Was there really no feasible alternative? Could they have been better trained? (With reference to 'Mud, Blood and Poppycock' (2004), ch. 9,pp. 274-5). Thanks.

Thanks.

France and England were highly competitive rivals going all the way back to the Hundred Years War, but that has clearly changed at some point, and I was curious as to when along the line of history the French and British started getting along better.

Being the Mongol Empire one of the biggest in history, why is it that nowadays Mongolia only has 3 million habitants? What happened to their civilization and the decrease in population ? They are a large country (size) and the majority of the east asian countries are dense in population...

I know it's very specific. I'm a fan of Canute and the North Sea Empire, I'm just trying to find out if Iceland was in it.

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I'd like to read a book about a historical battle from the perspective of the people who planned it. This doesn't have to cover any particular battle or war (though 20th century would be nice). Ideally it would cover topics like: why that location was picked, estimating the amount of men and resources needed, predicting casualties, sizing up the opposing force, recon of the battlefield, time tables, etc. Basically all of the nitty-gritty details that popular military history never really bores you with.

Any war of time period will do, although my dream wish would be something in the Pacific theatre of WWII. Can anybody recommend me something along those lines?

What was it about Hitler's speeches that made him so charismatic? I'm a non German speaker, every documentary about the man speaks about how he could control the masses through his speeches.so what did he he do that made him likeable? Was it what he said, his audacity in saying it? His way of saying it? Did he say what the people needed to hear?

The way it's been explained to me and the way it's presented in movies is people lined up and ran and planted steaks in the ground to claim their 50 acres. That can't be right though.

Why did the Union leadership, after finally winning a long bloody war, have any desire for reconciliation?

Why, in the terms of the time, was it not seen as obvious and simple that the entire Confederate leadership should be tried for treason?

From the perspective of 150 years later, it seems obvious that the entire Southern officer corps could and should have been lined up against a wall and shot, but clearly I'm seeing the past through the lens of present-day ideas and politics.

Edit: This was proven invalid. Read comment below. Thanks for the PMs and information on this subject!

There is a rumor I would like to dispel in my family that my great-(great-great?) grandfather was the Russian ambassador to America and he escaped execution only because he was on a boat en-route to the states at the time.

I am fairly sure that with a few hints of where and how to research this, I can continue to trace my family tree back to prove/disprove this.

Edit: All my Google searching gets obfuscated by all of the ancillary data on Romanov history... I am at a loss on this one.

I have so far been unable to corroborate this claim but it makes sense and I want to be able to authenticate this claim before using it as an argument to support my theory that ISIS does not truely represent the Islamic religion. Is there any basis to this?

A rather basic search online returns no concrete results. Does he and if so where is it held? Is it recognised internationally?

Last night when listening to the BBC History Extra podcast, the guest Hugh Sebag-Montefiore mentioned that during the Battle of the Somme that NZ soldiers were killing German POW's and implied this was something little known and almost swept-under-the rug.

Coming from NZ and having more interest in history than the average joe, I've never heard anything about this. I've had a bit of a google, but can only find general stuff about NZ casualities during the battle - nothing about any sort of (presumably) unsantioned shooting of german prisoners.

Does anyone know anything about this, or is able to point me to any resources/articles about it?

Strictly speaking of medieval European battle, during the era of the longsword.

This is a very broad series of questions that I'm sure differs culture to culture and era to era - I'm just trying to get a feel for the concept. I've always found it very curious that - especially early in the metal working ages - people would go through all the effort to aquire material wealth only to bury it upon death.

To what extent where Copper/Bronze/Iron that practiced burial of prestige goods sequestering valuable materials in the ground? Did it lead to shortages? Affect the value of the goods (did they bury enough of it that the value was kept high)?

Were the chieftans/kings who did this burying all of their wealth or just part? Such that if you were burying yourself with grave goods you had extra to burn? Or was it literally all the wealth theyou could command? Why did they do it? How did these ideas fit with their social organization?

Again, broad series of questions... partial answers or details about a very specific time period/area are more than welcome (within board rules of course)!