Epic History TV
Published on 31 Mar 2017Part 2 of Epic History TV’s story of the First Crusade continues with the Siege of Antioch. The Crusaders endure immense hardships outside the city walls, but finally take Antioch thanks to a ruse by Bohemond of Taranto. Against the odds, and inspired by their recent discovery of a relic believed to be the ‘Holy Lance’, the Crusaders then defeat the Seljuk army of Kur Burgha. After disagreements within the Crusader camp, the army finally moves on to Jerusalem in the spring of 1099. During a full-scale assault of the city walls, Godfrey of Bouillon’s troops gain a foothold in the defences, and Crusader troops pour into the city. A bloodbath follows. Victory results in the creation of four Crusader states, but their existence is precarious, surrounded by hostile Muslim powers, who will one day return with a vengeance.
Produced in partnership with Osprey Publishing
https://ospreypublishing.com/Campaign: The First Crusade 1096–99
https://ospreypublishing.com/the-firs…Essential Histories: The Crusades
https://ospreypublishing.com/the-crus…The Armies of Islam 7th–11th Centuries
https://ospreypublishing.com/the-armi…Armies of the Crusades
https://ospreypublishing.com/armies-o…Music with thanks to Filmstro: https://www.filmstro.com/
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Sky – Anyul Rivas
Wooded Hills – Alexander Annenkov
Dramatic Fields – Antonio Caiazzo
Twin peaks of Mount Ararat – Adam JonesPlease help me make more videos at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EpicHistoryTV
February 28, 2019
First Crusade Part 2 of 2
January 14, 2019
QotD: Eisenhower’s Middle East policy about-face
Unlike some American presidents, however, Eisenhower learned from his mistakes. In 1958, five years after being sworn into office, he reversed course. Rather than suck up to Egypt, Ike deployed American Marines to Lebanon to shore up President Camille Chamoun, who was under siege by Nasser’s local allies.
“In Lebanon,” Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs, “the question was whether it would be better to incur the deep resentment of nearly all of the Arab world (and some of the rest of the Free World) and in doing so risk general war with the Soviet Union or to do something worse — which was to do nothing.” That is almost verbatim what the British said to justify their own war against Nasser when Eisenhower slapped them with crippling sanctions.
Reality forced the United States into a total about-face. Ike’s entire Middle Eastern worldview collapsed. Even before sending the Marines to Lebanon he announced that America was taking Britain’s place as the pre-eminent power in the Middle East. He had to start over even if he didn’t want to. “Nasser,” Doran writes, “the giant who rose from the Suez Crisis, crushed Eisenhower’s doctrine like a cigarette under his shoe.”
What happened between the Suez Crisis and Eisenhower’s intervention in Lebanon? A couple of things.
Ike’s hope to bring Syria into the American orbit alongside Turkey and Pakistan collapsed in spectacular fashion. So many Syrians swooned over Nasser after Egypt’s victory in the Suez Canal that Syria, astonishingly, allowed itself to be annexed by Cairo. Egypt and Syria became one country—the United Arab Republic—with Nasser as the dictator of both.
Washington’s attempt to groom Saudi Arabia as a regional counterbalance to Egypt also hit the skids when Nasser accused the Saudis of trying to assassinate him and foment a military coup in Damascus. The Saudis responded by shoving King Saud aside and replacing him with his Nasserist younger brother, Crown Prince Faisal.
The final blow came with the brutal overthrow of the pro-Western Hashemite monarchy in Iraq and the mutilation of the royal family’s corpses in public, thus toppling the last pillar of America’s anti-Soviet alliance in the Middle East. Eisenhower had no choice but to stop being clever and return to the first rule of foreign policy: reward your friends and punish your enemies.
Michael J. Totten, “We Are Still Living With Eisenhower’s Biggest Mistake”, The Tower Magazine, 2017-02.
January 1, 2019
The Greatest Ancient Empire you have never heard of … The Mitanni
Epimetheus
Published on 4 Oct 2018The Greatest Ancient Empire you have never heard of … The Mitanni
The Mitanni capital city of Washukanni has never been identified although there are a few locations “mounds” where the city is most likely located. It will be one of the most exciting and illuminating discoveries when this ancient capital is unearthed — (I hope it happens in my lifetime) — if there are tablets there (maybe even a library!) that could very much rewrite the history of the middle east and civilization. I have been fascinated by the Mitanni for quite some time and I am very happy to share this video with you all 😊 I hope you enjoy, and it stirs your curiosity!
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https://www.patreon.com/Epimetheus1776Mitanni, Hurrians, Mitanni empire, Egyptian empire, Hittite empire, Babylon, bronze age, bronze age collapse, bronze age empires, bronze age great kings, Mesopotamia, ancient middle east, ancient Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia documentary, Mitanni documentary, greatest ancient empire, most powerful ancient empire, Babylonian empire, bronze age diplomacy, Nefertiti, tushratta, Akhenaten, Suppiluliuma, Assyria, Assyrian empire, Washukanni, Kurtiwaza, Shattiwaza, Shaushtatar, chariots, chariot warfare, the Mitanni, Babylonian empire, ancient near east, Hurrian migration, documentary Mitanni, lost empires, ancient egypt, bronze age chariots, ancient civilization, lost civilization, lost empire, discovered civilization, most powerful ancient empire
November 20, 2018
Book Review: Desert Sniper, by Ed Nash
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 30 Oct 2018Available from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2yy2zRf
Desert Sniper is an autobiographical account of Ed Nash’s time fighting as a volunteer with Kurdish forces against ISIS in Syria in 2015 and 2016. Nash had been working as a volunteer with the Free Burma Rangers when he decided in 2015 that the growing list of ISIS atrocities demanded action. With his background in journalism and experience as a liaison for the FBR, he thought he could do some good helping to fight one of the most starkly evil groups the 21st century has yet seen. So, he boarded a plane to the middle east.
Kurdish organization being somewhat subpar, his skills as a journalist were not exploited, and instead he went to a sniper tabor (fighting unit) with a Dragunov, which would be his primary weapon for the rest of his time in country. His book describes the experience from start to finish, including insight into Kurdish culture and politics, training, tactics, and more. He worked with both Kurdish men and women (a substantial fraction of the Kurdish fighters and commanders were female) and with other foreign volunteers like himself and various Special Forces teams from coalition nations like France, the UK, and the US.
There are several things that I particularly appreciate about Nash’s work. First is its honesty and lack of either bravado or squeamishness. Today’s popular sensibilities insist that doing violence must inevitably damage a person psychologically, but this is not true. When one believes in the rightness of one’s actions, one can survive combat without becoming a psychological victim of it. There are certainly physiological exceptions like the prolonged shelling experienced by many in WW1 and the brain injuries caused by pressure waves associated with bomb blasts, but if we are to believe Nash (and I do), one can engage in lethal violence for a just cause and sleep well at night afterward.
On a more technical side, Nash’s journalism experience shows in his writing. The book is engaging and informative, and never left me bored. He gives the reader a feel for the wide variety of situations that he found himself in and the many people we developed relationships with during his time.
Finally, Nash has a good familiarity with firearms, and writings clearly and rationally about them. The guns themselves are not the focus of the book, but when they are relevant they are explained in a way that gun nerds will appreciate. As a sniper, Nash used a Dragunov primarily, but also carried an AK as a secondary rifle. He also had experience with the Zagros and Ser heavy rifles, and cogently explains their use. His descriptions of the range limitations of his SVD will certainly spark interest in readers who are shooters. In fact, Nash provided me with the photo and video material for a video about these Kurdish arms a while back, although I did not identify him by name at that time.
Anyway, this is an inexpensive book and I found it to be an excellent read. Men and women who volunteer to fight like Nash did ought to have their stories more widely known, and recognized for seeing a bad situation and doing something extremely concrete about it, despite often facing daunting legal situations upon their return home as a result.
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Tucson, AZ 85754
October 5, 2018
Germany’s Reckoning – Bulgarian Armistice I THE GREAT WAR Week 219
The Great War
Published on 4 Oct 2018The 14 Points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourtee…
While Bulgaria signs the Armistice of Salonika and effectively exits the war as the first of the Central Powers, the Hindenburg Line is broken on the Western Front. It dawns among the German leadership, that an armistice is necessary and in a desperate attempt to secure a more favourable position at the negotiations table, the Kaiser agrees to a “revolution from the top” that gives more political say to the Reichstag.
July 29, 2018
Carving up the Middle East and Preempting Rommel I BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1920 Part 3 of 4
TimeGhost History
Published on 27 Jul 2018In 1920 the colonial powers of the British Empire and France reverse course on their commitment to grant independence to the peoples of the Middle East. In a game to grab the oil fields of Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia, and to control the Suez Canal they tighten their grip on the region, with far ranging consequences that will shape the world well into the 21st century.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written and directed by: Spartacus Olsson
Research Contributed by: Jonas Yazo Srouji
Produced by: Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus OlssonA TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH
June 27, 2018
Canada’s euphemistically named “High Risk Returnees”
Judith Bergman on the Canadian government’s kid-gloves approach to dealing with Canadian citizens who return to Canada after volunteering to serve with terrorist organizations:
Canadians who go abroad to commit terrorism – predominantly jihadists, in other words – have a “right to return” according to government documents obtained by Global News. They not only have a right of return, but “… even if a Canadian engaged in terrorist activity abroad, the government must facilitate their return to Canada,” as one document says.
According to the government, there are still around 190 Canadian citizens volunteering as terrorists abroad. The majority are in Syria and Iraq, and 60 have returned. Police are reportedly expecting a new influx of returnees over the next couple of months.
The Canadian government is willing to go to great (and presumably costly) lengths to “facilitate” the return of Canadian jihadists, unlike the UK, for example, which has revoked the citizenship of ISIS fighters so they cannot return. The Canadian government has established a taskforce, the High Risk Returnee Interdepartmental Taskforce, that, according to government documents:
“… allows us to collectively identify what measures can mitigate the threat these individuals may pose during their return to Canada. This could include sending officers overseas to collect evidence before they depart, or their detention by police upon arrival in Canada.”
Undercover officers may also be used “to engage with the HRT [High Risk Traveler] to collect evidence, or monitor them during their flight home.”
In the sanitizing Orwellian newspeak employed by the Canadian government, the terrorists are not jihadis who left Canada to commit the most heinous crimes, such as torture, rape and murder, while fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but “High Risk Travelers” and “High Risk Returnees”.
The government is fully aware of the security risk to which it is subjecting Canadians: According to the documents, “HRRs [High Risk Returnees] can pose a significant threat to the national security of Canada”. This fact raises the question of why the government of Canada is keen to facilitate these people’s “right of return” — when presumably the primary obligation of the government is to safeguard the security of law-abiding Canadian citizens.
January 15, 2018
Khosrau Anushirawan: Trolling Justinian – Extra History – #4
Extra Credits
Published on 13 Jan 2018Iran and Rome had agreed to an Eternal Peace, but tensions between them proved too great and Khosrau decided to invade while Justinian’s guard was down. His army swept into Rome practically unopposed, and he made a mockery of Justinian at every opportunity while treating himself to a grand old time pillaging and parading across the Roman border.
November 23, 2017
Transport regression
ESR linked to this article, saying “This is hands-down the most interesting article on history of technology I’ve read in a very long time. It seems the Middle East, the cradle of the wheeled cart, completely gave up on wheeled transport for 1500 years – it was displaced by, of all things, camels. Among other things, this explains the mazelike layout of old Arab cities – they’re like that because they’re optimized for walking and animal-riding, not wheeled transport.”:
When the first motor car chugged defiantly off the road and into the desert an entire epoch in world history began to pass away, the epoch of the camel. After centuries of supremacy as a transport animal, centuries that had seen it become for millions of people the romantic symbol of the entire Middle East, the stalwart camel was at last facing unbeatable competition.
Yet once before this homely drama of competition between the camel and the wheel had been played out in nearly identical fashion, only in reverse. Once, in ancient times, the Middle East teemed with carts and wagons and chariots, but they were totally driven out by the coming of the camel.
For all the discussion there has been among archeologists about why advanced societies such as those in pre-Colombian Central and South America never invented wheeled transport, there has been little notice taken of the amazing fact that Middle Eastern society wilfully abandoned the use of the wheel, one of mankind’s greatest inventions.
It did not, of course, abandon the wheel in all of its many forms. The potter’s wheel remained, and so did the huge, picturesque norias, or waterwheels of Syria. But gradually over the course of the first four or five centuries of the Christian era, and perhaps even earlier, all wheeled transport in the area, from the grandest chariot to the humblest farm wagon, passed out of existence.
As late as the 1780’s the French traveler Volney could still note, “It is remarkable that in all of Syria one does not see a single cart or wagon.” Moreover, in the Arabic and Persian languages one is hard pressed to find any vocabulary proper to either the use or construction of carts and wagons.
The most common explanation of this phenomenon is lack of, or deterioration of, roads in the Middle East, and to be sure the old Royal Road of the Persians and the whole network of Roman roads at some time fell out of repair and then passed out of use. However, roads are built for wheels and not vice versa. Their decline paralleled that of the wheel; it did not cause it.
September 11, 2017
Smug Canadian vanity over helping (some) refugees may harm a larger number of more desperate refugees
Jonathan Kay in the National Post:
By my anecdotal observation, these accounts are not overblown. At Toronto dinner parties, it’s become common for upscale couples to brag about how well their sponsored refugees are doing. (Houmam has a job! The kids already speak English! Zeinah bakes the most amazing Syrian pastries — I’m going to serve some for desert!) Syrian refugees aren’t just another group of Canadian newcomers. They’ve become central characters in the creation of our modern national identity as the humane yang to Trump’s beastly yin.
Given all this, it seems strange to entertain the thought that — contrary to this core nationalist narrative — our refugee policy may actually be doing more harm than good. Yet after reading Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World, a newly published book jointly authored by Paul Collier and Alexander Betts, I found that conclusion hard to avoid. When it comes to helping victims of Syria’s civil war, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
[…]
What’s worse, the lottery-style nature of the system means that refugees have incentive to take enormous risks. German Chancellor Angela Merkel received lavish praise for admitting more than 1 million Muslim refugees in 2015. But the data cited in Refuge suggest the tantalizing prospect of first-world residency is precisely what motivated so many refugees to endanger their lives by setting out from Turkey in tiny watercraft. We like to believe that generous refugee-admission policies are an antidote to the perils that claimed Alan Kurdi’s life. The exact opposite seems more likely to be true.
Moreover, the refugees who make it to the West do not comprise a representative cross-section of displaced Syrians — because those who can afford to pay off human smugglers tend to be the richest and most well-educated members of their society. (Betts and Collier cite the stunning statistic that fully half of all Syrian university graduates now live outside the country’s borders.) This has important policy ramifications, because refugees who remain in the geographical vicinity of their country of origin typically return home once a conflict ends — whereas those who migrate across oceans usually never come back. Insofar as the sum of humanity’s needs are concerned, where is the need for Syrian doctors, dentists and nurses more acute — Alberta or Aleppo?
[…]
But logically sound as it may be, the authors’ argument also flies in the face of our national moral vanity. Scenes of refugees being greeted at the airport by our PM offer a powerful symbol of our humanitarian spirit. Having our PM cut cheques to foreign aid agencies? Less so. While focusing more on supporting Syrian refugees who’ve been displaced to other Middle Eastern countries would allow us to do more good with the same amount of money, we’d also be acting in a less intimate and personal way — and we’d get fewer of those heartwarming newspaper features about Arab children watching their first Canadian snowstorm.
And so we have to ask ourselves: In the end, what’s more important — doing good, or the appearance of doing good? If we’re as pure of heart as we like to imagine, we’ll seek out the policy that saves the most people, full stop. And Refuge supplies an outstanding road map for getting us there.
August 25, 2017
The End of the Bronze Age
Published on 28 Sep 2015
Around 1200 BC, the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean went into major cultural decline: The Late Bronze Age came to a sudden end.
Kingdoms that had wielded immense power completely disappeared. For several centuries after this, agriculture was people’s only means of subsistence. These were pivotal changes in history. Explaining them remains one of the big challenges in Mediterranean archaeology.
In this video, the foundation Luwian Studies presents a comprehensive and plausible scenario of what might have happened.
May 23, 2017
Remembering the Six-Day War
With the 50th anniversary coming up in a few weeks, Jerrold L. Sobel provides a retrospective on the Arab-Israeli war of 1967:
For those of us alive during those daunting days in May 1967 leading up to the war, it was a period in time we will never forget, nor should we. Its ramifications were and are germane to this very day.
No discussion of the Six-Day War can be made without the background of its major protagonist, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Whereas today ISIS is attempting to dominate the Islamic world under an Islamic Caliphate, Nasser, then president of Egypt, attempted to do the same but with a secular approach. On July 23, 1952, he and a group of officers staged a coup and ousted the Egyptian King Farouk. Although the real leader, Nasser initially remained in the background but in fact was instrumental in abolishing the monarchy in 1953. The following year he came out of the shadows to assume absolute power and began instituting far-reaching economic reforms which instantly made him the darling of the Arab world. By 1956 his relations with the West had deteriorated to the point that he brazenly nationalized the Suez Canal, prompting an invasion by England, France, and Israel. Under pressure from the U.S., these forces withdrew, and a United Nations Emergency force was subsequently placed as a buffer between Egypt and Israel; the withdrawal of which would play a pivotal role in the conflict 11 years later.
At the pinnacle of his popularity, Nasser joined with Syria forming what became the United Arab Republic (U.A.R.), a move which encouraged the Syrians to ramp up incessant attacks against Israel from their vantage point on the Golan Heights, towering 3,000 feet above the Galilee. No Israeli farm or Kibbutz was spared the wrath of Syrian artillery. Much like the residents of Sderot and other Israeli towns adjacent to Gaza today, Jews were forced to sleep and conduct their lives in bomb shelters.
[…]
In the early hours of June 5, 1967 Israel launched a preemptive air strike on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria with devastating effect. Five days later the armies of these nations along with Iraq, which also joined the fray were crushed and forced to sue for a ceasefire. The war may have taken only six days but its ramifications and similarities to today’s Middle East conflict is unquestionable. What were the accomplishments?
- For the first time since prior to the Ottoman Empire, Jews have unfettered access to their Holy sites and a united Jerusalem their ancient capital.
- The indefensible 1948 armistice line which bisected Israel from the Jordan River to within 9 miles of the Mediterranean Sea had been abrogated.
- Israel took control of Judea and Samaria, which was illegally annexed by Jordan following the ’48 armistice.
- Israel commands the highly defensible Jordan Valley where terrorist attacks had emanated from both Jordan and Syria.
- Israel was able to trade the Sinai Peninsula for a peace treaty with her main antagonist, Egypt.
- The Golan Heights, the onetime haven for terrorists and Syrian artillery, was annexed and have remained relatively quiet for the past 50 years.
- Most importantly, by winning the war decisively, Israel staved off what was intended to be another mass genocide of the Jewish people….
What was not accomplished?
- An end to terrorism.
- An end to Anti-Semitic cartoons and rhetoric throughout much of the Islamic world, particularly Iran.
- An end of vilification of Israel by the Palestinian leadership, media, and educational system.
- A Palestinian leader willing to recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.
- A United Nations only united in castigating the only true democracy in the Middle East.
- A total negation of slander on campus against Jews masked under the pretense of Anti-Zionism; particularly the BDS movement.
Despite these and other seemingly irreconcilable problems, winning the Six-Day War has allowed the Jewish state to survive and rise from its fledgling third-world status into a technological, economic, and military behemoth; an island of democratic renaissance surrounded by a sea of despair.
April 29, 2017
100 Days of Trump: Three Best and Worst Moments of Presidency So Far
Published on 28 Apr 2017
Reason presents the three worst—and the three best—achievements of President Trump’s first 100 days.
____________________________________________Third Worst Moment: Replace and Repeal FAIL.
Along with his pledge to build a wall on the southern border and deport illegal immigrants en masse, Trump’s campaign was all about ramming through the “Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act,” which would have cut red tape, gotten rid of the individual mandate, and created a true marketplace for medical insurance. Instead, thanks to the president’s own lack of savvy and GOP dithering, it didn’t even get a proper vote in Congress.
Third Best Moment: The nomination and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch.
The nomination of an intellectually powerful and highly respected jurist to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court demonstrated that President Trump isn’t the flake that many critics figured him to be. Neil Gorsuch might not be libertarian, but he is, in the estimation of Georgetown Law’s Randy Barnett, a serious thinker who believes that government power is and should be limited.
Second Worst Moment: The Country That Bombs Together.
The one action for which President Trump has received bipartisan praise was the bombing of a Syrian government air base to protest the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. Even opposition leaders such as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer signed on to a starkly humanitarian intervention that served no greater purpose than rallying voters here in America.
Second Best Moment: Deregulatory appointees at the FDA, FCC, and EPA.
There’s no question that Trump has picked some terrible cabinet members—Attorney General Jeff Sessions has openly talked about ramping up the war on pot in states where it’s legal, for instance. He also defends asset-forfeiture abuse and has hinted at reviving federal porn prosecutions, too. But picks such as Ajit Pai at the Federal Communications Commission, Scott Gottlieb at the Food and Drug Administration, and Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency are serious deregulators who are already starting to prune back regulations that accomplish little but cost taxpayers and innovators lots of time, money, and resources.
Worst Moment: Muslim Travel Ban.
The president has issued two executive decrees calling for a moratorium on travel from several majority-Muslim countries and the suspension of America’s refugee program. Both have been stayed by federal courts and it remains unclear if one will ever become the law of the land. Regardless it’s anti-American to effectively establish a religious test for travelers and migrants here—and it also undermines attempts to reach out to the vast majority of Muslims who are the primary targets of Islamic fundamentalism.
Best Moment: He’s Getting Real.
Every new president enters office thinking they can direct the course of human history via his pen or, in the case of Trump, his Twitter feed. For all his bluster and lack of self-awareness, he’s also learning that the world is more complicated than he reckoned. He’s pushed back deadines for all sorts of projects, from funding for his stupid and useless immigration wall to a timeline for tax reform, which shows that he is living in the real world at least. To the extent he realizes that his best path forward is in cutting economic regulations rather than vilifying immigrants, renegotiating trade deals, and starting new wars, he’ll not only be a better president—he’ll create a better America too.
Written by Nick Gillespie. Produced by Paul Detrick and Alexis Garcia.
April 8, 2017
November 15, 2016
QotD: The one certain outcome of the Syrian civil war
Russia and the West are fighting to decide whether Syria will be run by Sunni Islamists backed by Saudi Arabia or Shiite Islamists backed by Iran. This insane civil war has burned up countless lives, not to mention plenty of dollars, rubles, euros and pounds. The only certain winners of this war, once the dust has settled, will chant “Allahu Akbar” and call for the death of the infidels.
Daniel Greenfield, “It’s a Mad, Mad War”, Sultan Knish, 2016-10-27.
