Triforce! - Triforce Bonus! #2: Best War

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Triforce Bonus! Episode #2! Recorded before events that would've made this already potentially problematic episode even worse we're ranking the best wars in history! It's basically us just geeking out over history. Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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promotional interest rate for the first six months, the new TD Low Rate Visa Card can help find some balance. Learn more at td.com slash low rate card. Conditions apply. Limited time offer. hello and welcome back to the triforce podcast we are away this week either we didn't record a podcast or possibly tom is also on holiday and hasn't edited the one we did record over Christmas. Whatever the reason, this is a bonus one we recorded in advance. It's a bit of a weird format. We've already put one out, so you get the idea. But if you like this kind of stuff, let us know and we might do more. Please have a merry, very merry New Year's holiday season, if you're listening to this, in the future.

Enjoy the show. Hello, and thank you very much for supporting the Triforce podcast through any means. So I'm excited to share it with you. Sips is here. I'm here. Pflex is here. I am here. Today, we are going to go through and decide what was the best war in history.

Oh my God, we're actually doing this? We're doing doing this? We're doing this. I suggested it. I'm very, very glad we've got a list. Oh, my gosh. I have a list of wars. And obviously, we're going to do the format we did last time. We're going to have the top eight with the knockout rounds until we decide which one is best.

All right. So, can we set some ground rules before we do this? Please do that. What are our categories for goodness of war because obviously they should all be bad but we're just right we need to figure out how are we gonna how are we going to uh gauge them how right and there's two of there's an elephant in the room with the the world wars do you mean they are they are clearly gonna have to be on the list and they are well we could exclude them we could we could take world war one and two out of the pool i don't know

how you guys feel about this because otherwise it's too obvious that world war ii was essentially the best war certainly in terms of like the movies and all the rest of them oh my god and the vitalness of it what okay we'd lost it what about like the age range as well because there's like you know um we're going way back if you look at all the wars like ancient wars before 500 a.d you've got medieval wars 500 yeah i've got a list i've got a full list we go back to the trojan war at 1300 bce see i don't mind evaluating that but if we say let's put the what let's put the world wars opinion them for now all right in that case and we'll start just going through history deciding what we think are are the best war okay right

so yeah like the trojan war it's a long fucking time ago. Are the Punic Wars on the list? They are, yes. They are on the list. They happened in... There's a couple of Punic Wars, right? There's like... Between 100 and 300 BCE. Yeah, there's three of them. Yeah.

Obviously, they are the wars that Rome had with Carthage. And they are seen, I guess, as the OG wars. You know, back then, there was a lot of fighting, a lot of killing. The Roman Empire were conquering people and tribes and things, but those weren't really seen as wars, were they, in a sense? I think a war is more of a

protracted thing. I think you can call a war something where people invade and conquer them in six months, but I feel like a war something where people invade and conquer them in, you know, in six months. But I feel like a war has to be more of a back and forth. It has to have a story. It has to have, it could go either way.

It has to be not too one-sided. So I'm assuming that we're going to, is the Ethiopian-Ethiopia-Italy conflict, is that in there? Or are we excluding that kind of thing? That's more like a modern one, right? I've got an Encyclopedia Britannica list of wars here. Okay, how many are on the list? That is not on there. Oh, no, it is. The Italio-Ethiopia war is on there.

So how many are we going to run through today? I'd say about 50. Oh, my God. All right. Jesus. we better crack on that's like a minute per war that's a lot of wars yeah yeah but i think i can as before when we were doing the minecraft blocks i feel like a lot of them will get broadly categorized and discarded all right once we once we've set some rules you know certain things will follow you know right so anyway let's start with not we're not going to do the trojan war look the trojan war we don't even really know i thought it was made up i'll be honest with you it's kind of a mythical war

i'm not very smart i thought it was everyone's heard of it though which war sorry the trojan war is it actually called uh like the trojan war is does it come under like another larger war no in greek mythology the trojan war was wasted in the city of troy by the greeks after paris oh you're right yes it was troy it was troy versus the greeks the war is one of the most important events in greek mythology so it's not even a real war it's not even real guys yeah but i think it's worse can we please have some uh clarification on the rules are we talking fictional wars like can star wars be in there that's ridiculous well i don't know this guy's got such a fucking boner for the trojan war like he's

mentioned it like 50 times we haven't even started the list yet he's all he's just let's smash right that is the first one the list okay let's smash through regular wars and then we will get an addendum of additional wars okay um if you guys want to consider those for right the the the decision okay because there are some fictional wars that are obviously important anyway let's start with the punic wars the the wars of romagate's carthage where were elephants crossing the alps hannibal was involved it was there was salting the earth once they got there and wrecking carthage there were boats there were a lot of naval combat a lot of naval combat. A lot of naval combat. It was a full-on war. It had everything. Obviously, the first Punic War resulted in the destruction of Carthage completely.

Wow. Well, not completely, because they came back for Punic II, surely. Exactly. Punic II. Punic harder. So, yeah, I think it was at least 40 years later uh the the carthaginians were were were upset by rome's continual harassment and you know it's one of those things where a little bit like what happened in world war ii um after the first world after the first punic war

rome put these big concessions on carthage and demanded they pay for things and give them islands. And eventually, they just got tired of being taken advantage of and got angry. And that was kind of a history of the mirror. Very similar to between World War I and then leading up to World War II, right? Yeah. And then, obviously obviously the third one they were like you know fool us war us once shame on us war us twice shame on you fool me again we'll we'll absolutely fuck your shit up and raise the city so who won the third

one i'm assuming the romans won a war the romans did yeah they the romans that was the one where they actually completely burned carthage to the ground and and raised and and sold any survivors into slavery so there were apparently a quarter of a million carthaginian citizens in carthage but they they were all killed or sold into slavery gosh um but only 50 000 remained to surrender that all killed or sold into slavery. Gosh. But only 50,000 remained to surrender, then they were sold into slavery, yeah. And then they did salt the earth, I believe, around the land so that it would not be able to happen again. I'm just looking at wars from this time.

Yeah, I don't know if they did. It's a lot of work to salt the earth. And it's just the Roman Empire. You've got the Punic Wars, you've got the punic wars uh you got the gothic war you got probus's german war like it's just that you got the sam knight wars got another gothic war the hunic reclaims like that man it's just the romans if we haven't heard of them then you know we shouldn't include them. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Yeah. So, yes, I think all of those wars that the Romans were doing. These are wars the layman would be familiar with. Right.

So, you're getting a taxi ride and the topic of wars comes up and your taxi driver knows about these wars. Punic Wars, mate. Oh, yeah. Which do you prefer, Gav? Second or third? I mean, first, obviously, you know, you've got to love that. But second or third Punic War, Gov? Second or third? I mean, first, obviously, you know, you've got to love that. But second or third

Punic War, which one is it? Third? No, wait, second all the way. I don't know what you're thinking. I just think the Punic Wars should be on the list because they're the OG war. You know, they were like, they've got mirrors of current time. They were elephants. They were people being slaved.

Do you know what I mean? Like, they actually fought with elephants there's a whole bit where they took the elephants all over the course of around the alps and they around it's pretty famous i'd say around the side it's the ultimate european flank right um and they nearly conquered rome didn't they as well they got pretty close i i seem to believe um so listen listen if you're listening to this and you know anything about history and this is annoying you stop the podcast now go and have a cup of tea and then come back and consider it in the right frame of mind which is that's right that we're pretty sure that they

almost got rome we probably had something somewhere or played a video game where you know we had someone just got some little bit of knowledge that makes i watched something or read a wiki so it could well be wrong but we're going to proceed as if anyone that says i'm pretty sure is i got the crusader kings dlc that you can have a really early start so like i know all this stuff exactly that's correct so we're gonna skip the what two two things are on the list the gallicic Wars and Jinxin No Ran. Anything in China or I'm out. I don't know anything about it.

There's some fairly interesting ones here, like the Three Kingdoms War. Apparently the death range for this war in particular, I mean, this went on for it looks like almost like 100 years. And claimed between 36 to 40 million people. Three kingdoms. Holy crap. That's actually a pretty significant war between the foundation of the state of Wei in 220 and the conquest of the state of Wu by the Jin dynasty in 280.

And this is something to do with the end of the Han dynasty as well. So if you have a lot of knowledge of- It's a kind of romantic period, isn't it, in China, this idea of the three kingdoms. It's kind of this specific thing that they look on. When was the TV show Monkey King and all that? When was that set? Was that in that era? I think it was probably during the Bar Kokhba revolt, which happened between 132

and 136 BC. Stop looking at your list, we're following my list. I prepared this. Journey to the West, which is a famous Chinese novel published during the Ming dynasty. It's one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. It's arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. But when is it set?

Historical context. It's based on the events, on historical events. Xuanzang was a monk at a Jingtu temple in late Su Dynasty, early Tang Dynasty. So, when would that have been in relation? That was like 643. When was this Three Kingdoms thing? Well, it's the three, he said 200 AD. Okay, so this is well after that. So, all right. So, the China had been warring, involving millions of people dying,

while everyone else in Britain was basically just in the Dark Ages. So, what kind of technology are we talking here? What kind of war was it? Man, we're talking about, like, cider presses, like, with, you know, mule-powered, like nothing. Barely even a wheel, right? Right, but what weapons do they have? So it was mainly spears, I'm going to assume bows and arrows.

Sticks. Sticks. Sticks. Sticks. I don't know. Sticks. I don't know. Dicks?

Sticks. Or sticks? Spell it. Sticks. S-T-I-c-k-s sticks with sharp ends yes yeah so a pointed stick okay how do you i mean that's a lot of death for pointed sticks i would have thought they must have had some contraption they didn't have much else to do back then they They turned up in a field, they all lined up with their sticks,

and they just wailed away on each other until something else happened, I guess. Like, I don't know. Yeah, wow. There are whole battles and things and stories in this. There's a whole history that I never knew about. And I think probably there's reasons for that. Like, the racism of historians generally throughout history. a whole history that i never knew about and i think probably there's reasons for that like the racism of historians generally uh throughout history but also like just it's kind of maybe

just not translated not not come through or not being told to us these these stories from asia of certainly early early history you know we just we know so much about the Greeks and the Romans, but there's so much evidence that China had this huge civilization of competing powers. And certainly the same thing in other states

too. Anyway, we might get to that. We'll see. We'll see what's on this list. We're going home immediately to 1066, the Norman Conquest. Oh! The Norman Conquest. Oh, man. Okay.

The formation of the great state that we now know as the United Kingdom. All right. Wait, wait, wait. Just before we go on, I just want to talk about the four traditional weapons of the Three Kingdoms era. Just so that we're not saying point-based sticks. Oh, you found it. Okay, sorry. They had something called the gun, all right? Which wasn't a gun, it was just called a gun.

It was just a straight stick, just a straight rod. And they had one that had a tapered end that had a spear on it, and one that was literally just a stick. Then they had the kiang, which is a spear, but they had a whole bunch of them and they were all very funky looking. One that looks like a sword stuck on the end, one that's like a bamboo thing that's sharp on the one end. It's like throwing spears or was it like a thrusting spear? No, these were like, you hold them, you know, and then you sort of whip them about.

And you could use them while mounted on foot or in chariots. So they had chariots as well. They had the jian, which was a narrow bladed sword. Hopefully the devs of chivalry are listening to this because think of all the loot boxes in DLC they could be creating off the back of all this knowledge.

This is huge. These are like the games in China. This game, this spears, it's the Dynasty Wars, isn't it? It's huge. They had the Wu's hooked sword. It was a sword with a hook on it so you could yoink their weapon away. And the Dao, which was like a dagger on the end of a piece of silk or something. So you could whip it around And wipe blood off the handle if necessary. Holy crap. They were not just fighting with sticks and rocks.

They were using flair. They had some fancy shit. They had some pizzazz. Yeah, they had flair. They had some pizzazz. Some pizzazz, yeah. Well, but also, I think much like much of these things that happen when you have this continental war, I think there was unfortunately a lot of people who were pulled in and starved and, you know, had their villages

burned. A lot of burnt shit. Things like this on the way. I think that that does happen with war. And certainly when you have a bigger war, it happens more. I mean, something like the Norman Conquest. I don't even know if that counts as a war, but I wanted to mention it. What's the date of the Norman Conquest?

1066 sips when the Battle of Hastings took place, do you remember? Yeah, I was there Yes, you were I was on vacation with my family and all of a sudden Guys, let's go to Hastings for the weekend

Just going around Hastings They had a water park there at the time, and fucking shit just hit the fan big time. It's crazy. Yes. So, let me get this straight. We're calling the Norman invasion as a war? Yeah, I don't know. It's not listed on my list as an actual war.

It's probably just like us. All right. No, fair enough. Let's not waste any time then on discussing. We're skipping over. You're talking the story of that. Yeah. But what about the reconquista or like, uh,

the crusades, you know, we're in that we're, we're, we're coming up to the, the right, the right date range for the crusades, the Mongol conquests,

the wars, the wars of Scottish independence. We're coming. We don't want to do war. The hundred years war. Yeah. We'll get there want a hundred years war yeah we'll get there we'll get there we'll get there we'll get there why are you skipping ahead i've got the list we're talking about one thing intelligent with by reading my list all right let lewis read the list and we'll say the only one who's allowed to sound intelligent i'm trying to set the pace we'll sound intelligent by commenting'm the only one who's allowed to sound intelligent. I'm trying to set the pace. We'll sound intelligent by commenting intelligently on all of these many

wars we know little about. But fair enough, you did mention the Crusades which happened quite soon after. The first Crusade was 1095. Yeah, all the way through to 1291. Indeed. Originally it was

the Byzantine Empire versus the Seljuk Empire but then of course obviously evolved into Christians versus Muslims so you know the rest is history I rest my case objection your honor technically technically this is all history yeah just saying but are we gonna are we gonna include the crusades as uh as a war that we want to to rate i mean the crusades was lots of lots of wars in one big big sort of container war right yeah like a bit like world war ii was um you know there it was just like there were just a ton of wars like related to overall like like, the main conflict. But the Crusades was kind of the same in that sense. Yeah.

I will say that the Crusades was more of a period. And certainly, a period of both wars, battles, campaigns. It was very fractured, very kind of odd. Everything had a different goal it was like you know we wanted to reconquer the holy land it's kind of wild that it went on for like 200 years or so like um yeah but how do you pass the torch on people only lived till they were like 25 back then you know what i mean they got there yeah a lot of the time the leaders they've sailed out to the holy land and died either on the way or got there just of old age immediately it was it was a long way to the holy land and oftentimes it was a way for the i mean there were so many

factors like it was such an interesting thing like the pope obviously didn't want all these nations to war each other they thought that's it's wasting good white people um killing each other we need to go war the brown people who've taken over the holy land those barbarians of course not realizing that they've lived there since forever that's where you know jesus was a brown person kind of thing um so it's it's like the the idea of it was it was awfully both religiously kind of racist, but also, you know, culturally. And it was this constant like wrestling as well. They were almost people were encouraged to send off the Crusades for all sorts of reasons in terms of. And also people did Crusades against places in Europe.

There were Crusades against sort of places in Poland. There were crusades against, certainly Spain was the reconquista, you know, taking that back. There were, there were this, there were, there were so many, there were crusades against like heretics, you know, within it, within Europe, like different religious groups who were persecuted and, and, and sent and warred upon. There were, there were, there was one thing called the children's crusade which you should definitely read about which was absolutely mad um where they just sent a load of children to to the holy land well no they they were like they started just marching and then they all got enslaved it was a disaster what the fuck were they thinking, honestly? I know. I mean, that's so stupid. It was a disaster.

So, yeah, like, there's a lot of interesting story around the Crusades. There's far too much to unpick, but I don't think it counts as a war. I think it counts as an interesting period of history. Specifically, I don't think it's a war because it doesn't really have a good... They consulted the slavery pretty much on landing. Like, what on earth? This is so tragic. You've got to read the Children's Crusade. It's very funny stuff.

Also tragic. Funny stuff. So let's move on from the Crusades to probably one of the first recognised wars, i would say in in modern times it is the hundred years war yeah everybody knows that one right yeah yes so i mean again it's a bit of a misnomer in that it wasn't actually a hundred years non-stop. Oh, that's true. But it kind of was interrupted by many times. I mean, you've got to take a break now and then. And honestly, you lose a bunch of lads. Everybody takes a break, waits for some kids to grow up.

Yeah. Stick them in armor again. That's it. You've got to wait for the next generation to, you know, you've got to train them. You've got to get them ready. Build some manpower nodes and get ready. You've got to wait for the next generation to, you know, you've got to train them. You've got to get them ready. Build some manpower nodes and get ready. You've got to build some factories and you've got to get your AA guns built and your railroads and everything. And then, boom, you're ready to go.

It can be divided into three separate wars. The Edwardian War, the Carolineoline war and the lancastrian war each of which obviously had great in like great complexity to them individually but but it's it's it was mostly to do with with the the lines of um royalty because of how they've been crossed over and who you know there's this kind of idea that oh we are the true um rulers of this this land yeah and and of course it it inevitably leads to um falling out or someone being greedy or i don't know like the idea that we have to cement our position as king by having a shared enemy sorry the doorbells ring give me a second oh my god how the tables have turned I know jeez I wonder what it could be it's gonna be do you know what he's gonna come back and

it's gonna be something way more exciting than any of your doorbell rings on previous podcasts guaranteed it'll be like mine is always one of three things oh yes i uh it was it was just the uh professor of botanical science at the royal bristol institute uh just uh dropping some uh cds off for me the doorbell saved you from my boring description of the hundred years war but needless to say uh Who was it? No one really knows. It was just the postman. I told you. Deliver a package. Needless to say, it was long, tedious, and France won it.

Yeah. Let's put it at the bottom of the fucking list. What about the Wars of Scottish Independence, though? We're coming to that. It happened. No, I skipped it. It started before the Hundred Years' grab that the war of scottish independence uh it didn't work it did not work no it didn't work uh they went for it good on them

it didn't work uh it's worth mentioning though in this sort of time period we also had this is sort of the time period of, during the 100 years, well, there was the Black Death that happened, which is obviously the enormous great plague. And in fact, I think about a third of people in England and about half of people in France died of the Black Death. Jeez. And you also had the conquests of Timur happening at the same time, the Timurid Empire versus several Middle Eastern states.

I don't know if you remember that one. It's like roughly the same. It was a shorter war, but happened like around the same time. The Timurids were in, where are they? In Persia somewhere? Sips or something? So, like- Yes.

Was this a precursor to the Mongol invasions? Is that what you're saying? The Mongol conquests happened much earlier, actually. Oh. Okay. When was that? This is post the Mongol conquests. Mongol conquests were apparently 1206 to 1368.

So, that was all happening? Whereas Timurid was 1370 to 1405. Good to know. Well, I don't know if the Mongol conquests, again, were a war. They happened over a 200 year time period. A large period of time, yeah.

And conquered... It was epic. Don't get me wrong. The old Mongol invasions, it was an unusually impactful and kind of, it was like an apocalypse. It must have been. It was that bullshit wave of unkillable units coming from the east at the end of crusader kings that everybody disliked right yeah i mean can you imagine it as they're getting there you're thinking well we're fucking next aren't we and what are we gonna do yeah what can you do billion lads on horses too many guys

it's ridiculous this is impossible you would do this you would fucking uninstall poorly designed yeah you would say this is fucking stupid this fucking added this new mongol dlc and it's just broken it's just don't install them op they can just conquer anyone mostly negative reviews on steam however they do fall off in the late game right right they just as soon as their leaders die they fall apart you. You just have to survive. And then once you get through it. You'd go through some Reddit guide. Yeah. Level three, four. It's a bit like it's a bit like Offlane Huskar, right?

You just got to you just got to weather the bad times. And then you just got to outlast him. And then laugh in his face. You're in the doter addiction deep. Started making doter analogies for stuff. I just I'm amongst people who will get them right so yes it's true you're amongst safe it's a safe space it's a safe space for my daughter jokes you've changed you've changed brother so yeah the mongol evasions i have been playing a lot of dota

i know we got lots of good wars to get onto so all right hit us up can we can we just take a little break and let's get some modern shit in here? Because this is all very old school. We're leading up to it. We're coming up to modern stuff. It's getting more modern. There's like one more war in the medieval era that's worth mentioning. It's the War of the Roses, right? Yeah, it's the War of the Roses. Who cares?

You think so? You don't care? Don't rate it. It's a big war. It's, you know, Lancaster and York. It's iconic. If you're going to have a war over a bunch of roses, it's just not worth my time. It's stupid.

That's not what they were doing. Yeah, they were. One guy had a bunch of roses. The other guy had a bunch of roses. They were like, we'll finally sort this out. Yeah. And it was just like a lot of roses died in that war. Fair enough.

But, you know, you could just grow new ones. It's stupid. That's true. Man. Well, this was one of many. Let's move on to like the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish conquest of Yucatan as well. Those are pretty good ones. Oh, my God.

German Peasants War. Wait, what was the German Peasants War? Well, it was German Peasants versus the Swabian League, which happened in Germany. It was also known as the Great Peasants War. It happened between 1524 and 1525. A very short war, but claimed 100,000 plus heads in that one. Oh, peasants. Mostly peasants.

Mostly peasants. I'm guessing. Oh, that's terrible. Yeah. Fucking hell, Sid. You're going to get a lot of, like now leading into the modern era, you're into Europa Universalis, right? Colonial wars and

stuff yeah yeah the new world so here's the thing the the swabian league and all their lads had about between six thousand and eight and a half thousand men the peasants three hundred thousand and they lost well yeah because they probably just had sticks. 6,000 men cut off 100,000 peasant heads. That's probably rolling bushels of wheat down hills and hoping for results. They didn't have anything. That's a lot of heads. That is a lot of heads. Again, I'm guessing a lot of them sadly died due to the nature of war,

which were being burned and starved. Seems like something that would happen doesn't it in history that the the the peasants the people who actually farm the food are the ones who can't do you want to hear this on on the on april the 4th 1525 so about 500 years ago 5 000 peasants gathered near lake time to raise against the city of Ulm. A band of five companies plus approximately 25 citizens of Lake Pime assumed positions west of the town. League reconnaissance reported to the Trotcheses

that the peasants were well armed. They had cannons with powder and shot. They numbered three to four thousand and they had a good position. And then all he did was negotiate with them and while he's doing that he's moving his troops into a good position and then they just fucking ran at them with horses and uh fucking murdered them all that's no good that's no good that's the ruthlessness isn't it of of of these guys

you know because those peasants were probably quite chill they were like oh we could work this out without fighting and obviously that was they were tricked. Oh, God, I hate that. Man, just like just thinking like 200 years time, somebody else is going to be doing this podcast and they're going to be talking about like what we just talked about. But they're going to be mentioning, you know, storming the Capitol building or whatever instead. Right. Yeah, that will somehow be listed.

That was the start of the great war. Yeah. Hmm. So I think the idea of going out to negotiate and while that's happening, you know, in movies, when the bad guy's there and he's confronted someone and the good guy's kind of trying to look over his shoulder to make sure his mate is sneaking up on the bad guy. That's literally what was happening. Like they're talking to the peasants going, yes, we'll give into your demands. Let's negotiate. While he's doing it, he's watching while his horsemen are sort of creeping their horses up behind them

so they can just charge the peasants in the back. Come on, peasants. I mean, I know you're not warriors, but have a look around. The bad guy, you've just got to turn your head and look. And suddenly, oh, shit, there's loads of cavalry over there. But they didn't. Tragic. Hmm.

Well, that is sad. Is that going on the list? I guess it is. Tragic. Hmm. Well, that is sad. Uh, is that going on the list? I guess it is. German war. Peasants war. The German peasants war. It's so one-sided and hopeful. We want to.

That I think it's got to go on. We want to know. We want to know more. It's one of those, um, it's like an underdog story that everybody loves, right? We got to get that on there.

An underdog story where the underdog was definitively murdered. No. Yeah, but they still go down in history as, you know, they turned up, they tried. Fucking people power, they tried. By God, they tried. Okay.

So, next up on the wars list, we're reaching the 1500s and 1600s. I've got a series of wars here that I don't recognise. The Count's War, which was the last- Sorry, say that again? The Counts' War.

The Greven's- That's so close. So close. That was in Denmark, apparently. It was. The Counts' Feud was a war of succession that raged in Denmark. Well, who cares? Come on.

Next. Yeah. The Araucanian Wars between the Indians of Chile and the Conquistadors. Obviously, that was the Mapuche. Yeah, this is all the Spanish conquest of South America. I don't know how you guys feel about this. I think we should bundle all of the South American and Central american conquist into one a door rather than yeah mix it up because otherwise there's like there's tons yeah every every but they were

the history of that is super interesting especially when you know the spanish sort of conquistadors is it cortez turned up in the capital with his sort of 50 horsemen and a cannon and basically, you know, subdued an empire of millions of Incans and Aztecs. Yeah, I can't remember which one. The stories are amazing. And the history of the time is astonishing because they were so just different to our culture. They were such dicks. They really were such dicks. Oh, and the Spanish were awful.

Yeah, they were awful people. You know, like holding the king hostage in his chambers and then killing him and chucking his head out the window and stuff like this. Unbelievable. It was awful. Yeah. Amazing stuff. Amazing cruelty. What about the campaigns of Suleyman the Magnificent?

What did he get up to? The Ottoman Empire versus several Balkan, African and Arabian states. This went from 1521 to 1566 and claimed more than 200,000 people's lives. Wow. Yeah. I don't know much about Suleiman the Magnificent. I mean, then they ended up with the Ottoman Empire, didn't they? Which was a pretty big deal.

It was a big deal back in the day, yeah. So, I mean, in terms of success for the Ottomans, that's a proper war right there. Like, you ended up with something at the end of it. Not just a bunch of dead peasants in the States, quo. I'm talking about, we're going to go and over 40 years form an empire that everybody's still going to remember. Suleyman the Magnificent. Yes the Magnificent you get that out of it the Ottoman Empire was a very powerful empire that

went on all the way up till the first world war I think it was still going yeah really annoying to deal with in Europa Universalis as well yeah lot of lads. Good to know.

So, yeah, we've got a strange- We've got the 80 Years War. We've got the War of the Three Henrys. 80 Years War is the Dutch War of Independence. Okay. There's the French Wars of Religion as well. Protestants versus France versus Catholics. Also known as the Huguenot Wars.

Oh, the Huguenot. Yeah. We've heard of them. I've heard that word. Huguenot. Indeed. But again, I feel like these wars are not, they're not in vogue. You know, they're not that recognizable.

What about the Anglo-Spanish War has got to be on there, right? Tell me about that. The Spanish Empire versus Allies versus Kingdom of England and Allies. I think it's a pretty big one. Which one are we talking about? 1585 to 1604. This is Sir Francis Drake and all that, right? The Spanish Armada.

Yeah. Pretty famous. When is that? The lad finished his game of bowling or whatever cracked on afterwards you know i will worry about that in a bit you're right the spanish armada we've heard of that we've heard of that we've heard we know that one yes that wasn't one of these famous battles it's not got a name um particularly like i think it's just called the battle of battle of grave lines i think it's not

one of these iconic ones that we would have heard of like trafalgar or um you know any any of these things but it's but it's certainly a a significant occurrence although i thought sort of the spanish armada meant more just a lot of um boats that were taking plunder and treasure and galleons from yeah yeah america so i didn't know that it was actually a war yeah it turns out it's like modern times france versus jersey for the um the fishing rights you know they had they had their an armada turn up here as well. Disgusting. So, Francis Drake was apparently a terrible man. He was a pirate, slave trader, privateer. Man, they were all bad back then, though.

Yeah, what are you going to say? We're judging them by modern standards, right? They didn't- I see. I'm not excusing them. Like, of course, they were terrible, but- Anyone active in Columbus's years was a terrible- Was just a bit of a of a cunt yeah it was just uh they were just like that back then they couldn't help themselves he was this sort of i think he he told like like um he was one of the

queens or king at the time he was a very favored man i seem to remember because he was quite good looking and he was quite sort of um engaging and and he was kind of getting a lot of favors you know because you had to get the favor from the queen at the time in order to be you know blessed with the ship often and so i think that he i think it was probably queen elizabeth that had had sort of he gained her favor and as a result he did a lot of he circumnavigated the earth um and then obviously was engaged in you know had a big interesting life doing stuff wars and piracy and and all sorts of crazy stuff um what a time to be alive oh man i'm glad i was not alive back then no it seems like a miserable time to be alive.

That kind of life. Wow. It feels like you packed a lot in, Francis Drake. One of these interesting people. But yeah, don't look too close though, because you'll be disappointed. We have further east, we have the Japanese invasions of Korea, which happened in 1592 to 1598. I don't know if that's worth adding to the list. Is this before or after they came out of there?

I don't feel it has enough longevity. I mean, we talked about Punic, Trojan. Yeah, I'm sure it does. But equally, when was the last time we had anyone talking about it? Yeah. Right. Okay. I see.

What has it done for me lately? Yeah. question about well they did have samurai if you want it you should put a ring on it you know yeah you love it so much marry it yeah so i think this is from a period when after the japanese came out of their sort of isolation because they were very much like cut off from the world for a long time um and then you know the portuguese and all these traders came and started giving them guns and they were like holy shit and they had a big internal war um and got conquered i think into one nation finally because before that they'd been sort of very split up and then they obviously started to look outwards, because that's what you do to avoid infighting.

You send all the able-bodied men over the sea to fight someone else. Of course. Yeah, it's a very good idea. So they die over there and don't fight you. Do we want to add another one further east? The transition from Ming to Qing uh in china it seemed like a really big one change they only changed one letter so is it worth it yeah my question 25 million plus

people died in that one good holy shit these have to be estimates though well of course but like it's you know it went on for a long time 1616 to 1683 oh well fair enough they say everything's bigger in america but honestly everything has been bigger in china for so long just the scale i mean generally speaking when they talk about historical battles the the historians of the time would say the romans had 500 million men and the g had 7 billion men. And they're like, okay, these numbers might be a tad inflated because that's like the population of Italy at that time. So let's wind it back and we'll say it was probably 10,000 against 12,000 rather than these big numbers. I wonder if the same thing happened with Chinese historical wars, whether

the numbers were inflated by historians to make it seem more impressive. I don't know. I think there's always been a lot of people living in these fertile areas of China. It's just been able to support a lot of people. But how are you ever going to judge that? How do they do it? Did they keep detailed statistics of all the peasants that got killed? Is there any historical evidence, any historians I'd love to know, how do we know those numbers were that big? You'd be surprised how much history sticks around.

Like, you know, like people always talk about the Bible being the original book, right? But it's totally not. There are hundreds of books that were written. Well, it's one of these things that church people say, and it's just this bogus lie that's kind of out there. You know, it's madness. It's not true at all. There are stories like the Iliad and things like this that are older, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, that are far older than hundreds of years older than the Bible. Even the Bible itself, certain books of it are modern by book standards. There's a couple of,

I think, some of the books in the Bible can be traced back to be quite old, but not the oldest book or the first book. I think that, however, it did obviously have a lot. I think it's the most printed book, certainly, or something like that. I think it was one of the original books that was printed um and largely distributed i think it was the gutenberg bible is the famous example of that um but they didn't they with the the versions that they had i thought were all in latin right yeah like the translation so that the average person couldn't read it which was the whole thing that martin luther and all that was like everyone should be able to read it, which was the whole thing that Martin Luther and all that was like, everyone should be able to read it. Wasn't that Luther, the Lutheran Bible? And he was like, why are people not able to read this?

Anyway, this was all Henry VIII's time when the common person couldn't pick up and read a Bible. No, it was hidden behind the church. And that was like one of the ways that they got people on side, I guess, with the whole getting rid of the Pope thing was, why can't we read this? And if you look at it, the reason they kept it in Latin was because there's no mention of Popes and shit in the Bible, not one bit. That was all an

invention of man. So I think the whole point is, as long as people can't read the Bible, the common person won't rise up and say, hold on a minute, there's nothing about tithing to my local fucking bishop here. There's nothing about Popes in here. What's all this? Well, I mean, they meant to include that chapter. Let me quickly just ratchet it.

Check the agenda. We added it. Yes, appendix one. Your pope is a very good man and representative to God, blah, blah, blah. You know it all. I told you. All right, good.

Let's get on with it. So, any more candidates on your list? Because I've got nothing until... I've got the 30 Years War, pro-Habsburg states versus anti-Habsburg states, Franco-Spanish War, and then the English Civil War leading up to... Well, that's a big one.

Yeah, English Civil War is a huge one, actually. So, that was the Roundheads versus the- The Cavaliers. Cavaliers, yes. Royalists versus parliamentarians. I mean, that was very, very important for our history. Yeah. I mean, that was a big deal for us.

And then obviously, you know, Britain became a pretty big deal after that anyway, with the whole, you know, the empire and all the colonialism and everything. So, I think in terms of historical import to the rest of the world, that's a pretty big war. Which, of course, leads into the Seven Years' War between Britain and France. And then shortly after that, the American Revolution as well, right? That's got to be one of the biggest ever. 1775 to 1783.

That's got to be one of the biggest ever. Well, for- American War of Revolution. Yeah, it's a bit- Yeah, it wasn't- The war itself wasn't huge, but the impact of that war was huge, right? Yeah, of course. So, obviously, the English Civil War was mainly about overthrowing the king and replacing him with parliament.

Yeah. So, it's a kind of- a war of democracy versus, you know, divine right. Monarchism. Yeah. Yeah, divine right. Nearly a million people died in that though yeah well it was it was a serious war because they had lots of different people from each side and you know there were there were these royalists who were really much you know on this on but also

other countries were involved because um you know france had had their own turmoils and and there was this kind of rising up against the the old old ways um and and it certainly felt like you know these despotic royal dictators um were a problem and caused more trouble than they were worth but certainly um it didn't sort of really i mean britain didn't have any less wars over the next couple of hundred years as a result of having a parliament. It didn't seem to, it didn't seem, you know,

diplomatic country or democratic country didn't seem like it was any less war, warful or wrathful. Certainly. And then obviously the American revolutionary war came at a time relatively soon after the weakened Britain. You know, they got France on side because France and England had been these enemies for years and they declared war. But at the time, I don't know if the American Revolutionary War,

it's worth talking about this now, is as good as the American Civil War. Was the American Civil War better than the American Revolutionary War? I think we're at our first choice. Yeah, I'm on board with this. Of the podcast. Let's evaluate two things. First of all, would one war have happened without the other? Arguably not. Without the American War of Independence, there is no American Civil War. Yeah, of course.

You wouldn't have the union so are we going to ignore the fact that one begat the other and they just judge them on their impact and their import because the problem is if we look at the american war of independence one of the things that it resulted in was that the americans formed their own government and that that union was then under threat and that it was almost like i feel like the american civil war was saying that all the stuff that they'd done to form this independent country to work on this constitution have the rights for individuals enshrined the american civil war was essentially saying do we want to throw all of that away? And if that had been lost by the Union, and I'm going to say by the side of absolute good

by comparison to the Confederates, if they'd lost that, America would have changed completely and almost everything they'd fought for as this beacon of human rights would have been lost. Absolutely. this beacon of human rights would have been lost. Absolutely. So I feel like the Civil War is more important because without it, the whole point of the first one, the independence war, is gone. Yeah, you're right.

I think you're right. It does feel like a battle between good and evil. When you think about the southern states and the idea that they want to keep slavery going yeah and keep you know taking advantage of people and keeping and having some of these odd sort of odd oddish policies i guess it is a kind of a hard man independent you know the the sort of pioneer spirit of that partly you know founded america that that they wanted to keep going so um so listen just before we skip too far ahead go on between the uh the war of independence and the

american civil war you've got some you've got some notables as well we'll come back to those but i think i think it's worth talking if we're going to mention the american revolutionary war we should also mention the civil war and i think we should decide which of those two is going through and i i think it should be the obviously the civil war as well because it's it was obviously a an incredibly yeah interesting period of history you know yeah fucking abe lincoln knocking about i mean you know that lad we're top lad fucking Eve I think Civil War boom party on dudes

it was fucking great such a good dude as much as the American Revolutionary War was super interesting and important I think that the American Civil War

was a really really cool war I really found a really important war and such a brutal war which war was cooler it was cool it was brutal

gotcha it was fascinating. If you haven't watched Ken Burns' documentary on it, it's unbelievable. Sorry, we did whip forward in time there quite a lot. Because that was in the 1850s? 1861 was the American Civil War. Wow, relatively recently. And the Independence War was 1775 or 6. 6, yeah.

It was somewhere around there. Anyway, you go ahead and take us back in time to what we've missed. Yeah. Somewhere around there. Anyway, you go ahead and take us back in time to what we've missed. Yeah, what do you got for us? All right. So, in between that, we missed the Napoleonic Wars. Big one. Coalition powers versus the French Empire and allies. So, hang on.

Let's just go to the... Forget about the rest. We'll talk about the Napoleonic Wars. Obviously, P-Fax, do you want to give us the breakdown of oh my god absolutely my favorite period in british history just absolutely fascinating and that war like it was just it was so important and i i feel like the idea that napoleon i don't know if the french are still big fans of napoleon no napoleonic wars concluded with waterloo right is that the was that that was that was i think that was when he he was defeated and i i'm pretty sure that that was it because he'd come back yes so he'd sort

of lost already and they fucked he fucked off and then he came back and raised a bunch of lads again and was like yeah the seven years war was the first time right right and then he came back and raised a bunch of lads again and was like... Yeah, the Seven Years' War was the first time, right? Right. And then he got the king and he was like, listen, you've got to put me in charge. I'm the emperor of France, and we're going to fucking take over. I mean, the guy was a fucking dictator. So what was the French Revolution? Obviously, the French Revolution, we're not going to count that particularly, although it did last about 10 years.

Yeah, but again... Again, I think it's overshadowed by what came after. years yeah but again again i think it's overshadowed by what came after you know he he rose to power as this this dictator and general who changed war and as a result really created a global war like we call world war one the first global war but the napoleonic wars were the first global war and napoleonic wars is uh is where a lot of people draw the similarities to Hitler's big blunder of invading Russia when he already had an open front in the West. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, again, it's a mirror of history, a lot of the Napoleonic Wars. It was a thing called Total War.

It got, it mobilized millions of troops for the first time. Before that, wars hadn't been fought. They saw millions of people had died, time before that wars hadn't been fought with they saw millions of people had died but they were usually not troops and part of the reason for this was guns you know you could just give an idiot a gun and tell him to point it at someone that they didn't need to be a specific like they took like three hours to reload but were very effective yeah and as much as there was a difference between skilled soldiers and recruits, it didn't make that much of a difference when you just had overwhelming numbers and the power that they did. And so they had this huge coalition of forces.

It was what was left of the Holy Roman Empire and Austria and Germany and Portugal and Spain and the Ottoman Empire and everyone were all against France. were all against france and france did have some sort of client states uh who sort of gave them help but but it was mostly this very very powerful kind of almost like the nazis level of force you know this this sudden rush of troops just overwhelming europe and and a sort of uh cult of personality that napoleon had had uh fostered like they the troops like you know they it was almost like we can't lose with this guy like it's fucking napoleon yeah and you know he was like this ultimate to us villain old bones apart you know they sort of boner party they they really hated him and i think you know honestly you know instead of calling it world war ii maybe it should have been called the hitleric war or do you see what i mean in a sense based on all-encompassing though it had right and also the naval battles of that that era the age of

sail is my favorite like that i just absolutely love that that era it's fascinating brutal oppressive regimes on those ships like but the idea that the preciseness of it the mixing of the classes where you had like all the posh lads were in charge and everything how that worked it's fascinating like oh man fucking love that if you haven't seen if you haven't seen master and commander that is one of my favorite historical movies it's so good man one of my friends from uh from canada that i grew up with is obsessed with that fucking movie like it's so good it is good i know but like it's uh you know not it's not like as obsessively good as he makes it out to be though he just oh he's right your mate is right okay so so you guys should get married so napoleonic era of amazing time uh yeah obviously the og world war i think it's it's you know if it's it's obviously uh it changed the face of war and it changed it became

this thing that was just mirrored and like you said sips ended with well not ended in the middle napoleon decided to conquer Russia, which was a terrible mistake, which obviously was repeated again and again. And then, you know, he eventually sort of fell apart and there was a final, the final battle was Waterloo, really, but at which point the writing was on the wall. Yeah.

Napoleon met him and he soon surrendered. Oh, yeah. So that is going on the list. Excellent. Okay. Sips, what's next on your list? Probably, I'd say after the Napoleonic Wars, like, in terms of stuff that we would be familiar with or have heard of or whatever, I'd say probably the Crimean War.

Oh, yeah. 1853 to 1856. Charge of the Light Brigade. The Ottoman Empire and allies versus Russia. Yeah. Which took place, of course, in the Crimean Peninsula or Venezuela, like however you would like to- I mean, topical as hell as well, honestly. Topical as hell, yeah.

Yeah, genuinely really interesting. Yeah. And yeah, the charge of the light brigade very famously happened in that war. So, you know that had a huge effect on uh on morale and everything and it was it was a sort of a lot of question marks about whether we should be there and all this kind of stuff like it was really a nutty war and very very indicative of its time it was a lot like they saw the iraq war or something far away from home where we're sort of fighting because

of these sort of strange shifting alliances that happen it was kind of a warning i guess of what was to come with world war one where these this group of alliances would be triggered and suddenly everyone is at war with everyone yeah and it's brutal i mean that that this is when wars started to be i mean for if you look at we talk about the wars of the past and everything like that they they were unbelievably brutal but i feel like as we advance now it gets more and more and more dangerous for everybody involved because the weaponry is so horrific yeah yeah i mean crimean war i think is when uh is when when they when when wars started featuring rifles a lot more sort of thing. It was like the first wide use of rifles in a war,

according to this. There's obviously the Zulu War as well in South Africa. Remember that? The film Zulu? Yes, of course. We were shooting hundreds of natives at Rourke's Drift. That was a prime example of us just being complete arrogant twats as usual. Yeah.

And saying like, oh, what do they got some spears? Lol, we'll have them. Yeah. They don't even have muskets. The classic blunder. Or they weren't muskets, they were rifles, I think. Leading up to the American Civil War, which we already talked about, but right before you got the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British East India Company,

which is a fairly big one, but maybe not that important in the grand scheme of things. I mean, they didn't- did they win? Because I'm pretty sure we were there. No, they were- they became independent after World War II, didn't they? India, so. I mean, it was obviously a big deal for the people of India. Yes. But I think anytime there's a revolution and the revolutionaries lose, it's too sad to have on the list. So, leading out after the American Civil War, we've got all the Prussian wars, right? The Austrian states versus German states, the Austro-Prussian war, the 10 Years War in between that with Spain and Cuba,

which I don't know, it's also known as the Great War. Spain versus Cuba, I don't know. Come on, Spain. But then the big one is the Franco-Prussian War, right? Which was a big precursor to World War I, right? Some of the- Were we not in this? We weren't in this. France versus Germany. It was Franco-Prussian War. We weren't in this france versus germany it was a franco so we weren't we weren't in it were we on someone's side because i know that you'd be fighting the french one decade the next decade you're fighting yeah like what were we with them

uh i have no idea i don't know i don't know an awful lot about it to be honest i'm just reading a list again so i'm sure i sound very knowledgeable but we just reading. We're beginning to hit modern era. And I think there's a lot of little wars that happened that were not relevant to our- Yeah, we can dodge them. I think some of the alliances and stuff that were- Or some of the longstanding agreements and alliances in the Franco-Prussian war were things that caused World War I to happen in the end even though there's quite a big amount of time in between them i said then let's deal with the big deal i think we'll skip

let's not look at this and also we're going to skip world war one and world war two we're going to decide at the end which one of those two is better and i think that will go through the final the second boer war uh Don't worry about that. Don't worry about any of this. No, we're just going to World War I. We're going straight to Korea. We'll do the Korean War. The Korean War.

Wait, really? The Korean. Yeah, we're going to skip to the- We'll do the main wars at the end, and then- Okay, well, the Korean War is what? We'll do modern wars now. The 1950s or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, we're going to skip the Spanish Civil War. We're going to skip everything- That's. We're going to skip like everything. That's part of World War II, isn't it? All right. We've skipped a whole bunch of this stuff. I mean, you know, we can't look at every single body. I think now we've looked at how important Napoleon was and the American Civil War was. We've kind of identified some big ones, but we need to get through some big modern ones.

Okay. Korean War then. Yeah. South Korea and allies versus North Korea and allies. which we have talked about extensively on the 1950 to 1953 and of course if you've seen mash before mash takes place during the korean war right i think i think that however the vietnam war which again happened around this you know sort of a year later after the korean war it was not a year later the korean war finished in 53 and then vietnam started in 55 not really not really well it started bubbling didn't it yeah there was

tens of thousands of troops american troops on the ground that was 10 years like 65 to 75 more yes yeah but there was a lot of there was a lot of like subtle lead up to all of that as well yeah i mean the french you know the french had that war with indochina where yeah they wanted the french out we can't we can't put all of that in let's go for the big ones vietnam right now so let's go with this vietnam was huge on the list it was a huge scar on the psyche of america huge divisions in society at that time. It was at exactly the right time where you had a youth movement that was anti-government of the time, a very anti-conservative liberal movement of young people and students versus a very traditionalist, conservative,

straight-laced, all-American, post-McCarthy era America. And into that that you then have this unbelievably divisive and awful war uh you know everyone still talks about things it's america's next vietnam like it was such a huge cultural event yes yeah um with the backdrop of the cold war exactly yeah because a lot of people consider the vietnam war as this this proxy battleground to, rather than America and Russia nuking themselves into, and the whole world into oblivion, they fought all over the place. And Vietnam was the biggest example of that. But there were wars that happened everywhere, from South African states to South America to, you know, all over the place.

There were these sort of people communist governments were were the threat and america was was fighting against communism across the world and wanting to stop its spread um and i think ended up doing that actually um you know the only real communist state we've got at the moment is china um i think of any significance i don't think the vietnam war resulted in the lack of the spread of communism it was a lot more popular no i'm talking about the cold war in general oh yeah the cold war but the vietnam i think it's worth couching the vietnam war and the cold war as as related but we can put them on the list i think we've got to separate them i think especially

because arguably okay the cold war never really ended in a lot of people's minds the cold yeah the cold war is is like um i'd say the cold war is maybe like how we would have described like the like the um the crusades or something you know what i mean like it's like like a lot of stuff happened but like the cold war itself wasn't sort of a um i see a war you know what i mean it was more like a container for lots of conflicts that were somewhat related to what was happening maybe there's other time periods where there was this threat yes war that never kind of materialised. The Cold War overall is the ideology, right? Kind of like, you know, maybe like the idea of Christianity back in the Crusades.

But with the Cold War, it was very much like the West against the spread of communism, right? It was definitely an axe above our necks you know that was ready to we've also got to remember that the the vietnam war was really the start of this american sort of industrial military or military industrial sort of way of running wars where you had these vast defense companies that were born in that sort of era. These companies have been around for a long time, but they suddenly became empowered and become hugely wealthy and influential. And a lot of the wars that America was involved in after that were essentially a way to fucking dump money on these huge companies. I mean, they make their profit when America is at war.

That is a big problem. And Eisenhower warned about this. He was like, we shouldn't fucking turn into this because that's when you'll have politicians waging wars to make money for their buddies sort of thing. That is definitively a thing that has happened. There's no political debate about that. America spends more on defense than anybody else. and by the next 10 combined and all these kind of statistics they have done exactly that and vietnam was the start of that it was idea yeah and i mean since then we obviously had the gulf wars in iran and iraq we had the the um that the persian gulf we had also the the sort of the conflicts in in bosnia and kosovo and then obviously the americans

were involved in afghanistan from 2001 all the way up to 2014 which was a terrible terrible awful insane period of time all right well so vietnam war korean war um i mean i guess what i'm trying to say i know this is just us geeking out about history a lot of this but i i just i just i feel like the all the more modern wars like these afghanistan and iraq and everything there's been lots of them and i i respect the fact that the leaders involved haven't resorted to nuclear weapons because they have them available jimmy in a sense we're lucky that that we haven't seen a nuclear weapon deployed for you know 80 years um and that's you know led to there's a lot less wars

respectively now and they're on as although a lot of people have died in these wars you know you can you can look at the period since world war ii and say that this is a period of of great peace um in terms of people killed in wars and wars actually happening and and you know the the threat of nuclear weapons but also our modern world our modern connected world has greatly reduced the specter and the the the threat of of a war you know this has been the longest i agree peacefulest period of time we've ever humanity has ever lived people will people might take issue with that and say oh you're ignoring this war and that war but the thing, you've heard the numbers that we're talking about here. Yeah. The numbers of people that died in wars leading up to this.

The number of times- I mean, World War II, like, all in, it was like 80 million people worldwide. It was insane. It was terrifying. But also, you are now, most people in the world, sitting at home now, maybe even listening to this podcast, you're unlikely to be called up by some king or some fucking emperor who will thrust a musket or a spear into your hand

and force you to spend the next few years fighting for them. That is very unlikely. Or you can watch your town be burned down around you, you know, and sold into slavery. But no, we're not making light of war, by the way, here. We're just doing this because we thought it would be interesting it's just interesting we could just gush about war for

for an hour as sips and pflex in would enjoy so yeah i think we should move on to the finals then in that case all right let's do the finals um the finals i assume you've compiled a list i have yes hit us hit us so i've got i've got eight things here. I've got the German Peasants War. Right. Which we all liked. It's kind of like a favourite, I think. Everybody loves that one. Versus the Punic Wars, which is obviously the classic Roman- I mean, that's elephants versus peasants, that's a tough one.

I think for me it's the- That is a rumble. For me, it's the German Peasants War in that one. I don't know, there's just something about it. Just a little bit more interesting for me it's the German Peasants War in that one. I don't know. There's just something about it. Just a little bit more interesting for me. More interesting than the Punic Wars. There's always one outside.

This is like that team at the World Cup that makes it through unexpectedly to the finals. This is South Korea defeating Italy. Yeah, it is really. Took a little bit of refereeing oddness, but I'm happy to put the Peasants' War over the Punic War because I just love those German peasants. Hell yeah. God bless them.

They tried. They turned up and they tried. They were slaughtered. They were slaughtered. More American stuff. We have the Spanish conquest of America, all of the wars above that, all the conquistadors,

versus the American Civil War. Oh, American Civil for me all the way. I think it's got to be the American Civil War for me as well. As interesting as colonialism was and all of the wars that resulted off the back of that or whatever, I think the American Civil War war is well so super familiar for me as well like we've learned about it a lot at school and stuff and um yeah i'm just i think so and then we have in the second bracket we have uh the kind of these more defining wars so we have the napoleonic war versus the vietnam war wow that's a tough that's a toughie

yeah they are both very interesting i mean i would say that those are my two favorite wars if you like to read about to learn about to learn about yeah they're very intricate there's a lot of um there's there's just a lot in them right like i mean if i'm playing games around either of those wars i'm a happy man like they're just fascinating eras yeah uh and they're just it's an interesting the battles of the war of the napoleonic wars were very interesting we we can't imagine fighting a war that day it was just before like machine guns and stuff like that started to come in so they still had like cavalry and things and it was just that's what you think of when you think of a war a lot of the time you think of that the cavalry the artillery the lads it makes makes great board games make great

docu-series on the vietnam war is so fucking interesting as well it's long as hell but holy shit it's so worth watching well let's see the the media i think does favor the vietnam war even though you've got sharp and things like this during the Napoleonic Wars, which are obviously great, really fun historical kind of fictions. Just really sexy time for history. Just really fun. Yeah, you're right. There is a lot to be said for the Vietnam War in terms of the movies

and the media that came out of it, and I think our appreciation for it. Also, it's the more modern war. We can uh the movies and the media that came out of it and i think our appreciation for it also it's the more modern war we can feel the effect i know people who fought in that war and that is in itself fascinating yeah and it was also the first really big war between a superpower at like the height of their game and some lads in the jungle yes you know what i mean it's like absolutely this complete difference and it was the end of the battles that america had this entire army and everything set up around battles they are in korea they had proper battles with tanks and planes and all that they go to vietnam it's like where the are they yeah this doesn't change your pace yeah yeah so that was really interesting.

And they lost as well, which was incredible. Yeah, and it definitely set the scene for modern battles. Pack up their toys and head home early. They were exactly the same. I don't know how they would have expected anything different, you know. It's Vietnam for me on this one. Yeah, sure. So, of course, the German Peasantsants war is i'm afraid gonna be less um less popular in the american civil war i think so that's that's been eliminated finally from the

running um and so now we have a good run much much much like the actual peasants Didn't quite make it to the end. Good effort, lads, but you're all dead now. They got eliminated. Right. It was a pyrrhic victory. So, it comes down to the American Civil War and Vietnam. Yes, it does. For the title of best war. Jesus.

Which do you think is the most defining war in in in history um man well i think like we're way off on on solving that question yeah that's we're just picking our favorite we're just picking a war that that spawned the best video games and movies basically right yeah i don't know music and cultural impact and stuff like that it's hard not to like vietnam as a war because it it seems so fucking it was so fucking miserable though too yeah jesus it was really awful i suppose because um my wife's cousin is married to a vietnamese girl and i met her mom who fought in the vietnam war and who shot down a plane and got a pension for it, I'm going to have to say Vietnam, because it's just so interesting. Defines a lot of modern wars, defines a lot of American foreign policy,

changed America in many ways. And I don't think those divisions have gone away. Even though you could argue that the American Civil War also defined America. I mean, the American civil war does have a society that reenacts battles and stuff like that whereas i don't think the vietnam war has that same effect on modern society right no no i mean would if you were recreating the vietnam war would you put an ad in the paper saying wanted uh asian looking people to be the the other side while we recreate the vietnam war must bring black pajamas and uh you know and must run away after killing a couple of us

yikes don't worry you get to win like is that is that i don't think it's recreatable no it anyway i mean even i think even the american civil war is is is tough to recreate just in terms of how how how it was just especially nowadays yeah so so because there are still people out there thinking you know we was robbed exactly let's we was robbed there's people still waving that confederate flag which does feel like a nazi sort of thing to do doesn't it strangely swastika i mean strangely scott everything's got analogies with red and white man i'm telling you um if only more people learned i think overall for me uh i'm much more interested in reading about the vietnam war the American Civil War. So I'm going to say Vietnam.

No, I'm fine with that. So Vietnam, we are declaring right now. It's very tough for me. As the best war. For me, it's like 49-51. Our favorite war. Brexit levels have split. But yes, Vietnam is my favorite war.

I love that. What's your favorite war? We've done it. We've done it. I love that. What's your favorite war? We've done it. We've done it. Your war sucks. My favorite war is better than yours. By the way, World War II is actually my favorite war. As an addendum, yes, as a little bonus.

But we're not covering those. We stripped out the major wars from the list. I think if we battled to work together World War I and World War II I think it would be a World War II victory really wouldn't it there's just too much we didn't have a desert storm

we didn't have like any of that stuff we sort of skimmed over it the Gulf War the first gulf war was like the bloody peasants revolt all over again they lost it so fast like it was ridiculous

we could have mentioned the Rwandan genocide but I guess that's not really gonna make anybody's favourite war I think my favourite war was the Rwandan genocide oh my god that's awful fuck me there are some others obviously we're done though well we are done and genocide. Oh my god, that's awful. Fuck me. There are some others, obviously, you know, you can think

about. We're done though. Doesn't matter. Well, we are done. We are done. Let's end it here. But This controversial podcast I could keep going. I've got loads more things on this list. We'll do them next time. Thank you for

listening. There's plenty of wars to pick from. There's too many. Yeah. Well, we'll get to our- we'll come back. We'll do more of these silly things. And yes, so stay tuned for more of these. Next time, favourite murderers. Man, it's got to be favourite cartel leaders, right? I don't know enough. Just favourite serial killer. Oh God, favourite serial killer oh god favorite serial killer is gonna be the worst we can't do that one we've got leads into the worst rabbit holes where

you're reading about serial killers and you read more and more about them and it's it's off it's so fucking miserable please can we not do serial killers how are you telling me a serial killer is worse than war? Yeah. Well, I'm down. I'm down for suggestions. We don't go into the details. You look at it like statistically, whereas serial killers, you don't. You end up looking into like all the gritty details of each one.

And it's horrible. It's fucking awful. Snuggly teddy bear. I'm just saying it would be like Top Trumps wise. It would be much easier to do. Fucking hell. Top Trumps. Serial killer Top Trumps. I bet you can buy that shit, dude.

Okay. One that we could do, though, realistically, is favorite 80s toys or TV shows tied in with toys or whatever, right? Sure. Since we're all from that era, that would be good. I'll make a list. Great suggestions, dudes. All right. Thank you for listening, everyone.

I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast. Yeah. Thanks for the support. Holy crap. If nothing else, this had to have been a great sleep aid for all you insomniacs out there. Yeah. And I hope you agreed with our stuff. And if you didn't, you know, sorry.

Fuck you. Also, take it with a pinch of salt we don't know what we're talking about take it all very much yes alright okay bye bye bye