As I understand, after the defeat of a pagan army it was standard practice to force mass baptism as part of the concessions. While this would undoubtedly be deeply humiliating and perhaps even psychologically scarring to the defeated, a common refrain is that it was not a particularly effective way to create Christians--an account I just bumped into is that as soon as John of Bohemia and the Tuetonic Order departed after defeating and forcing the baptism of Lithuanan pagans after Medvegalis, the Lithuanians immediately returned to their old religious rites, because after all, why wouldn't they.^1

So was there actual belief among Christians at the time that even coerced baptism would cause the scales to fall from their eyes? Was it a diplomatic fiction, as Christianity was the way different princes related to each other? Was it pure propaganda? For the last one, I remember Eric Christianson's Northern Crusades describes a certain "gap year" quality to Christian knights going on Crusade in the Baltics (one modern popular historian amusingly described it as the Medieval equivalent of "doing it for the gram") and that labeling a group "apostates" who had rejected Christ allowed a freer hand than if they were pagans who simply did not know Christ, and so forced baptism could paradoxically create a pretext for further military action.

^1 I am drawing a distinction here between the narrow act of forced baptism and the actual demonstration of the power of one's god through victory in battle, which seems to have been a quite effective driver of conversion.

Hello, Historians.

I am thinking about studying history and was wondering what books you would recommend me, to start reading? I love history and are really interested in it. I am not a big reader but I've made a deal with myself to start reading more, and therefore I would really appreciate any book recommendations you could give me. I love non-fiction and are eager to consume knowledge, but I am open to fiction books. Hope you can help my!

So I totally understand that films have to be allowed a certain amount of dramatic license to create a narrative that stitches a larger story together. But the scene early in 'A Bridge Too Far' where Browning casually dismisses recon photos and resistance intel that point towards a larger, better-equipped German force in the area than what's expected points towards what seems to be a larger mythology about Market-Garden that has persisted to this day. The 'Band of Brothers' mini-series (dubious history-wise because of its association with Ambrose, granted) also touches on the fact that intel for Market-Garden indicated that German resistance would amount to little more than Hitler youth and old men. The reality, of course, was much different.

We now know that the Allies ran into tough resistance from the redeployment of II SS Panzer Corps and other movements into the area by under-strength but well-equipped German units. My question is: how well informed were Monty and the Allied planners of these developments ahead of the operation? 'A Bridge Too Far' indicates that they had enough information to put the pieces together, and stop an operation that had faulty assumptions about opposition strength. Is this accurate? Is there another consideration to take into account? For example, was the operation too big to call off by the time they figured all of this out?

Currently i'm watching Rise Of Empires: Ottoman. During one of the battle sciences they mentioned the horrific way in which battles where fought. Close man- to man combat must indeed make quite an impact on soldiers. It was already clear to me that medieval battles could be pretty bad, but didn't look like portayed in most series or movies. According to Lindybeige (not sure how accurate this guy is) the actual fighting was postponed as far as possible and most men didn't really want to fight.

But this made me think. In modern times PTSD and shellshock are well known effects of war. But these accounts don't go further back than World War One.

If medieval (or classical time) battles are so horrific shouldn't there be some accounts of PTSD like syndromes or diseases among historical records? Are there any accounts of the possible mental affects of swordfighting and battles in which thousands of men were killed?If there aren't any, why?

I'll clarify. In modern times there is a process that medically trained persons go through to declare someone as dead. Did Romans have any sort of protocol? If so, how effective was it? Were there ever any instances of prominent figures being buried alive?

I'll note that when I searched for an answer online only funeral practices came up. Thank you in advance!

Edit: Don't say Jesus

The story I'm describing was once featured in a history channel special on vampires, I'm trying to find out the details of the case so i can look it back up. The story was about a man and his family sitting down to supper with his wife, daughter and her beau who was a soldier? (I think he was) when they heard a knock at the door. Upon opening it they were confronted with an old man who walked in and everyone went quiet, the old man sat at the table and everyone went to bed except for the old man and the man of the house, the solider didn't know why everyone was soo strange. The next morning they awoke to find the man of the house exsanguinated, the solider comes to find out that the old man was the hosts father and had died the year prior. Long story short he gathered a bunch of townsfolk together and went out and dug up the mans father found his mouth with bloodstains on it and forced a rock into his mouth, staked him, decapitated him and burnt the body. Can anyone please help me out? Thank you.

I’m curious to learn more about the start of the slave trade, and i feel we get a lot of what happened on the european side, but i’m curious as to what was going on in Africa at the time, and how they felt about what was going on, any places i should look?

In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon says of John XXIII:

"The more scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was accused only of piracy, rape, sodomy, murder and incest."

The more serious charges seem to be religious in nature rather than secular (heresy, simony). That said, to modern eyes that line really reads like a joke: how could a little light piracy, rape and murder be considered less serious!?

Was this comment intended as a joke, or did they really reflect Gibbon's/contemporary society's view of religious offences as much more serious than secular charges?

Seems like plenty of fascist regimes (nazis, franco in spain, etc) have used the eagle as part of their imagery. Is this just a coincidence? Does it have anything to do with a past empire using it first? Are there any other common symbols?

I have read several times that Hitler took a serious amount of drugs every day. Is that true and how bad was his addiction? Did that behaviour cause or add to his erratic behaviour and how would it have affected his decision making in the war if he hadn't taken them?

I’m studying the Early English voyages and I’m having trouble finding specific information about this one.

Hello!

So I can imagine what Romans might think of Gauls by the time they have conquered Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. But how about when Rome was but a city with several allied tribes? Were they merely known as "barbarians who come raid us every so often", or did they have knowledge passed on to them by northern Italian tribes (or even Etruscans for example who spend a considerable amount of time north side of Italy.)

As you know in 1939 both Germany and later the soviets marched into Poland, but why didn't the allies declare war on the soviets, because they also threaten polish independence.

I mean with the Israelites, medivial era europe and the Nazis, it seems like Jews are always getting the short end of the stick? Maybe I'm just wrong and Jew in fact didn't have it as bad as I thought. Additionally, I know some other groups suchs a Armenians were hated as well, although Jew always seemed to be treated worse, why is this or is it just a uneven spread of information regarding the issue?

I'm a first time poster on this sub and don't know if this question has been answered, but after a bit of light research I saw that most of China's oil deposits lie predominantly in Northern China. And from my predominantly western education of Japan's conflict with the United States it was mostly over the the US's embargo of oil to Japan. So if Japan held control over Manchuria, (which was then know as Manchukuo) which in turn held great reserves oil, why didn't Japan drill and refine the reserves they had available? What stopped them? Did they not know they had that oil available to them or was it that they didn't have the drilling or refining technology to take advantage of said reserves? Any answers would be helpful. Thanks.