Re: Moving people around

From: Lee R. Insley <maelstrom_at_usa.net>
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 18:07:24 -0500


Sergio Mascarenhas:

>> 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.

This is not entirely true. The Romans at several times in their history fielded local armies to fight local people. Caesar did it in Gaul and many generals did it in Germany. Later in the Roman empire, the Romans used local barbarian armies to patrol the frontier regions. It is true that legions were drawns from all over the empire, but local units were used as well.

>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.

This is true to some extant, but if you use local people in positions of power, then the local's are normally less likely to revolt in many cases. It is easier for a ring leader of a revolt to get support in the ousting of a foreign leader than it is to oust a local one, especially if the local one has some hereditary claim to the position. The trick for the occupier is to find a local sympathizer willing to take the position of authority (which there are always several) and who is strong enough (which there are very few).


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