What was the "Stalingrad" of Medieval Warfare?

this.

Stalingrad aint got nothin to some of the shittiest "Medieval" Chinese battles.

sorry forgot the medieval part

Mongol destruction of Baghdad

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vítkov_Hill

Which of the +/-seven sieges of Acre are you referring to...?

That's debatable.

While Medieval warfare was more brutal in so much that you cut and bashed your opponents to death, you usually just had one or two pitched battles and went home. Oh and no one fought during the winter or growing seasons.

Whereas modern war in WWI had battle 24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in which you could potentially die at any given moment to an arty shell.

Pretty fucked up

While not especially brutal for soldiers of the age, the fall of Jerusalem was pretty bad if you were a civilian...

>Many Muslims sought shelter in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and the Temple Mount area generally. According to the Gesta Francorum, speaking only of the Temple Mount area, "...[our men] were killing and slaying even to the Temple of Solomon, where the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles..." According to Raymond of Aguilers, also writing solely of the Temple Mount area, " in the Temple and porch of Solomon men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins." Writing about the Temple Mount area alone Fulcher of Chartres, who was not an eyewitness to the Jerusalem siege because he had stayed with Baldwin in Edessa at the time, says: "In this temple 10,000 were killed. Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared".[16]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(1099)

this is honestly one of the closest examples. I'm sure a bunch of Mongol sieges were pretty similar too

>blood up to their knees
This is either a metaphor or outright horseshit since it's almost physically impossible for there to be that much blood.

No for so many reasons but if you want to try...

Follow these guidelines
>Apocalyptic in scale: the sheer man power brought to bear was in the high millions
>Last awhile: Stalingrad took a total of 5 months straight non stop
>Awful weather/terrain: Fighting from Autumn to nearing the end of Winter with temperatures of less then -2 Celceus and took place in a massive city and industrial center so not only was it room by room and house by house. They called it Ratenkrieg the war of the rats for a reason because even the sewers and basements also man made tunnels during the battle were all free game.
>Terrifying weapons: Between Katyushas, Flamethrowers, Dogs with C4 attached to them, and so much more being used just seeing these is enough to cause terror and fear causing for mass panic and such.
>Critical point: Both sides saw this battle as the area of concentration even to ignore Moscow as it was supposed to be a major ego hit to Stalin for losing the city of his name, and for Stalin to beat hitler by showing him something he can't take then using it as a beacon of hope to the USSR and the world against Germany. Forcing both to invest everything and I mean everything in this fight.
>Animals Abandon the area: aside from extremely well trained animals, most animals would actually abandon the area of the battle because it was so deadly and apocalyptic in scale that animals learned to avoid the city and those inside would actively attempt to escape even going as far as to swim across the Volga to get out. Some stories even tell of masses of rats, cats and horses swimming in mass to the other side of the Volga to escape.
Attrition: last it was a battle of attrition with it being so large in scale it was simply throw more men at it even for the Germans. Attrition in modern ware mixed with the 24/7 battle nonstop and modern terrors makes for literal hell.

And so much more but yeah use that list and compare it.

>the eaten part is real

I hate these Stalingrad comparisons. 2 million people involved in months of intense urban fighting isn't the same as any other city battle. Aleppo, Moscow, or Baghdad aren'tStalingrad.

Wow.
Yeah yeah cannibalism stuff but
that is some really inspiring loyalty and dedication.

>No one fought during the winter

Didn't Towton happen in winter?

You are now aware that the description of the Crusaders taking Jerusalem matches up almost perfectly with accounts of cities being taken in the Old Testament.

Siege of Orleans.

On Palm Sunday 1461, in atrocious weather – howling wind, driving sleet and snow – the armies of two disputing Kings of England fought all day on a plateau of land a dozen or so miles south-west of the great medieval city of York in the North of England.

Chroniclers then and historians now dispute the numbers involved in the Battle of Towton, but it is most likely that up to seventy-five thousand fought and as many as twenty-eight thousand died in the battle itself and in the rout and massacres that followed.

Siege of Szigetvár

hattin

>What was the "Stalingrad" of Medieval Warfare?

Visby

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War

Almost 1M casualities

You missed 'medieval' by a few hundred years there champ.

...

the entire 30 years war.

not really medieval, but stalingrad

Some Chinese people are still cannibals to this day. I'm not going to post the pics but I've seen them cooking babies.

>20,000-30,000 eaten

The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War was pretty hardcore

>30 years war.
>medieval
Pick one and only one.

PTSD seems to be more widespread today than it was before.

Most likely modern warfare is more traumatic in many ways because of the randomness of it all and the less of a comradery that is built since you're not fighting basically shoulder to shoulder with your men. You're much less in control today than what you were before. You can train all you want but a 12 year old kid can still take you out without you ever knowing he was there from 150 meters away with his uncles old hunting rifle.

Having to patrol a highway in a jeep EVERYDAY, the same highway everyday, knowing that you have no say on whether or not an IED will blow you and everyone you're with to pieces probably takes a greater toll on you mentally.

Lindybeige did a nice video on it

>youtube.com/watch?v=FDNyU1TQUXg

>Lindybeige did a nice video on it

Modern warfare is just pushing triggers and some guys who are sitting in an office giving you commands.

Medieval warfare had heroic charges, epic sieges and more, oh and no pussy ass officers who sit in an office all day, commanders actualy participated in battles.

>Oh and no one fought during the winter or growing seasons.
one of the most remarkable thing about viking raids from primary sources is that they frequently happened in winter

There were a lot of battles in the crusades, I mean nothing like a siege of that nature as there was no really supply chain that would allow it.

But there were plenty of drawn out city sieges.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosra_(1147)

I actually think that nobody cared in medieval ages about ptsd.
Such stuff wasn't around back then not because it didn't exist but because it was not recorded.

This is bullshit. The Comanders had most of the time a save space position since they were to valuable to just die as ordinary peasants.

The first crusades siege of Jerusalem in 1099

Maybe it's because more soldiers fight in modern wars than soldiers of yesterday

Siege of Rhodes 1522. 7500 Knights Hospitaler and men at arms try to hold Rhodes against an Ottoman army of nearly 100,000. Held them off for SIX MONTHS before surrendering the last crusader fortress in the east.

That's a myth that has been disproven

I know the one he means, it's one of the ones where the broken clock suddenly starts working.

Well, half working.

It's largely speculation but not bad speculation.

Well not bad by youtube standards anyway.

I've heard yes because you're so up close and personal, but no makes sense to me too for some good reasons.

These days in war you can be killed by a mine, bomb, mortar, bullet, shrapnel, etc., most of the time helpless to avoid it. No matter your health, strength, and skill in almost everything, your chances don't change. Being helpless really fucks with people, makes them feel abandoned and worthless.

Then there are specialists, mostly snipers and drone operators, who'll actually be watching the guys they kill, seeing them eat or piss or laugh, and then have to kill. So unless you enjoy killing, it's hard to do because you can barely justify it to yourself. If a guy's charging at you with a spear it's super easy to think FUCK him man, it's him or me and he's just some asshole wanting to kill me.

Definitely this. Dat loyalty though.

>Pre-18th century history
That's all loser shit, literally who cares.

Do you have a single fact to back that up?

Theres a few instancesthat you only really spot in hindsight.

Gregory's Chronicle in the Wars of the Roses segment describes a Yorkist militia commander hanging himself after getting all his men killed at 2nd St. Albans. One of the Lancastrian commanders also goes mad after Towton and needs to be taken care of by one of the other commanders for the rest of his live.

There's probably dozens of accounts of similar things but they're embedded in the middle of walls of text and noone has really spotted them yet. One of those things that you only notice if you're specifically looking for it.

Back to school kiddo

t. chang

>This is bullshit. The Comanders had most of the time a save space position since they were to valuable to just die as ordinary peasants.

Kings, Sultans and Emperors were leading and partaking in battles in the past many times, nowadays its henchmen that get their orders transmitted via radio to them. None of any big importance is present in the battlefield anymore.

How is that not a bigger version of a safe space?

it took 3 years to win the siege

>(Yin Ziqi had besieged the city for a long time. The food in the city had run out. The dwellers traded their children to eat and cooked bodies of the dead. Fears were spread and worse situations were expected. At this time, Zhang Xun took his concubine out and killed her in front of his soldiers in order to feed them. He said, "You have been working hard at protecting this city for the country wholeheartedly. Your loyalty is uncompromised despite the long-lasting hunger. Since I can't cut out my own flesh to feed you, how can I keep this woman and just ignore the dangerous situation?" All the soldiers cried, and they did not want to eat. Zhang Xun ordered them to eat the flesh. Afterwards, they caught the women in the city. After the women were run out, they turned to old and young males. 20,000 to 30,000 people were eaten. People always remained loyal.)

...

>People always remained loyal
Jesus Christ China.

What is wrong with the Chinese?

>He doesn't understand duty and loyalty

woman can't truly comprehend a mans world

Chinese history is basically the inversion of that one quote you see floating around.
>For you, the day you invaded my village and killed everyone was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.

>What was the "Stalingrad" of Medieval Warfare?

No such thing. I see some are comparing it to a siege, but the battle of Stalingrad took place over 60,000-square-miles and the majority of the German Sixth Army never actually entered the city.

First Arab siege of Constantinople

>eaten

It wasn't pretty but seeing pics from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria it seems modern warfare can actually be gorier thanks to explosives.

the chinese will eat anything

>he doesn't grasp the concept of loyalty and honor

let me guess you're British?

You think you know better than FEMA what to do with this month's shit opinion shipment?

Here is a question? Any pre-modern amphibious landing battles?

Landing troops in an assault is mostly a WW2 thing, but I have heard that it has happened a few times in the past.

The Mongols did a pretty good job of one sided Stalingrads. Sacks of Baghdad and modern Beijing were fucking massacres that make European battles look like raids.

European battles were smaller in scale than asian meatgrinders anyway.

>Whereas modern war in WWI had battle 24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days a year
nope, frontline troops were rotated

>bunch of peasants got slaughtered

fuck, that is some Warhammer 40k-tier event

excellent choice, based Jean Parisot de Valette

Battle of the Blackwater Bay.

oh fuck, my bad, I read it as Siege of Malta for some reason

He was a young man at Rhodes

The account in the Iliad of Achilles throwing his "tantrum" actually lines up pretty well with ptsd.

...

Also a description of an ancient Greek soldier going blind after witnessing a guy in front of him get his head lopped off, then the other guy getting getting stabbed immediately afterwards. Don't recall where I'd read it though.

bravo

I think the Jews had a system for returning warriors to deal with that stress and slaughter. The whole idea of "cleansing" away from the general camp gave the returning warriors time to deal with nightmares, tremors, and shit they did to their foes. Just an idea really:

>They burned down the Midianite towns and villages. Israel’s soldiers gathered together everything they had taken from the Midianites, including the captives and the animals. Then they returned to their own camp in the hills of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho, where Moses, Eleazar, and the other Israelite leaders met the troops outside camp. Moses became angry with the army commanders and said, “I can’t believe you let the women live! They are the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and invited our people to worship the god Baal-Peor. That’s why the Lord punished us by killing so many of our people. You must put to death every boy and all the women who have ever had sex. But do not kill the young women who have never had sex. You may keep them for yourselves.” Then Moses said to the soldiers, “If you killed anyone or touched a dead body, you are unclean and have to stay outside the camp for seven days. On the third and seventh days, you must go through a ceremony to make yourselves and your captives clean. Then wash your clothes and anything made from animal skin, goat’s hair, or wood.” Eleazar then explained, “If you need to purify something that won’t burn, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, or lead, you must first place it in a hot fire. After you take it out, sprinkle it with the water that purifies. Everything else should only be sprinkled with the water. Do all of this, just as the Lord commanded Moses. Wash your clothes on the seventh day, and after that, you will be clean and may return to the camp.”

Not really. Medieval warfare was mostly marching around.

Modern warfare has the added schtick that you're always on guard because you can be attacked at any time. In medieval times this was extremely unlikely as fighting usually took place either during sieges or battles. So modern warfare is more psychologically taxing.

that skull is from the battle of towton

Adding to the others, that culture plays a certain role remember that we live in the information age now. If you go into afghanistan knowing that you might get ambushed and killed because you are guarding some corrupt assholes poppyfields, you might get second thoughts about the meaning of the war.
Then again if you are going to liberate the holy land from infidel savages who seem in every conceivable way different to you, it's a different story.
Theses narratives adding to the fact that heroes and warriors were generally thought of as cooler back then.

>Both sides saw this battle as the area of concentration even to ignore Moscow as it was supposed to be a major ego hit to Stalin for losing the city of his name, and for Stalin to beat hitler by showing him something he can't take then using it as a beacon of hope to the USSR and the world against Germany.
Meme. It was about oil fields and protecting the flank, and Moscow wasn't ignored - there was a constant debate about which of the two primary strategic goals is more important, that is, to which commit more forces. Hitler's insistence on holding the city despite encirclement was highest-degree "we don't retreat" autism, though, that ended with the surrender of an entire army, a catastrophe for the German war machine.

>Szigetvár
It's Siget, you filthy Magyar.

Probably the 1189–1191 one.
Shit went into the fan for crusaders.

>start WW2 because of loyalty and honour
>hurrrr muh dank perfidious maymays!!!!!!!!

>Medieval

Milan survived a 174 day siege from the Franks, lost their city, and within 100 days through urban warfare took the city back and wasn't conquered for a long fucking time after that.

Far, far less so.

Medieval armies were less experienced, less well equipped, less disciplined, and less organized than any modern army on average. These were not conscript citizen-armies with unified command structures, oftentimes the medieval army was raised from whatever the nobility had on hand regardless of expertise in warfare. The Knights were well trained, yes, but the knights only ever made up a tiny fraction of the army, which mostly consisted of freemen or peasants and roving mercenary bands. All could vary greatly in quality of training and equipment.

Logistics also handicapped the size of armies. The Roman infrastructure system decayed over time, and nothing like Rome's economies of scale existed to feed and supply substantial armies with any sort of unified quality standards.

tbf malta would be close too, especially st elmo

Saved,

>modern soldiers who have been in h2h combat or killed enemies with knives/bayonets consistently describe it as the most traumatic experience they've had.
>That's almost the entirety of combat for almost the entirety of our existence

However when you read accounts of the streets of Jerusalem literally running red with blood, none of the Crusaders seem particularly fucked up about it.

Compare that to firsthand descriptions of life in the trenches of WWI, where everyone is fucking horrified all the goddamn time and on bad days tens of thousands die in a few hours.

Who knows? Day-to-day life was a lot more brutal and violent, and in general you were far more likely to die a violent death in the Middle Ages than you are now.

I've heard PTSD described as the behaviors you've taken up to cope with/survive traumatic situations becoming maladaptive in a different environment.

Maybe the gap between life at war and peace in the Middle Ages was just smaller than the gap between life at war and peace is now?