Moving people around

From: Sergio Mascarenhas <sermasalmeida_at_mail.telepac.pt>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 15:00:34 -0000

> The Austro-Hungarian army had a *lot* of different units raised from
> different areas and composed of different nationalities
Plenty of RW examples like this:
The romans were able to buid an empire by using armies from one part of the empire in another part. Iberians were sent to the actual Romania; middle east people were sent to the Iberian peninsula. What they WOULDN'T do was feed local armies with local people.

And it didn't work only in the army either: My country in his colonialist times would sent administrative staff from Cabo-Verde (one of the colonies) to Angola and Mozambique (other colonies) and so on.

The idea when you have an empire that covers very different regions and peoples is that you send the best in one part of the empire (be it the military or the well educated) to govern people in another part of the empire. These are the people that, if they stay in their homecountry, are more likely to lead a revolt against the empire. Put them in control of another region and they will be busy enough trying to control the locals (if they fail they're doomed - from the point of view of the locals THEY are the opressor) to have time to think about revolt.

Best,

Sergio Mascarenhas

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