Read parts of this many years ago. Was impressed by how (iirc) the Spanish only had six horses, but that six mounted men were enough to turn the tide in much larger engagements.
Also worthy of note: the nations which had been defeated previously by the Aztecs eagerly joined the Spanish side.
>Read parts of this many years ago. Was impressed by how (iirc) the Spanish only had six horses, but that six mounted men were enough to turn the tide in much larger engagements.
The Spanish had the best troops in the world at the time. If they’d launched a full on crusade into Islam instead of fighting in Europe there might not be a Islamic North Africa today.
Diaz tells about some natives showing him the thigh bone of a giant which was about five foot tall.
“Also worthy of note: the nations which had been defeated previously by the Aztecs eagerly joined the Spanish side.”
They sure did. They knew the only reason why the Aztecs didn’t defeat them outright (before the Spanish arrival) was so the Aztecs could perpetually war against them on a lower level to take war captives and sacrifice them to their gods.
The Spanish did a great service to humanity in the conquest of Mexico.
You are not the only one impressed by that. At one of their meetings Montezuma noticed how few horses Cortez seemed to have -- at first they believed the horses were some type of large deer. What Montezuma could not know is how many horses Cortez had available to him or how easily these few could be replaced. To find out, he secretly instructed one of his warrior to kill a horse and make it seem to be a misunderstanding. The plan was to apologize and immediately offer Cortez compensation for the loss to see how dear the horse was to him. To his great credit, Cortez saw through the ruse at once and told Montezuma noting of great value was lost and he had no concern for the dead horse.
Cortez was an exceptionally clever man, at least through the Conquest, if not afterward where he did not fare as well. Putin would be a schoolchild beside him.