Adonis Diaries

Revisiting hilarious “acts of violence” in history: Divide all “facts” by a hundred

You read “facts” in history books about armies, one million strong, facing in battlefields. You read of warlords massacring 100,000 civilian inhabitants in cities. You read all kinds of fictitious “facts” that makes you feel disgusted of mankind specie…

You would rather watch armies of ants, each carrying a twig in his powerful mandible, and hitting another ant silly until death…

Fact One: In the middle of 1800, mankind was less than one billion. If you factor out China and India, maybe mankind was less than 300 million, barely surviving, committing genocides in colonies and at home, chopping hands in the Congo, about 5 million hands, for failing to produce the requisite quota of rubber, or harvesting thousands in India to “set examples”, or displacing entire race of “Red Indians” thousand of miles away to “settlements”  so that the land can be developed…

How come thousand of years ago, any empire, however vast it was, however the power was absolute, could any empire regiment one million soldiers? It is not possible.

Fact Two: No battlefield could hold one million warriors. It is not a matter of logistics for feeding these hordes. It is not lack of enough parcels to sleep upon.  It is how all that crowd find enough spots to shit! It is not feasible. Period.

It is recounted that the Arabic General Tarek bin Ziad burned all the ships after landing his troops in Spain and said: “Ahead of you is the enemy. Behind you is the vast sea. You deal with these facts…” There are not many imaginative army generals.

If I were a general, I would space-out my army half a yard away, order the soldiers to dig a small hole and pond their shit in. I would then harangue them: “Ahead of you is the enemy. Behind you is a mined-shit field. You deal with these facts, if you care to retreat…”

Fact Three:  Why you see in movies Greek and Roman soldiers wearing skirts? It is not that they had no concept of pants or underwear.  How can any dignified warrior engage in war, feeling less than half a man, having “dirtied” his pants before the battle even started?  The soldier in skirts, legs and buttocks heavily ventilated from below, would simple spread their legs and do the little or the big ones where he stood.

It stand to reason that a couple thousand Greek or Roman soldiers would easily defeat a million-strong army of Parthians or Persians wearing pants, however loose the pants are. Ancient empires exaggerated their feats, and the sane person should divide by a hundred any number offered as “facts”

Fact Four: How long do you think any healthy and experienced soldier, fighting with swords, daggers, or something of somewhat sharp implement, body to body, at very close range, can hold his ground before taking a resting break from the “fight”?

These kind of close range fights with short hand weapons didn’t permit any experienced soldier to neutralize more than four enemies in an hour…Suppose the battle lasted 8 long hours with frequent breaks, before sundown…

I bet you most of the dead soldiers on the battlefield were slit while stooping, catching their breath, or sprawled, faking death…

I bet you most casualties slipt on their shit or the adversary shit, and the enemy also slipt and his weapon happened to be extended forward, or inward and committed suicide accidentally, collateral damage kinds…

I bet you most victims died of asphyxia, stampede style, one slipping and toppling on the other…This is not war. This is soccer game event.  This is not even mass gladiators show-off ceremonies: The fighters were not that fit.  Most soldiers lacked one sandal, the other sandal was lost, stuck somewhere, irremediably unretrievable…The remaing sandal was just glued, under a heap of something…

I bet you the smart General kept a sizeable reserve of soldiers to engage during “break time”…to slice the rotten, fallen tomatoes…

I bet there were countless gentleman agreement among the warriors.  For example: “Hey man, I feel like going. How about you?”  “Fine with me. The pressure is killing me. Let’s fake the fight. Our congested and red faces would suggest that we are archenemies…”

Fact Five:  There is this story of warlord Tamelan butchering 60,000 men in the Iranian city of Isfahan.  That was in 1400.  How could any city at the time hold more than 100,000 men, women, and kids? Every soldier was assigned a quota to slaughter Asfahani men, every day, for an entire month… I have questions:

First: When a soldier sliced a victim and the blood drenched his military tunic…would he wipe his slippery hands on the ground and rub his sword with dirt, before moving to the next waiting victim?

Second: Did Tamerlane issued red butcher overhaul to his quota-engaged soldiers so that they save time on washing and shining their military outfit? Did they wear boots? That would be a much time-consuming endeavor to keep shining…

Three: Did the soldier have breakfast before or after the first round of slaughterhood? In any case, most breakfasts were vomited. What a waste.

It pains me to watch action movies of ancient wars, exhibiting tall, vigorous, ferocious warriors.  Fact is, people were short, skinny, malnourished humanoids…They barely lived to be 30 of age. I am not talking of rotten death and eating on gums and suffering from hemorrhoids…

Those who survived the infantile phase, had already taken a severe beating before the age of twenty: They barely lived through small pox, malaria, dysentery, yellow fever…Wretched fighting wretched.  

The noblemen warriors mounted horses, decked in metal outfits, holding a sword too heavy to manipulate, peacocks leading wretched men for the show in the killing fields…

Most dead were the result of infections from rusty and dented weapons: Dying the slow and painful death, abandoned on the field, devoured by vultures and wild dogs…Humanoids fighting humanoids.

This illusionist of modern man wants to invent glorious ancestors.

Who is the more violent? The archaic warrior or the modern soldier, sitting tight, thousand of miles away from the battle field, bored, playing with his balls, pressing a stupid button, launching a missile, from a drone?

Those were the good old times…