What would you say are some of history's most impressive rebellions?

What would you say are some of history's most impressive rebellions?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xianzhong
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders_Campaign
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Pyrenees
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_France_(1795)
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The American revolution/ War for Independance

What made it so much greater than any other revolution in history?

The Taiping Rebellion.

A man fails his Imperial exams, declares himself Jesus' younger brother, wages a bloody war in which millions of Chinese die. Millions of men fight under his banner to make him the Christ-Emperor of China.

And then everything goes to shit for him and his forces desert him because no only actually believed his garbage and were only interested in fucking over the Qing and he ends up killing himself, getting exhumed, and burnt (a big middle finger in China).

Because unlike the revolutions after it, it didn't wind up turning into a totalitarian regime, now did it?

...

Nice meme, for real though it was a pretty successful revolution desu

I wouldn't call it impressive, though. They had their entire continent plus the French backing them up (minus a few loyalists).

How bout nope?

This guy's peasant revolt was pretty crazy too.

>tfw all the good rebellions happen in China

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xianzhong

India's rebellion against the British, specifically because they didn't need a huge war to gain independence.

Indian Rebellion

>Muslim troops mad because they think the cartridges they have to bite open were greased with pig fat
>They weren't
>British officers tell them they are anyways
>Entire British Indian army rebels
>Looking successful, northern British forces route and hold up in Lucknow
>Kills and rapes white women and children
>All of the British empire is now angered beyond belief
>Crush the rebellion, kill all the Poos
>Literally blowing them from cannons
>Takes India a century to recover

> freedom through chaos

So why not?

Haitian revolution. Yes, it was horrifying but I still find it amazing how they never saw a slave revolt like that coming.

just stop with the europoor "muh bretesh empire" memes
He said it was greater than other revolutions because it didn't end in a collapsing totalitarian regime, not because it was "impressive."

>Lasts 14 years
>3rd death toll of any war in history
>Deadliest civil war
>Cucked an Empire
>Heavenly King was aided by Issachar Roberts, a Southern Baptist Missionary from North Carolina
>Foreign mercenary force led by a drunken Massachusetts mercenary fought for the Qing and was called the "Ever-Victorious Army"
>Rise of Dowager Cixi occurred as a consequence

Literally the wackiest war of all time.

Read Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom

Those quotes remind me of something an edgy kid have on his deviantart.

Pretty good Jet Li movie too.

Haitian Revolution - The only successful slave revolt in world history.

Russian Revolution and Civil War - How the Reds managed to conquer and control Russia without it shattering into 20 pieces is nothing short of astounding, only losing Poland and Finland when the dust settled.

American civil war - For a rebellion to seize half the country in just a few months and consistently win battles when outnumbered is something rarely seen. On paper, the Confederacy should not have lasted as long as it did with what little they had.

Don't forget the Baltics.

The rebellions by the founders of Han & Ming Dynasties were pretty boss.

The Chu-Han Rebellion that toppled the Qin and led to the rise of Han is the stuff of Chinese tragic legend. Especially since the two leaders of the rebellion - Xiang Yu of Chu & Liu Bang of Han- were sworn brothers that ended up fighting each other for supremacy, with Xiang Yu winning almost all battles but ended up losing the political fight to the wily Liu Bang.

The Ming was funny because the Anti-Yuan rebellion literally began in a Chinese new year, with rebels hiding messages in cakes, all of which essentially said "at new year, we riot." The Yuan dynasty was toppled by simultaneous, separate rebellions all over China, led by a Buddhist ISIS-group called the Red Turbans. Who in turn was led by a brawler of a monk called Zhu Yuanzhang, soon to be Hongwu Emperor of Ming, who fought both the Mongols and the isolated rebel cells that wouldn't bow down to his authority, famously ending at the Battle of Lake Poyang, the 5th largest naval battle in history.

Actually, China seems to be the boss of epic rebellions. Every time one happens its the equivalent of whole countries going to war.

The Warsaw Uprising was pretty impressive. As were the numerous Cossack uprisings in the 17th century.

>>British officers tell them they are anyways
Why?

>American Civil War
Frankly, i'm amazed how poorly the Confederacy performed despite all the advantages they had.

The area under practical Confederate control at the beginning of the war was equivalent to European Russia. Most of this land was inhospitable swamps, extremely temperamental rivers, and rugged mountain passes. The terrain was literally every bit as poor as Vietnam.

On top of that, the Confederacy had several of the largest cities in the Country, and on Earth at the time. People like to meme that the Confederacy had only about a fourth the number of people as the US, but it was still more populated than a fair number of European countries. A population the South could more easily support in war due to slave labor. Southern men were also far more likely to have previous experience shooting and camping for long periods. Most of the military experience was in the South, all of the military colleges.

The South had fourth most industrialized nation in the world at the time despite it's agrarian economy. Although cotton and tobacco were their primary exports, the South still possessed a large (for the time) number of factories and manufacturing shops.

On top of all that, Southerners were universally (and by eccentricity) more committed and more willing to sustain the war. Obviously many Southerners opposed the war. but nowhere near as many as Northern Copperheads and Democrats.

Sure, the South was outnumbered in basically every appreciable area of manufacture or manpower, but a great many rebellions have been successfully prosecuted with even less chance.

Honestly, Union victory in the Civil War was kind of a miracle considering the insanely massive challenge they faced. The fact that the Union was able to conquer such a massive amount of land and millions of people in only four years without 20+ years of fighting guerillas is pretty damn amazing.

Don't forget that the Confederates had a clear objective, whereas in the Union it was unclear if the war was about slavery or states rights or maintaining national unity or just old tensions.

Moreover, the Union had to retake all the Confederate land to win. The Confederate just had to remain independent until the Union gave up.

prank?

No. Stupidity.
>Rumour floats around that they were greased in pig fat/cow fat.
>Sepoys: WTF I HATE BRITISH NOW.
>British Authorities: No, we didnt use fats of those animals at all, we promise.
>BUT LET US WITHDRAW ALL THOSE NEW CARTRIDGES, JUST TO PLAY IT SAVE :^)
>Seps: WTF SO IT IS.

Yeah, the problem with the Confederacy is that their leadership insisted upon defending everything instead of preforming a Fabian Strategy like Washington did and they overplayed the "King Cotton" Card in diplomatic talks with the British and French.

However didn't the Confederates have a much greater partisan problem? I remember reading somewhere that a large portion of the Confederate Army was acting as an internal police force against partisans as opposed to fighting the Federal Armies.

It more or less served as the inspiration for other revolutions that occured around the same time, including the French (of which Lafayette was a key figure in and Jefferson, as ambassador to France, helped in writing the Declaration of the Rights of Man). It set an example for other revolutionaries of the time period.

They did though. In the lead up to it, the whites and mixed-race coloreds constantly used the threat of freeing the slaves (and thus having a large and pissed off slave army fighting for the guys who just gave them their freedom) as a political bargaining chip. There had been slave revolts before that too.

I have it but it's apparently more of a military history and kind of just stops once Hong Xiuquan dies apparently as opposed to being more of an overview of the time period which kind of kills my interest.

that ming one is amazing.

Liu Bang was a dope guy. I heard he pissed in someone's hat as an FU.

it succeeded and was one of few revolutions that didnt immediatelly become a failed state with warlords warring for power cosntantly.

they won, they set up government, they established systems of governance, they quelled counter revolution, they succeeded.

banter mate,

but also the british never liked middle easteners and by extention muslims. and the muslims were always rebellious, so it helped to make them think the only ammo they could possibly use on the british is haram

Everything chinese basically.
Every time it snowballed into shitfest.

Russian revolution was pretty awful as well.

"the glorious revolution" AKA when a dutch guy came and took over britain

That really wasn't a revolution, not the same way other conflicts described with the word are.

When studying revolutions, the three examples that really set the standard are the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions, because in all three cases the goal (which was successful) was the complete restructuring of society. All three began with traditional governmental institutions in place, which were in turn replaced by more progressive systems, and more importantly a reordering if societal values to keep said systems in place.

Comparitively, the American revolution was a modest affair. At its core, it was a colonial revolt that transferred power from a distant monarch and aristocracy, and gave it to the local landed gentry. And given the fact that the colonists already spent over a century practicing self governance, it basically just gave legitimacy to systems that were all easy in place.

That's not too say American independence was not impressive or important. It was hugely influential, setting precedent for independent new world countries, and for countries with no official gentry. Its Constitution served as a counter point to the objective failure of the Polish state, proving that government could be limited and reasonably Democratic without being too weak to function. Indeed, when writing the Constitution, the Commonwealth was seen as an example of what NOT to do.

However, all of this was possible because it built on the preexisting American society and values, instead of radically altering them as would occur in later revolutions.
tl;dr: the American revolution was historic but not a revolution
tl;dr tl;dr: "no"

>Confederate partisans
It's estimated that about 2/3rds of the South's fighting men were enlisted either in State forces that the Confederate government could not call up, or were assigned to non-essential backwater guarding jobs.

Keep in mind that the proportion of Union guys guarding backwater forts was far higher, especially if you count blockade duty, which rarely saw action. One of the ways Grant was able to replace his losses after the 40 days was by rotating men out of these useless forts and strong points and into the field.

Several State governors also tried to withhold troops and material from the Central government whenever possible. The most famous being governor Brown of Georgia, who documented several thousand people as Government employees so they could not be drafted and withheld enough spare uniforms and equipment to literally outfit all existing Confederate armies. There was a joke among Confederates that a home guard regiment (aka Militia) was composed of 10 Colonels, 20 Captains, 40 Lieutenants, and 1 miserable private.

The Confederacy suffered within it's own structure from the same issue that they claimed to be fighting for, namely State sovereignty. The Southern states viewed non-cooperation with their own central government as every bit as justified as resistance against the former Federal government. As Jeff'n Davis said, "Were the Confederacy to have a tombstone, it should read 'Died of a theory.'"

As to Southern partisans, they were less common than pro-Southern partisans in Union controlled territory, but they were still a huge problem for the South. Particularly the mountainous areas of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Many counties in North Carolina were basically in open revolt against the Confederacy and West Virginia literally seceded from the secessionists and formed their own State.

It definitely is largely a military history, but it also does give a good amount of context on the era as well. I like to a certain extent how Platt portrays the event more as a narrative than a broad history; he pulls the camera out from time to time to give you what you need to understand the action, but for the most part it's point-by-point, which makes for riveting reading. When Zeng Guofan gets introduced and the narrative splits between his Hunan Forces and the Taiping armies and the issue of British/French intervention both in Europe and the foreign community it's fantastic. Hong Xiuquan's death is kind of the denouement, followed by the sack of Nanjing and the death of Hong Rengan, though there's a brief epilogue afterwards.

I highly recommend you read it user, and it's fairly short at around 360 pages. It might not be a definitive tome on the era, but it's a very well-written foray into it that will, at least for me, spur on further study. My greatest criticism is that Platt doesn't go enough into the actual ideology of the Taipings and Hong Xiuquan's rationales, so you might want to supplement reading with some Wikipedia.

Came here to post this

The most remarkable thing it did was show that a republican form of government could work for big countries and in modern times. Which in turn devastated monarchy's position as the universal form of government worldwide for the first time in history.

I'll add to this;

Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom views one of the largest wars in human history from a more personal level. You can tell that much of his source material is diary and letter evidence, which Platt states throughout the book. It gives a more human touch to what might otherwise be a dry retelling of events in chronology. Platt also makes a few interesting parallels between the Taiping War and the American Civil War, which occurred partially concurrently, and both heavily affected Britain.

I loved the book. It is exceedingly well written. Just read it already.

maybe check out "god's chinese son" by jonathan d spence instead. great book that really explores the social and religious dimensions of the taiping rebellion in addition to the usual chronology

The French Revolution.
>the most powerful and rich country in Europe completely re-writes its laws, constitution, and its overlords are overthrown.
>the 1000- year old status quo is completely turned on its head in a few days
>the civil war that results kills thousands of people
>the monarchs of Europe shit their pants so much in fear of being overthrown that they all gang up on France
>Napoleon thoroughly kicks all their collective asses so hard that he almost conquers most of Europe
>All revolutions since then come up short, even the Russian revolution

>All revolutions since then come up short, even the Russian revolution
The Russian revolution turned what was a backwater Empire into a superpower.

I don't see France pulling that one.

The French restored their monarchy later tho...

>Napoleon thoroughly kicks all their collective asses so hard that he almost conquers most of Europe

Napoleon only fought on the Italian front
The Spanish, Belgian, German and Swiss fronts were won by other revolutionary generals (that history have forgotten)

What? Napoleon was easily the most accomplished general in the French army of this period, and among the most talented (as you said, France had a lot of great generals at the time, for example Louis Davout, that were arguably "better" than Napoleon but none more accomplished.

Turkish Indepence war is an inspiring story. We can count that

During the Revolutionary Wars, France was attacked on all its borders

I'm just saying th Northern/Eastern front
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders_Campaign

The South Western front
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Pyrenees

And the North Western front
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_France_(1795)

Werent lead by Napoleon (who was taking care of the South Eastetn front)
All these front were as important as the Italian one since a defeat on any of them could have lead to a full invasion and the end of the Republic
Napoleon rose in importance at the end of the Revolutionary Wars and eventually took power, but during them he was just one general among many others

Greek revolution since it lead to the first democracy in the hellas since classical times
even though it was propped up by almost every other country lol