
The Battlefield After the Battle - apsec112
https://acoup.blog/2019/10/18/collections-the-battlefield-after-the-battle/
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reedwolf
>will either have been recovered by the victorious army or looted by the local
population

This phrasing, with different terms for the army and the local population
doing the exact same thing, reminds me of the famous Onion take on Hurricane
Katrina:

>NEW ORLEANS—Throughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to
gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have
reported seeing African­Americans "looting snacks and beer from damaged
businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I
could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to
find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected
foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against
contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-
Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already
looted a fortune in diapers." Radio stations still in operation are advising
store owners and white people in the affected areas to locate firearms in
sporting-goods stores in order to protect themselves against marauding blacks
looting gun shops.

~~~
chrisseaton
> This phrasing, with different terms for the army and the local population
> doing the exact same thing

The victorious force does own captured movable state-owned equipment and are
acting within the law when they take it and are not looting - rule 49 of
customary international humanitarian law, which has ancient precedence and is
reinforced implicitly in both the Hague Regulations, Geneva Conventions, and
pretty much any state's own military laws.

The local population have no such right - that's what makes it looting when
they do it.

~~~
TomMarius
> movable state-owned equipment

Since when are products in stores or the stores itself property of the state?
Or personal property inside and outside houses?

~~~
chrisseaton
> Since when are products in stores or the stores itself property of the
> state? Or personal property inside and outside houses?

I don't think they are. Why do you think they would be? The laws of war
specifically exclude personal property.

That paragraph in the article is referring to for example 'musket, sabre,
bayonet or ammunition pouch' on the battlefield. They're state-owned and
aren't personal property. (Well, historically an officer's equipment might be
personal purchase but I don't think the law would interpret any fighting
equipment as being legitimately a personal effect.)

~~~
TomMarius
I don't think that is a list of things they took, IMHO it's a list of notable
things missing on the battlefield which should be next to the bodies but
aren't. They probably took everything, not just these listed items, and they
probably did not loot just these, but also stuff from houses, etc.

~~~
chrisseaton
I don't really understand what you're trying to say. You're just making a
wider point that some people do sometimes loot other things off the
battlefield? Yes and that's illegal.

But the examples specifically given in the article from the battlefield aren't
looting, and that's why the article doesn't say they're looting. But I won't
keep arguing.

~~~
TomMarius
I am saying that the list is examples of notable things missing on the
_battle_ field (thus missing weapons are interesting), not a list of things
that they took most of the time, or notable things they took. They took
everything of value, most of which was personal property, so speculating about
the word looting or legality seems weird, because their actions were mostly
not legal, not the other way around, and you can't really separate the two.

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darksaints
For a few reasons that I won't get into, I grew up around Portuguese
bullfights, which are fought on horseback. The bullfighting arenas are empty
most of the year, and they actually naturally grow grass in the pit, but they
usually clear the grass with tillers before bullfighting season starts. I've
seen people ride in grassy pits before, practicing their bullfighting
maneuvers, and it is actually pretty amazing how quickly the grass turns to
mud. The key thing is the type of maneuvers they do. They start and stop alot,
but they also do this thing in the middle of a charge where the horse alters
its momentum sideways using its hind legs. After about 20 runs or so, the
outer part of the ring is muddied, and after about 50 runs, the inside of the
ring is muddied.

Also of note is soccer fields. Note where the most worn areas of the field
are: the two areas where the goalies stand. The thing that the goalies do on
the grass that the rest of the players do not: they jump, and most often
laterally. Again, movements that change direction quite quickly.

I can understand why grass doesn't turn muddy on modern battlefields where
guns are the primary weapons. But I wouldn't doubt for a second that a
medieval battlefield would be a muddy mess. It may take a long time to get rid
of the grass by marching or walking, but try fighting on it with horses while
ground forces collectively stampede each other. Those aren't normal movements
on the grass...they're going to dig in and uproot grass quite easily. And
since guns aren't involved, physical proximity is closer, and therefore the
impacts are more localized and intensified.

~~~
haasted
Did anyone ever get caught by surprise when training on grass and doing the
actual bullfighting on the mud that remained after training and initial
fights?

~~~
darksaints
If you're a bullfighter that is at a level for public performance, I would
imagine it being a little risky to have conditions changing on you. The people
I saw were very entry level and we're riding slower and more deliberately, so
they probably never got to a point where they had to worry about it.

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zentiggr
I'd just like to throw in that as a wargamer for decades, and military history
buff in general, this blog is absolutely worth every post.

The Gondor and Sparta collections that have been posted were both very
illuminating and I look forward to browsing more posts for the sheer
curiosity.

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danso
This historian’s blog is a massively geeky, fascinating time suck. Reminds me
of filfre.net, which I also discovered through HN

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Nomentatus
Unmentioned is the remarkable tendency of defeated but not wounded soldiers,
for example after Waterloo, to group into large tight mounds when flight isn't
easy. I would guess this would be less likely pregunpowder. There's at least
one good book only about what the aftermath of Waterloo was like.

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davedx
I do like this blog, the series on Sparta was pretty great and was
entertaining reading.

What I find a bit distracting though is the author's overuse of parentheses.
For example:

> (Obviously, I don’t mean just Flanders, but rather World War One generally,
> but since I am writing in English, and we are generally thinking about
> fiction produced in English (if not always by native English speakers), the
> experience of the BEF in Flanders tends to dominate the memory of the war.)

It seems like every 1 in 3 paragraphs is parenthesised, and it unfortunately
disrupts the overall flow of the post.

~~~
zeveb
I kinda like it — reminds me of a class taught by an erudite professor who has
to constantly reign himself in from following tangents.

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knolan
Wasn’t the problem in The Witcher 3 the necrophage infestation that prevented
anyone from looting the corpses? That is why you were given the task of
clearing them out. I remember spending far too long looting there on my play
through.

