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Like how sailors had sea shanties, did soldiers have any songs to help coordinate work or help with morale

Edit: words

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Currently I am reading "History as Propaganda: Tibetan Exiles versus the People's Republic of China" by John Powers on assignment from a class, and while reading I was struck by just how far the disagreement over Tibetan history goes between pro-Chinese and pro-Tibetan authors. I understand that bias, or outright lies, exist and may be proven false through better use of evidence, but some of the disputes seem to be about rather mundane events. Others seem to deal with how either side at the time interpreted the nature of the same events and relationships. On either side exaggeration or outright lies and propaganda can be dismissed, but that still seems to leave much disagreement.

However, my question does not so much concern this specific dispute as with how historians deal with any such dispute. If an event has multiple interpretations which can not be proven to be false or likely false, then it would seem that those looking into that event (historian or not) can either select an agreeable narrative, or must live with uncertainty.

Therefore, how do historians deal with any such dispute which has multiple narratives which are within the realm of possibility, yet nonetheless incompatible? What kind of facts are useful for helping find which narrative is true, or most true?

Also, I apologize if this is off topic, as it's not so much a question about history as how to practice history.

Was it religious groups who advocated for abolitionism, or was a more secular argument at the core of it? Was it a top-down idea, or community driven?

I'm reading a French novel from 1797-1801, in English translation. The translator used the phrase "drab robots" (as an insult to "idiot princes"), so out of curiosity I looked what it was in the original French.

"Tout ce qui les entoure les mène, et les plats automates en croyant gouverner par eux-mêmes, ne régissent que par nos passions."

"plats automates"

What were/are automatic dishes?

(And before anyone asks, yes, that novel.)

In late 18th/early 19th century Britain, service in the army was voluntary, and service was often for life. It attracted people with nowhere else to go, leading to the Duke of Wellington's famous comment that the British army was composed of 'the mere scum of the earth.' If this was the model they started from, why did the British prefer high-caste Indians for the Bengal Army? Did they believe better off soldiers would be more motivated and have a stronger morale and unit cohesion? Were they still subject to corporal punishment?

Considering his fascination with the roman empire. I know he wanted to build gigantic buildings in Berlin, he hated Jews enough to create a Gladiator like theater. But maybe the Germans didn't?

Perhaps it's a bit of a odd question, or i have just watched 'gladiator' too recently, this question has me fascinated for the last couple of days though.

I'm very much interested in the perceptions of America by Nazi Germany before hostilities broke out, as well as the intersection between the environmentalist components of the Nazi party and the general oeuvre of environmentalism in Weimar Germany.

In particular, I'm trying to find information on a book that I remember being referenced in an article concerning something along the lines of "eco-fascism" and the so-called "green wing" of the Nazi Party. What I could gather from the article was that it was written by a German (a true-believer Nazi, if I remember correctly) visitor to America in the form of a travelogue, I believe published during the interwar period, but it could have been published during the war. My fuzzy memory of the context in the article was something like dismay at the socially ruinous effects of industrial urbanization in America, but awe at its abundance of nature. I've scoured my resources and cannot find a trace of either an author or a title. I'd very much like to read this book. Does anyone know of it or know what a good resource would be for tracking it down? Or of other books with similar contexts?

My questions outside of this are twofold:

What were the perceptions of Nazis visiting America before hostilities actually broke out? How aware were the Nazis of the Dust Bowl and its environmental implications? Were there books written by true believing Nazis or otherwise fellow-travelers, that visited America in non-official capacities? What were their primary critiques of American society as they saw it?

Did the idea of wilderness stewardship intersect with the concept of Lebensraum in pre-1938 Nazi Germany? How did the Wandervogel and German Youth movement intersect with the environmental underpinnings of the early Nazi party platform, if at all?

Finding this information for WW2 isn't too difficult but for WW1, it seems to be a bit tougher.

When was the exact point when things like the Gestapo, SS, Hitler Youth, et al. formally dissolved? Was it an immediate closure, or was there a gradual tapering off of these organizations?

More specifically, what was the point where a German would and would not have to answer to them?

Thanks for any info.

I know it does, but how is that advantage created and used ? Thank you ! Edit : A defensive advantage *

So I've had this doubt for a while now and haven't been able to find much on this subject. As we can see from English for example, languages tend to evolve over time and for many people it is quite difficult to understand someone speaking Middle or Old English. A modern English speaker would have some trouble conversing with someone from the 1100s for example.

Since the Roman republic and later the Empire were so long lived, there had to have been some changes and evolution in the language commonly spoken. So do we have any information on how Latin evolved both in writing and pronunciation and would a Roman from the 5th century BC be able to understand and talk to a Roman from the 5th century AD? Would they be able to easily read and understand documents from the early republic as well?

I know its impossible to get an original recording, but do we have a good idea of how languages like ancient Egyptian, greek, Sanskrit or even latin were enunciated and what they actually sounded like? Or are they "read only" where we know how to read them but don't really know how to pronounce them?

In the USA we often associate capitalism with freedom and democracy and communism with authoritarianism and repression. Was there ever a democratic communist state, or conversely, a totalitarian capitalist state?

In the South, before the Civil Rights Act, African-Americans were often excluded from voting on the excuse that they had failed a "literacy test". Were white Southerners ever put through this test,and if so, what proportion of them failed?

War crimes are committed by both sides. But while several German units were accused of war crimes, on the side of the western allies, the war crimes ive heard of were generally committed by individuals. So how many western allied units were accused of war crimes? The only one that comes to my mind would be the US 45th Infantry Division, the Dachau Massacre.

Might as well touch a bit on the Soviet side as well because i haven't heard mentions of war crimes by units as much as the entire Red Army.

I recently heard this book mentioned by Dan Carlin, and was surprised to read about the origins of how the book came to be. The effect of Benedict's work seems to have been extremely influential in the government at the time, and I'm curious about whether this type of project has been repeated since, and on what scale.

I understand that the government has several intelligence bureaus constantly surveying and releasing updated memos summarizing the state of affairs inside and around countries, with great detail about things like rebel factions and the relationship between each faction and their financial/military supply chain. But I'm curious about how often there's been a concerted effort to produce a singular document to guide the government's knowledge on a specific foreign region's culture since then?

Is there an equivalent to The Chrysanthemum and the Sword for the Middle East and Africa? Are those projects each focused on a specific country, the way that The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is, or are do they have a broader focus on a region? Are the results of those projects also published in a document available to the public?

Edit: I forgot to ask the obvious question - Was this the first time that the US Government relied significantly on the work of anthropologists or historians to guide foreign policy? Did the US or UK have equivalent documents regarding the Ottoman Empire during WWI?