Ethnic Cleansing by Rokari

From: Akkerman, Justin <JAkkerma_at_vmcsnat2.telecom.com.au>
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 95 18:38:00 EST


I only have e-mail at work and don't store my books here so bear with me.

If you are looking for RW ethinic cleansing look no further than the Brotherhood of the Sword and The Teutonic Knights.

The Germans and the Wends/Poles were separated by a great forest. It was impassable until the Germans built a road though the forest. Then the slaughter began. The north European Plain runs East-West. The rivers run from the mountains in the South to the Baltic Sea in the North.The Germans with their superior warriors advanced to the nearest river and fortified it. The Poles were unable to break the fortresses. The knights would then use their bases to kill all of the Poles between their new line of citadels and the previous one. They would then settle/colonise up to the line of the new river. The result is the eastern half of Germany

I think that first the Brotherhood of the Sword moved in. They were so atrocious ( ie atrocities were comitted) that the Pope transferred the Teutonic Knights into the region and disbanded (?) the Brotherhood of the Sword. I think the writings of Saxo Gramaticus are of activities of this period. Ostensibly they were in the area to convert the Poles. In effect they depopulated the area. Also, when a Papal Legate was sent to investigate/hold an inquisition he and his band were captured and held for ranson. The Orders had a _lot_ of chutzpah!

All you need to apply this to Glorantha is for one side to have a slight edge over the other, a religious axe to grind and geography to exploit. Were these Rokari using super heavy knights ? Were the slain people ill equipped irregular Orlanthi ?

IMO the crusaders did not succeed in colonising the Levant because they did not have enough incomming population to resettle the cities they executed (there were many in which they did just that: killed every last man and sold the rest into slavery). They instead built impregnable fortresses to compensate for their lack of people. This is a grossly simplified  generalisation mind you.

Justin A.


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