QuoteTours 731 springs to mind

Charles Martel defeating the islamic horde ? I think I've got that one down as the Battle of Poitiers 732.  But it is a facinating battle, it's one of those I've got marked down as a possible game, I just need a few more (hundred) darkage blokes with spears.

One advantage of the dark ages in the West is that you can use lots of generic 'scruffy bloke with spear and shield' figures for most of the armies.

Quotelate WWI Western Front. You have limits that mean that only an excellent general can make a decisive difference.

I have to disagree a bit there, mid war there are severe limitations but by late 1917 developments in infantry tactics, armour, aircraft and above all artillery mean that there is a lot of options open to the general, all of which makes the late war so interesting and challenging.

Sorry your right 732..i think the battle is known by both names as its right in the middle of the two places..Arab scholars call it Battle of the Palace of Martyrs and arguments apparently are still ongoing  of how important it was

Quote from: DanJ on 15 April 2014, 02:46:05 PM
I have to disagree a bit there, mid war there are severe limitations but by late 1917 developments in infantry tactics, armour, aircraft and above all artillery mean that there is a lot of options open to the general, all of which makes the late war so interesting and challenging.

I'll take that.

Quote from: fsn on 15 April 2014, 12:16:40 PM
I would agree that the English can only remember two dates,

I take great exeption to this FSN.   I am English and I can remember lots of dates.......

The one where I got more than I bargained for on the M11..... Had to stop on the hard shoulder

There was the date on the beach....I had no idea you could actually get sand in places like that

The very interesting date with Yvonne and Sharon..... still keep it in the family  

The date I had at 18 with a woman twice my age ..... Phew that opened my eyes  

The date I got cautioned on the undergroound ..... She did have a long  skirt on so i am not sure how the ticket inspector knew, after all there are never enough seats on the underground even at 11pm.  

Then there was the blind date at the pub in Essex    

I could go on but I don't want to boast .  And on most of them I was in the Dark for Ages  

Quote from: Just a few Orcs on 15 April 2014, 03:46:36 PM

I could go on but I don't want to boast .  And on most of them I was in the Dark for Ages  

Did none of them consider you worth keeping?

Quote from: FierceKitty on 15 April 2014, 04:09:29 PM
Did none of them consider you worth keeping?

Well the blind date definitely would have, but my standards may be low but not that low.

I was married to one of them for a nightmare 16 years.  Best £150,000 i ever spent getting rid of her.

Then there was the date with the the person I am with now........As I have said before like you  "I live the dream", so a definite keeper.

It seems that most historians today call the period 'The Early Middle Ages' in an attempt to shake off the pejorative overtones of the old name. Even back in 1967 it was being queried, the first question on the St Andrews University Bursary Competition history paper being, "How dark were the Dark Ages?" I'd certainly opt for Byzantium were I to wargame the period.

It has to be a 'something' Dark Age or a Dark Age in 'somewhere' because there was more than one: there was a Dark Age in Greece after the collapse of Bronze Age civilization. Early Medieval is preferable. Roman period, Viking Age etc also better than THE Dark Ages.

Quotethere was a Dark Age in Greece after the collapse of Bronze Age civilization

I think that's they key point here, the Victorians or possibly Georgians who coined the phrase saw it as the time after the fall of the Roman civilisation in Britain and before the arrival of the French (Norman) civilisation here.  As for the definative article well if you're a Victorian then other places and times might have A dark age but only Britain can have THE Dark Ages.

Quote from: DanJ on 16 April 2014, 08:17:41 AM
  As for the definative article well if you're a Victorian then other places and times might have A dark age but only Britain can have THE Dark Ages.

I think the Victorian view was " Your whole so called civilization was a Dark Age until you were lucky enough to have us turn up on your doorstep"

How Victorious were the Victorians?

QuoteHow Victorious were the Victorians?

Pretty much all conquering as long as the foe was armed with soft fruit, and even then it was likely to be a close run thing.

I must admit the Victorian campaigns aren't my strong suite but I get the impression there was a definate pattern of sending a few troops somewhere on the pretense of helping a local ruler, then having that force destroyed by the locals before returning in overwheming force to add a new part of the globe to The Empire.

I think that the Blackpowder rulebook lists most of the people the Victorian army fought and it includes just about someone from every letter of the alphabet.

Seems to me, gentlemen, we're trying that difficult feat on comesting one's Battenburg, yet have it remain on the salver.

To say that the Zulu army, the Ashanti, the Maori were without merit seems to be to reach for the ring of Britain bashing at the expense of sound history. Why don't we denigrate the Romans for taking out the Gauls because they had superior technology and discipline? Those naughty Prussians for using breach loaders against the poor French? America and the Vietnamese ...

Yes, the Brits had superior technology. However, they rarely had the numbers, nor the local knowledge, and the ordinary Tommy was often tiny street scum sent off to somewhere hot in a bloomin' big red coat with "kill me" emblazoned across it, and yet they won through in so many cases.

We do them a disservice to belittle their military achievements, even if we don't agree with the goals of their political masters.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there" - L P Hartley