7 ms·

"Horde" - a term long used to deflect the sophisticated tactical, strategic, technological, and governmental methods of the Mongols. Their accomplishments are n

"Horde" - a term long used to deflect the sophisticated tactical, strategic, technological, and governmental methods of the Mongols. Their accomplishments are not lost on the war colleges of the west (at the the US for sure, especially the US Marines), but no one else seems to know this.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
LarsDu88 4y ago
The English word horde is etymologically directly derived from the Mongolian/kipchak term Orda which is a divisional unit of the Mongol army. The negative connotations of a horde as being disorderly and cruel is a direct reflection of western European perceptions of "Tartar Barbarism"
- tekkk 4y ago
  Well wouldn't you agree though Mongols were quite cruel conquerors?
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    The Silk Road was at its safest during Mongol rule.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    The only difference between them and anyone else was the sweeping success. That, and that the Mongols directly threatened Europe from the outside, all other European wars were internal affaires. Except the European conquests outside of Europe of course.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      The sweeping success was the cruelty though; whilst warfare was common in Europe despite relatively stable boundaries and low-level massacres of individual garrisons that refused to surrender were not uncommon (but also generally regarded as cruel), the murder of millions of people and deaths of tens of millions of people as a direct result of the targeting of their food supplies within a generation was unprecedented. It's not like we generally have positive views of comparable scale "sweeping successes" exported from Europe like the Conquistadors or transatlantic slave trade
      - dmurray 4y ago
        We don't have a positive view of the discovery and civilization of the New World?
        Dalewyn 4y ago
        The people behind the recent revisionism movements don't, at least.
        hef19898 4y ago
        There are not a lot of net positives for mankind coming from colonialism.
        tremon 4y ago
        You could make the argument that the Enlightenment age spawned in Europe because of the vast amount of wealth generated by colonialism. And then you could make the argument that without colonialism as it happened, both the US Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution might not have happened, or maybe not in the same timeframe or with the same outcomes. And then you could make the argument that all industrialization and social innovation that followed (such as modern democracy, medicine, space techology, computing) may not have happened either, or not in the same timeframe, or not in the same manner. So when you start arguing about things "coming from colonialism", be aware that without history as it happened, we might not even be able to have this discussion here between people from all over the world. And that in general it's very hard to ascribe exactly which parts of today "come from" which parts of history.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I don’t think the Romans came to bring biscuits and tea to conquered lands either.
    - runsWphotons 4y ago
      well, they brought more than the mongols. baths, libraries, fashions, technology, roads, trade
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        I read that in a Monty Python sketch voice. Not sure if intended or not. (It’s a fair point either way.) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
      - qwytw 4y ago
        In the Mediterranean world these things were not at all uncommon during the Hellenistic age. While they did introduce all of that to France, England, west Germany and Spanish interior. They brought extreme amounts of economic destruction and misery to the Greek world trough destruction and massive transfers of wealth and population to Italy.
- rpastuszak 4y ago
  In Polish this word took two different forms: - "horda", meaning horde, and - "orda" used almost exclusively for the Golden Horde. _IIRC_ that's where the form with "h" appeared first and propagated to other western languages. (I'm not saying that you're incorrect, I just haven't heard about a direct route from Mongolian to English.) The word "Urdu" (as in the "Urdu language") has the same, Turkic origin (meaning "military camp"). It also exists in Persian, which influenced the development of the Urdu language.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> a term long used to deflect the sophisticated tactical, strategic, technological, and governmental methods of the Mongols Setting aside the fact that the term refers to the Mongols using their own word, why are we describing their governmental methods as sophisticated? How do they perform relative to comparators? In China, they're not impressive at all; the government before them lasted for about 300 years (traditionally dated 960-1276, though it lost control of the north of China for the last 100 or so years), and the one after them also lasted about 300 years (1368-1644). If you were paying attention to the dates, that leaves just under 100 years for the Mongols' "sophisticated" government to survive. [In reality, they almost certainly deserve credit for a bit more than that -- transitions of power take place over multi-year periods, not instantaneously.] I tend to make the assumption that the brevity of their rule is related to the fact that they had no administrative tradition -- perhaps you know better? (I've also read that Mongol rule was extremely beneficial to the economy of Europe -- where they weren't in charge -- [because the pax Mongolica made overland trade economically viable] while being a step backward for China, where they were.) > technological This is even weirder. What technological methods? The Mongols couldn't even make metal objects.
- hef19898 4y ago
  You are aware that the Mongols replaced dysnaties in China with their own, until those dynasties were replaced centuries later? The Mongol Empire span a huge chunk of continental Asia for quite sometime, their government seems less sohpisticated to Western eyes because we are used to impressive monuments left by local kingdoms. But monuments don't tell you anything about government or bureaucracy.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > until those dynasties were replaced centuries later? One century later. The Mongols had very little staying power. That's what I'm saying above. What do "sophisticated governmental methods" mean to you? Did the Mongols have them? The relationship of the Russian dukes to their faraway Mongol overlords seems more parallel to the systems of, say, feudal Europe than to those of the Roman empire. There's a clear consensus on which system used more sophisticated methods.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

LarsDu88 4y ago

The English word horde is etymologically directly derived from the Mongolian/kipchak term Orda which is a divisional unit of the Mongol army. The negative connotations of a horde as being disorderly and cruel is a direct reflection of western European perceptions of "Tartar Barbarism"

tekkk 4y ago
Well wouldn't you agree though Mongols were quite cruel conquerors?
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  The Silk Road was at its safest during Mongol rule.
- hef19898 4y ago
  The only difference between them and anyone else was the sweeping success. That, and that the Mongols directly threatened Europe from the outside, all other European wars were internal affaires. Except the European conquests outside of Europe of course.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    The sweeping success was the cruelty though; whilst warfare was common in Europe despite relatively stable boundaries and low-level massacres of individual garrisons that refused to surrender were not uncommon (but also generally regarded as cruel), the murder of millions of people and deaths of tens of millions of people as a direct result of the targeting of their food supplies within a generation was unprecedented. It's not like we generally have positive views of comparable scale "sweeping successes" exported from Europe like the Conquistadors or transatlantic slave trade
    - dmurray 4y ago
      We don't have a positive view of the discovery and civilization of the New World?
      - Dalewyn 4y ago
        The people behind the recent revisionism movements don't, at least.
        hef19898 4y ago
        There are not a lot of net positives for mankind coming from colonialism.
        tremon 4y ago
        You could make the argument that the Enlightenment age spawned in Europe because of the vast amount of wealth generated by colonialism. And then you could make the argument that without colonialism as it happened, both the US Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution might not have happened, or maybe not in the same timeframe or with the same outcomes. And then you could make the argument that all industrialization and social innovation that followed (such as modern democracy, medicine, space techology, computing) may not have happened either, or not in the same timeframe, or not in the same manner. So when you start arguing about things "coming from colonialism", be aware that without history as it happened, we might not even be able to have this discussion here between people from all over the world. And that in general it's very hard to ascribe exactly which parts of today "come from" which parts of history.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I don’t think the Romans came to bring biscuits and tea to conquered lands either.
  - runsWphotons 4y ago
    well, they brought more than the mongols. baths, libraries, fashions, technology, roads, trade
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      I read that in a Monty Python sketch voice. Not sure if intended or not. (It’s a fair point either way.) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
    - qwytw 4y ago
      In the Mediterranean world these things were not at all uncommon during the Hellenistic age. While they did introduce all of that to France, England, west Germany and Spanish interior. They brought extreme amounts of economic destruction and misery to the Greek world trough destruction and massive transfers of wealth and population to Italy.
rpastuszak 4y ago
In Polish this word took two different forms: - "horda", meaning horde, and - "orda" used almost exclusively for the Golden Horde. _IIRC_ that's where the form with "h" appeared first and propagated to other western languages. (I'm not saying that you're incorrect, I just haven't heard about a direct route from Mongolian to English.) The word "Urdu" (as in the "Urdu language") has the same, Turkic origin (meaning "military camp"). It also exists in Persian, which influenced the development of the Urdu language.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> a term long used to deflect the sophisticated tactical, strategic, technological, and governmental methods of the Mongols Setting aside the fact that the term refers to the Mongols using their own word, why are we describing their governmental methods as sophisticated? How do they perform relative to comparators? In China, they're not impressive at all; the government before them lasted for about 300 years (traditionally dated 960-1276, though it lost control of the north of China for the last 100 or so years), and the one after them also lasted about 300 years (1368-1644). If you were paying attention to the dates, that leaves just under 100 years for the Mongols' "sophisticated" government to survive. [In reality, they almost certainly deserve credit for a bit more than that -- transitions of power take place over multi-year periods, not instantaneously.] I tend to make the assumption that the brevity of their rule is related to the fact that they had no administrative tradition -- perhaps you know better? (I've also read that Mongol rule was extremely beneficial to the economy of Europe -- where they weren't in charge -- [because the pax Mongolica made overland trade economically viable] while being a step backward for China, where they were.) > technological This is even weirder. What technological methods? The Mongols couldn't even make metal objects.

hef19898 4y ago
You are aware that the Mongols replaced dysnaties in China with their own, until those dynasties were replaced centuries later? The Mongol Empire span a huge chunk of continental Asia for quite sometime, their government seems less sohpisticated to Western eyes because we are used to impressive monuments left by local kingdoms. But monuments don't tell you anything about government or bureaucracy.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > until those dynasties were replaced centuries later? One century later. The Mongols had very little staying power. That's what I'm saying above. What do "sophisticated governmental methods" mean to you? Did the Mongols have them? The relationship of the Russian dukes to their faraway Mongol overlords seems more parallel to the systems of, say, feudal Europe than to those of the Roman empire. There's a clear consensus on which system used more sophisticated methods.