spanish expeditions were also heavily reliant on local subject/allied Mesoamerican armies: Even the Coronado expedition decades later and all the way up into Kansas was mostly manned by Mesoamerican soldiers and had even the Spanish Conquistadors in the expedition using Mesoamerican armor, as seen in pic related)Something I will give Cortes though for sure is that he had a knack at making the most of a bad situation and somehow coming out of it in a good position: Even in all the other expeditions of his that failed, he always came back alive and managed to get more chances. So not a military genius, but absolutely quick at thinking on his feet and weaseling his way out of disaster. 4/?
>64887302>>64882689>>64882780>64882707>64882724>64882788>64882796cont:I highly suggest people read "7 myths of the Spanish Conquest" and especially "When Montezuma Met Cortes" by Restall for more information about the conquest and how different accounts conflict and compare with one another, and in regards to everything else I've brought up re: the role local nobles, kings, etc played.>>64884037>>64884338See above re: burning vs scuttling vs dismantling the ships.Regarding the bit about Moctezuma II trying to dissuade Cortes and have him go away by sending him gifts, this is the classic narrative of how things played out, in line which accounts which (incorrectly) frame his actions as meek and superstitious, but there are also primary sources which contradict this and establish that Moctezuma II may have actively facilitated Cortes's group to come to Tenochtitlan from very early on. Restall's books I mentioned before discuss this.Personally it makes sense to me that some of the contradictions regarding this might be explained by how all the officials involved were trying to dupe and use each other: Cortes was telling the Totonacs that he was just playing nice with Aztec diplomats present so then he and the Totonacs could turn on them, while he was telling the Aztec officials the exact opposite, that he wanted to meet Moctezuma and was just using the Totonacs. Meanwhile, the Totonacs seem to have been feigning ingorance to the Aztec diplomats, claiming Cortes was merely using them and whatever he did like imprisoning other Aztec officials was on him, while at the same time they were also using Cortes against the rival city I mentioned. 5/?
>>64887310>>64884037>>64884338cont:So it makes sense that maybe sometimes the Aztec officials were encouraging the Spanish on to come to Tenochtitlan and other times/to other people may have been trying to shoo them away, especially since there's some evidence that the Aztec were both trying to get the Spanish killed by pitting them against the Totonac but then also getting the Totonac to lead them into hostile Tlaxcalteca territory (if that wasn't just the Totonacs trying to ditch the Spanish, or it may have been both) to either weaken Tlaxcala, to get the Spanish killed again, or to test to see how strong they were militarily. Even the apparent plot by Cempoala against Tzinpantzinco may have been orchestrated by or done with the authorization of Aztec officials. Similarly, while Cortes and other accounts claim that Cortes quickly held Moctezuma II hostage and had him as a puppet ruler shortly after entering Tenochtitlan, there's evidence this wasn't actually the case and Moctezuma II may have still been in charge and doesn't seem to have been encumbered for a while, only being taken hostage as shit went sideways following the Toxcatl massacre and then the uprising against the Spanish and Tlaxcalteca. It may have even been a situation where Cortes announced and intended to take Moctezuma hostage and thought he did so, but Moctezuma simply didn't take it seriously and played along with both sides thinking they were the ones in charge at the time.There were way more then 50,000 Mesoamerican soldiers working with the Spanish during the siege, the number is more like 200,000+, and that might not even be including porters, cooks, etc, whom the Spanish also had a great deal of that often aren't included in the totals of their forces. Not to mention that most people exclude the renforcements of additional soldiers/Conquistadors that Cortes got at multiple points of the expedition, see pic6/7
>>64887316>>64884037>>64884338cont:I guess this should be where I clarify why local states even allied with the Spanish: As I say in >>64887297, it was generally NOT from Aztec rule being resented, or them doing sacrifices or any other such things:The Mexica (the denizens of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco) didn't impose sacrifices on their subjects, everybody in Mesoamerica already did sacrifices, nor did the Mexica even demand victims for it as taxes much. Also, the Mexica were actually fairly loose, hegemonic rulers that left existing kings, laws, and customs in place most of the time. Rather then Cortes getting most of his allies due to Mexica rule being resented, it was their hands off political system that enabled those alliances, because it left their subject states with their own political identity, agency, and interests, so they had both the ability and motive to opportunistically switch sides, secede, launch coups, etc if they thought it would benefit themIt was common in Mesoamerica for state X to ally or pledge themselves with state Y to topple their existing capital or rivals, so then X would have higher status within Y's new kingdom/empire and wasn't losing much for having given up their independence since subjects got mostly left alone anyways. That's what happened with Cortes.Obviously, there were a whole host of other more specific geopolitical motives each state had for joining Cortes: Tlaxcala really DID resent the Mexica, though it was an enemy state they were actively at war with. Ixtlilxochitl II was a prince of Texcoco that wanted to seize power after he lost a succession dispute, so he and his followers joined Cortes while the rest of Texcoco's realm didn't at first, etc. See pastebin.com/h18M28BR and arch.b4k.dev/v/thread/640670498/#640679139 and desuarchive.org/his/thread/16781148/#16781964 and all the posts in the other prior /k/ thread I already linked in >>648872977/7, done for now unless anons have further questions
>>64886946…He literally kept Stalingrad from falling to The Germans and you fixate on the coats?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_defense
>>64882366Military commanders in every country just want to do their job, even the majority of German generals during WWII were not Nazis or were even anti-Nazi covertly (von Paulus ironically became a communist during his imprisonment in the USSR)I'm sure if you took some random general in Iran or China and read their minds you'd see they don't really believe in radical Islam or Chinese communism but just want to be military autists.
>>64882796IIRC de Aguilar was shipwrecked on the Mayan coast and had gone native, learning the local Mayan dialect. Malinche spoke Nahuatl and Mayan so whenever they wanted to communicate with Aztec dignitaries they played a game of telephone with Malinche translating it to Mayan for Aguilar, and Aguilar from Mayan to Spanish for Cortez
>>64887854> military men don't care about politicsHow many coups in the history of man have happened because generals had political ambition?
>>64887368>we'll "tactical withdrawal" our way to victory
Tlaxcala was small but powerful, think of it like Prigo making an alliance with Ukraine and marching together towards Moscow
