ITT: unpopular opinions you have about history

Yeah man, sure!
>This navy that used to equal our own 50 years ago is cool just sitting there.
>Napoleon doesn't have a navy because we already destroyed it.
>Our navy is in piss poor shape because of above battle.

Let's just allow Napoleon to conquer Denmark and I'm sure it will be fine :^)

There was literally no good reason for Britain to do anything during the Napoleonic Wars.

lolwut
it was more like a last ditch effort to unfuck the empire
it didn't work but it certainly didn't harm it either

Hey man its someones opinion.

>Let's just allow Napoleon to conquer Denmark and I'm sure it will be fine :^)

Napoleon didnt attack neutral countries though
Only Britain did

>win the first battle
>sink and steal the rest of the navy
>fast forward 6 years
>lol u allied france now because we attacked you when u were neutral now we're gonna bomb the shit out of your capital and kill thousands of innocent people at the same time

"We conquered all of Europe in self defence!"
One think Naziboos and Francoboos have in common.

According to the agreed upon global definition we didn't commit genocide against the Native Americans we just tried to destroy their culture. desu it's kinda the same thing but with more focus on schools than concentration camps

>Islamic invasion breathed new life to the Middle East
>Napoleon didn't fight for France but for himself
>Moorish Spain is best Spain
>Roman Empire ceased to exist after Heraclius
>WRE didn't collapse, it gradually faded away/transitioned into late antiquity
>Turks have have taken great care of Istanbul/Constantinople
>Austrians should have formed Germany
>British Empire is hugely overrated

Colonialism wasn't bad.
That one went over really well at University.

>adopting Christianity was a good thing for the Roman Empire
How, exactly?

>colonialism was good, independence was bad
>stalin was better than trotsky
>soviet union would have invaded nazi germany
>germany were the good guys in ww1
>napoleon was necessary
>christianity was a positive and necessary force in a decadent society
>nazi germany winning and losing was a necessary evil
>Pinochet did nothing wrong
>The Crusades were defensive wars
>Islam should have been erradicated from the start
>Jews should have been genocided when Rome converted to Christianity
>Rome was the worst choice, Greeks and Persians would have been better. Even Germanics.

The soviet union under Stalin was a great place to live.
The time under Stalin and Lenin is the only time the USSR was truly socialist
Stalin was a good marxist and his policies were marxist
The coup d'etat led by Hruschev was nothing more than a vie for power to restore capitalism
The holodomor was caused by Kulaks fighting the soviet government, not deliberatley. There is proof of this when you notice there was no hunger in Ukraine when it was collectivized, but there was frequent famine before that.
The soviet 'genocides' are a meme propagated by the capitalist system to scare people away from socialism.

Native Americans could have all been genocided. Disease killed most of them. The times they were killed by white men is during legit military conquest.
The Native Americans were seen as another nation of people. People need to stop treating that shit as anything other than a successful invasion, like all the other successful invasions throughout history.

>>British Empire is hugely overrated

What the fuck did you just fucking say you fucking mug?

I agree with many of those except for the tribe leaders.
Many colonizers were the people who established those heavy handed regimes in the first place.

>western rome didn't collapse
>fucking vandals and huns everywhere wrecking our shit
>government ceases to exist, anarchy
>horse bandits raping our once glorious empire from all ends

>Turks have have taken great care of Istanbul/Constantinople

>Carthago non delenda est
Heresy.

Kek Greeks can't even take care of their own state

Constantinople was no more than a husk of its former self when the Turks captured it

>>Roman Empire ceased to exist after Heraclius

What about Leo III? the guy actually defended the empire agains´t the Ummayads, that wasn´t a small feat at all. What about Basil II? Alexius I?

The world would be much better if Germany allied with Russia before ww1.
Democracy is not good by itself, it's just an instrument, sometimes usable and sometimes useless.
The amount of propaganda in the West is much bigger than in Russia.

Also:
PPSh was a shitty weapon: too heavy and slow to reload.

>believing popular history books designed for lardass 40 somethings who never took an upper division history class but watch Pawn Stars

Shit you fell for the meme

A large number of circumstances caused the fall of Rome.

The abandonment of traditional culture in favor of Christianity was more a symptom than a cause.

Not unpopular in the academic field, but in the general western world:

The middle east was fucked up by the british and french
Islam is just a religion like any other
Middle Eastern people are generally nice

>What about Leo III? the guy actually defended the empire agains´t the Ummayads, that wasn´t a small feat at all. What about Basil II? Alexius I?

It sounds similar to the idea that Rome ended with Justinian, where what ended was the physical reality of a Latin speaking empire that spanned the Mediterranean instead of the reality that followed and defined the Byzantine experience - a Greek rump state that inherited much of the institutions and culture of Rome but bereft of the economic and diplomatic hegemony that defined those institutions.

This.

Leo is underrated, but what he managed to salvage was a rump Greek state, Empire in name only.

>Austrians should have formed Germany
Agreed

You have a good point.

Maybe Justinian´s death was the point it ceased to be a "Roman" Empire to the "Byzantine" Empire. I would argue that the "empire' aspect of Byzantium endured some centuries later, maybe until the Seljuk conquest of Anatolia.

It was more than that really. Justinian violently ended the theoretical Roman empire that still existed in the Mediterranean where the barbarian kingdoms of Western Europe and North Africa were just as much vassals and governors of Rome as they were their own separate states and cultures.

It's true though. Not once did Napoleon every directly attack an unaligned country in the wars.

>Venice did nothing wrong
>Nicky wasn't a bad person, just a bit incompetent, there was no reason to over throw him
>French Revolution was a mistake
>USA should have been split up as it expanded
>British Empire shouldn't have committed suicide
>muh SA
>muh Rhodesia
>Sheik would have fucked up the country harder than mao
>worst 1900s+ presidents: 1. Wilshit 2. FDR 3. LBJ 4. Regan 5. Bush Sr.
Fite me

t. /pol/

>implying /pol/ accepts reactionaries

>>christianity was a positive and necessary force in a decadent society
>>The Crusades were defensive wars

These are unpopular opinions? Wow. The second one is even a fact.

>Bush Sr
>over people like Warren J Harding and Richard Nixon

I'm a gun fag.
Import bans make me fucking rage.

Stalin was a conservative, and wasn't smart enough to understand Marx.
He was not a marxist, nor did he activate anything like marxism.

He disliked and did not trust the proletariat.
He took worker-owned industry away from the workers, and handed control to party brownosers, who then used American capitalist structure as the model for Soviet industry.
Stalin had jettisoned the very basis of Marx/Engels theory: workers must own the means of production!

Stalin killed the Revolution.
May his name be cursed by Marxists forever!

Long live the Bolshevik Revolution!

If that's the case, replace Wilson with Clinton.

No. Clinton made the niggers happy. Happy niggers means less crime (^:
Nah, only to a certain extent do I let "muh guns" influence my historical/political views.
Wilson is defiantly top shitter.

>Lemonists actually think like this

To be honest, I think he'd have to get shit done to qualify.

>League of Nations failed hideously
>got into WW1 at a time where a president of either party would have probably gone to war

>These are unpopular opinions? Wow. The second one is even a fact.
More like a half-truth that usually goes full retard given half the chance.

>The treaty of Versailles was either to sharp OR to weak

The treaty of Versailles was actually perfectly rational and functioned extremely well for about a decade.

It was the lack of proper implementation by the "enforcers" that caused it to fail.

>created the fed
>started the modern "progressive" movement
>started international interventionalism
>muh league of nations
>set up FDR for being an almost as big of a fuck wit turboautist as he was
Famalam.

It was a husk because of the Turks (and Bulgars).

>Nicky wasn't a bad person, just a bit incompetent, there was no reason to over throw him

I wonder why so many Russians thought differently...

If I must
*sniff* pure ideology

It was a husk because of the Latins and the Fourth Crusade.
When Michael VIII reconquered the city it had been reduced from a population of half a million to 35000.

>the United States civil war had more to do with defending an economic system than racial hatred

Both sides were pretty much equally as racist.

>Carthage non delenda est

Crucify this plebe

>happy niggers = less crime

Which is why crime was still horrible under Clinton and 2 million more blacks are in jail compared to 1992.

race is a social construct

freeing the slaves just to have more bodies to throw at the superior southern marksmen

Are my surviving Ukrainian family members propoganda too? They have accounts pre and post war that testify a lot of what you just said.

I agree in the same way that I think (As a non American who has visited the states) Americans are gernally nice and not as ignorant as they are portrayed. I.swear they pick the craziests fucks to interview wherever the reporters go.

>Byzantium is a moronic name, it should be called Rome.
>Crusaders were mainly motivated by religion
>Platon wasn't that great
>Africans aren't blameless for the triangle slave trade

Uncool opinions on Veeky Forums:

>Prussia was pretty cool in the 1700's
>Conversion through socioeconomic "incentives" is still forced conversion
>Jean of Arc is overrated

According to fucking who? Pretty much everyone that isn't an idiot points out a bunch of different causes simultaneously.

unpopular in academia or unpopular on Veeky Forums?

Here are some straightforward widely agreed opinion views in academia

>Civil war was about Slavery
>Under no circumstances could Germany had won the war
>Germany was the primary aggressor in WWI

>>Civil war was about Slavery

It was about states rights (To own slaves)

>Eastern
>Roman
>Empire

Not him but..

UK general elections before the Scottish referendum for independence, what regions voted for what.

U.S presidential elections before the U.S Civil War

I'm not denying slavery had nothing to do with the civil war, but thinking that it was the only reason is pretty dumb.

I don't understand what you mean, do you think the UK is going to have a civil war?

>ruined germany
>blamed germany for the responsability of the war

Im french I say that clemenceau went full retard on this one and went too far. Winning doesnt mean you have to put your ennemys head in the mud, especially when it can come back to bite you.

I dont like russians, but the conduct they had when they took paris to defeat napoleon was admirable. They behaved like victors but didnt harm the city or its people when they could have, and people know how to respect that.

No, they had a referendum because times are different. Point is that both Scotland and the southern states felt that they aren't represented and saw self governance as desirable. I posted Scotland to show that it is a common historical theme.

>FTPT
>any kind of reliable when measuring public opinion

In last UK general elections the median for getting into the parliament in the region was 48 point something %. That means that more than half of British MP's are in fact supported by minority of voters in the are they were elected in.
Same goes for US elections, they're just as relevant when showing it.

Civil war was about slavery in the way that it was about getting as much manpower for your states as possible. In South it meant that slavery had to stay(as in, you keep the cheap exploitable manpower in), in North it meant that you have to free the slaves so they'll migrate north out of poverty and you can hire them in factories(as in - get new, cheap exploitable manpower).

My point
Your head

but it did not ruin germany
germany was entirely capable of paying the reparations if it had the good will to do so
what ruined germany was the irresponsible economic policy during the war followed by the aggressive posture they have taken immediately after the war against the peace proceedings, and the deliberate sabotaging of their economy in order to get back at france chiefly
read something like the myths of reparations by sally marks for an actual historical work about this exact topic

incidentally it also did not "blame germany", it merely outlined the germans responsibility for the damages they have caused with the war they have imposed on belgium and france
(in the exactly same way other peace treaties have done for the other belligerents)
and there is literally no way you can argue against the above, unless you live in an alternate universe where germany did not invade both belgium and france and wrecked most of the country/some of its most important industrial regions

The treaty explicitly says that germany and its allies are responsible for the war. Thats a lie and a central subject in the contestation of the treaty by the germans, and saying that germany was a bad loser and could pay is out of point. The fact is that the reparations were huge and made the treaty even worse to digest. It also led to the occupation of the ruhr by french troops which proviked an uproar in germany.

No the treaty was a mistake and is one of the main reasons wwi was an unresolved conflict and paved the way for the revenge.

>The treaty explicitly says that germany and its allies are responsible for the war.
assuming you are talking about article 231, no, it does not say that
it says they are responsible for the damages caused by the war they imposed on them - which is entirely what happened, as it was the germans invading neutral belgium and attacking france

incidentally and regardless of anything else, germany and its allies are the ones who bear the most responsibility for causing the war, especially when viewed in the context of france, britain and us as the chief parties behind the treaties

saying that germany was a bad loser and could pay is not off the mark, seeing as your original claim was that they were ruined by the treaty

>Christianity was a mistake
>the Byzantine empire was neither Roman nor an empire

Now thats a bad twist of words user. You know fully well article 231 pins germany and its allies for reparations and responsabilities in the war. Everybody understood it as if they were the sole responsible of the war which is false. Wwi was a general and collective disaster and trying to refuse to see that is dishonesty and a dangerous set of mind.

And you forget germany has not only had to pay reparations, but lost its colonies and patents on some products and territories. And even fucking keynes said the tribute was too heavy for their economy. Germany only pulled the head out the water just right before the 29 crysis which bled her to the situation everyone knows and with the consequences everyone knows.

As much as i hate /pol/:
The jewish population needed to be taken out from Germany for everyone's sake, and Hitler tried to do that initially, but the Évian Conference members were a bunch of hypocrites.
And the eternal anglo could have settled the Palestine issue nicely, but they screwed over the arabs, so they caused all of that shit that happened next.

it made them white.

>Everybody understood it as if they were the sole responsible of the war
but that is literally untrue, it was the germans who misconstrued it that way in order to fuel their postwar propaganda
and yes ww1 was a disaster, but one in which the actions of the germans and austrians contributed the most to its making

>And even fucking keynes said the tribute was too heavy for their economy
keynes said a lot of things and the fact that you try to use him as an argument suggests to me you have not actually read what it is he claimed
for example, he claimed that coal and steel outputs would drop dramatically, and that the conditions of the treaty would in a sort of a domino effect lead to a state of servitude and poverty across the entirety of central and eastern europe
except that did not happen, steel and coal went up above expectations actually
and the newly independent states of central and eastern europe have prospered fairly well

>it was german propaganda

It was used and fueled propaganda because there was a national hate for the treaty. It was called the diktat for a reason. Why could you see so many germans joining milicias or keeping their uniforms after the war ? They refused this defeat and this humiliation.

Anyway Im guessing youre playing tje devils advocate at this point. I cant believe any reasonable person can defend the assessment of the treaty and its consequences on Europe. What nationality are you out of curiosity ?

>It was used and fueled propaganda because there was a national hate for the treaty.
well, yes? okay? resentment from the defeated party is to be expected
it also says nothing about the actual content of the treaty, its historical impact or the subsequent research surrounding it

>I cant believe any reasonable person can defend the assessment of the treaty and its consequences on Europe.
and i cannot believe you are trying to go against people who write about the subject like strachan, marks, herwig etc., and instead try to peddle the >muh feelings approach

What positive impact had the treaty of versailles then ?

>resentment is to be expected

Yes but to different degrees. My example of the coalition victory on napoleon was precisely about that. You cant shit on a nation and expect no consequences.

Also
>muh feelings

You say that like the treaty was a logical and rational thing to do when it was not. France wanted to humiliate germany after 70 and made precisely the same mistake than the germans at the time. If people had put aside their feelings and thought about the long term the treaty would not have been like this

>but it did not ruin germany
>germany was entirely capable of paying the reparations if it had the good will to do so
How do you arrive at that conclusion?

Concerning article 231, it's true that it doesn't contain the word "guilt", but Clemenceaus reply to the German delegation's protest pretty much suggested that it can or should be understood that way.

firstworldwar.com/source/parispeaceconf_germanprotest2.htm

Well not in the sense that people tend to spout (as in pharaohs), but there were certainly sub-saharan kingdoms.

>Napoleon was the turning point in Europe's history
Who doesn't believe that?

But user, the crusades are a prime example of why christianity, white people, and western culture is evil. Those poor Saracens didndu nuffin.

I remember being 16

I just wasn't a fag about it

>The amount of propaganda in the West is much bigger than in Russia.
Debatable, but people tend to vastly underestimate the western propaganda they are subjected to.

>stalin was a conservative, and wasn't smart enough to understand marx
this is blatant historical revisionism. He understood the theory so well he was Lenin's right hand man and economic advisor, and this wasn't forced onto Lenin, it was his choice. He also debated Lenin on Marxism when they met in Georgia.
>He was not a marxist, nor did he activate anything like marxism
He industrialized the soviet economy which set the stage for socialism.

>He disliked and did not trust the proletariat
this is untrue, he didn't dislike the proletariat nor did he mistrust them. He mistrusted the peasants and he was wary of them which is very understandable, since peasants have no revolutionary potential. If you read a word of Marx you'd know this. He was right about the peasants too and it was good that he exercised caution with them.

>He took worker-owned industry away from the workers, and handed control to party
Except that is not what happened, at all. Administrating the means of production=/=Owning the means of production. The bureaucracy had no way of exploiting the workers surplus value due to the planned economy in place, and everything being created to suit needs. Simply put, if you had 1 million people you'd make enough bread to last 1 million people a month. Since there was no surplus value to be exploited there was no red bourgeois.
And the bureaucracy ran the soviet economy even since Lenin you stupid nigger, there was only less centralization, and Lenin was increasing centralization. Before he got shot and fell ill, that is.

>brownosers, who then used American capitalist structure as the model for Soviet industry.
That only came with the 20th party congress when Hruschev launched his coup d'etat against the central committee. If you knew shit about soviet history, or soviet economy you'd know this. Hruschev reverted all nationalization that was done to the economy and established a red bourgeois class which directly held and profited from the MOP. cont

you literally cannot have a capitalist economy with a state ran planned economy because there is no surplus value to exploit, since goods are produced to fit needs rather than turn a profit. You have to be economically illiterate to believe otherwise.

cont
>Stalin had jettisoned the very basis of Marx/Engels theory: workers must own the means of production!
Except that's wrong you retard. Workers ran the government by way of workers councils, electing representatives of their Oblasts (counties) in the USSR, which were workers themselves. And guess what SOVIET even means? Workers council you dip. In fact, Stalin during his administration founded a huge number of soviets, which greatly increased the size of the party and of worker's imputs, since the delegate of an oblast could be replaced by the workers at any point.
It was only under Hruschev that these policies were removed.

You obviously don't know anything and you smell of the typical SJW red liberal. But a serious question now without any ill intent, what books have you read so far from Marx and Engels? And have you read state and revolution?

Were they big land holders in Ukraine? This is a serious question.