Yeah, such armies would be leaving hunger and devastation behind them. And it seems many of them felt it was good sport to put to the sword the people that they robbed. Would be interesting to read up on how the ancients - the Greeks, Alexander, the Romans - used to do it. But more recently, from what I read, the 30 year war (1618-48) cut the population of Central Europe in half - and mostly not because of killings, but because of destruction of crops, hunger, exposure, diseases, etc. According to Goldman (Spengler), this was done on purpose, and was part of the strategy designed by Cardinal Richelleu, in order to make sure that France would remain standing as the dominant power in Europe. He succeeded.
Euros always used to be tough customers. I think they were so shaken by their own capacity for brutality in the last two world wars, that now they went to the opposite extreme, and all turned into peaceniks. It's not going to stay this way forever. Or even for very long. |
