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Legend (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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If the government isn't going to pay the Vikings to leave bag and baggage, they are not going to pay them not to be nasty to the local yokels. What local yokels? Blimey, I'd be out of there with the wife and kids (bag and baggage, as I call them) as soon as I'd heard the Danegeld wasn't going to be paid, if not sooner. The Vikings sitting in their camp, with nobody around for twenty miles in every direction, are now about to learn Rule No 1 in the Neo-Colonialism Playbook.

You can make money being peaceful traders, you can make money demanding money with menaces, you can make money taking over other people's countries but you can't make money just sitting there moaning about how nobody will pay you to leave and there doesn't seem to be anyone to do your washing, provide you with food, even grow your food. You didn't come all this way to be the Lords of Bloody Ebbsfleet, what a dead and alive hole that is. Especially with several thousand unwashed Vikings in it.

So, what to do...
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Mick Harper
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You either pack up and go home or you take over the country. There doesn't seem anything else to do. But wasn't this why they pay you Danegeld? Well, yes, but only if you can take over the country, or come close enough to it for it to be worth paying you off not to try. But in order to do that, you yourself have to be 'an army'. There is no point in anything short of this because, yes, you can move around doing a lot of damage and picking up a load of loot on the way but sooner or later you will be faced by that country's army and, not being one yourself, will not merely lose but be lucky to get away with anything beyond what you came over with, and not all of you at that.

But what do we mean by 'an army' in Dark Age terms? Whatever it is it is not something that can be put together by a bunch of freebooting Norwegian sailors. It can only be put together by 'a state' whatever that means in Dark Age terms. In other words this 'Viking raid' can only be one state invading another state. That's not Vikings, that's Denmark (or whatever it was during the Dark Age).

So 'Vikings' are either too big or too small and should henceforth be banished from the lexicon. Over to you, Wiley.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Mick Harper wrote:
You didn't come all this way to be the Lords of Bloody Ebbsfleet, what a dead and alive hole that is. Especially with several thousand unwashed Vikings in it.

So, what to do...

They should contact the Road Haulage Association. Vikings would make good lorry drivers, moving all that booty around.

We have written to the Prime Minister, stressing the need for action on the crippling effects of the current HGV driver shortage.

Gissa job, I can do that.

As the summer holidays draw near and lockdown restrictions relax, the pressure that will be put on the industry responsible for keeping shelves full will increase and the producers of goods will be faced with having stock of goods they can’t get moved. Empty shelves are already becoming apparent and, if not urgently addressed, the situation will only get worse.


Who's going to make sure Harpo's local supermarket shelves are full of essential special-recipe Columbian coffee brands (and Jaffa Cakes)?
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Mick Harper
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Actually this is quite a good point. You can offer yourselves as ready-made mercenaries. And there's plenty of examples in better documented history of mercenaries taking over the host country. In fact, according to the dubiously documented history of post-Roman Britain, that's what the Anglo-Saxons did.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Nice earner.

https://eddiestobart.com/careers-and-training/become-an-eddie-stobart-driver/

I imagine all kinds of fleets (of lorries, not ships) need "protection" as well. Perfect job for a mercenary Viking.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I don't want to encourage you posting on the wrong thread, Borry, but just this once. There was a nice sample of the New Problems when a rock venue fleet trucker (apparently a major British export) was prevented access to Yerp because he had to make multiple drop-offs and, post-Brexit, truckers are only allowed two. So the dude shifted his HQ to Holland and resumed the business. Not so fast! Your (British) drivers would need EC driving licences. No worries, and he trucked them off to Dublin. Did they have to answer their highway code questions in English and Erse? We weren't told. Anyway these licences permitted British drivers to resume delivering rock paraphernalia to Germany.

It had all cost 'millions' and one got the strong impression Brussels was just biding its time before coming up with something else. The AE moral to the story? Never enter a fight that you need to win but the other guy only needs the fight to continue indefinitely.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Don’t look now but some British myth busters have inadvertently (it would appear) proven English Longbows would have killed approximately zero French Knights at the battle of Agincourt.

https://youtu.be/DBxdTkddHaE
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Very interesting, Ish.

The precise location of the battle is not known. It may be in the narrow strip of open land formed between the woods of Tramecourt and Azincourt (close to the modern village of Azincourt). However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt.[32] In 2019, the historian Michael Livingston also made the case for a site west of Azincourt, based on a review of sources and early maps.[33]

The site of the battle has never been found, bit like Hastings.

The castle and village are called Azincourt.

Azin=Hastings
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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The name as well as the site of the battle can vary, according to which chronicler you read

Early texts on both sides of the Channel usually call the engagement of 25 October 1415, the ‘battle (or sometimes the field) of Agincourt’ although we also find a few other names applied such as ‘the battle of Ruisseauville’, the village to the north west of Azincourt, or ‘the campaign of Blangy’, the village to the south, at the place where Henry crossed the river Ternoise before leading his army onto the plain above.

The battle is supposed to have been of huge importance in 'popular culture'. That's presumably the case in the sixteenth century which is when English history was given a make-over through the offices of Holinshed, Polydore Virgil and Shakespeare's plays. Azincourt, or whichever name it was given, was only briefly mentioned and seems to have been more of a skirmish.

Archaeologists looking in vain for evidence of the great battle place the blame squarely at the door of chroniclers

It is not possible from the chronicle evidence alone to pinpoint the site of the battle. Chronicles give very little topographical detail. But a number of texts suggest that the battle was fought between two areas of woodland.

and conclude with 'further research is needed'

https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/agincourt/0/steps/15335
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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An interesting tidbit on Agincourt are the eye witness accounts. Here is one account from Guillebert de Lannoy

‘In 1415 I was at the battle of Ruisseauville where I was wounded in the knee and the head, and I laid with the dead. But when the bodies were searched through, I was taken prisoner, being wounded and helpless (impotens), and kept under guard for while. I was then led to a house nearby with 10 or 12 other prisoners who were all wounded. And there, when the duke of Brabant was making a new attack, a shout went up that everyone should kill his prisoners. So that this might be effected all the quicker, they set fire to the house where we were. By the grace of God, I dragged myself a few feet away from the fire. There I was when the English returned, so I was taken prisoner again and sold to Sir John Cornwall, thinking that I was someone of high status since, thank God, I was well accoutred when I was taken the first time according to the standards of the time. So I was taken to Calais and thence to England until they discovered who I was, at which point I was put to ransom for 1,200 golden crowns (écus) along with a horse of 100 francs. When I left my master, Sir John Cornwall, he gave me 20 nobles to purchase a new suit of armour (harnas).'

Guillebert de Lannoy certainly had an interesting life.

wiki wrote:
Guillebert first served Jean de Werchin, seneschal of Hainaut, and accompanied him to the East and to Spain. He then served John the Fearless in his war against the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War. He then joined the Teutonic Knights in the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. Guillebert also fought in 1415 against the English in the Battle of Azincourt or Agincourt, where he was wounded and captured.

In the service of Philip the Good, he discharged several diplomatic missions in France, England (as Ambassador to Henry V of England), Teutonic Knights, Poland, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Grand Duchy of Moscow and was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Troyes (1420). In 1421 he was sent by Henry V of England to Palestine to inquire into the possibility of reviving the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and wrote an account of his travels, Les Pelerinages de Surye et de Egipte, which was published in 1826 and again in 1842.

I reckon he might get in the eye witness section in the Boys Book of Imaginary Battles.

wiki wrote:
His travels in the Baltic region and Russia are recounted in his book Voyages et Ambassades, published in Mons in 1840 with subsequent editions. Around 1440 Lannoy wrote L'Instruction de josne prince ("Advice for a Young Prince"), which he dressed up with a fictional origin in the court of Norway "long, long ago", followed by a rediscovery of the manuscript text. The dedication miniature in Charles the Bold's copy of 1468-70 illustrates the Norwegian story, but using up-to-date Burgundian costume and, it seems, the faces of the ducal family. Charles, around seven when the work was written, had no doubt always been the young prince Lannoy had in mind.


Folks still think he witnessed the battle to this day.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
Azin=Hastings


How is it you forge this link?

I've been playing with this connection for some time: A-Gen = A-Ken....


....as in A-Ken-A-Ten.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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So Hastings and Agincourt have gone, only Waterloo to go!
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Ishmael wrote:
Don’t look now but some British myth busters have inadvertently (it would appear) proven English Longbows would have killed approximately zero French Knights at the battle of Agincourt.

https://youtu.be/DBxdTkddHaE


The English Longbow men, disappear after being wiped out at the Battle of Patay. The battlefield of Patay is again unknown, but the accounts say that the English were adopting their successful tactics of Agincourt, Crecy etc by building a strong defensive position. This involved, driving sharpened wooden stakes into the ground from behind which their archers would shield and shoot, at the French mounted cavalry. However, at Patay, their is a plot twist, the English yeoman spotted a lone stag on a nearby field to the area they were defending, and raised a hunting cry. It seems they could not resist that primeval Anglo Saxon hunting urge, this cry gave away their unprepared, unfortified position to the French scouts. The French immediately charged their cavalry and the English were routed. The feared army of Englsh longbowmen were lost for ever.

The Boys Book of Imaginary Battles, notes for our future generals: that if you are going to spend years training up archers it is wise to instill some basic discipline into the ranks. Longbow men are unable to resist a full blown cavalry charge without a method of slowing their horses.

Sage advice.
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Mick Harper
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Longbow men are unable to resist a full blown cavalry charge without a method of slowing their horses.

When you start on your book of non-imaginary battles, have a look at the early Swiss wars of independence. They rediscovered what the phalanx armies of old knew, that horses won't charge any body of drawn up men and are therefore completely useless for anything other than exploiting a battle won. It made no difference whether the infantry had longbows or not, nor how hard-charging the cavalry was. Just standing fast and then advancing with the infantry weapons of the day was all that was required. Switzerland 1 Austria 0.

Of course 'standing fast' against the massed charge of armoured knights requires more than ordinary valour. Something provided by desires for independence (cf Bannockburn) for example or, as you say, 'years of training'. It was this that did for the ancien regimes since they tended to favour years of training for armoured knights but relied on press gangs or similar to provide the standing-fasters.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Death or glory: Famous cavalry charges
https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/famous-cavalry-charges


Can anyone make sense of why some succeed and some are disasters? Are the ones that succeed the slightly-sneaky ones where the cavalry charge attacks an exposed flank? Or are they the opportunistic ones that exploit a poorly-organised defence?

I'm sensing an England Football analogue sneaking in here as well.
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