Posted on 08/17/2024 1:07:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Celts in the Po Valley had only been conquered a few years before so many of them sided with Hannibal. There were some allies in southern Italy who defected after Cannae (and Syracuse in Sicily did—Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier during the Roman recapture of the city) but it seems like the great majority of allies remained loyal, particularly the Latin allies who shared the same language with the Romans. If most of the allies had deserted Rome, the Romans might not have been able to raise enough troops. But even after Cannae they did not recall their armies from Spain and they were able to fight a war against Philip V of Macedon.
Our empire.
Post WWII, we have become an empire (even if not self-aware by the majority or rejected by some), and post 1991 this empire has even taken on as with most empires its military / expeditionary / expansionist face.
Iraq (2003): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq
Libya (2011): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya
Syria (2014): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_United_States_intervention_in_the_Syrian_civil_war
Venezuela (2020): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020)
Ukraine (2022): Current
We define the West (et al) and much of the WORLD (Internet, English as the business/science language, USD for trade, Hollywood, international organizations we in reality lead) today. We are an economic, military, political and cultural focal point and Washington has become not just a capital of the US, but defining of the entire West.
If you consider the expanse of our influence and military presence, NO EMPIRE ON EARTH has ever been this large, not even the British and Mongol empires which are usually considered as the largest empires to have ever existed.
Our military presence today:
Around the world: https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/INTERACTIVE-US-military-presence-around-the-world.png?w=770&resize=770%2C770&quality=80
Latin America (zoomed in): https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/INTERACTIVE-US-military-presence-in-Latin-America.png?w=770&resize=770%2C770&quality=80
Europe (zoomed in): https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/INTERACTIVE-US-military-presence-in-Europe.png?w=770&resize=770%2C770&quality=80
Middle East (zoomed in): https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/INTERACTIVE-US-military-presence-in-the-Middle-East.png?w=770&resize=770%2C770&quality=80
Africa has become increasingly important: https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/1i0nm45rAx4MuHJTBjOZwe0RJ4c=/fit-in/1072x0/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/76/45/7645fe6c-a982-4828-bdff-7043074884b2/counterterrorismmapweb.png
Empire defined: an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.
By this definition, we are an empire. Maybe not entirely like all of the others, but even they all had their differences between each others. Rome was a true republic in the beginning, while the Mongols were under a central figure...
Please don’t forget the Seyfo either.
I had not heard of the Seyfo before so Googled the term and found a German-language Wikipedia article to the effect that it was a genocide of Syrian Christians in WWI at the same time as the Turks’ genocide of the Armenians...but one which had remained very little known. From the map attached to the article it appears the victims were mostly in places just north of the present-day Turkish-Iraqi border and Turkish-Syrian border, but some victims were just over the border in Persia.
Yes, it was. Sorry if this article was not available in English, but you are right: it is hardly known outside the area in which it occurred. Sadly so 🙁
He flamed out too early. His empire broke up immediately after he died. He disrupted a lot of existing powers, but didn’t have much influence beyond that.
Never mind that the Ottomans went on violent, genocidal purge of Christians. They were ethnically diverse and tolerant, while the British empire were brutal colonialists who left behind a legacy of meritocracy and rule of law. If only those evil brits have just genocided throughout their empire they could be looked up to like the Ottomans. /sarc
I used to play Age of Empires. I heard it was similar to Civilization in many ways. I had to give it up. The whole work/wife/kids/house thing was interfering.
Isn't that a sickening whitewashing of history? Prof. Victor Hanson expounds on the evil of the islamic Janissary system quite often. For those who don't know, here are some excerpts from Wiki...
"Janissaries began as elite corps made up through the devşirme system of child levy enslavement, by which Christian Albanians, Bulgarians, Croats, Greeks, Romanians, Serbs and Ukrainians were taken, levied, subjected to forced circumcision and conversion to Islam, and incorporated into the Ottoman army.Prof. Hanson points out how bad it was for the Christian regions and cities to be invaded by islamic Turk armies equipped with blond, blue-eyed men who had been kidnapped as children, enslaved, and converted to islam.The formation of the Janissaries has been dated to the reign of Murad I (1362–1389), the third ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans instituted a tax of one-fifth on all slaves taken in war, and from this pool of manpower the sultans first constructed the Janissary corps as a personal army loyal only to the sultan.
From the 1380s to 1648, the Janissaries were gathered through the devşirme system, which was abolished in 1648. This was the taking (enslaving) of non-Muslim boys, notably Anatolian and Balkan Christians; Jews were never subject to devşirme.
...the Turkish administrators would scour their regions (but especially the Balkans) every five years for the strongest sons of the sultan's Christian subjects. These boys (usually between the ages of 10 and 20) were then taken from their parents, circumcised, and sent to Turkish families in the provinces to be raised as Muslims and learn Turkish language and customs...Most were of non-Muslim origin because it was not permissible to enslave a Muslim.
"embraced ethnic diversity and religious tolerance" -- what absolute balderdash!
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