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In history you see countless occasions of armies getting ambushed on march. How could that happen when your army has a scouting small cavalry units around your army? If you put 3 cavalry riders together as one unit and send about 90 (30 groups) around your army, wouldn't your army basically become immune to an ambush? Even if the enemy takes down some of them, others will notify the main force.
There could be terrains hard to approach for cavalry, but then they could simply dismount to look for an ambush. They could shoot a whistling arrow to report an encounter with an enemy. (so that other scouts around them could hear it and notify the main army) Basically there seems to be so many ways to avoid unexpected ambush that I don't quite understand why so many armies in history allowed such ambushes.
How was real time battlefield reconnaissance operation before engagement conducted prior to the gunpowder era? How many scouts were grouped as one unit and sent out? How many units? Is there a reason why such unit size & unit numbers became a norm? I seem to recall in some battles generals sent couple hundreds of cavalry force as an advance vanguard with scouting duty instead of dispatching small sized units; again, why?
I majored in modern European history and watch a lot of historical channels on youtube thanks to my interest in the subject but I've not seen reconnaissance discussed in detail. I would love to know more about it.
I just watched the film The Return of Martin Guerre where a 16th century man impersonated his friend and married his wife and pretended to be him for 3 years because his friend had abandon his wife. When he was convicted, they hung him. The story was very sympathetic and obviously impersonating people should carry some penalty, but death? This got me thinking about all the times where someone was put to death for silly reasons.
Why was the death penalty used so much around this time?
When and why did this change? When did we start seeing less harsh sentencing for the same crimes and what brought this about?
I read paul cartledge's The Spartans and I feel like I understand the history of sparta a bit more but I feel inadequate that I can't remember most of the names and of people and titles and places in the book.
I feel like I can give a a summary of the events but not as descriptive as I would want since I can't remeber the titles and names. I see redditors , 4channers and youtubers explain events and parts of history in such large detail and I wonder how much is them rereading their sources and how many is it them simply just knowing what the info.
Spreading misinformation always feels bad to me even if it done out of ignorance. Because I sometimes see some people on reddit who spew bullshit that is false and but since it was said and people believe it the false information spreads and people keep spreading it. Since I feel like a can give (somewhat of ) a summary of the book if I don't want to be like how some youtubers who do history channels let their own beliefs and their ignorance spread misinformation.
The Ottomans being known as a relevant power of the time, was proven more than capable of seafaring expeditions through their previous maritime voyages in the Indian Ocean, East Africa, and Indonesia. The idea of conquering up to Morocco and establishing a coast on the Atlantic Ocean uncontested by Europeans, to be used as a base of operations for colonization efforts in the Americas was floated around, and therefore why did it not come to fruition? Were the Ottomans not worried that the west would try to convert the natives to Christianity, did they not have the foresight to see the immense riches involved in colonization especially after seeing the successes of states like Portugal, Castile, and Aragon?
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