YouTube Historians/HistoryTube/PopHistory

[Rome's rightful successor]

It's highly inconvenient to popular narratives around the Revolution so that's all it gets.

Turreau bragging about how many women and children his sword of liberty claimed in his dispatches to Paris has always been one of the most haunting anecdotes of the Revolution for me.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, lefties may not be human but French lefties are always demonic monsters that need to be sent back to hell at first sight.

 

[LovisXVI]

Partially because there's not really a reasonable expectation of victory at any point in the Vendee for the royalists. It's hard to romanticize a a side in a war that was doomed from the outset.

Especially when the person who actually ended the excesses of the Revolution was himself a Revolutionary, and a far more inspiring figure than a bunch of stuck-up aristocrats and Churchmen. The fact that he later went on to almost conquer all of Europe, establish law codes that last to today around the world, and introduce nationalism as a concept to much of Europe are large parts too. Hard to root for Duke Jean-Pierre d'Philanderer IV when you know in retrospect that the greatest European conqueror since Alexander and most compelling monarch since Frederick II was right around the corner.

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

Partially because there's not really a reasonable expectation of victory at any point in the Vendee for the royalists. It's hard to romanticize a a side in a war that was doomed from the outset.

And then nerds will jerk it to Thermopile or Shiroyama or Little Big Horn or the Warsaw Uprising.

Especially when the person who actually ended the excesses of the Revolution was himself a Revolutionary, and a far more inspiring figure than a bunch of stuck-up aristocrats and Churchmen. The fact that he later went on to almost conquer all of Europe, establish law codes that last to today around the world, and introduce nationalism as a concept to much of Europe are large parts too. Hard to root for Duke Jean-Pierre d'Philanderer IV when you know in retrospect that the greatest European conqueror since Alexander and most compelling monarch since Frederick II was right around the corner.

Actually reading about the men of the War in Vendee they are far more interesting and a lot more inspiring then you are giving them credit for. Many of them knew it was a suicidal mission and still did it anyway. And Napoleon is over rated. For most of his achievements outside of warfare were popularizing stuff other people did.

 

[LovisXVI]

Thermopile or Shiroyama or Little Big Horn or the Warsaw Uprising.

Heroic last stands are inspiring in a way that a war they arguably started, then get the shit kicked out of them until they ingominiously lose so hard as to discredit their ideology in the eyes of many for centuries to come, aren't. You are welcome to find the forces of Reaction compelling, but most people like winners, and the defining quality of Reaction is that they lose; even when they win, they still lose anyway: see the July Monarchy and Franco's Spain.

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

Heroic last stands are inspiring in a way that a war they arguably started, then get the shit kicked out of them until they ingominiously lose so hard as to discredit their ideology in the eyes of many for centuries to come, aren't. You are welcome to find the forces of Reaction compelling, but most people like winners, and the defining quality of Reaction is that they lose; even when they win, they still lose anyway: see the July Monarchy and Franco's Spain.

You are judging them by the common narrative not their actual qualities. Most people like stories, the idea of martyrdom is something that is often baked into narratives. Look at the Romance Language speaking world. The French, Spaniards, Portuguese and Romanians will all larp about the defeated parties and not Rome.
Also talking about starting losing wars, Rhodesia is probably the best example of people wanking over something retarded.

 

[LovisXVI]

Most people like stories, the idea of martyrdom is something that is often baked into narratives.

Well, narratives of martyrdom typically end in some sort of victory as a result of the self-sacrifice, either literal or moral/cultural. Thermopylae allowed the Hellenic city-states to muster their forces and eventually defeat the invading Persian army. Shiroyama convinced the Emperor of the virtues of retaining the symbols, trappings, and a few practices of bushido and other traditional Japanese cultural elements rather than wholly westernizing and modernizing. The Warsaw Uprising, while stupid and pointless, at least preceded the "liberation" of Poland from one occupying force to another, so it wasn't wholly purposeless. The War in the Vendée accomplished not much beyond inconveniencing the French Republic. I will say this much: if the forces of Reaction won, and either the Bourbon Restoration or the July Monarchy stuck (unlikely, but let's be a little for this counterfactual), I do think it would have a strong symbolic resonance with France as an example of the traditional French ideals. Though I suppose this is less a matter of history and rather historiography at that point.

The French, Spaniards, Portuguese and Romanians will all larp about the defeated parties and not Rome.

Maybe, but I would say that the symbols and motifs of the Western Romance nations (I have no idea about Romania, so I will just assume you know better than me) are fundamentally Roman-Italiote, with the identification with the pre-Roman tribes being more as an ethnic-national identity, with Roman as trans-national/religious identity, so you couldn't be solely Roman in their eyes during the dawning of such national mythologizing and proto-nationalism.

Also talking about starting losing wars, Rhodesia is probably the best example of people wanking over something retarded.

I like FALs and tactical short-shorts as much as the next guy, but it always has been a weird hill to die on imo.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Computer God Autism]

The Warsaw Uprising, while stupid and pointless,

I agree with points on both sides, but on this I think I should chime in and say that the leaders of the Warsaw Uprising believed that they would be getting support from the Allies, but did not anticipate that support being contingent on Stalin's blessing - who stonewalled it to avoid the possibility of Poland liberating itself, even partly, and even delayed the Soviet advance to allow the Germans an advantage in fighting it. Its failure was much less a case of a doomed last stand and much more the product of deliberate sabotage by interested third parties.

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

I agree with points on both sides, but on this I think I should chime in and say that the leaders of the Warsaw Uprising believed that they would be getting support from the Allies, but did not anticipate that support being contingent on Stalin's blessing - who stonewalled it to avoid the possibility of Poland liberating itself, even partly, and even delayed the Soviet advance to allow the Germans an advantage in fighting it. Its failure was much less a case of a doomed last stand and much more the product of deliberate sabotage by interested third parties.

I mean even assuming no Stalin telling the Allies no, how much could the western allies air lift all the way to Poland?

 

[Slap47]

Im genuinely surprised they have the routers throw away their weapons which is attested in almost all the sources

From what I understand this was common later on in Hellenistic warfare. It got to the point where battles hardly killed anybody because leaders respected routing armies right to route unmolested as a custom of war. This being shattered when the Romans cut down thousands of retreating soldiers during the Macedon wars.

Which is strange because things like the White Army during the Russian Civil War are given a sort of romantism, despite being mostly a liberal counter revolutionary force rather than a right wing one.

The white emigres went to every court and govt in Europe and formed influential groups that romanticized their cause. There was fertile anti-communist ground to spread sympathy for their cause. The Vendee uprising was a bunch of peasants and the royalists who fled Revolutionary France hardly wanted to associate themselves with that. The French right reconciled with the Revolution and embraced the populism of it so they hardly had a reason to bring it up.
If anything, it has only become a topic of study because History is a rat-race full of people desperate for untapped topics.

 

[Computer God Autism]

I mean even assuming no Stalin telling the Allies no, how much could the western allies air lift all the way to Poland?

Well the no was a major part of that, as they wanted to initially use Soviet Air bases for their air lifts; they wound up having to rely on ones in Italy which required them to cut down on the supplies they could run to make the flights at all.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Romeo]

Actually reading about the men of the War in Vendee they are far more interesting and a lot more inspiring then you are giving them credit for. Many of them knew it was a suicidal mission and still did it anyway. And Napoleon is over rated. For most of his achievements outside of warfare were popularizing stuff other people did.

I really am fascinated by Talleyrand, who served all of the regimes that ruled France during its tumultuous period. Talleyrand is stereotypically seen as a "turncoat," but from how I see it, all the regimes he served became total retards that he just grew disillusioned supporting the system and jumped ship.

• Raised in the excesses of the Ancién Regime of the Bourbons and became a womanizing Catholic bishop, jumped to the Revolutionary because out of his dislike of Catholicism due to his Enlightenment beliefs.
• Became the French Ambassador to Great Britain in the disastrous Republican era, to only have himself become a political exile once he was called for jailtime (and execution). Talleyrand returned to France following Robespierre's execution and sided with Napoleon once he saw him as capable to strengthen France to become a stable nation.
• Became France's foreign minister while Napoloen was Consul and later Emperor and helped expand French territorial control and influence in Europe through Napoleon's victories (also started the XYZ affair and the Quasi-War with the USA). Talleyrand grew more disillusioned with Napoleon as the Emperor kept fighting more and more wars that stretched France's control over Europe so thin that the empire was in for a great fall. Ditched Napoleon to support Russia and the Allies in secret.
• Once Napoleonic France was toppled to a disastrous fall, Talleyrand managed to convince the Allies to restore the Bourbons in France and keep the kingdom's gains in territories in 1792 back when it was a republic. However, when Napoleon returned to France and France got its ass kicked in Waterloo, Talleyrand saw all his achievements undone with France ceding its 1792 borders to a smaller size and became a total cynic.
• Became an aristocrat and politician supported by Louis XVIII during the Bourbon Restoration. Jumped ship to support the House of Orleans once Louis' successor Charles X stayed extremely out-of-touch.
• Became an ambassador to the United Kingdom under King Louis Philip of the Orléanist July Monarchy. Cynical of politics, Talleyrand quit being ambassador and repented to the Catholic Church of his grave sins and submitted to the Pope. He died the next day.

I enjoyed this video from Apostolic Majesty:

I also learned that Talleyrand was also the main motivator of the high gourmet and overrated quality that French cuisine is known for, being the main patron of the cuisine's inventor Antonin Carême. In a way, Talleyrand is literally the personification of France herself.

---

The whitewashing of the leftwing radicalism of the French revolution is one of the biggest travesties of modern history. So many of our gaynigger world's problems stem from that, so ignoring the mistakes of the time only leads to the perpetuation of similar crimes. Like the genocide of entire "classes" of people, antitheism becoming a religion in itself, rampant demagoguery.

The US was extremely lucky to have completed its own revolution before that poison traveled across the Atlantic. And despite its modern-day issues, England also saved itself for a while by previously satiating its desire for royal killing centuries before.

Brings me back to this scene in HBO's John Adams. I like how it shows the contrast between the stoicism of the American Founding Fathers and the fanaticism of the French revolutionaries.

Mr. Jefferson, Ambassador Genêt has taken leave of his senses.

Context if you're wondering. Quoted from my post in the US Politics General 2 thread back in early 2025.

Following the fall of the Bourbon monarchy during the French Revolution, one of the French Republican factions, the Girondins, sent Edmond-Charles Genêt as envoy to the United States of America to foster support from the Americans to back France against Europe's monarchies. Genêt would recruit American privateers (French-authorized pirate ships) and volunteers based on the commonality that both the United States and France were republics fighting against the "tyranny of monarchy" and that the French Revolution was based on the American Revolutionary War.

However, the President of the United States George Washington was outraged when he heard of Genêt's actions because he was violating the country's Neutrality Proclamation that Washington declared months prior. When war was declared between Great Britain and France, Washington quickly hurried back from a funeral at Mount Vernon to Philadelphia to declare American neutrality in the conflict on the rationale that the United States could not afford another war as the nation was too young and the military too weak to fight against empires. Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson demanded Genêt to stop, but Genêt would constantly disobey them and ramp up hiring efforts.

Genêt's actions would ultimately do the impossible, in which he united the two rivals, the pro-French Republic Jefferson and the pro-Great Britain Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, to unite and attempt to expel Genêt from the United States. The duo would then assist Washington in writing a 8000-word complaint Genêt to stop hampering American neutrality. Genêt refused and Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton demanded France to recall Genêt. During this time, the Girondins were annihilated and a rival faction, the Montagnards, demanded Genêt to be recalled to execute him.

Genêt quickly panicked, and asked the United States government for political asylum. Funnily enough, it was the pro-British Cabinet member Hamilton that recommended Washington to accept Genêt as a political refugee to maintain that Americans are keen on forgiveness. In addition, following the execution of King Louis XVI, the United States decided that all agreements with France made during the Revolutionary War are now void because in essence, the French Republican government is not the same, nor a successor, nor as legitimate as the French monarchy that the Americans made deals with.

The United States soon grew closer with Great Britain with the Jay Treaty and France, now outraged, soon launched naval raids against American merchant vessels in retaliation of American support for Britain. The United States soon revived the United States Navy and collaborated with Great Britain against the French.

 

[LovisXVI]

Once Napoleonic France was toppled to a disastrous fall, Talleyrand managed to convince the Allies to restore the Bourbons in France and keep the kingdom's gains in territories in 1792 back when it was a republic. However, when Napoleon returned to France and France got its ass kicked in Waterloo, Talleyrand saw all his achievements undone with France ceding its 1792 borders to a smaller size and became a total cynic.

Maybe the Bourbons should have tried sucking less. Ever consider that? I'd start there.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[The Secret Sauce]

Maybe the Bourbons should have tried sucking less. Ever consider that? I'd start there.

Based. Woe to the vanquished.

 

[LovisXVI]

Based. Woe to the vanquished.
View attachment 8938255

It is actually really funny that almost everyone, regardless of political persuasion (except for maybe the most suicidally fencesitting liberals), believes in Vae Victis to some degree, then gets really mad when you apply the principle to a thing they like. Without fail, they will gloat over their enemies being annihilated, but then seize up when someone else does the same. Truthfully, I just dislike the Bourbons and French hereditary oligarchy (using aristocracy would imply they were the best at anything other than decadence and philandering) in particular, and find their downfall to be wholly deserved. The other people of France, not so much.

Though given that the Bourbons were overthrown and exiled four times in one lifetime, and the second time it was by a guy who literally arrived in the country with the clothes on his back and disgraced by a pretty embarrassing defeat, it has always inclined me to believe they must have just been cursed at that point. Maybe Louis "Le Roi Soleil" XIV just sucked up all their good luck to leave his successors with jack and shit. Or maybe Napoleon was supernatural, that has also occurred to me.

 

[The Secret Sauce]

Almost everyone believes in Vae Victis to some degree, then gets really mad when you apply the principle to a thing they like. Without fail, they will gloat over their enemies being annihilated, but then seize up when someone else does the same. Truthfully, I just dislike the Bourbons and French hereditary oligarchy

Unironically based. I got genuinely angry the day I read about Alaric despoiling the ashes of the Julio-Claudians, knowing full well that I would've done the same or worse in his position. History wouldn't be as fun if you didn't allow yourself to be a little hypocritical/biased from time to time. Good on you for being the first to admit it, though.

 

[LovisXVI]

History wouldn't be as fun if you didn't allow yourself to be a little hypocritical/biased from time to time. Good on you for being the first to admit it, though.

Well, to say otherwise would be far more objectionable, to posture as if I were some ascended being who is immune to partisan historiography. I am more than willing to listen to and consider the perspective of a Reactionary, or a Communist, or a Libertarian, as long as it is clear that they are engaging in a particular historiography. When people start acting like they are objective and true beyond any doubt, and certainly not when discussing things beyond mere observations of facts and arrangement thereof, like pottery sequences, is when you lose me. I suppose that might be why the worst weenies of the historytube sphere just talk about pre-history/early homo sapiens stuff, they don't have to have a take!

 

[Computer God Autism]

Or maybe Napoleon was supernatural, that has also occurred to me.

And him too, which is why we got Waterloo.