What are you thoughts on Chase's thesis? Did he change your mind about the role of geography, or do you think it is still military drill, state investment, frequent warfare, and a lack of a centralized state that was most important for Europe?
JakseSa - The only reason that europe perfected guns or gunpowder was and is that it is a lot easier and quicker to kill living beings. Nothing to be proud of as these sort of inventions are demise of civilizations but we sometimes have positive inventions out of war as well.
Ancient Ruins I hope it t didn’t come off as glorifying the issue, but rather seeking to explain how and why it happened. Chase and the geographical argument is something that I think is worth discussing.
I think that this is a weird oversimplification. For example, the Russian empire *and* the Chinese both fought nomads, and to them gunpowder weapons were instrumental to them both. Their infantry would still march and attack as infantry, and the arquebus gave them greater effective range than the nomads had, and more lethality as well. Nomads did not mean that you didn't get gunpowder. The Imjin war (The Japanese invasion of Korea) shows that the guns were great against foot archers too. Basically, guns were adopted and used as fast and as much as you could afford to just about everywhere. Nomads on the other hand could not adopt gunpowder, because they didn't have the means to create the gunpowder in meaningful quantities. (Native Americans did solve this riddle later, but that's another story.) As for how heavy gunpowder was on logistics, it would have been much easier than bows. Compare the size of a bullet with its gunpowder charge to an arrow. Your logistics are lessened, not strengthened by it.
1 big factor people dont look at is armor china invented gunpowder but a majority of their military was always lightly armored. due to the vast landscapes of asia, mobility was preferred. there was no need to make better guns europe has always had the most heavily armored military in the world and in history because distance and mobility wasn't as important as it was in asia.. the whole point of gun development in europe was to take down heavily armored troops.
And Japan should tell Korea and China 'don't try this at home'. Social conditions and circumstances that allow rapid developments in Japan does not exist on East Asian Mainland.
@@mangoFace1987 You know that the europian colonies in Africa operated at a net loss? Weter you agree with their methods or think they achieved their goal they themselves really did believe they where there to spread civilization and so did not care that it was economicaly a loss.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 European nations didn't colonize to spread civilization (that's just a poor justification for imperialism). It has always been about one thing: resources. Most of the trade between Europe and Asia went along the Silk Road. Goods like silk, satin, tea, incense, exotic fruits, porcelain and especially spices were in high demand in Europe with mostly silver and gold given in return. Two major problems arose in the 15th and 16th century though: the Great Bullion Famine and the Rise of the Ottomans. The 15th century saw a major shortage of both gold and silver in Europe. The silver mines in Austria, Bosnia, Bohemia and Serbia were running dry, so were the gold mines in Flanders, Northern France, the Rhineland area and Portugal. The Europeans had nothing to give in return anymore and what little was left in the Balkans fell into Ottoman hands. The Ottomans effectively had a monopoly on the trade between Europe and Asia now. Previously the Venetians and Genoans exploited the Byzantines and Mamluks to gain easy access to the Black and Red Sea (having holdings in Cyprus, Crete, Crimea, Dalmatia , Azov and the Aegean Islands) basically controlling all trade from the Silk Road across the Mediterranean. But with the Ottoman conquests of Constantinople, Crimea, Syria and Egypt this was no longer possible and soon after the Merchant Republics lost their power. This sparked the first wave of colonization and exploration, both the Spanish and Portuguese searched for new trade routes to Asia and especially gold and silver. The Portuguese started colonizing and trading with West-African nations (weapons and iron in exchange for gold), the Spanish sailed west and eventually stumbled upon the Americas. Huge amounts of gold and silver were mined and shipped to Spain, along with resouces that were rare or non-existent in Europe like tobacco, cacao, coffee, sugar,... These resouces fuelled around 300 years of Spanish dominance, funding their huge armadas and armies. To produce these crops, a huge amount of labour was required, which wasn't available in the Spanish colonies. Most natives died of diseases they never encountered before like smallpox, those who didn't were enslaved and often worked to death. Huge amounts of Slaves were bought by the English and Portuguese in West-Africa and then shipped in inhumane conditions across the Atlantic to work on plantations or in the mines. The Portuguese and Dutch also sailed around Africa were they exploited the spice trade in India and Indonesia. The same pretty much happened in the 19th century to Africa. This time for rubber, rare metals and minerals, which would go on to fuel the European industry. They also served as a cheap source for food and cash crops for the rapidly growing European population. They mostly weren't meant to turn a profit directly, but to fuel the European industry and serve as a drop off market for any surplus.
This video didn't mention anything about the increasing quality of European plate armor technology, which forced the mass adoption of firearms in the European armies.
I think it was more an attempt to explain why Europe was so driven to innovate in weapons and armor technology. Their geographic set up large armies and siege warfare and this set off an arms race between armor and firearms, which firearms win. I don't discount traditional drill, industrial revolution explanations and the like, but I think that geography and Chase's ideas should help factor into the "why did Europe need to innovate THIS way."
Europe was driven to innovate in all major areas of civilization: culture, science, literacy, logistics, etc. For example by 1300's they have outclassed everyone in navigation and ship building. Excellence in weapons and armor technology was just a part of the trend. Why did Japan not develop advanced peacetime industry after its wars in the 1600's ? They had no problem doing that in the late 1800's. The main difference between the two periods is that during the later they started adopting European culture
Having read a bit of history, I'd say Europe had already outpaced even the Ottomans as well by the 1500s. Even if the Ottomans still won some wars, they were often wasting more men, and in fact the Ottomans were importing guns from Europe. When it came to Japan in the 1540s it came from Europe. I think the fragmentation of Europe into constantly warring states, that nevertheless had relatively well-developed cities, was what drove the arms race in Europe.
Arguable in my opinion, but Chase definitely agrees. He argues that by the mid 1500's, the race was already over. I also agree that Europe's frequent warfare was a major factor (which is why I did the contrast with Japan). He also points out, which I may have failed to emphasize, that the gunpowder empires of India and Persia and Southeast Asia were using European models by the late 1600's and definitely by the 1700's.
that was what i was thinking about. perfect pot of alot of diferent groups separeted by geography with a constant stir of warfare where a simple improvenet in technology could make the diference
What Western Culture had to a greater degree than other cultures was the ability to adopt and implement good ideas. Then they would keep tinkering with them until they had a final product that was orders of magnitude better. Gunpowder, printing, paper, the compass, shipbuilding, and Arabic Numerals are just a few that come to mind. I think this trait started in the Dark Ages. The fall of the Western Roman Empire caused total chaos down to the local level. I believe this made everyone much more flexible in their thinking, and there was no central authority to tell them no.
I don't think there is THE reason why was Europe so advanced. One of the reasons is definitely the competition between states and a lot of progres was made for example during the 100 years war, but there is a lot other reasons like trade wich brought in many ideas from abroad and universities where the ideas were shared and as @Cifford Jensen suggested the ability to adapt wich I think comes directly from the Roman Empire (the romans didn't come up with many groundbraking ideas they just took what they knew that worked and perfected it)
@@cliffordjensen8064 Western Culture had a greater "ability" to adapt not only because of the constant regional conflicts (in part financed by early colonial conquests) and stoked by a mini ice-age likely limiting resources, but a shared infrastructure left behind by the Romans and a educational system left by The Moors post "Reconquista" -- not to mention the fall in prominence of the Persian, China, and Axum (Eritrea/Ethiopia) empires following the rise of The Mongol Empire.
@Hyperion Hey i have to study Indian history semi professionally, so im ready to engage a Little om you about this. You see this is a misconception that people have. European control of india was not because of outgunning or more modern technology. For example the line infantry of Sikh empire and the infantry contingents of the Maratha Federations were pretty similar, if not better than European troops. On the other hand, states like Mysore had pretty much a better army and leadership than the Brits. Mysore is pretty much the Inventor of rocket artillery that Brits later took to Europe. The Americans even named a ship in honour of the King of Mysore, USS Hyder Ali. Mysore defeated Brits twice very well, but was simply wore down with numbers of troops among the British allies. Similar for the Maratha Empire. India had been at constant inter battle for the last 50 years at that point. Throughout Indian history there have been moments where there was enough war that a new power could supplant the old ones. And this time it was British, it was not due to simply Europeans coming in and awing natives (who have been fighting and living with Europeans for millennia), but a very lucky moment combined with good British thinking. As for the culture, idk. Obviously India didn't send out colonies. You don't send out colonies when you have everything at home - gold, spices, enemies, territories. One major reason for starting of voyages and discovery was for Europe to find new routes to India without the Ottomans interfering. So obviously, Indian kingdoms werwt not sending out voyages.
@@akshaykumarjha9136 how wrong you are my friend the British had a far superior army and leadership during their time in india yes you are right they did have similair weaponry and tactics but the british where far better. You say that mysore defeated the british twice easily but that's very incorrect because firstly during the first war the british won of most of the battles inflicting severe defeats on mysore to the point where they sent the british a treaty but they refused the only reason it resulted in a slight mysore victory was because Hyder ali was able to move a large army towards madras when it was short on defenders. Then onto the second war yes this war was very back and fourth but in no way did mysore achieve a victory at the very most it was a stalemate as no side gained anything, the mysore where able to inflict a good defeat on the british but the british did this also by achieving a triple victory against them in consecutive battles. You get on as if these Indian territories where at a disadvantage and decline but this is very untrue, most of these wars the british where always highly outnumbered and at the must time fighting numerous foes e.g. during the second war they where basically fighting all over the world against the americans, french, spanish, dutch and mysore so achieving anything other than a stalemate was very unlikely.
Essentially. Europe's geography led to frequent infantry and siege focused wars which incentivized them to innovate firearms faster than people who had to frequently contend with nomadic armies.
@@HistoryClarified This explanation assumes all people have the same genetic/intellectual endowment. It's possible the geography also endowed the peoples of western Europe with special intellectual gifts that delivered better inventions.
Here’s another reason why Europeans were better at guns: their availability of saltpeter. The most effective gunpowder is composed of three-fourths saltpeter mixed with charcoal and sulfur. And how do you get saltpeter? Most commonly at the time, from actual Bullsh*t. Or manure... Europe, comparatively speaking, had more domesticated animals to use than China, despite the fact that China invented gunpowder in the first place. So therefore, Europe had plenty of saltpeter available to create more potent gunpowder than the Chinese and thus had better guns.
thats true, especially in india, the largest reserve of saltpeter in the world was colonized by britain for exactly that reason, so they were able to import literal shiploads, other places had a much more difficut time accessing a reliable source. which was one of the reasons britain was able to dominate so much of he world at that point in time. they simply just made gunpowder way more difficult for anyone else to get
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@@dothedewinme India was a colonial empire's crown jewel.
this is a legitimate geographical reason, not a vague jab at dense populations and agriculture, which damn near everywhere in the ancient world had. You have a point, unlike the video
I would like to point out that the wagon wall you mentioned as defense against nomads was actually used against heavy calvary in central Europe (Bohemia to be exact). It was used but Hussites against crusaders as the Hussites didn't have heavy calvary and this was easy and available way of countering that. You can clearly see hussite's flag with their symbol in the picture. (chalice of wine). And Hussites were also early adopters of guns. And fun fact the word pistol is derived from Bohemian word for flute (píšťala). Any way great video.
Thanks. Yes, the Hussites used the tactic in the 15th century to great effect, but many armies adopted it (or a style of moveable walls) in the 16th and 17th centuries. Hussite images are the widest available and best demonstrate the tactic. But, in the end, they were definitely early in that regard. In fact, a lot of Eastern Europe and Ottoman accounts of it called them Wagon Tabors, on loan from Bohemia.
The drummer was used for lots of things, usually high born multilingual, march up the the town gate beating the drum, to parley the surrender, ideal draftsman, spy etc.
Thank you! I really like how Kenneth Chase looks at geography instead of the typical "Europeans had the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution" answers.
But its blatantly wrong. Lets just quickly look at the point about nomads. Bough China, India, Persia, and Europe have been invaded raided and conquered by nomads. In fact since nomads are nomads and travel they have no problem crossing the euroasitaic step, so all of these places had contact with the same nomads.
This comes across as a red herring or a factor being drawn as the answer. Speaking of nomads and stuff, Viking, etc have looted, pillage Europe and left before an army of heavy inf showed up.
@@manolisiatrou5537 They really couldn't conquer all of china they tried and failed remember? even taking 1 city was almost too much for Britain, we call that place Hong Kong. The Boxer aka shaolin rebels had the Europeons on the ropes they had to have an entire world war of effort just to keep china down. With resources from even the USA diverted to keep a few coastal cities in China under Euro dominance.
"Reminds me of history with hilbert." Oh god no. i hope he is not like that pushover. Who defendshimself by playing by the enemies rules, does Hilbert not realize that the BBC doesnt care about the truth they will slander him for knowing and sharing british history no mater what his poltical views are?
China is like 95% han Chinese and 5% basically han Chinese. Wall on top of deportation with extreme prejudice and no retarded birthright citizenship = impossible for foreigners to subvert China.
The USA can also attest to the fact that armed settler colonization is really, really effective given a bit of patience. By 1700, the Russian streltsy core didn’t hurt, either, though it was a bit after the ascendency of the Western European powers.
sheldon pereira effective isn’t a moral evaluation. Colonizer societies used settler colonization with the express purpose of conquering new lands and destroying the Native populations. Horrific, yes, but as a tactic, it worked.
One thing that you missed was that the British longbow, which had taken Europe by storm a few centuries before thanks to its effectiveness against plate armor, caused the near extinction of the yew tree. Longbows required the right kind of wood in order to be effective, and that right kind of wood started to become scarce once everyone and their mother started using them. The early arquebus, on the other hand, could be easily made with readily available materials and didn't require the years of training that the longbow did in order to become proficient with its use.
I must say, I am so impressed by the amount of detail and situational analysis that went into this video. The parts that were often overlooked by countless other researchers and sources were basically all covered, in ten minutes, no less. Hats off to you, I would genuinely consider this to be one of the best analysis anyone has made on this topic on youtube, or even across multiple platforms.
Russians had the same problems with normads than China but managed to defeat them with their firepower. Europeans had better metalurgy, that's why Asians never went beyond matchlocks on their own. They couldn't make the springs that flintlocks requires so they couldn't fire their guns in Sibéria.
I think one thing to consider is Russia's proximity to Europe. This means they had easier access to European technology and weapons. Not only that competition from other European Nations forces them to develop more. Where as China relatively was isolated and secure before Britain came knocking. Europe is stratified by rivers, mountains, peninsulas and it is difficult for any one people to conquer much of the continent and rule it for any period of time. There was only one Rome and after it's height no Empire rivaled it's size and power, but there were many Chinas and each one was bigger than the last. This stratification meant the development of various Nation States and these Nation States were in constant competition with each other and constantly had to develop military technology and innovations, but also had to develop the political systems to be efficient and capable of supporting the military and also developing economic innovations to finance their militaries. Europe was also blessed with geography and resources that made large and populous Nation States possible as well and could support their innovations. When you look at China it's massive and controls a vast and open territory. It was much easier for one state to conquer and consolidate this territory. The Chinese were so large they had few real threats after the Mongols and the nation became insular and isolationist and unlike most states in Europe it could do it. It isolated itself to maintain stability. Expanding outwards meant overreaching and destabilizing the realm with costly campaigns. New and foreign ideas could potentially create social up heavel. New ideas threatened the state. Japan also adopted similar policies during the Edo period. The Chinese were more wary of change as it threatened the order of things where as the Europeans had to embrace it in order to one up their rivals. Isolation usually leads to technological stagnation and possibly regression. The Aboriginals of Tasmania actually technologically regressed when they were cut off from mainland Australia.
Remember Navarro Just because the papacy funded these tech developments doesn’t mean religion plays a role in it. Papacy was, at the time, one of the many rival states in Europe, so developing technology is a priority to one-up their local rivals.
Forgive me if my information is incorrect because I'm pulling this from memory: A major factor could also be fortifications. The Chinese walls were significantly thicker on average than European walls which made canons less effective. Both the British in the Opium wars and the Japanese in ww2 cited Chinese walls as being one of the biggest challenges with modern (at the time) artillery still taking weeks to crack the walls.
China had kickin' rad fortifications and walls, but once they were pretty well situated as the hegemonic power in Asia, they didn't need to develop weapons that would take on their own style walls. They needed weapons and tactical systems for keeping nomadic peoples away from those walls.
You need to remember that the wall only in some parts is with Stone. Some parts are not that thik, and made of wood and mud. Also the chines wall is a construktion of many walls in diferent lokation and with gabs. It is posible to go around the wall.
@@ROCKSTARGOD98 I thought that Great Wall-style compressed earth wall was already ancient history by Ming Dynasty. And those newer stone walls were vulnerable against cannon fires just like European counterparts.
I don't think so thay it was a major point. First of all, the major enemy of chinese were mongols, who didn't have fortifications at all. If they had developed their artillery, it would have been stupid move anyway. Meanwhile, there were several reasons why Europe improved their big cannons. As eac state has a lot of fortifications, they strived making powerful artillery in order to breach walls.
And how are persians or indians not abble to practace? Also how are you gona explain europians overtaking the world in every other field as well not just weaponry?
Baltu Lielkungs Gunārs Miezis ... I think what you are hinting at has to do with two things: the organ we see with and the seventeenth letter of the alphabet. But people are never supposed to bring that up in polite conversation because we are constantly told everyone is equal.
naa that argument only accounts for like 5 or 10 percent of it. China been a warring nation forever. Their geographical conditions, while not looking like it, are very similar to that of Europe.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 For the Persians, steamrolling weaker societies through numbers isn't really practice. Especially when the Greeks put their foot down.
People get used to war shaped by the circumstances at hand. If I'm a professional soldier in the sengoku jidai, then I will be good at the things that dominate warfare in that area. Getting large amounts of people together and putting castles under siege. I'm not going to move from that and right into blue-water naval warfare as easily.
The reason why is simply due to the arms race and the way wars were fought. The cannon was the answer to sieges which was the majority of medieval warfare and the gun was the answer to knights in their thick plate. Also even the early guns (between the arquebus and the handgonne) you could get 3-4 shots off a minute with some training. Get your guys in a pike formation and the nomads can't get in, if you fear arrows so much, give your guys some proper armor, which is another point, places like China didn't place as big a focus on armor development as the Europeans did, wanting to keep lighter armor for the sake of mobility (even if in reality it was negligible results) and cheaper armor since they had to issue their soldiers some unlike in Europe where people had to buy their own. The point of a gun becomes meaningless if you can already punch through the vast majority of armor with bows, unlike in Europe where even the longbow started to struggle. Philosophy I believe is the ultimate factor, how did they approach warfare.
Well, except that plate armor was developed in response to firearms. Even some armor had "proof" (a bullet dent) to show its effectiveness, plus pikes and halberds already did a good job on heavy cavalry. Most of the time, it was due to expense-to-result being too high that knights were dropped.
i reckon it was more due to the fact that European castle walls were less thicker than Chinese walls. Meaning that the Chinese didn't find much use against enemy castles during sieges.
@@powerist209 Stop claiming that plate armour was developed in response to firearms, it's incorrect. Plate armour was developed to protect against crossbow and heavy bow arrow fire. Plate armour preceded firearms. The advantage of early firearms compared to bows and crossbows was not in accuracy or rate of fire (being inferior), but rather in greater armour penetration capability and ease of use (bowmen had to be trained and skilled in archery to be effective). Knights/armoured heavy cavalry declined because pike and shot destroyed them, hence why by the Napoleonic era all cavalry was comparably light to medieval knights (be it lancers or cuirassiers, none had more then a breastplate equipped).
wanting to keep lighter armor for the sake of mobility (even if in reality it was negligible results the problem with armor is not the weight but rather the heat , this is what limit the mobility of heavy armored troupes
@Δημήτρης Ντάβος Even longer. I recently looked up ancient armor out of curiosity and they DID in fact have something that would be considered plate armor. It was far more basic but the similarity is remarkable. The Chinese simply never innovated this concept as much as the Europeans, I don't really know why but it was probably because they issued armor and that limited innovation as it was expensive to pursue while in Europe every small duke was trying to get the edge over their neighbour and had to take risks. You had more field battles and less sieges and while Japan pursued fast and agile warfare, after the fall of the Roman Empire Europeans were in a state that was truly unique. Japan could be united multiple times, Europe never was. There was always someone arround to stop the next rising power. I mean, look at the UK. If we were to exclude the US from the war, the facists would have still weakened it's empire to the point where it eventually collapsed and Russia itself could only control Europe for a short amount of time though that sounds crude, essentially, no single power can rile over Europe from Europe itself and that means that Europe still to this day tries to do things that are not conventional like creating a semi political hybrid union of independent and yet cooperation nation states.
This video was amazing. You started out strong and managed to keep me interested throghout the whole thing - really great writing, delivery and pasing. At no point did the video feel drawn out or rushed. I honestly dont have any solid feedback to give ya my dude; I just really liked your video jaja. You got a new sub =D
The trend identified whereby Eastern Europe adopted some innovations from Western Europe but remained less fully modernized isn't just true for gun powder but for countless historical trends and is still true today in many regards thus a military explanation tied to nomads isn't entirely fitting. The omission of the Ottoman Empire from a conversation about Early Modern gunpowder warfare is also a huge oversight. It complicates this theory massively.
The Ottomans spent a lot of the 1500-1700s adopting wagon and cavalry tactics, fighting into the bordering both sides niche. The video may not have covered them sufficiently, but that would be my error, not Chase’s. As always, I recommend people read the whole book.
@@ResistTheGreatReplacementEU Go to school my friend. If you cant do that, at least get out of your mothers basement and touch some grass. And no my friend, racial diversity is not a weakness. Neither is it a strength. Its an irrelevant fact. However unity in values is a strength. Your incel mind probably cannot understand this, then again thats why we say kids should stay out of politics.
guns just dont require gunpowder though. it requires skills in metallurgy . ARMOR has always been more used in europe than anywhere else. the heavily armored greek hoplites defeated the lightly armored persians. it is geography. the vast landscapes of persia and china , light armor was preffered. in the smaller countries of europe, this meant less distance and more compact fighting, so armor was acceptable.. this led to more development in armor via better metallurgy/blacksmithing skills/technology. more armor also meant guns were developed better to take down heavily armored knights.
Why guns took off so well in Europe: "You see that knight that we can only defeat with blunt and heavy weapons? Just take this aim at him and pull the trigger" Boom, knights useless. Edit: I'm back 7 months later and I cringe at this comment.
Knights were allready useless, a guy who by contract didnt have to spend more than a few days in the field and who was countered by a long stick. The importance of cavalry was largely hyped up by the noblemen to make people think they were important. Which is why every army in europe was mostly infantry
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 I know in Europe, the development of the fully armored knight was basically just to say fuck you to archers, I'm not sure if east asia found a different way to say fuck you to archers or were to busy saying fuck you to the nomads.
Sorry, your thesis is not convincing. The Japanese were heavy users of arquebusiers by 1590 in the Imjin War with Korea. YET, despite their familiarity with the weapon, they never improved on it -- no flintlock, no minie ball, no cartridges, no repeating rifles. From 1600 to 1940, there was such an explosion in firearms technology in Europe and the US. From handguns to artillery the improvements kept coming. Meanwhile, back in China, India, Ottoman Empire, and Japan -- no such developments (I think that is true, not validated). Your idea that facing nomads prevented development is silly. Not true for Japan, or Choson for instance -- or for Siam, Khmer, or Vietnam, either. I think other factors were critical -- 1. Printing press with wood block pictures and diagrams. Gunsmiths in different areas could compare designs, and improve. 2. Free enterprise - gunsmiths were private artisans, hired by peoples and states alike. In Asia, gunsmiths were employed by the state, and I don't think they were allowed to be hired out. 3. The constant state of warfare somewhere in Europe. If England and France were not at war, then Florence at war with Milan, or Austria with someone, etc. The wars were endless. SO, lots of opportunity for development.
I think that Asia didn't further develop gunpowder tech because of trade and colonization from Europeans, already spreading and trading their superior guns. you know the saying, "if it isn't broken, don't bother fixing it" especially since the guns that they already had didn't offer much advantage since Bows and the like were much superior to the small cannons and rockets they were familiar with.
Very good points. I, also, found the argument extremely unconvincing. I would only add that many of differences you point out are largely driven by religion (culture being downstream from religion).
A more accurate nomad hypothesis- The horse archers won: China- There are depictions of Jurchen horse archers charging firearm wielding Ming infantry. The horse archers won and established the Qing dynasty (~1640). If you are a member of a relatively small ethnic group that conquered a large country with a horse and bow, are you going to like firearm development? No. India- Invaded by Turco-Mongolian armies in the mid 1500s, who established the Mughal empire. Central Asian military traditions were all about the horse and bow. Naturally, they would stifle firearm development. ----- "The Japanese were heavy users of arquebusiers by 1590 in the Imjin War with Korea. YET, despite their familiarity with the weapon, they never improved on it -- no flintlock, no minie ball, no cartridges, no repeating rifles." He's actually more or less correct about Japanese firearms and why they stagnated. Do you know why the Tokugawa ruled for 200 years in peace rather getting wiped out after a single generation like the Oda and Toyotomi? It's because they demilitarized their vassals, took away all of their guns, and enforced ritualistic spending to weaken them. 200 years of peace and stagnation...
@@distilledwater8871 So Japan doesn't have pressing need to create cheaper and shootier guns every year, unlike Europe and later North America. And 200+ years of isolation policy under Tokugawa Shogunate must have hobbled lots of innovation.
One major thing you are overlooking is the invention of the Matchlock itself. Before it came about Europe had had firearms for more than a century and didn't do that much with them. When the Matchlock came around is when firearms started to spread. Japan had access to Chinese firearms almost as soon as they were invented yet didn't bother, but when the Portuguese showed up with Matchlocks they quickly adopted them in mass.
they didnt innovate becoz they became lazy by taxing silk and spice route and be content with their hookah and slaves.Europe always had an existential threat
Dude, nice video. But the info is outdated, the Chinese did develop the potential of gunpowder weapons to the max especially due to nomad invasions and European incursions, in 16th and 17th century the Chinese did even reverse engineered European firearms and develop some indegineus designs however during the Qing Dynasty firearms development halted. You should really checkout the two Chinese military manual called "Wu Jing Zhong Yao/武經總要『Complete Essentials for the Military Classics』" and "Bubishi/武備志『Treatise on Armament Technology or Records of Armaments and Military Provisions』(Known as the Karate Bible).
Grand Moff Tarkin I’ll have to look into those sources, thank you. While I still think Chase needs to be read alongside traditional theories on firearms, you correctly point out that after 17 years, the historiography will need an update.
Grand Moff Tarkin a Chinese infantry manual from 1644 rated Ottoman and then European musketry as the best in class at the time. Would that track with your research? Just curious.
@@HistoryClarified You should also look into the Jixiao Xinshu / 纪效新书 (New Treatise on Military Efficiency) by Qi Jiguang in the mid to late 1500s during the Ming Dynasty. He was a pioneer in volley fire techniques and integration of firearms into Ming military units, especially due to the surge of Wokou pirate raids during the period and provided very detailed information regarding firearms, firearm training, firearm firing failure percentages and rates, and more, mainly from what I believe is due to the trends of the Ming Dynasty's military on the constant decline and reluctance by Ming military officials from integrating firearms into their units, leading to Qi Jiguang to making a very detailed treatise to convince his fellow generals and governors to agree to said integration, which proved effective when many military officials at the time grew interest in his works as a result of his success in using them against the Wokou pirates to be used by Chinese the Korean military units when Japan invaded Korea at the end of the 16th century from 1592 to 1598, which helped influence Korean training methods (especially in melee and hand to hand combat)
Zhongjiang_Liu fascinating. Chase talks about the pirates, but not the level of detail for volley tactics. Thank you for those sources, I’ll have to do a deep dive into them.
@@HistoryClarified No problem Qi Jiguang goes into detail (I believe it's like 18 chapters long) in his treatise and dedicates quite a bit on not just volley fire, but also various ways within a mere squad of like 10 troops (along with a modified version of the Mandarin Duck formation/squad) to go as far as integrate firearms into that alone. I am glad he rethought his belief into firearms (he used to be adamant about their use like his contemporaries), but after he suffered defeat after defeat without firearms against the Wokou pirates, he took a reanalysis on them and ended up victorious. I know a few people who believed it was only the Tang and Song Dynasties who popularized gunpowder firearms (like hand cannons) and after the Yuan took over, minorly integrated firearms, and then from Ming onward, saw a decline, but this is rather false, as I believe Tarkin mentioned, the Ming had their own version of the matchlock musket and even made amazing cannons (the Hongyipao), which used a maximized both iron casted and bronze casted cannon advantages while diminishing both of their disadvantages.
You can argue that fighting styles of combat played a role in guns evolving as well. Europeans used plate armor, a heavy and slow method of combat that makes the usage of guns much more worth the risk in light of reloading times. Chinese used scale armor, a much more mobile and faster armor that would close the gap with a gun user a lot more quickly and counteract reload times. If I were a ranged combatant in china, I would use bows and arrows as they are far faster, and able to pierce scale armor versus spending time reloading guns. Meanwhile in Europe, I would use guns as they would be able to piece plate much more efficiently then an arrow. Also, walls of castles played a part in guns as well. As you said, cannons were the precursors to matchlock riles in a way. European walls were made of stone, something that would easily shatter if a high velocity ball of metal were to come at it. Meanwhile in china, their walls were a combination of wood and earth compact into hundreds of layers. Cannon fire would bounce right off those walls, making the chinese have an aversion to cannons as a whole and preventing the natural evolution to rifles.
Interesting. I can say that playing Shogun 2 total war guns and cannons were more effective in sieges. In an open field, the slow rate of fire and guns back then slowed my armies ability to maneuver and were rendered to limiting supporting roles.
The Japan part makes much more sense than the traditional explanation that states that firearms took out the honour of the Samurai class. Considering firearms were used by them and that the Katana is a sidearms and an expensive one.
Another point to be made about nomads is that the mongol empire effectively ravaged the countries of Eastern Europe, Middle East, and China which severely hampered development during a time when gunpowder weapons were just coming into use. This left Western Europe untouched by horde armies which effectively is another contributing reason for their success in gunpowder weapons.
A Chinese military manual in 1644 did still rate Ottoman muskets just barely above European ones, but yeah, but of Chase's thesis is that Europeans were late adopters of firearms but absolutely went all in on them.
the cannon that blasted Constantinople's walls was designed by a Hungarian engineer who had a master idea and was willing to build it for the highest bidder. at that time, the ottomans were the most interested
The same sentiment Japanese daimyos had when British gunboats shelled Kagoshima believe it or not. Chinese nobles and bureaucrats saw offshore bombardments in Opium War and thought it was witchcraft. Japanese daimyos saw it, went starry-eyes and said 'Mom, I want one!'.
Good analysis, I think you touched on a lot of good points, but I think theres another primary reason you left out: the more widespread use of plate armor in Europe. One of the main reasons that the slow, cumbersome, inaccurate firearms of the day began to replace the accurate, light, high rate of fire long bows is because of their effectiveness against men in armor. By virtually every metric, early firearms are inferior to bows, except in their ability to penetrate plate armor. Other parts of the world, China in particular, never really saw the widespread use of plate armor. Therefore in that arena of war, where the bow can kill a man just about as well as a firearm, there really isn't an incentive to start replacing bows with firearms.
I don't agree with that. Plate armour is not the driving force in this discussion. First, a full set of plate armours were rare and were never widely equipped in large scale both in Asian and Europe, they were made for nobles. Second, when facing ranged weapons, plate armour was already challenged by steel crossbow, so if we want to destroy a fully armoured knight, we didn't necessarily need a firearm, not to mention its terrible low accuracy with a late-stage crossbow. Three, the advantage of firearm was about its unbalanced power input-output ratio, which meant continuous firing output. To fire an arquebus, you only need to load some powder and a lead ball and push the trigger, rather than using tons of physical power to load a crossbow or war bow. When we have a weapon that takes little energy to shoot with lower accuracy vs a weapon takes a lot of energy to shoot with higher accuracy, you take the first one because a field battle is usually going to last at least 4 to 5 hours, the advantage of firearms is obvious: you can keep loading and shooting till sunset with a firearm while you will be exhausted after 10 to 15 shoots with war bow (around 7 to 10 mins, 20 to 30 mins for a steel crossbow). if you used all your energy to shot in the first 30 mins, you are really excluded in that battle. To a common infantry back then who were the majority of an army, being shot by a lead ball, arrow or a bolt makes no difference. So how sustainability is the firepower is the key to the equation.
That's a very good explanation for why Europe is famous for guns. That can also be used to explain why the industrial revolution happened in western and central Europe. Because the continuous investment in firearms can actually improve the technology in one country.
I think this explanation reflects the post modern thought that the success of the west the last 500 years is a coincidence. Not of own merit. I don’t agree with that. You can not separate guns and gunpowder from the general boom of innovations in western society. Ask yourself, what encourages innovations, or what discourages them? The cultural aspect have been downplayed by the post modern universities, at first because of necessity, because it is not the whole truth, but it has gone too far when it is removed completely as a factor. I think the importance of institutions and embracement of an objective truth, and relatively decentralised religion (Lutheran), removal of clan rule, rule of law, European rules of war, and other “soft” features of western culture are very undervalued as explanations at this point. Culture in turn may be affected by geographical phenomenons and so on but that does not change my point. Geography and warring plays a part in this innovation, but by those metrics many other civilisation should be equally successful. They are not.
The first firearm was used during later tang era, a war lord li ke yong’s army used it against another war lord zhu wen ,but fire arm back then were very much undeveloped.it merely scared zhu wen’s army but failed to do any real damage.
If you looking for the quick answer it at 2:18. Europe at the time that gun powder was introduce has a lot of small kingdoms at constant war, in such a hostile environment innovation is the only way to survive especially in military tech and theory. And the biggest reason that far east Asia didn't quickly innovate in military tech was due to the hegemonic power of imperial China, basically they were the USA of the ancient world keeping everything at status quo. Why innovate when you have the manpower and resources to crush any one that challenges you.
Wrong China did have firearm Units en mass but they were relegated tldr the equivalent of HouseCarl aka Private banner armies. This analogy also is bad because Sweden had a light built Well trained army of Caroleans that fought in the 30 years war jn 16th century not all european aies are heavily built up.
Chinese soldiers weren't as heavily armored as European soldiers so bows and crossbows work just as well if not better than earlier guns. The Ming actually progressed field artillery quite a bit and were able to effectively use them against the Qing at the beginning. The Qing later also had successfully subjugated or vassalized most of its neighbors and saw no need to advance weaponry which could be potentially be used against them.
To add on, especially when speaking about artillery, I find Professor Tonio Andrade’s hypothesis regarding Chinese walls very convincing. Chinese city fortifications were massive, especially when compared to their European counterparts. The Theodosian walls, which were thick by European standards would only add up to one third of the width of the walls of Xi’an. The walls of Xi’an were around 22 meters thick, over 10 meters tall, slightly sloped to aid in projectile deflection and also constructed with a rammed Earth core which made it more resistant to shock. The standard of Chinese fortifications ruled out all canons as a feasible and practical siege weapon and so most canons were relegated to anti-personnel roles. There were accounts of Japanese artillery teams taking days to rip through one of these walls with WW2 firepower...
Good article . I think a contributing fact was the evolution of the command and control system that established a chain of command from general down through the Sargeants to the private. If the head was cutoff the body did not necessarily die as it had Leadership in depth . It also allowed manuver elements and the choreography that required planning as well as timing . Most armies attacked in mass in large units. The ability manuver individual elements and Leadership in depth eventually gained not technical advantage but tactical advantage.
Armor is also dependent on geopolitics and available resources. East Asian armor are lighter because their main enemies (nomads) are mobile cavalrymen, so they can’t adopt heavier armor that are too heavy for their horses or that basically cooks their wearer alive when fighting across the deserts and steppes, even if it affords better protection. So, no plate armor like the ones in Europe. The Chinese also had the crossbow and that it can penetrate armor. But what good is it to develop armor against crossbow for the Chinese? The Chinese fielded crossbowmen, but the nomads to their north don’t.
Unconvincing. Most European societies had large numbers of light cavalry skirmishers who could forage and ravage the landscape as well as any Tartar. An iron spearhead is 99% as effective as a steel spearhead but an iron firearm will blow up in your face so you *have* to make your guns out of steel. ( Cannon were often made out of brass or bronze because these metals don't have hairline cracks in them like wrought or cast iron but bronze and brass were even more expensive than steel) So the question is why did European societies have better steel than their counterparts elsewhere. Steel was being made from Spain to India as early as the era of the Achaemenids. They used charcoal to achieve the very high temperatures and could only heat a couple of pounds of steel at a time. This was enough to make an ornate sword for a Legate or Satrap but to equip thousands of musketeers you have to make steel firearms on a much greater scale and for that you have to have access to large forests to produce the huge quantities of charcoal. After the Black Death had killed 40% of the population there was more land than there were people to work on it and forests and woodlands grew throughout Europe. In the 14th and 15th centuries people in France Germany and Bohemia were able to use these resources to make steel in the required amounts for larges scale firearm usage . After 1492 the influx of New World gold and silver enabled the Habsburgs to pay for this early military industrial complex. Christendoms great rival was the Islamic World which was always handicapped by a lack of timber vis a vis their European contemporaries, this was also a factor in other areas such as shipbuilding. Tldr:guns have to be made out of steel and whoever had the most forests/ charcoal would always have a pronounced technological edge in steel making over their rivals.
I would also comment that when comparing Europe to China, the political, and more importantly cultural divide como go from a lack of a singular or unified government, allowing the central and Western Europeans to have the large slow armies, while the ones bordering nomads struggled to do the same. If China was to have the northern parts be separate nations, the southern and more fertile areas would possibly have developed firearms at a similar pace as Europeans, while the north was in a similar state as Eastern Europe
I suspect one factor not touched on was religious tourism. In the 12th century, Europe saw a wave of religious tourism with folks wanting to visit holy sites for various reasons. The way you could attract more religious tourists (and their money) to your site was to have a magnificent cathedral. For that, you needed amazing architecture, stunning windows, and well-tuned bells. There were even cathedral bell competitions and certain tunes your bells were supposed to be able to play. This meant you needed high levels of quality control in bronze casting so your bells would have clear, beautiful tones no matter how cold or hot it got, able to take the punishment of frequent ringing without cracking. And those same levels of quality control gave Europeans a leg up on casting cannons that wouldn't break under the stress of frequently being fired.
Interesting, I hadn’t heard that as a reason for European metallurgical advancement, thank you for that. I would still argue that the prevalence of siege and pitched battle warfare still made cannons more advantageous for Europeans than armies that needed more strategic mobility.
I think he means in the micro sense. Take the Carpathians for example in Silesia. Same "race" but different nations and tactics. Macro sense is probably the Urals or Gibraltar controlling Mediterranean access.
@@MetalboxwithKanon Yes, rebellious armies are generaly poorly equiped, small sized and dependant on internal political support. The confucian philosophy pacified the peoples dominated by China, which eventually reduced the competition on many areas, contrary to Europe that had many countries, with competing ideas, technology etc
Superb video! It's abundantly clear you're well-educated and know exactly what you're talking about, and you put stuff I already know about into a new perspective. Definitely subscribing! Keep up the good work! Also, great movie selection, lol.
Europeans always were the best in inventing new things. The other ones could only copy from them. The best things always came from England and Central Europe or northern Europe. That’s the fact.
The best steel for cannons and swords came from Spain. French or German cannons would explode if they tried to use the same charge as a Spanish made cannon.
I have a memory of being taught decades back a theory that it's to do with glass. Damp grey Europe got very good at glass for windows. This was a multi step manufacturing process with early crucibles. It also utilised metal tubes of narrow and large calibre, all of which made for a solid technological leg up when the fall of Constantinople showed what gunpowder could achieve. Old theory that apperently has no internet footprint(good luck googling glass cannon), so I might be talking about something half remembered, or dismissed more recently.
This video seeks to explain why they needed larger cannons and why it was useful to their style of warfare, but I'm seeing multiple people comment that the bell and glass industries are how they built cannons so well and how they translated so easily into large cannon crafting and production.
Yes I was aware of that. The whole of 14th century Europe became acutely aware of what a Cannon did at Constantinople. Then I suppose a lot of powerful people were pleasantly surprised that lots of their cathedrals came with a cannon factory attached to them.
There's also this huge mining area in Europe which was fought over and over, which had easily mineable metals to make guns. Other countries and peoples didn't have this easy access to iron and chemicals etc.
Yeah, I don't cover physical geographical resources, but that is definitely a factor. Shoot, many historians believe easy coal deposits near the surface do a lot to explain Britain's head start for the industrial revolution.
A lot of the asian countries start up their own arquebus production. A matchlock arquebus is pretty simple, you need to know how to make a metal tube with a few holes.
Lucia Soósová I’m happy to help and glad you enjoyed it! Kenneth Chase’s “Firearms to 1700” made up a big chunk of this video if you want to check that out as well.
Exactly. How do these points work when asking why europian invented their ... ? If we are to say that Europe was so blessed by geography that you can answer - "geography" - when asking why they suceeded at something, than surely europians are gods children destined to rule the world if they have been so blessed by gods.
@Cruiser no it doesnt. Before the europeans came the americas had no horses or many other domesticatable animals which are essential for civilization building
@We all die Anyway actually its fact. Alpachas were the only domestic animals pre horse introduction. Once they were introduced, the comanches mastered them and literally caused the proliferation of the 6 shot pistol
Europe not being united into one massive centralised state helped as well. It enforced hyper competition on the states where if you fell behind you would more than likely lose the next war.
great video but you need more video clips instead of a loop, as well as some still shots that are referenced in the essay and have some relevance. The sound could be better, if sharpened up the music could be louder and clearer without taking away from the voice audio. Finally do the audio in more takes so your inflection and cadence is easier to digest. keep up the great work, if you work on it you could make a full-time living out of this
This leaves so many questions. Why didn't the Ottomans keep up with Europe then ? Why didn't that trickle into the middle east ? Why didn't India (which had political and geographical conditions like Europe) modernize and innovate ? These are questions that can't simply be answered by taking recourse to a simplified idea of geographic determinism. Moreover, how would you explain instances where European armies were actually defeated by Asian armies in battle ? There are a bunch of such instances. The Japanese weren't the first to defeat the Russians in battle in the far east, the Qing dynasty fought a series of wars against Russia in the 17th century which they largely won. Europe underwent profound social and cultural changes which created an environment of innovation and scientific temperment which Confucian China and late medieval India did not have. Add to this the negative impact of the Mongol invasions which saw much of scientific knowledge being lost as a result of their invasions, you have a scenario in which Asia gets pushed back by at least a century behind Europe. The Mughals for their part fell to the Marathas who for the most part did not bother to invest in developing science and technology and relied extensively on imported firearms, looted firearms and mobile cavalry tactics. Persia went through a prolonged period of total anarchy with a series of turkic dynasties ruling over it, where Persian culture and science was left in the margins.
I don't think the video and Chase entirely discount political and cultural conditions. Hence the Japan example. It had the same conditions as Europe, led to the same innovations during a time of war, and then during a prolonged time of peace, they fell far behind. As far as the gunpowder empires and the Ottomans, Chase goes into more detail, but having to contend with the Mongols and later Khanates was, in his opinion, a major factor in them falling behind Europe. Not just for the science they took or destruction they did, but also in how they forced nearby settled societies to adapt militarily to them. I still believe people need to read the Chase thesis and add geographical considerations into their analysis for the problem.
The Ottomans were becoming a backward state between 1500-1600 with a lot of external and internal struggle. Why didnt India modernize? Good question, as one of the oldest civilizations they have very little innovations during their entire excistence and the ones they get credit for are questionable. Most European losses in Asia came because a single boat (or more) with man cant beat the army of a large country. Even today it is said that the USA is the only country capable of decently fighting a long distance war. It also really helped that Europe had quite a lot of "republics". 1000 citizens probably can think of a better idea than 1 single noble man and in republics citizens had a lot more chances in life.
@@jemoedermeteensnor88 Between 1600-1700*. The Ottomans were still on the rise and politically and militarily ahead of their European counterparts in the 1500s (Süleyman the magnificent brought the state to its zenith during his reign 1520-1566), it was with the conclusion of the Long Turkish war in 1606, which ended in a draw and the subsequent treaty of Zsitvatorok, where the Ottomans and Hapsburgs now had to address each other as equals, rather than the sultan as the emperor's peer, that it became evident that the Europeans had caught up.
@@LORDMEHMOODPASHA Yes you got the date correct (and i was wrong), but early on they were phenominal, around 1500-1600 they were just good because they were big.
It was definitely culture, not geography, that primarily drove the change. Europe had an entirely different approach to the world around them than anyone else. We had constant wars between different cultures, driving a strong doctrine of innovation. We also had Christianity, which has a unique perspective on the relationship between the divine and the material. Where Chinese theology treated the material world as mystical and constant, as something to meditate upon, or where Islam decided that understanding the material world could only be done through the word of God, Christianity believed the material world to belong to humanity, and studying it to be the only path to understanding the mind of God. Europeans were simply set up to use the material world in a better way than any other cultural grouping.
Still find it crazy how long it took for firearms technology to advance to what it is today. But guessing thats more down to the types of powder they used and the innovation of "smokeless" cleaner burning powder took a while.
The reason is simple. Europe was and still is fractured. Competing kingdoms and nation state constantly competing with each other and therefore in constant arms race. In Asia, China was a monolith so there was order. On the whole, there were fewer battles, skirmishes and wars in far east than there was in the Europe. If Japan wanted to invade Korea they needed permission from China and had to be careful. There was tributary system and Korean Kings were elected from Chinese Emperor. Vietnam was subdued by Chinese for 1000 years. Only threat was the Mongols, and the only time in medieval history where China suffered utter defeat was during Genghis/Kublai Khan's time and the Jurchen/Manchu invasion, and this technically the Chinese fault because of corruption and less expenditure on the military. After the Mongol empire disintegrated, Mongols was slowly being assimilated and absorbed into the regions they once conquered. Every major Chinese dynasty lasted roughly 200 - 300 years or so. Thus there was a period of stability and peace and they focus on agricultural production, and commercial production like tea, silk, porcelain. Up til 1830 - 1840, China made up 1/3 of the world's GDP from tea and porcelain exports. British eventually attacked China because Opium war. The UK consumed so much sugar and tea that they didn't have the silver to pay for it so they decided to smuggle and opium and got the local hooked on it. It's ironic because today UK has a huge epidemic narcotics problem. Heroin addiction and such. They reaped what they sowed.
I think that constant warfare was certainly a factor for driving innovation, hence the Japan example of losing the race during an age of peace, but I still find Chase's theory interesting in how constant heavy and infantry warfare was the ticket. Even during intense periods of warfare, gunpowder blocks didn't work as well for China.
There's no need for heavy infantry on the field if there were less wars. If you study the Imjin War, one of the bloodiest wars in history involving China, Korea, and Japan there was certainly large companies of heavy Japanese heavy infantry, heavy Chinese calvary and Korean warships. They usually don't fight huge wars but when they do, the scale and massive deaths dwarfs that of Europe. The Japanese fielded arquebus, Koreans had the turtle warships, and Chinese brought in heavy calvary and artillery pieces. So they had to drag shit load of people, supplies and equipment. The landscape included mountains, grassland, forest, and sea - so you can imagine the logistics involved. Where Europe had numbers in the realm of thousands to tens of thousands, Asian wars involving hundreds of thousands if not millions. Again, Europe was advance in military innovation but China was mostly focus on GDP. They focus on developing silk, tea, porcelain, lacquer ware, and other products. European wanted to go to China because they were producing consumer goods. You never heard of any Chinese merchants travelling to Europe for anything during those days. The reason China was rich was because they are more focus on development, public works, industry. There were few rotten emperors in later periods of each dynasty (the spoiled teenage brat emperor) that cause the collapse, but mostly it's fairly orderly and less chaotic. I think today's China is not that much different from yesterday's China. They went from 3rd world impoverish country after WWII to become 2nd largest economy. It's just coming back in full circle. The US spends $700B in defense, that's more than the next 16 countries combined. Look at what China is producing, high-speed rail, new bridges, roads, airports, towns, metro, and other infrastructure. It spends very little on the military budget in terms of % of its entire GDP, even though it's the second largest military after US. American infrastructure is crumbling, no high-speed rail, no bullet trains. The American airports are crappy compared to ones in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and China. The primary education in US is sad too. It ranks like 26th or 27th in the world stage when it comes to reading, writing and mathematics. Most of the top 10 countries in the PISA rankings are in East Asia or Scandinavia or central Europe. Why? because they don't spend so much on military defense budget and actually try to improve the life its citizens. This is what Europe back then did -- spending too much money on arms to pounce the next door neighbour, so they got what they bought - the best weapons that debt can buy them. Most of Europe was in debt, whether it was France, Britain, Germany, Spain, etc. If it wasn't for slave labour and colonization to help produce the silver/gold to finance their war campaigns, Europe overall would be like Greece of today - overspending for wrong reasons and no incentive to save.
I don't disagree with much of what you are saying, but I don't think that discredits Chase. If Europe bordered nomads, they would have been behind relative to what actually happened.
Russian empire was constantly bordering Nomads. The Mongols took Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, etc. but yet Russia was able to field guns and artillery like its counter Western part. Russia was involved in Napoleonic wars, WWI, WWII, and they pretty conquered its way into Kazhakstan and Siberia and Mongolia. They were one of the survivors of Mongol conquest, so I don't know why Chase's theory has any bearings on Russia. And the idea that using firearms against a mobile nomadic people is not feasible is false. If you ever study the nest of bees, which virtually a hand-held multirocket launcher, it was used against the Mongols for psychological effect. If you ever watch Deadliest Warrior episode where Musketeers vs Ming Warriors, they had demonstration of that weapon. So I don't how Chase's theory has any bearing on that. The Chinese also had the 3-barrel pole gun, landmines, naval mines fueled by gunpowder. It's nothing new that they haven't tried. I think it's just you become complacent if you don't have to fight anybody or less fighting. During the Qing dynasty (last imperial dynasty of China), the land encompass, southern Siberia (including Vladiovostok), all of Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, and parts of Northern Korea. It was so huge that no Asian neighbours dare attack them until the later 19th century when Imperial Japan modernized its military and invaded Manchuria. When you're a monopoly or monolith, and no one dares attack you, you have less incentive to spend resource in innovating military equipment. When the Brits and French sacked the Old Summer Palace in 1861, they were surprised that the Chinese armory had so much guns but they did not use it because 1) the rulers of that time were of Jurchen/Manchu origin (not Han Chinese) and they, like the traditional Samurais, prefer the bow and arrow and horseback archery. It was just the way of life for them and they were less incline to learn firearms, and I guess 2) up until that point no one has ever dared attacked the main center of the Chinese empire, so they were unprepared for an opponent which they've never fought before.
Chase is looking at strategic uses, not a single battlefield fight. To fight a nomadic army, it is hard to field large numbers of infantry and heavy artillery. Nomadic armies don't have to give battle and get bogged down the way infantry and artillery dependent armies would until the logistics and technology caught up. Even Eastern Europe, which yes, adopted guns, still had to hold on to larger numbers of light cavalry and war wagons, which slightly delayed their full conversion compared to Western Europe. Chase is arguing that Europe was already winning by the 1500's and that is why he focuses on geography. At the point, I would take Spain or France over Russia. He also specifies that, yes, by the 1700's and the flintlock, armies were easily able to subdue nomads and gunpowder infantry was logistically and strategically more viable.
Kolin Martz Those usually occurred at the ends of dynasties or with a power hungry official. Most of the time China was far more prosperous and peaceful than Europe.
Europe had far less nomadic incursions than China or Persia did. The only states that actually experienced major nomadic invasions in Europe besides those of the early Mongol empire were the Russians who had the benefits of being close to the European power centers, Peter the greats modernization and westernization, luck in that the Poles fell into political and technological stagnation, and the weakening of the Khaganates. And when the Ming Dynasty was threatened by Mongols, Pirates, and rebellions they adopted European guns which were able to defeat and fend off the nomads until the Qing got the guns because someone stole a chicken. Japan also had very advanced arquebus technologies and incorporated them into war. China fell behind because the Qing did not like the idea of more advanced firearms in the hands of Han Chinese, had no need for it, and closed off most of the Ming trade and the Japanese fell behind due to prosperity and isolation after the Imijin War. The Song Dynasty. Was the height of indigenous Chinese invention and if Genghis Khan didn’t exist China would probably have developed much more advanced technology due to the Jin. In short Europe got more advanced weaponry due to geography, luck, nation states, mercantile freedoms, and Christianity and many other civilization had the chance to but couldn’t due to factors really out of their control. It’s not as simple as squandering it.
One word for you good man: Jezzsail! A musketeer is not less or more mobile than any other foot soldier, guns can be easily applied to the tactics of Nomad warfare, the logistics are the critical point. The original purpose of the arquebuse was not to shoot pikemen or knights, muskets became necessary to fight against Reiter type troops who would ride up to formations and unload pairs of wheel lock pistols in to the pike squares. The advantages of a gun are better penetration and less training time, war bows need years of training, arquebuses only weeks. The predominance of fire arms as infantry weapon and development of modern drill are a product of the 80 years war, more precisely the maurician reforms. China simply was never forced to fight any one it could not crush with sheer numbers, also the strong central state prevented near total warfare on the scale of the 30 Years war, 80 years war and the Sengoku Jidai. The Koreans for example used war bows alongside cannons, why? Because in the 17th century a trained bow men was equal if not superior to a musketeer, if you had the time to train them aka longer intervalls of peace. The Europeans began to take over India not with pike and shot, this the mughals could easily match, but with regiments of line infantry and the ability to train them with modern drill, an innovation originating in the Netherlands to fight Spanish tercios.
Germs Guns Steel The geography of Europe lends itself to small countries all fighting each other for supremacy. China’s geography more conducive to one giant country
I mean, it's pretty simple. Outside of the already well-stated weapon vs. armor evolution argument, by allowing the commoners to have firearms, they not only created a gun culture that protected and empowered their people domestically, but also instilled a trained and ready fighting force that further reinforced the use of said firearms in their militaries.
Jared Diamond has the biologist's 30000-feet-view: Eurasia is really one big land mass, with easy movement due to similar latitudes, and throughout history Eurasia has the most resouces, the most animal species which can be domesticated, the most innovations, and brings the most deadly diseases.
@@eljanrimsa5843 Actually, he had a long list of hyper-specific details. The reason is he had to be in those parts of the world he covered in order to be a professional birdwatcher. But anthropologist and archeologists treat his work as required reading.
@@johnsteiner3417 He has a compelling answer to the question why New Guinea has developed less cargo than Eurasia. But he only barely touches the question why one end of Eurasia developed differently than the other.
@Cis White Male with Extra Privilege Sounds like you haven't read the book if that's what you think it says. The message of the book is that all humans are the *same* with the only things determining the development and success are geographical and environmental.
Great video! Very educational. Please increase your volume. I had to max the volume and still had a hard time listening. Other than that, thank you for the video!
Emperor Lelouch historically, yes, they outperformed every other group. Geographic determinism is merely an attempt to minimize the significance of that achievement.
Japan didn't have guns because it didn't have natural resources and bullets would have wasted iron, which they didn't have in large ammounts. In ancient Japan, if a village would burn, the peasants would scavage nails because iron was in small ammount.
I like the format of this presentation. It was intelligently read by a nice voice and it calls for discussion. One commenting person made mention of how civilized the commenters were. That’s true, possibly because no one region or culture was referenced but rather, pretty much the whole warring world for over seven hundred years. It’s hard to get into anti-anything mean spirited statements with that starting point. Do I disagree? No, the theories seem sound. Geography helps define a culture, so it is only logical. I personally love the study of the Constantinople sieges and this discussion ties closely into that. In 1304, the pike was the new big deal, which is only a glorified knife. That series of fights showed all of the best minds working to kill each other for over 200 years in the heart of the then utilized world. Thanks. I am gleefully subscribing. 🏆🥁🥂
What are you thoughts on Chase's thesis? Did he change your mind about the role of geography, or do you think it is still military drill, state investment, frequent warfare, and a lack of a centralized state that was most important for Europe?
JakseSa - The only reason that europe perfected guns or gunpowder was and is that it is a lot easier and quicker to kill living beings. Nothing to be proud of as these sort of inventions are demise of civilizations but we sometimes have positive inventions out of war as well.
Ancient Ruins I hope it t didn’t come off as glorifying the issue, but rather seeking to explain how and why it happened. Chase and the geographical argument is something that I think is worth discussing.
Did you now that was us the Portuguese that introduced guns into Japan
I think that this is a weird oversimplification. For example, the Russian empire *and* the Chinese both fought nomads, and to them gunpowder weapons were instrumental to them both. Their infantry would still march and attack as infantry, and the arquebus gave them greater effective range than the nomads had, and more lethality as well. Nomads did not mean that you didn't get gunpowder. The Imjin war (The Japanese invasion of Korea) shows that the guns were great against foot archers too. Basically, guns were adopted and used as fast and as much as you could afford to just about everywhere.
Nomads on the other hand could not adopt gunpowder, because they didn't have the means to create the gunpowder in meaningful quantities. (Native Americans did solve this riddle later, but that's another story.) As for how heavy gunpowder was on logistics, it would have been much easier than bows. Compare the size of a bullet with its gunpowder charge to an arrow. Your logistics are lessened, not strengthened by it.
1 big factor people dont look at is armor
china invented gunpowder but a majority of their military was always lightly armored. due to the vast landscapes of asia, mobility was preferred. there was no need to make better guns
europe has always had the most heavily armored military in the world and in history because distance and mobility wasn't as important as it was in asia.. the whole point of gun development in europe was to take down heavily armored troops.
Japan is like that one kid that slacks the entire term but starts cramming the last week and somehow came out just as good as the top students
And Japan should tell Korea and China 'don't try this at home'.
Social conditions and circumstances that allow rapid developments in Japan does not exist on East Asian Mainland.
@Cis White Male with Extra Privilege Africa is the one that just does not show up to school at all and gets mad for being failed at the class.
Cis White Male with Extra Privilege the guy that got all pencils and calculators stolen by Europe
@@mangoFace1987 You know that the europian colonies in Africa operated at a net loss?
Weter you agree with their methods or think they achieved their goal they themselves really did believe they where there to spread civilization and so did not care that it was economicaly a loss.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 European nations didn't colonize to spread civilization (that's just a poor justification for imperialism). It has always been about one thing: resources.
Most of the trade between Europe and Asia went along the Silk Road. Goods like silk, satin, tea, incense, exotic fruits, porcelain and especially spices were in high demand in Europe with mostly silver and gold given in return. Two major problems arose in the 15th and 16th century though: the Great Bullion Famine and the Rise of the Ottomans.
The 15th century saw a major shortage of both gold and silver in Europe. The silver mines in Austria, Bosnia, Bohemia and Serbia were running dry, so were the gold mines in Flanders, Northern France, the Rhineland area and Portugal. The Europeans had nothing to give in return anymore and what little was left in the Balkans fell into Ottoman hands. The Ottomans effectively had a monopoly on the trade between Europe and Asia now. Previously the Venetians and Genoans exploited the Byzantines and Mamluks to gain easy access to the Black and Red Sea (having holdings in Cyprus, Crete, Crimea, Dalmatia , Azov and the Aegean Islands) basically controlling all trade from the Silk Road across the Mediterranean. But with the Ottoman conquests of Constantinople, Crimea, Syria and Egypt this was no longer possible and soon after the Merchant Republics lost their power.
This sparked the first wave of colonization and exploration, both the Spanish and Portuguese searched for new trade routes to Asia and especially gold and silver. The Portuguese started colonizing and trading with West-African nations (weapons and iron in exchange for gold), the Spanish sailed west and eventually stumbled upon the Americas. Huge amounts of gold and silver were mined and shipped to Spain, along with resouces that were rare or non-existent in Europe like tobacco, cacao, coffee, sugar,... These resouces fuelled around 300 years of Spanish dominance, funding their huge armadas and armies. To produce these crops, a huge amount of labour was required, which wasn't available in the Spanish colonies. Most natives died of diseases they never encountered before like smallpox, those who didn't were enslaved and often worked to death. Huge amounts of Slaves were bought by the English and Portuguese in West-Africa and then shipped in inhumane conditions across the Atlantic to work on plantations or in the mines. The Portuguese and Dutch also sailed around Africa were they exploited the spice trade in India and Indonesia.
The same pretty much happened in the 19th century to Africa. This time for rubber, rare metals and minerals, which would go on to fuel the European industry. They also served as a cheap source for food and cash crops for the rapidly growing European population. They mostly weren't meant to turn a profit directly, but to fuel the European industry and serve as a drop off market for any surplus.
This video didn't mention anything about the increasing quality of European plate armor technology, which forced the mass adoption of firearms in the European armies.
I think it was more an attempt to explain why Europe was so driven to innovate in weapons and armor technology. Their geographic set up large armies and siege warfare and this set off an arms race between armor and firearms, which firearms win. I don't discount traditional drill, industrial revolution explanations and the like, but I think that geography and Chase's ideas should help factor into the "why did Europe need to innovate THIS way."
Firearms at that time couldnt pierce a well made Cuirass
Ironically, nowadays there's no full body armor that can protect from bullets (and I am refering to all kinds of bullets)
Europe was driven to innovate in all major areas of civilization: culture, science, literacy, logistics, etc. For example by 1300's they have outclassed everyone in navigation and ship building. Excellence in weapons and armor technology was just a part of the trend. Why did Japan not develop advanced peacetime industry after its wars in the 1600's ? They had no problem doing that in the late 1800's. The main difference between the two periods is that during the later they started adopting European culture
@@alejandroelluxray5298 there is but if you get shot in the face you would break every single bone
Having read a bit of history, I'd say Europe had already outpaced even the Ottomans as well by the 1500s. Even if the Ottomans still won some wars, they were often wasting more men, and in fact the Ottomans were importing guns from Europe. When it came to Japan in the 1540s it came from Europe. I think the fragmentation of Europe into constantly warring states, that nevertheless had relatively well-developed cities, was what drove the arms race in Europe.
Arguable in my opinion, but Chase definitely agrees. He argues that by the mid 1500's, the race was already over. I also agree that Europe's frequent warfare was a major factor (which is why I did the contrast with Japan). He also points out, which I may have failed to emphasize, that the gunpowder empires of India and Persia and Southeast Asia were using European models by the late 1600's and definitely by the 1700's.
that was what i was thinking about. perfect pot of alot of diferent groups separeted by geography with a constant stir of warfare where a simple improvenet in technology could make the diference
What Western Culture had to a greater degree than other cultures was the ability to adopt and implement good ideas. Then they would keep tinkering with them until they had a final product that was orders of magnitude better. Gunpowder, printing, paper, the compass, shipbuilding, and Arabic Numerals are just a few that come to mind. I think this trait started in the Dark Ages. The fall of the Western Roman Empire caused total chaos down to the local level. I believe this made everyone much more flexible in their thinking, and there was no central authority to tell them no.
I don't think there is THE reason why was Europe so advanced. One of the reasons is definitely the competition between states and a lot of progres was made for example during the 100 years war, but there is a lot other reasons like trade wich brought in many ideas from abroad and universities where the ideas were shared and as @Cifford Jensen suggested the ability to adapt wich I think comes directly from the Roman Empire (the romans didn't come up with many groundbraking ideas they just took what they knew that worked and perfected it)
@@cliffordjensen8064 Western Culture had a greater "ability" to adapt not only because of the constant regional conflicts (in part financed by early colonial conquests) and stoked by a mini ice-age likely limiting resources, but a shared infrastructure left behind by the Romans and a educational system left by The Moors post "Reconquista" -- not to mention the fall in prominence of the Persian, China, and Axum (Eritrea/Ethiopia) empires following the rise of The Mongol Empire.
China: look, we can launch a small projectile out of this metal tube by lighting this weird powder on fire
Europeans: *Ah yes, at last.*
Imagine europeans reaction
These videos always miss India. India was pretty much Europe with brown people with similar level of innovation and battle strategies and gunnery.
@@akshaykumarjha9136 TRUE
@Hyperion Hey i have to study Indian history semi professionally, so im ready to engage a Little om you about this.
You see this is a misconception that people have. European control of india was not because of outgunning or more modern technology. For example the line infantry of Sikh empire and the infantry contingents of the Maratha Federations were pretty similar, if not better than European troops. On the other hand, states like Mysore had pretty much a better army and leadership than the Brits.
Mysore is pretty much the Inventor of rocket artillery that Brits later took to Europe. The Americans even named a ship in honour of the King of Mysore, USS Hyder Ali. Mysore defeated Brits twice very well, but was simply wore down with numbers of troops among the British allies. Similar for the Maratha Empire.
India had been at constant inter battle for the last 50 years at that point. Throughout Indian history there have been moments where there was enough war that a new power could supplant the old ones. And this time it was British, it was not due to simply Europeans coming in and awing natives (who have been fighting and living with Europeans for millennia), but a very lucky moment combined with good British thinking.
As for the culture, idk. Obviously India didn't send out colonies. You don't send out colonies when you have everything at home - gold, spices, enemies, territories. One major reason for starting of voyages and discovery was for Europe to find new routes to India without the Ottomans interfering. So obviously, Indian kingdoms werwt not sending out voyages.
@@akshaykumarjha9136 how wrong you are my friend the British had a far superior army and leadership during their time in india yes you are right they did have similair weaponry and tactics but the british where far better. You say that mysore defeated the british twice easily but that's very incorrect because firstly during the first war the british won of most of the battles inflicting severe defeats on mysore to the point where they sent the british a treaty but they refused the only reason it resulted in a slight mysore victory was because Hyder ali was able to move a large army towards madras when it was short on defenders. Then onto the second war yes this war was very back and fourth but in no way did mysore achieve a victory at the very most it was a stalemate as no side gained anything, the mysore where able to inflict a good defeat on the british but the british did this also by achieving a triple victory against them in consecutive battles. You get on as if these Indian territories where at a disadvantage and decline but this is very untrue, most of these wars the british where always highly outnumbered and at the must time fighting numerous foes e.g. during the second war they where basically fighting all over the world against the americans, french, spanish, dutch and mysore so achieving anything other than a stalemate was very unlikely.
So to put it simply, necessity bred innovation.
Essentially. Europe's geography led to frequent infantry and siege focused wars which incentivized them to innovate firearms faster than people who had to frequently contend with nomadic armies.
@@HistoryClarified This explanation assumes all people have the same genetic/intellectual endowment. It's possible the geography also endowed the peoples of western Europe with special intellectual gifts that delivered better inventions.
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 Yes, but does your claim have any evidence?
@@mohammadtausifrafi8277 S.He is racist...
@@ddkay6478
that's what I thought too
Here’s another reason why Europeans were better at guns: their availability of saltpeter.
The most effective gunpowder is composed of three-fourths saltpeter mixed with charcoal and sulfur. And how do you get saltpeter? Most commonly at the time, from actual Bullsh*t. Or manure...
Europe, comparatively speaking, had more domesticated animals to use than China, despite the fact that China invented gunpowder in the first place.
So therefore, Europe had plenty of saltpeter available to create more potent gunpowder than the Chinese and thus had better guns.
thats true, especially in india, the largest reserve of saltpeter in the world was colonized by britain for exactly that reason, so they were able to import literal shiploads, other places had a much more difficut time accessing a reliable source. which was one of the reasons britain was able to dominate so much of he world at that point in time. they simply just made gunpowder way more difficult for anyone else to get
@@dothedewinme India was a colonial empire's crown jewel.
@ *AMERICA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT*
this is a legitimate geographical reason, not a vague jab at dense populations and agriculture, which damn near everywhere in the ancient world had. You have a point, unlike the video
Saltpeter is made from urine dude.
I would like to point out that the wagon wall you mentioned as defense against nomads was actually used against heavy calvary in central Europe (Bohemia to be exact). It was used but Hussites against crusaders as the Hussites didn't have heavy calvary and this was easy and available way of countering that. You can clearly see hussite's flag with their symbol in the picture. (chalice of wine). And Hussites were also early adopters of guns. And fun fact the word pistol is derived from Bohemian word for flute (píšťala). Any way great video.
Thanks. Yes, the Hussites used the tactic in the 15th century to great effect, but many armies adopted it (or a style of moveable walls) in the 16th and 17th centuries. Hussite images are the widest available and best demonstrate the tactic. But, in the end, they were definitely early in that regard. In fact, a lot of Eastern Europe and Ottoman accounts of it called them Wagon Tabors, on loan from Bohemia.
Wow I didn’t know that about the Etymology of the word « Pistol », a Slavic term.
@@HistoryClarified it was used by nomads against the eastern roman empire centuries prior.
Hussites did have heavy cavalry, they just used it in a quite different way, mainly for counterattacks.
Surprisingly civilized comment section.
Fuck you!!!!
@@macmiller1678 XD
@@macmiller1678 FUCK YOU TOO
Well fuck all a ya! How bout dat.
🤣🤣🤣🤪🖕
That drummer is priceless. He instantly regreated joining the army.
*ahem* feudal levies
No regerts
The drummer🥁 was effective at boosting the morale of the soldiers.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
The drummer was used for lots of things, usually high born multilingual, march up the the town gate beating the drum, to parley the surrender, ideal draftsman, spy etc.
I finally found an answer to a thing ive been wondering for years!. Really well explained
Thank you! I really like how Kenneth Chase looks at geography instead of the typical "Europeans had the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution" answers.
but he isn't telling the truth
Same here. This is such a clear and coherent explanation for this
But its blatantly wrong.
Lets just quickly look at the point about nomads. Bough China, India, Persia, and Europe have been invaded raided and conquered by nomads. In fact since nomads are nomads and travel they have no problem crossing the euroasitaic step, so all of these places had contact with the same nomads.
This comes across as a red herring or a factor being drawn as the answer. Speaking of nomads and stuff, Viking, etc have looted, pillage Europe and left before an army of heavy inf showed up.
Qing commander: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO! You can't out gun us! We made the gunarinoos!"
British line infantry: "Haha, volley fire go brrrr."
It was the French
@@LeighJFP Surprised the French didn't surrender when they found out someone else had guns.
@dollan song Yeah I know
@sheldon pereira ,Are you sure about that
@@manolisiatrou5537 They really couldn't conquer all of china they tried and failed remember? even taking 1 city was almost too much for Britain, we call that place Hong Kong. The Boxer aka shaolin rebels had the Europeons on the ropes they had to have an entire world war of effort just to keep china down. With resources from even the USA diverted to keep a few coastal cities in China under Euro dominance.
Such an underrated channel. Reminds me of history with hilbert.
Goes very much into depth while still holding the viewers attention
"Reminds me of history with hilbert." Oh god no. i hope he is not like that pushover. Who defendshimself by playing by the enemies rules, does Hilbert not realize that the BBC doesnt care about the truth they will slander him for knowing and sharing british history no mater what his poltical views are?
A little off topic, but imagine spending like 2000 years building a wall to keep enemies out but now people can just fly over it lmao
Or just go under it like the US/Mexico border. But the Great Wall served its purpose for many many years.
Or just ride around it
China is like 95% han Chinese and 5% basically han Chinese. Wall on top of deportation with extreme prejudice and no retarded birthright citizenship = impossible for foreigners to subvert China.
@@GhostNinjaTactical Not really considering the Mongols would go right around the wall *and conquer China*
@@andrewlove3686 That sounds like a good recipe for cultural stagnation.
so russia went the stubborn way and settled so much that the nomads couldnt move.
genius.
The USA can also attest to the fact that armed settler colonization is really, really effective given a bit of patience. By 1700, the Russian streltsy core didn’t hurt, either, though it was a bit after the ascendency of the Western European powers.
sheldon pereira effective isn’t a moral evaluation. Colonizer societies used settler colonization with the express purpose of conquering new lands and destroying the Native populations. Horrific, yes, but as a tactic, it worked.
@sheldon pereira should of fought harder
@sheldon pereira hell for the effectiveness of europeans we basically had the world by the balls at one point in the 17-1800's
@sheldon pereira When was Japan colonized?
One thing that you missed was that the British longbow, which had taken Europe by storm a few centuries before thanks to its effectiveness against plate armor, caused the near extinction of the yew tree. Longbows required the right kind of wood in order to be effective, and that right kind of wood started to become scarce once everyone and their mother started using them. The early arquebus, on the other hand, could be easily made with readily available materials and didn't require the years of training that the longbow did in order to become proficient with its use.
>Longbows
>Effectiveness against plate armour
Bows can't pierce plate armour buddy
@@elusiveshadow5848Unless you got it from wish
As an aspiring writer, this has given me a much larger appreciation for geography and will definitely have a role going forward
I must say, I am so impressed by the amount of detail and situational analysis that went into this video. The parts that were often overlooked by countless other researchers and sources were basically all covered, in ten minutes, no less.
Hats off to you, I would genuinely consider this to be one of the best analysis anyone has made on this topic on youtube, or even across multiple platforms.
Russians had the same problems with normads than China but managed to defeat them with their firepower. Europeans had better metalurgy, that's why Asians never went beyond matchlocks on their own. They couldn't make the springs that flintlocks requires so they couldn't fire their guns in Sibéria.
This
European metallurgy was way ahead's of Asias'.
@@joaquinandreu8530 by the thirteenth century it was surpassing all the world in plate maror and other metallic innovations.
I think one thing to consider is Russia's proximity to Europe. This means they had easier access to European technology and weapons. Not only that competition from other European Nations forces them to develop more. Where as China relatively was isolated and secure before Britain came knocking.
Europe is stratified by rivers, mountains, peninsulas and it is difficult for any one people to conquer much of the continent and rule it for any period of time. There was only one Rome and after it's height no Empire rivaled it's size and power, but there were many Chinas and each one was bigger than the last. This stratification meant the development of various Nation States and these Nation States were in constant competition with each other and constantly had to develop military technology and innovations, but also had to develop the political systems to be efficient and capable of supporting the military and also developing economic innovations to finance their militaries. Europe was also blessed with geography and resources that made large and populous Nation States possible as well and could support their innovations.
When you look at China it's massive and controls a vast and open territory. It was much easier for one state to conquer and consolidate this territory. The Chinese were so large they had few real threats after the Mongols and the nation became insular and isolationist and unlike most states in Europe it could do it. It isolated itself to maintain stability. Expanding outwards meant overreaching and destabilizing the realm with costly campaigns. New and foreign ideas could potentially create social up heavel. New ideas threatened the state. Japan also adopted similar policies during the Edo period. The Chinese were more wary of change as it threatened the order of things where as the Europeans had to embrace it in order to one up their rivals. Isolation usually leads to technological stagnation and possibly regression. The Aboriginals of Tasmania actually technologically regressed when they were cut off from mainland Australia.
Remember Navarro Just because the papacy funded these tech developments doesn’t mean religion plays a role in it. Papacy was, at the time, one of the many rival states in Europe, so developing technology is a priority to one-up their local rivals.
ShamanMcLamie can you explain in what regards the Tasmanian aborigines technological regressed from the mainland aborigines?
Forgive me if my information is incorrect because I'm pulling this from memory: A major factor could also be fortifications. The Chinese walls were significantly thicker on average than European walls which made canons less effective. Both the British in the Opium wars and the Japanese in ww2 cited Chinese walls as being one of the biggest challenges with modern (at the time) artillery still taking weeks to crack the walls.
China had kickin' rad fortifications and walls, but once they were pretty well situated as the hegemonic power in Asia, they didn't need to develop weapons that would take on their own style walls. They needed weapons and tactical systems for keeping nomadic peoples away from those walls.
You need to remember that the wall only in some parts is with Stone. Some parts are not that thik, and made of wood and mud. Also the chines wall is a construktion of many walls in diferent lokation and with gabs.
It is posible to go around the wall.
@@BassDec They're not talking about the great wall, they mean fortifications in general
@@ROCKSTARGOD98
I thought that Great Wall-style compressed earth wall was already ancient history by Ming Dynasty. And those newer stone walls were vulnerable against cannon fires just like European counterparts.
I don't think so thay it was a major point. First of all, the major enemy of chinese were mongols, who didn't have fortifications at all. If they had developed their artillery, it would have been stupid move anyway. Meanwhile, there were several reasons why Europe improved their big cannons. As eac state has a lot of fortifications, they strived making powerful artillery in order to breach walls.
short answer: "practice make perfect"
and we had A LOT of occasions to practice on the old continent...
And how are persians or indians not abble to practace?
Also how are you gona explain europians overtaking the world in every other field as well not just weaponry?
Baltu Lielkungs Gunārs Miezis ... I think what you are hinting at has to do with two things: the organ we see with and the seventeenth letter of the alphabet. But people are never supposed to bring that up in polite conversation because we are constantly told everyone is equal.
naa that argument only accounts for like 5 or 10 percent of it. China been a warring nation forever. Their geographical conditions, while not looking like it, are very similar to that of Europe.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 For the Persians, steamrolling weaker societies through numbers isn't really practice. Especially when the Greeks put their foot down.
People get used to war shaped by the circumstances at hand. If I'm a professional soldier in the sengoku jidai, then I will be good at the things that dominate warfare in that area. Getting large amounts of people together and putting castles under siege. I'm not going to move from that and right into blue-water naval warfare as easily.
The reason why is simply due to the arms race and the way wars were fought. The cannon was the answer to sieges which was the majority of medieval warfare and the gun was the answer to knights in their thick plate. Also even the early guns (between the arquebus and the handgonne) you could get 3-4 shots off a minute with some training. Get your guys in a pike formation and the nomads can't get in, if you fear arrows so much, give your guys some proper armor, which is another point, places like China didn't place as big a focus on armor development as the Europeans did, wanting to keep lighter armor for the sake of mobility (even if in reality it was negligible results) and cheaper armor since they had to issue their soldiers some unlike in Europe where people had to buy their own. The point of a gun becomes meaningless if you can already punch through the vast majority of armor with bows, unlike in Europe where even the longbow started to struggle. Philosophy I believe is the ultimate factor, how did they approach warfare.
Well, except that plate armor was developed in response to firearms.
Even some armor had "proof" (a bullet dent) to show its effectiveness, plus pikes and halberds already did a good job on heavy cavalry.
Most of the time, it was due to expense-to-result being too high that knights were dropped.
i reckon it was more due to the fact that European castle walls were less thicker than Chinese walls. Meaning that the Chinese didn't find much use against enemy castles during sieges.
@@powerist209 Stop claiming that plate armour was developed in response to firearms, it's incorrect.
Plate armour was developed to protect against crossbow and heavy bow arrow fire. Plate armour preceded firearms.
The advantage of early firearms compared to bows and crossbows was not in accuracy or rate of fire (being inferior), but rather in greater armour penetration capability and ease of use (bowmen had to be trained and skilled in archery to be effective).
Knights/armoured heavy cavalry declined because pike and shot destroyed them, hence why by the Napoleonic era all cavalry was comparably light to medieval knights (be it lancers or cuirassiers, none had more then a breastplate equipped).
wanting to keep lighter armor for the sake of mobility (even if in reality it was negligible results
the problem with armor is not the weight but rather the heat , this is what limit the mobility of heavy armored troupes
@Δημήτρης Ντάβος Even longer. I recently looked up ancient armor out of curiosity and they DID in fact have something that would be considered plate armor. It was far more basic but the similarity is remarkable. The Chinese simply never innovated this concept as much as the Europeans, I don't really know why but it was probably because they issued armor and that limited innovation as it was expensive to pursue while in Europe every small duke was trying to get the edge over their neighbour and had to take risks. You had more field battles and less sieges and while Japan pursued fast and agile warfare, after the fall of the Roman Empire Europeans were in a state that was truly unique. Japan could be united multiple times, Europe never was. There was always someone arround to stop the next rising power. I mean, look at the UK. If we were to exclude the US from the war, the facists would have still weakened it's empire to the point where it eventually collapsed and Russia itself could only control Europe for a short amount of time though that sounds crude, essentially, no single power can rile over Europe from Europe itself and that means that Europe still to this day tries to do things that are not conventional like creating a semi political hybrid union of independent and yet cooperation nation states.
This video was amazing. You started out strong and managed to keep me interested throghout the whole thing - really great writing, delivery and pasing. At no point did the video feel drawn out or rushed. I honestly dont have any solid feedback to give ya my dude; I just really liked your video jaja. You got a new sub =D
Thank you! I've been working to be more organized and more mindful about what images I use to illustrate my points. I'm glad that you liked it.
The trend identified whereby Eastern Europe adopted some innovations from Western Europe but remained less fully modernized isn't just true for gun powder but for countless historical trends and is still true today in many regards thus a military explanation tied to nomads isn't entirely fitting.
The omission of the Ottoman Empire from a conversation about Early Modern gunpowder warfare is also a huge oversight. It complicates this theory massively.
The Ottomans spent a lot of the 1500-1700s adopting wagon and cavalry tactics, fighting into the bordering both sides niche. The video may not have covered them sufficiently, but that would be my error, not Chase’s. As always, I recommend people read the whole book.
Geography and culture both play a huge factor.
Q: Why was Europe better with guns?
A: Everything is better with guns
Murica
Take school for example.
@@arakami8547 You mad lad...
@@ResistTheGreatReplacementEU Go to school my friend. If you cant do that, at least get out of your mothers basement and touch some grass.
And no my friend, racial diversity is not a weakness. Neither is it a strength. Its an irrelevant fact. However unity in values is a strength. Your incel mind probably cannot understand this, then again thats why we say kids should stay out of politics.
guns just dont require gunpowder though. it requires skills in metallurgy . ARMOR has always been more used in europe than anywhere else. the heavily armored greek hoplites defeated the lightly armored persians. it is geography. the vast landscapes of persia and china , light armor was preffered. in the smaller countries of europe, this meant less distance and more compact fighting, so armor was acceptable.. this led to more development in armor via better metallurgy/blacksmithing skills/technology. more armor also meant guns were developed better to take down heavily armored knights.
Makes perfect sense ......adaptation!
Even europeans were using old war tactics such as putting dung and wee on their blades, arrows and pikes to cause infections
Why guns took off so well in Europe:
"You see that knight that we can only defeat with blunt and heavy weapons? Just take this aim at him and pull the trigger"
Boom, knights useless.
Edit: I'm back 7 months later and I cringe at this comment.
I like how Chase does link the rise of European firearm warfare with the already ongoing arms race between missiles and armored knights.
Knights were allready useless, a guy who by contract didnt have to spend more than a few days in the field and who was countered by a long stick.
The importance of cavalry was largely hyped up by the noblemen to make people think they were important. Which is why every army in europe was mostly infantry
@@CrowColdblade knights didn't just fight on horseback. There are lots of examples where they fought as men-at-arms.
But then the question is; "Why did europians have the best nights?'
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 I know in Europe, the development of the fully armored knight was basically just to say fuck you to archers, I'm not sure if east asia found a different way to say fuck you to archers or were to busy saying fuck you to the nomads.
Sorry, your thesis is not convincing.
The Japanese were heavy users of arquebusiers by 1590 in the Imjin War with Korea.
YET, despite their familiarity with the weapon, they never improved on it -- no flintlock, no minie ball, no cartridges, no repeating rifles.
From 1600 to 1940, there was such an explosion in firearms technology in Europe and the US. From handguns to artillery the improvements kept coming.
Meanwhile, back in China, India, Ottoman Empire, and Japan -- no such developments (I think that is true, not validated).
Your idea that facing nomads prevented development is silly. Not true for Japan, or Choson for instance -- or for Siam, Khmer, or Vietnam, either.
I think other factors were critical --
1. Printing press with wood block pictures and diagrams. Gunsmiths in different areas could compare designs, and improve.
2. Free enterprise - gunsmiths were private artisans, hired by peoples and states alike. In Asia, gunsmiths were employed by the state, and I don't think they were allowed to be hired out.
3. The constant state of warfare somewhere in Europe. If England and France were not at war, then Florence at war with Milan, or Austria with someone, etc. The wars were endless. SO, lots of opportunity for development.
I think that Asia didn't further develop gunpowder tech because of trade and colonization from Europeans, already spreading and trading their superior guns. you know the saying, "if it isn't broken, don't bother fixing it" especially since the guns that they already had didn't offer much advantage since Bows and the like were much superior to the small cannons and rockets they were familiar with.
Beretta as is first order in 1526, the oldest firearms in business, i mean that also those war fueled economy in a more industrious way.
Very good points. I, also, found the argument extremely unconvincing. I would only add that many of differences you point out are largely driven by religion (culture being downstream from religion).
A more accurate nomad hypothesis- The horse archers won:
China- There are depictions of Jurchen horse archers charging firearm wielding Ming infantry. The horse archers won and established the Qing dynasty (~1640). If you are a member of a relatively small ethnic group that conquered a large country with a horse and bow, are you going to like firearm development? No.
India- Invaded by Turco-Mongolian armies in the mid 1500s, who established the Mughal empire. Central Asian military traditions were all about the horse and bow. Naturally, they would stifle firearm development.
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"The Japanese were heavy users of arquebusiers by 1590 in the Imjin War with Korea.
YET, despite their familiarity with the weapon, they never improved on it -- no flintlock, no minie ball, no cartridges, no repeating rifles."
He's actually more or less correct about Japanese firearms and why they stagnated. Do you know why the Tokugawa ruled for 200 years in peace rather getting wiped out after a single generation like the Oda and Toyotomi? It's because they demilitarized their vassals, took away all of their guns, and enforced ritualistic spending to weaken them. 200 years of peace and stagnation...
@@distilledwater8871
So Japan doesn't have pressing need to create cheaper and shootier guns every year, unlike Europe and later North America.
And 200+ years of isolation policy under Tokugawa Shogunate must have hobbled lots of innovation.
One major thing you are overlooking is the invention of the Matchlock itself. Before it came about Europe had had firearms for more than a century and didn't do that much with them. When the Matchlock came around is when firearms started to spread. Japan had access to Chinese firearms almost as soon as they were invented yet didn't bother, but when the Portuguese showed up with Matchlocks they quickly adopted them in mass.
Ottomans had gunpowder and din't had to fight of nomades, but still din't won the arms race.
they didnt innovate becoz they became lazy by taxing silk and spice route and be content with their hookah and slaves.Europe always had an existential threat
Dude, nice video. But the info is outdated, the Chinese did develop the potential of gunpowder weapons to the max especially due to nomad invasions and European incursions, in 16th and 17th century the Chinese did even reverse engineered European firearms and develop some indegineus designs however during the Qing Dynasty firearms development halted. You should really checkout the two Chinese military manual called "Wu Jing Zhong Yao/武經總要『Complete Essentials for the Military Classics』" and "Bubishi/武備志『Treatise on Armament Technology or Records of Armaments and Military Provisions』(Known as the Karate Bible).
Grand Moff Tarkin I’ll have to look into those sources, thank you. While I still think Chase needs to be read alongside traditional theories on firearms, you correctly point out that after 17 years, the historiography will need an update.
Grand Moff Tarkin a Chinese infantry manual from 1644 rated Ottoman and then European musketry as the best in class at the time. Would that track with your research? Just curious.
@@HistoryClarified You should also look into the Jixiao Xinshu / 纪效新书 (New Treatise on Military Efficiency) by Qi Jiguang in the mid to late 1500s during the Ming Dynasty. He was a pioneer in volley fire techniques and integration of firearms into Ming military units, especially due to the surge of Wokou pirate raids during the period and provided very detailed information regarding firearms, firearm training, firearm firing failure percentages and rates, and more, mainly from what I believe is due to the trends of the Ming Dynasty's military on the constant decline and reluctance by Ming military officials from integrating firearms into their units, leading to Qi Jiguang to making a very detailed treatise to convince his fellow generals and governors to agree to said integration, which proved effective when many military officials at the time grew interest in his works as a result of his success in using them against the Wokou pirates to be used by Chinese the Korean military units when Japan invaded Korea at the end of the 16th century from 1592 to 1598, which helped influence Korean training methods (especially in melee and hand to hand combat)
Zhongjiang_Liu fascinating. Chase talks about the pirates, but not the level of detail for volley tactics. Thank you for those sources, I’ll have to do a deep dive into them.
@@HistoryClarified No problem
Qi Jiguang goes into detail (I believe it's like 18 chapters long) in his treatise and dedicates quite a bit on not just volley fire, but also various ways within a mere squad of like 10 troops (along with a modified version of the Mandarin Duck formation/squad) to go as far as integrate firearms into that alone. I am glad he rethought his belief into firearms (he used to be adamant about their use like his contemporaries), but after he suffered defeat after defeat without firearms against the Wokou pirates, he took a reanalysis on them and ended up victorious.
I know a few people who believed it was only the Tang and Song Dynasties who popularized gunpowder firearms (like hand cannons) and after the Yuan took over, minorly integrated firearms, and then from Ming onward, saw a decline, but this is rather false, as I believe Tarkin mentioned, the Ming had their own version of the matchlock musket and even made amazing cannons (the Hongyipao), which used a maximized both iron casted and bronze casted cannon advantages while diminishing both of their disadvantages.
You can argue that fighting styles of combat played a role in guns evolving as well. Europeans used plate armor, a heavy and slow method of combat that makes the usage of guns much more worth the risk in light of reloading times. Chinese used scale armor, a much more mobile and faster armor that would close the gap with a gun user a lot more quickly and counteract reload times. If I were a ranged combatant in china, I would use bows and arrows as they are far faster, and able to pierce scale armor versus spending time reloading guns. Meanwhile in Europe, I would use guns as they would be able to piece plate much more efficiently then an arrow.
Also, walls of castles played a part in guns as well. As you said, cannons were the precursors to matchlock riles in a way. European walls were made of stone, something that would easily shatter if a high velocity ball of metal were to come at it. Meanwhile in china, their walls were a combination of wood and earth compact into hundreds of layers. Cannon fire would bounce right off those walls, making the chinese have an aversion to cannons as a whole and preventing the natural evolution to rifles.
I am a simple man; I see Alatriste, i give a like...
Interesting. I can say that playing Shogun 2 total war guns and cannons were more effective in sieges. In an open field, the slow rate of fire and guns back then slowed my armies ability to maneuver and were rendered to limiting supporting roles.
Otomo gang?
The Japan part makes much more sense than the traditional explanation that states that firearms took out the honour of the Samurai class. Considering firearms were used by them and that the Katana is a sidearms and an expensive one.
Another point to be made about nomads is that the mongol empire effectively ravaged the countries of Eastern Europe, Middle East, and China which severely hampered development during a time when gunpowder weapons were just coming into use. This left Western Europe untouched by horde armies which effectively is another contributing reason for their success in gunpowder weapons.
1453: Ottomon gunpowder cannonade of Constantinople
Europeans: I gotta get me some of that!!
A Chinese military manual in 1644 did still rate Ottoman muskets just barely above European ones, but yeah, but of Chase's thesis is that Europeans were late adopters of firearms but absolutely went all in on them.
the cannon that blasted Constantinople's walls was designed by a Hungarian engineer who had a master idea and was willing to build it for the highest bidder. at that time, the ottomans were the most interested
@@zekun4741 Correct, in fact, the engineer first had an audience with the eastern roman emperor but he refused.
@@rickbeniers667 in defense of the byzantines, they were pretty broke and shattered by that time
The same sentiment Japanese daimyos had when British gunboats shelled Kagoshima believe it or not.
Chinese nobles and bureaucrats saw offshore bombardments in Opium War and thought it was witchcraft. Japanese daimyos saw it, went starry-eyes and said 'Mom, I want one!'.
Good analysis, I think you touched on a lot of good points, but I think theres another primary reason you left out: the more widespread use of plate armor in Europe. One of the main reasons that the slow, cumbersome, inaccurate firearms of the day began to replace the accurate, light, high rate of fire long bows is because of their effectiveness against men in armor. By virtually every metric, early firearms are inferior to bows, except in their ability to penetrate plate armor. Other parts of the world, China in particular, never really saw the widespread use of plate armor. Therefore in that arena of war, where the bow can kill a man just about as well as a firearm, there really isn't an incentive to start replacing bows with firearms.
I don't agree with that. Plate armour is not the driving force in this discussion. First, a full set of plate armours were rare and were never widely equipped in large scale both in Asian and Europe, they were made for nobles. Second, when facing ranged weapons, plate armour was already challenged by steel crossbow, so if we want to destroy a fully armoured knight, we didn't necessarily need a firearm, not to mention its terrible low accuracy with a late-stage crossbow. Three, the advantage of firearm was about its unbalanced power input-output ratio, which meant continuous firing output. To fire an arquebus, you only need to load some powder and a lead ball and push the trigger, rather than using tons of physical power to load a crossbow or war bow. When we have a weapon that takes little energy to shoot with lower accuracy vs a weapon takes a lot of energy to shoot with higher accuracy, you take the first one because a field battle is usually going to last at least 4 to 5 hours, the advantage of firearms is obvious: you can keep loading and shooting till sunset with a firearm while you will be exhausted after 10 to 15 shoots with war bow (around 7 to 10 mins, 20 to 30 mins for a steel crossbow). if you used all your energy to shot in the first 30 mins, you are really excluded in that battle. To a common infantry back then who were the majority of an army, being shot by a lead ball, arrow or a bolt makes no difference. So how sustainability is the firepower is the key to the equation.
Metal chest plates were effective at protecting from firearms until the late 17th and early 18th century. So meh 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
@Abraham Girt huh ok 🤔🤔🤔
@Abraham Girt don't need to be rude, i conceded your point
@@ViscountNo7 Plate wasn't particularly rare at this point in time. Munitions-grade plate was pretty common, though of inferior quality and coverage.
That's a very good explanation for why Europe is famous for guns. That can also be used to explain why the industrial revolution happened in western and central Europe. Because the continuous investment in firearms can actually improve the technology in one country.
I think this explanation reflects the post modern thought that the success of the west the last 500 years is a coincidence. Not of own merit. I don’t agree with that.
You can not separate guns and gunpowder from the general boom of innovations in western society.
Ask yourself, what encourages innovations, or what discourages them?
The cultural aspect have been downplayed by the post modern universities, at first because of necessity, because it is not the whole truth, but it has gone too far when it is removed completely as a factor.
I think the importance of institutions and embracement of an objective truth, and relatively decentralised religion (Lutheran), removal of clan rule, rule of law, European rules of war, and other “soft” features of western culture are very undervalued as explanations at this point. Culture in turn may be affected by geographical phenomenons and so on but that does not change my point.
Geography and warring plays a part in this innovation, but by those metrics many other civilisation should be equally successful. They are not.
The first firearm was used during later tang era, a war lord li ke yong’s army used it against another war lord zhu wen ,but fire arm back then were very much undeveloped.it merely scared zhu wen’s army but failed to do any real damage.
Congrats on the 10k man! You deserve it.
Thank you! I can't even believe it to be honest. I hope things are going well with you.
History Clarified It’s about time! And yeah things are fine. I hope they are for you too.
If you looking for the quick answer it at 2:18. Europe at the time that gun powder was introduce has a lot of small kingdoms at constant war, in such a hostile environment innovation is the only way to survive especially in military tech and theory.
And the biggest reason that far east Asia didn't quickly innovate in military tech was due to the hegemonic power of imperial China, basically they were the USA of the ancient world keeping everything at status quo. Why innovate when you have the manpower and resources to crush any one that challenges you.
That's pretty much what I figured. Why change when you're the biggest fish in the pond?
china had a rediclious ammount of civil wars though
Wrong China did have firearm Units en mass but they were relegated tldr the equivalent of HouseCarl aka Private banner armies. This analogy also is bad because Sweden had a light built Well trained army of Caroleans that fought in the 30 years war jn 16th century not all european aies are heavily built up.
Seeing as how strongly geography influences race, religion and culture, they're hardly irrelevant factors.
Europe had many competing small and medium states.
the holy roman empire was a lot of more than only today's germany..
Chinese soldiers weren't as heavily armored as European soldiers so bows and crossbows work just as well if not better than earlier guns. The Ming actually progressed field artillery quite a bit and were able to effectively use them against the Qing at the beginning. The Qing later also had successfully subjugated or vassalized most of its neighbors and saw no need to advance weaponry which could be potentially be used against them.
Dump the background music. It makes it difficult to focus on the quiet voice.
Exactly what I wanted to say. Upgrade the mic and ditch the rambling piano music - it adds nothing
*to an otherwise fascinating and well-made video!
To add on, especially when speaking about artillery, I find Professor Tonio Andrade’s hypothesis regarding Chinese walls very convincing. Chinese city fortifications were massive, especially when compared to their European counterparts. The Theodosian walls, which were thick by European standards would only add up to one third of the width of the walls of Xi’an. The walls of Xi’an were around 22 meters thick, over 10 meters tall, slightly sloped to aid in projectile deflection and also constructed with a rammed Earth core which made it more resistant to shock. The standard of Chinese fortifications ruled out all canons as a feasible and practical siege weapon and so most canons were relegated to anti-personnel roles. There were accounts of Japanese artillery teams taking days to rip through one of these walls with WW2 firepower...
Good article . I think a contributing fact was the evolution of the command and control system that established a chain of command from general down through the Sargeants to the private. If the head was cutoff the body did not necessarily die as it had Leadership in depth . It also allowed manuver elements and the choreography that required planning as well as timing . Most armies attacked in mass in large units. The ability manuver individual elements and Leadership in depth eventually gained not technical advantage but tactical advantage.
It’s an interesting thesis although I fell it is lacking. It leaves out cultural importance’s and efficiencies as well as the differences in armor.
Armor is also dependent on geopolitics and available resources. East Asian armor are lighter because their main enemies (nomads) are mobile cavalrymen, so they can’t adopt heavier armor that are too heavy for their horses or that basically cooks their wearer alive when fighting across the deserts and steppes, even if it affords better protection. So, no plate armor like the ones in Europe.
The Chinese also had the crossbow and that it can penetrate armor. But what good is it to develop armor against crossbow for the Chinese? The Chinese fielded crossbowmen, but the nomads to their north don’t.
Unconvincing.
Most European societies had large numbers of light cavalry skirmishers who could forage and ravage the landscape as well as any Tartar.
An iron spearhead is 99% as effective as a steel spearhead but an iron firearm will blow up in your face so you *have* to make your guns out of steel.
( Cannon were often made out of brass or bronze because these metals don't have hairline cracks in them like wrought or cast iron but bronze and brass were even more expensive than steel)
So the question is why did European societies have better steel than their counterparts elsewhere.
Steel was being made from Spain to India as early as the era of the Achaemenids. They used charcoal to achieve the very high temperatures and could only heat a couple of pounds of steel at a time. This was enough to make an ornate sword for a Legate or Satrap but to equip thousands of musketeers you have to make steel firearms on a much greater scale and for that you have to have access to large forests to produce the huge quantities of charcoal.
After the Black Death had killed 40% of the population there was more land than there were people to work on it and forests and woodlands grew throughout Europe. In the 14th and 15th centuries people in France Germany and Bohemia were able to use these resources to make steel in the required amounts for larges scale firearm usage .
After 1492 the influx of New World gold and silver enabled the Habsburgs to pay for this early military industrial complex.
Christendoms great rival was the Islamic World which was always handicapped by a lack of timber vis a vis their European contemporaries, this was also a factor in other areas such as shipbuilding.
Tldr:guns have to be made out of steel and whoever had the most forests/ charcoal would always have a pronounced technological edge in steel making over their rivals.
Since you like diving into logistics and geography chat, I think you would definitely like the full book by Chase.
I would also comment that when comparing Europe to China, the political, and more importantly cultural divide como go from a lack of a singular or unified government, allowing the central and Western Europeans to have the large slow armies, while the ones bordering nomads struggled to do the same. If China was to have the northern parts be separate nations, the southern and more fertile areas would possibly have developed firearms at a similar pace as Europeans, while the north was in a similar state as Eastern Europe
I suspect one factor not touched on was religious tourism. In the 12th century, Europe saw a wave of religious tourism with folks wanting to visit holy sites for various reasons. The way you could attract more religious tourists (and their money) to your site was to have a magnificent cathedral. For that, you needed amazing architecture, stunning windows, and well-tuned bells. There were even cathedral bell competitions and certain tunes your bells were supposed to be able to play. This meant you needed high levels of quality control in bronze casting so your bells would have clear, beautiful tones no matter how cold or hot it got, able to take the punishment of frequent ringing without cracking. And those same levels of quality control gave Europeans a leg up on casting cannons that wouldn't break under the stress of frequently being fired.
Interesting, I hadn’t heard that as a reason for European metallurgical advancement, thank you for that. I would still argue that the prevalence of siege and pitched battle warfare still made cannons more advantageous for Europeans than armies that needed more strategic mobility.
Great explanation, very well researched! Thanks!
>"May have nothing to do with race."
>"May have everything to do with Geography."
>Ignores that Race is literally shaped by Geography.
I think he means in the micro sense. Take the Carpathians for example in Silesia. Same "race" but different nations and tactics. Macro sense is probably the Urals or Gibraltar controlling Mediterranean access.
This is Barris brought me here. Great video! I learned quite a bit!
I’m glad to have you here! I hope you continue to enjoy the content!
I really like how you sum everything up at the end of the video, it’s very helpful. Great video!
At 2:13 the most effective way to scare off your enemies… just taunt a second time.
This explains the questions I struggled to figure out. It makes so much logical sense.
Europe was constantly fighting, China on the other hand had long periods of peace.
Armchair warrior that is certainly a part of it, and hence why Chase also gives the Japan case study.
Does internal rebellions count as peace? plus I wouldn't say that they had long period of external peace.
China was constantly at war with the nomadic groups though...
Armchair warrior not really, you had the mongols, then the nomadic tribes, eventually the Europeans and the Japanese, and now, itself
@@MetalboxwithKanon Yes, rebellious armies are generaly poorly equiped, small sized and dependant on internal political support. The confucian philosophy pacified the peoples dominated by China, which eventually reduced the competition on many areas, contrary to Europe that had many countries, with competing ideas, technology etc
Rrally well researched and edited video!
Thank you! If you are interested in more, I do recommend checking out Kenneth Chase's "Firearms: A Global History to 1700" in its entirety.
This video really gave me fresh perspective. Hitting the like n sub buttons
japan got access to western firearms in the 1500s but had access and used to Chinese and korean style guns since the 1300s
Superb video! It's abundantly clear you're well-educated and know exactly what you're talking about, and you put stuff I already know about into a new perspective. Definitely subscribing! Keep up the good work! Also, great movie selection, lol.
Europeans always were the best in inventing new things. The other ones could only copy from them. The best things always came from England and Central Europe or northern Europe. That’s the fact.
The best steel for cannons and swords came from Spain. French or German cannons would explode if they tried to use the same charge as a Spanish made cannon.
Don't forget the European "inventors" that stole concepts from other groups of people and passed it off as their own.
To be fair a lot of inventions came from China and the middle east early on, but since the last 2500 years that's probably true
@@cappuccinosnephew1382 they improved those inventions and innovated it to a different level
I see someone's read "Guns, Gems, & Steel"
Europe is just a massive pvp server
But when you die you don't go back to the lobby
@@Notsofunnyman217 or do you?
I have a memory of being taught decades back a theory that it's to do with glass.
Damp grey Europe got very good at glass for windows.
This was a multi step manufacturing process with early crucibles.
It also utilised metal tubes of narrow and large calibre, all of which made for a solid technological leg up when the fall of Constantinople showed what gunpowder could achieve.
Old theory that apperently has no internet footprint(good luck googling glass cannon), so I might be talking about something half remembered, or dismissed more recently.
This video seeks to explain why they needed larger cannons and why it was useful to their style of warfare, but I'm seeing multiple people comment that the bell and glass industries are how they built cannons so well and how they translated so easily into large cannon crafting and production.
Yes I was aware of that.
The whole of 14th century Europe became acutely aware of what a Cannon did at Constantinople.
Then I suppose a lot of powerful people were pleasantly surprised that lots of their cathedrals came with a cannon factory attached to them.
There's also this huge mining area in Europe which was fought over and over, which had easily mineable metals to make guns. Other countries and peoples didn't have this easy access to iron and chemicals etc.
Yeah, I don't cover physical geographical resources, but that is definitely a factor. Shoot, many historians believe easy coal deposits near the surface do a lot to explain Britain's head start for the industrial revolution.
Otomo clan : anyway i start buying macthloook form portuguese and blasting
A lot of the asian countries start up their own arquebus production. A matchlock arquebus is pretty simple, you need to know how to make a metal tube with a few holes.
In using this for my final work from European studies. Thanks, mate!
Lucia Soósová I’m happy to help and glad you enjoyed it! Kenneth Chase’s “Firearms to 1700” made up a big chunk of this video if you want to check that out as well.
Than you will disgrace Europe.
You will get a good grade sure, repating the party line always gets you good grades but its not right.
Europe outpaced the rest of the world in almost all fields of technology.
Exactly. How do these points work when asking why europian invented their ... ?
If we are to say that Europe was so blessed by geography that you can answer - "geography" - when asking why they suceeded at something, than surely europians are gods children destined to rule the world if they have been so blessed by gods.
@Cruiser North America is very good yes. But not as good as Europe pre modern era.
@Cruiser no it doesnt. Before the europeans came the americas had no horses or many other domesticatable animals which are essential for civilization building
@We all die Anyway what in it is false?
@We all die Anyway actually its fact. Alpachas were the only domestic animals pre horse introduction. Once they were introduced, the comanches mastered them and literally caused the proliferation of the 6 shot pistol
Europe not being united into one massive centralised state helped as well. It enforced hyper competition on the states where if you fell behind you would more than likely lose the next war.
great video but you need more video clips instead of a loop, as well as some still shots that are referenced in the essay and have some relevance. The sound could be better, if sharpened up the music could be louder and clearer without taking away from the voice audio. Finally do the audio in more takes so your inflection and cadence is easier to digest.
keep up the great work, if you work on it you could make a full-time living out of this
This is good and fair advice, thank you.
What movies did you get the clips from? I want to watch them!
Another seems"Cromwell" with Richard Harris & Alec Guinness
Another one is "Alatriste". (The one of the guns with sticks to rest while aiming, a lot of pikes, and people with big hats)
"Why was Europe better with guns?" Here's a really easy answer: given enough time, someone had to be.
This leaves so many questions. Why didn't the Ottomans keep up with Europe then ? Why didn't that trickle into the middle east ? Why didn't India (which had political and geographical conditions like Europe) modernize and innovate ? These are questions that can't simply be answered by taking recourse to a simplified idea of geographic determinism. Moreover, how would you explain instances where European armies were actually defeated by Asian armies in battle ? There are a bunch of such instances. The Japanese weren't the first to defeat the Russians in battle in the far east, the Qing dynasty fought a series of wars against Russia in the 17th century which they largely won. Europe underwent profound social and cultural changes which created an environment of innovation and scientific temperment which Confucian China and late medieval India did not have. Add to this the negative impact of the Mongol invasions which saw much of scientific knowledge being lost as a result of their invasions, you have a scenario in which Asia gets pushed back by at least a century behind Europe. The Mughals for their part fell to the Marathas who for the most part did not bother to invest in developing science and technology and relied extensively on imported firearms, looted firearms and mobile cavalry tactics. Persia went through a prolonged period of total anarchy with a series of turkic dynasties ruling over it, where Persian culture and science was left in the margins.
I don't think the video and Chase entirely discount political and cultural conditions. Hence the Japan example. It had the same conditions as Europe, led to the same innovations during a time of war, and then during a prolonged time of peace, they fell far behind. As far as the gunpowder empires and the Ottomans, Chase goes into more detail, but having to contend with the Mongols and later Khanates was, in his opinion, a major factor in them falling behind Europe. Not just for the science they took or destruction they did, but also in how they forced nearby settled societies to adapt militarily to them. I still believe people need to read the Chase thesis and add geographical considerations into their analysis for the problem.
How did Russia loose in Asia? Simple their population is focused in Europe, it comes down to logistics.
The Ottomans were becoming a backward state between 1500-1600 with a lot of external and internal struggle. Why didnt India modernize? Good question, as one of the oldest civilizations they have very little innovations during their entire excistence and the ones they get credit for are questionable. Most European losses in Asia came because a single boat (or more) with man cant beat the army of a large country. Even today it is said that the USA is the only country capable of decently fighting a long distance war. It also really helped that Europe had quite a lot of "republics". 1000 citizens probably can think of a better idea than 1 single noble man and in republics citizens had a lot more chances in life.
@@jemoedermeteensnor88 Between 1600-1700*. The Ottomans were still on the rise and politically and militarily ahead of their European counterparts in the 1500s (Süleyman the magnificent brought the state to its zenith during his reign 1520-1566), it was with the conclusion of the Long Turkish war in 1606, which ended in a draw and the subsequent treaty of Zsitvatorok, where the Ottomans and Hapsburgs now had to address each other as equals, rather than the sultan as the emperor's peer, that it became evident that the Europeans had caught up.
@@LORDMEHMOODPASHA Yes you got the date correct (and i was wrong), but early on they were phenominal, around 1500-1600 they were just good because they were big.
It was definitely culture, not geography, that primarily drove the change.
Europe had an entirely different approach to the world around them than anyone else. We had constant wars between different cultures, driving a strong doctrine of innovation.
We also had Christianity, which has a unique perspective on the relationship between the divine and the material.
Where Chinese theology treated the material world as mystical and constant, as something to meditate upon, or where Islam decided that understanding the material world could only be done through the word of God, Christianity believed the material world to belong to humanity, and studying it to be the only path to understanding the mind of God.
Europeans were simply set up to use the material world in a better way than any other cultural grouping.
Still find it crazy how long it took for firearms technology to advance to what it is today. But guessing thats more down to the types of powder they used and the innovation of "smokeless" cleaner burning powder took a while.
The reason is simple. Europe was and still is fractured. Competing kingdoms and nation state constantly competing with each other and therefore in constant arms race. In Asia, China was a monolith so there was order. On the whole, there were fewer battles, skirmishes and wars in far east than there was in the Europe. If Japan wanted to invade Korea they needed permission from China and had to be careful. There was tributary system and Korean Kings were elected from Chinese Emperor. Vietnam was subdued by Chinese for 1000 years. Only threat was the Mongols, and the only time in medieval history where China suffered utter defeat was during Genghis/Kublai Khan's time and the Jurchen/Manchu invasion, and this technically the Chinese fault because of corruption and less expenditure on the military. After the Mongol empire disintegrated, Mongols was slowly being assimilated and absorbed into the regions they once conquered. Every major Chinese dynasty lasted roughly 200 - 300 years or so. Thus there was a period of stability and peace and they focus on agricultural production, and commercial production like tea, silk, porcelain. Up til 1830 - 1840, China made up 1/3 of the world's GDP from tea and porcelain exports. British eventually attacked China because Opium war. The UK consumed so much sugar and tea that they didn't have the silver to pay for it so they decided to smuggle and opium and got the local hooked on it. It's ironic because today UK has a huge epidemic narcotics problem. Heroin addiction and such. They reaped what they sowed.
I think that constant warfare was certainly a factor for driving innovation, hence the Japan example of losing the race during an age of peace, but I still find Chase's theory interesting in how constant heavy and infantry warfare was the ticket. Even during intense periods of warfare, gunpowder blocks didn't work as well for China.
There's no need for heavy infantry on the field if there were less wars. If you study the Imjin War, one of the bloodiest wars in history involving China, Korea, and Japan there was certainly large companies of heavy Japanese heavy infantry, heavy Chinese calvary and Korean warships. They usually don't fight huge wars but when they do, the scale and massive deaths dwarfs that of Europe. The Japanese fielded arquebus, Koreans had the turtle warships, and Chinese brought in heavy calvary and artillery pieces. So they had to drag shit load of people, supplies and equipment. The landscape included mountains, grassland, forest, and sea - so you can imagine the logistics involved. Where Europe had numbers in the realm of thousands to tens of thousands, Asian wars involving hundreds of thousands if not millions. Again, Europe was advance in military innovation but China was mostly focus on GDP. They focus on developing silk, tea, porcelain, lacquer ware, and other products. European wanted to go to China because they were producing consumer goods. You never heard of any Chinese merchants travelling to Europe for anything during those days. The reason China was rich was because they are more focus on development, public works, industry. There were few rotten emperors in later periods of each dynasty (the spoiled teenage brat emperor) that cause the collapse, but mostly it's fairly orderly and less chaotic. I think today's China is not that much different from yesterday's China. They went from 3rd world impoverish country after WWII to become 2nd largest economy. It's just coming back in full circle. The US spends $700B in defense, that's more than the next 16 countries combined. Look at what China is producing, high-speed rail, new bridges, roads, airports, towns, metro, and other infrastructure. It spends very little on the military budget in terms of % of its entire GDP, even though it's the second largest military after US. American infrastructure is crumbling, no high-speed rail, no bullet trains. The American airports are crappy compared to ones in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and China. The primary education in US is sad too. It ranks like 26th or 27th in the world stage when it comes to reading, writing and mathematics. Most of the top 10 countries in the PISA rankings are in East Asia or Scandinavia or central Europe. Why? because they don't spend so much on military defense budget and actually try to improve the life its citizens. This is what Europe back then did -- spending too much money on arms to pounce the next door neighbour, so they got what they bought - the best weapons that debt can buy them. Most of Europe was in debt, whether it was France, Britain, Germany, Spain, etc. If it wasn't for slave labour and colonization to help produce the silver/gold to finance their war campaigns, Europe overall would be like Greece of today - overspending for wrong reasons and no incentive to save.
I don't disagree with much of what you are saying, but I don't think that discredits Chase. If Europe bordered nomads, they would have been behind relative to what actually happened.
Russian empire was constantly bordering Nomads. The Mongols took Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, etc. but yet Russia was able to field guns and artillery like its counter Western part. Russia was involved in Napoleonic wars, WWI, WWII, and they pretty conquered its way into Kazhakstan and Siberia and Mongolia. They were one of the survivors of Mongol conquest, so I don't know why Chase's theory has any bearings on Russia. And the idea that using firearms against a mobile nomadic people is not feasible is false. If you ever study the nest of bees, which virtually a hand-held multirocket launcher, it was used against the Mongols for psychological effect. If you ever watch Deadliest Warrior episode where Musketeers vs Ming Warriors, they had demonstration of that weapon. So I don't how Chase's theory has any bearing on that. The Chinese also had the 3-barrel pole gun, landmines, naval mines fueled by gunpowder. It's nothing new that they haven't tried. I think it's just you become complacent if you don't have to fight anybody or less fighting. During the Qing dynasty (last imperial dynasty of China), the land encompass, southern Siberia (including Vladiovostok), all of Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, and parts of Northern Korea. It was so huge that no Asian neighbours dare attack them until the later 19th century when Imperial Japan modernized its military and invaded Manchuria. When you're a monopoly or monolith, and no one dares attack you, you have less incentive to spend resource in innovating military equipment. When the Brits and French sacked the Old Summer Palace in 1861, they were surprised that the Chinese armory had so much guns but they did not use it because 1) the rulers of that time were of Jurchen/Manchu origin (not Han Chinese) and they, like the traditional Samurais, prefer the bow and arrow and horseback archery. It was just the way of life for them and they were less incline to learn firearms, and I guess 2) up until that point no one has ever dared attacked the main center of the Chinese empire, so they were unprepared for an opponent which they've never fought before.
Chase is looking at strategic uses, not a single battlefield fight. To fight a nomadic army, it is hard to field large numbers of infantry and heavy artillery. Nomadic armies don't have to give battle and get bogged down the way infantry and artillery dependent armies would until the logistics and technology caught up.
Even Eastern Europe, which yes, adopted guns, still had to hold on to larger numbers of light cavalry and war wagons, which slightly delayed their full conversion compared to Western Europe.
Chase is arguing that Europe was already winning by the 1500's and that is why he focuses on geography. At the point, I would take Spain or France over Russia. He also specifies that, yes, by the 1700's and the flintlock, armies were easily able to subdue nomads and gunpowder infantry was logistically and strategically more viable.
I enjoy the background music.
Ancient China and Japan had the perfect conditions for this too. They just squandered it away. Europe had nomads bordering them too from the steppe.
Eastern Europe dealt with them more often, hence more light cavalry, wagon laagers, and slower heavy cannon usage in the East.
sheldon pereira I’d hardly call it peaceful and prosperous. Warlords and warring states and peasant uprisings are not peaceful nor prosperous.
Yeah, Chinese Treasure ships made European sails look like a fishing boat next to a battleship
Kolin Martz Those usually occurred at the ends of dynasties or with a power hungry official. Most of the time China was far more prosperous and peaceful than Europe.
Europe had far less nomadic incursions than China or Persia did. The only states that actually experienced major nomadic invasions in Europe besides those of the early Mongol empire were the Russians who had the benefits of being close to the European power centers, Peter the greats modernization and westernization, luck in that the Poles fell into political and technological stagnation, and the weakening of the Khaganates. And when the Ming Dynasty was threatened by Mongols, Pirates, and rebellions they adopted European guns which were able to defeat and fend off the nomads until the Qing got the guns because someone stole a chicken. Japan also had very advanced arquebus technologies and incorporated them into war. China fell behind because the Qing did not like the idea of more advanced firearms in the hands of Han Chinese, had no need for it, and closed off most of the Ming trade and the Japanese fell behind due to prosperity and isolation after the Imijin War. The Song Dynasty. Was the height of indigenous Chinese invention and if Genghis Khan didn’t exist China would probably have developed much more advanced technology due to the Jin. In short Europe got more advanced weaponry due to geography, luck, nation states, mercantile freedoms, and Christianity and many other civilization had the chance to but couldn’t due to factors really out of their control. It’s not as simple as squandering it.
One word for you good man: Jezzsail! A musketeer is not less or more mobile than any other foot soldier, guns can be easily applied to the tactics of Nomad warfare, the logistics are the critical point. The original purpose of the arquebuse was not to shoot pikemen or knights, muskets became necessary to fight against Reiter type troops who would ride up to formations and unload pairs of wheel lock pistols in to the pike squares. The advantages of a gun are better penetration and less training time, war bows need years of training, arquebuses only weeks. The predominance of fire arms as infantry weapon and development of modern drill are a product of the 80 years war, more precisely the maurician reforms. China simply was never forced to fight any one it could not crush with sheer numbers, also the strong central state prevented near total warfare on the scale of the 30 Years war, 80 years war and the Sengoku Jidai. The Koreans for example used war bows alongside cannons, why? Because in the 17th century a trained bow men was equal if not superior to a musketeer, if you had the time to train them aka longer intervalls of peace. The Europeans began to take over India not with pike and shot, this the mughals could easily match, but with regiments of line infantry and the ability to train them with modern drill, an innovation originating in the Netherlands to fight Spanish tercios.
Can you list all the movies from this video?
What were the movies used for this content love to look them up
Cromwell
The last samurai
Capitán Alatriste
Germs Guns Steel
The geography of Europe lends itself to small countries all fighting each other for supremacy. China’s geography more conducive to one giant country
@@jackm3040 guns germs and steel is a very compelling work of fiction
This video makes me want to play Medieval Total war 2 again.
Nice work!
I mean, it's pretty simple. Outside of the already well-stated weapon vs. armor evolution argument, by allowing the commoners to have firearms, they not only created a gun culture that protected and empowered their people domestically, but also instilled a trained and ready fighting force that further reinforced the use of said firearms in their militaries.
Minute in and like that poor drummer watching everyone around him drop and just pounding a drum lol! GIVE ME A GUN!!!
nah give him a gun and he's a target.
A condense, somewhat simplified version of what Jared Diamond outlines in his book, "Guns, Germs & Steel."
Similar themes, certainly, but this work comes mostly from Kenneth Chase "Firearms to 1700" and I highly recommend the book.
Jared Diamond has the biologist's 30000-feet-view: Eurasia is really one big land mass, with easy movement due to similar latitudes, and throughout history Eurasia has the most resouces, the most animal species which can be domesticated, the most innovations, and brings the most deadly diseases.
@@eljanrimsa5843 Actually, he had a long list of hyper-specific details. The reason is he had to be in those parts of the world he covered in order to be a professional birdwatcher. But anthropologist and archeologists treat his work as required reading.
@@johnsteiner3417 He has a compelling answer to the question why New Guinea has developed less cargo than Eurasia. But he only barely touches the question why one end of Eurasia developed differently than the other.
Looks like someone’s a fan of Guns, Germs and Steel...
Got my sub.
@Cis White Male with Extra Privilege Sounds like you haven't read the book if that's what you think it says.
The message of the book is that all humans are the *same* with the only things determining the development and success are geographical and environmental.
Very thorough analysis. I appreciated the avoidance of the knee-jerk culture arguments. Remind me of Guns, Germs, and Steel
Great video! Very educational. Please increase your volume. I had to max the volume and still had a hard time listening. Other than that, thank you for the video!
In anime Japanese use katana , In real life Japanese use gun, dude sword's just for fancy show.
Swords are a status symbol. Most of the time samurais would use standard issue weapons.
Thank you! I've been trying to explain to people that it is not culture or religion but circumstance sometime.
Opinion
Emperor Lelouch historically, yes, they outperformed every other group. Geographic determinism is merely an attempt to minimize the significance of that achievement.
But is not culture and religion a result of circumstance, also? hmmm?!?!
Dont let your ancestors' successes get to your heads, boys. The world is becoming a much more competitive place now
@@476megaman only if you believe material conditions are the source of religion and culture.
Japan didn't have guns because it didn't have natural resources and bullets would have wasted iron, which they didn't have in large ammounts. In ancient Japan, if a village would burn, the peasants would scavage nails because iron was in small ammount.
Bullets were made of lead.
@@Rig0r_M0rtisand stone
I like the format of this presentation. It was intelligently read by a nice voice and it calls for discussion. One commenting person made mention of how civilized the commenters were. That’s true, possibly because no one region or culture was referenced but rather, pretty much the whole warring world for over seven hundred years. It’s hard to get into anti-anything mean spirited statements with that starting point.
Do I disagree? No, the theories seem sound. Geography helps define a culture, so it is only logical. I personally love the study of the Constantinople sieges and this discussion ties closely into that. In 1304, the pike was the new big deal, which is only a glorified knife. That series of fights showed all of the best minds working to kill each other for over 200 years in the heart of the then utilized world.
Thanks. I am gleefully subscribing. 🏆🥁🥂
It is desire to make things better not settling for less.