Cortez, or the War of Civilization

End of July. Half the vacation. In a period the children will return to school and start a fresh school year. Everything's going back to normal. Nothing is more strange, deluded and fleeting than the alleged "norm" or "normal", or average life. But not that. Not today. Then what? Not our politics or our redheaded, lying prime minister. What's the point of being in disgust erstwhile we're on half vacation? I admit, our Herr Premier gave me an idea. Namely this week, at a press conference after the alleged "reconstruction of the government" our rice Prime Minister went for a concept. He said that the ships were burned and the government – and he Herr Premier – has only 1 way forward.

Our Herr Prime Minister, an educated historian, referred here to a celebrated past event. In August 1519, Hernán Cortés de Monroy Pizarro Altamirano, later Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, in short Hernán Cortés (1485 - 1547) ordered his ships to be burned. Weird, isn't it? But not as much as it turns out. In April 1519, Hernán Cortés with his Spanish soldiers and sailors nailed to the banks of Mexico at the site of the present town of Veracruz. Earlier, in the alts 1511 – 1519, the Spanish under the leadership, Diego Velazquez defeated Cuba, the largest island of the Caribbean. In which the conquest of Hernán Cortés took a most active part first as secretary, then deputy Velazquez. The next step is the area of present-day Mexico, then in the regulation of the Aztec Empire.

The Spaniards carefully prepared for another conquest. The commander was to be Diego Velazquez, deputy to Hernán Cortés, but the chiefs crossed over during a cruise through the Gulf of Mexico. I don't know what it was about. Doesn't substance why. It's an average thing, not just among conquistadors or another looters. Disappointment in nachalstiwe. The eternal question: who is more important? We know that all the time. Work, for example. Here, this conflict had a burden, so to talk the historical effects. Diego Velazquez insulted himself by slamming the door (contractually) took his stuff and sailed for Cuba. Hernán Cortés was the leader of the expedition. Incidentally, Velazquez had to regret it for the remainder of his life.

In April 1519 Hernán Cortés lands in Veracruz. He's gathering information. It's peaceful. He's talking, visiting Indian chiefs, looking for allies. It is known that he landed on a skate of the large Aztec empire ruled by Montezuma II (1488 - 1520). Envoys of Montezuma II scope the Spanish. The Aztecs don't want to fight. Talk about trade agreements and relations, let's call them diplomatic. Although the canyons of modern diplomacy were somewhat different. Unfortunately, at the feast that Cortés gave for Aztec "diplomats" there is an unpleasant fascination. A average thing. After hard debates, talks, negotiations, diplomats with a sense of well-fulfilled work go on diplomatic raut or another feast. However, in this case, Aztec “diplomats” request human blood to be drunk! 2 are versions. According to one, the Aztecs demanded liquid human blood to drink. According to another, they wanted to add human blood to the dishes. Turns out the Aztecs didn't just murder, it's human sacrifice, but they were cannibals. The Aztecs ate the blood of human sacrifices as well as another parts of their bodies. They full fulfilled the definition of cannibalism. Aztecs – cannibals! A fe! You can't talk about it or compose about it today. Strictly forbidden. Streng verboten. Strictly proven.

As you can imagine, Hernán Cortés, this terrible, bloodthirsty looter - imperialist and fanatical Catholic refused. To get liquid, human blood would gotta have individual slaughtered. Of course, not Spanish, but native. Cortés had plenty of Indians at his fingertips who he cared for nothing, or Indian women, in English – squaws (today cursed) even little valuable. Nothing but nothing. Aztecs loved indigenous blood. Atoli Hernán Cortés to the surprise and outrage of Aztec “diplomats” did not have any native slaughtered and bled and collected blood into bowls. How it's done with rabbits or geese today. The goal was godly: to feed, water, and satisfy Aztec “diplomats” and oil, let's say, to facilitate diplomatic relations with the Aztec empire. The Aztecs would do it without hesitation.

These unpleasant conflict, these conflicting rations revealed during the diplomatic feast is like a symbol of the abyss between the 2 empires. 2 civilizations. The 16th century Spanish Christian Empire and the pagan, natural (and not white! and not Christian!) Aztec Empire. European civilization, Christian versus Mesoamerica civilization, Aztec civilization. The first is now condemned from reverence and faith, and Hernán Cortés is the embodiment of a ruthless, cruel conquistador, a looter and destroyer of alien cultures and European and Christian imperialism. The second empire is an "natural" empire; the quintessence of life "consistent with nature", with nature, great, ancient culture and civilization. Equivalent, if not superior to European civilization, Christian. Spanish and Cortez are the deepest black: Christian fundamentalists, fanatics, cruel and greedy gold. Spanish conquistadors are those who have made a series of violent aggressions; they are guilty of destroying full ancient, highly developed civilizations – though from the stone age – specified as the Aztecs, the Maya, and the Incas. But the Aztecs and their “April” empire are the brightest white.

You could say that. erstwhile paper, present the monitor screen in any editor can handle anything. Returning to "burnt" ships. It is August, about half of August 1519. Spanish camp. Over the last fewer months Hernán Cortés has collected as much information as possible about the Aztec Empire. It is not just about this memorable feast, but it talks to the chiefs of the Indian tribes conquered by the Aztecs and listens to their frightening, unbelievable stories. It contains alliances with them. It's not hard. The chiefs themselves are grasping for strangers and terrible visitors from across the sea. Why do Indians hatred another Indians, that's Aztecs? Weird, isn't it? It's like asking Poles from the end of the occupation, let's say from 1945, why (they don't) like Germans. Of course, you can look at it differently. make exhibitions and compose about “our boys” from Wehrmacht. Poles best of the best, proto-Europeans, folksdoms and another prides (!?) besides an elite who by coercion or voluntary joining the Wehrmacht, SS and another Formations of the 3rd German Reich and fighting for European values is German values. They and their descendants, the salt of the earth (!?) had this and have a different emotional attitude towards Germany, to the 3rd Reich. But that's a different story.

Let's say that the Indian subjects of the empire had much more reason to (not)like Aztecs than Poles, of course the inferior, meaner and darker part of the nation at the end of the German occupation. Is the Aztec “April” more cruel than the 3rd German Reich under Adolf Hitler? I think so. But it's unpopular, sectarians and backward present view; a conviction for which a civilian barbie and exclusion are threatened. Western, Anglo-Saxon historians and another awakenings of intellectuals (woke historians, woke social justice historians, woke revisionist or activist historians, others) who profoundly resent specified comparison. Which is to rewrite or reverse history.

Let us return to our rams again, this is the burnt ships of Cortez. It's August 1519, decision time. Hernán Cortés decides. He decides to set out for a subcamp of the Aztec Empire. With respective 100 people, he is going to attack an empire of about as many inhabitants and an area about the same size as his household Spain! To have a chance of victory, he must gather all the Spaniards! And his people must know there's no turning back. That they put everything on 1 card. There's no way out. triumph or death. A cruel death by Aztec warriors. Hernán Cortés so orders to “burn” his ships. All eleven ships. That's what the legend says. That's how it was painted. How was it?

Hernán Cortés did not order to burn his ships. He was in favour of a reasonable commander for specified madness. He ordered them to be partially undressed and sunk. In fact, they were unusable, not fast resuscitation. Collected tree utilized to build fortifications. 1 or 2 ships leave for communication and for downloading reinforcements from Cuba. If the expedition failed, the Spanish could take shelter in the fort; rapidly extract and repair respective ships and... flee to Cuba. A good chief anticipates all situation He doesn't throw like a madman with a hoe on the sun. But the legend wants to see Cortez's ships burning. So be it. If they're gonna burn, let them burn, why fight? What's more, before the “burning” of the ships, Cortez asked his people if they wanted to go with him? He didn't gotta do that. He was their commander, a nobleman—hidalgo, of the lower noble layer. Hernán Cortés could have given the order and the resisters simply hung. But he asked. Anyone who was afraid could go to Cuba. no of the soldiers and sailors have resigned. All of them, like one, decided to do this crazy, seemingly enterprise that seemed to be the conquest of the Aztec Empire. Among another things, his soldiers trusted specified boundless Cortez. They feared him, discipline was harsh, fear, trust and listen.

How many people did he have after the “burning” of his ships? About 500, 600 soldiers and sailors on the infantry. And about 20 horses, which is so many bachelors. Cavaliers are not crucial numbers, due to the fact that it's only little boring cavalry platoon, but psychologically. The Aztecs didn't know horses. To them, horses were amazing creatures. They were terrified of what the Spaniards utilized to do. As we imagine an army, the Cortez branch (in the strength of a battalion) we imagine Spaniards in steel armor and boating, steel helmets with muskets and pikes in multicolored uniforms. This was what soldiers, besides Spanish, looked like, yes, but about a century later, in the mid-17th century, during the 30 Years' War.

With what force did Hernán Cortés conquer the Aztec Empire? Let's get this straight. Soldiers with 600 tops. About 20 bachelors and so many horses. Of this, about 100 shooters: crossbowmen and musketeers. But there were no muskets in 1519. It was built about a 100 years later. Cortez's soldiers were armed with arkebuse. Arkebuz is the ancestor of a musket with a fuse: it is heavy, clumsy, very slow to load. The bullet has a large caliber, a powerful recoil that breaks the bones of an careless shooter. He had a twelve of them, with up to twenty. The main weapons of “fire” were the crossbows. It's not worth laughing about. A crossbow is simply a terrible weapon in a skilled hand. As for cannons, the Spanish conquistadors were armed with about 10 cannons, including those taken off ships. They were mostly light falcons. The cannons of the time or according to today's measurement – cannons fired full balls of stone or iron. For us, it's the equivalent of cannons shooting at cheers. There was a intellectual effect here: a loud blast and smoke bubbles. erstwhile it comes to armor, it was bad too. Apart from officers, only a fewer soldiers wore steel armor to defend the body. They were just besides expensive. Cortez's main effective weaponry was white weapons: swords, rappers, peaks and halobards. Which they utilized very well. And very dangerous, deadly crossbows whose construction of Europeans led to perfection. The crossbows were far more dangerous than the arkebuses of that time. But it wasn't a run in Europe where specified a ward would have been rapidly beaten to its feet. For conquistadors, the crossbows had a large disadvantage. The bow shoots quietly. The only sound is the death scream of a man hit with a gibberish. In respective decades later, the musket, the successor of the arkebuz, will dispel the crossbow from the battlefields. Let's not look at it today. For Cortez and his conquistadors it was the firearms: the arkebuse and the guns. Shots fired loud, with a blast of fire from the barrel, surrounded by a bunch of dust smoke. A terrible phenomenon for Aztecs. To them, it was the same thing as an alien invasion. By the way, we humans are aliens, too. So alien invasions - people are a trivial event in our history.

It was this fewer firearms and these twelve horses Hernán Cortés and his soldiers did the only feat in history. The battalion's forces defeated and conquered the large Aztec empire. The Spaniards captured and destroyed the capital of the empire, the town of Tenochtitlán, establishing on the ruins their own city of Ciudad de México, or Mexico, today's capital of the Mexican state. Hernán Cortés cheated, captured, and had his ruler Montezuma II strangled. And that's all in about 2 years. Given the amount of strength, Hernán Cortés' accomplishments obscure the conquests of Alexander Macedonian, Julius Caesar, and another celebrated looters, conquerors.

Let's compare 2 events. The beginning and end of the “war of civilization”, or Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Half August 1519. Hernán Cortés orders to “burn” his ships and with his mini army, about 600 soldiers, he goes to war, to conquer the Aztec Empire. But his army is not just Spanish, Europeans. Cortez utilized these months to drag Indian tribes with his own reasons to (not)like Aztecs. His conquistadors are accompanied by an army of Indian warriors. all period is bigger. specified tribes as the Tlaxcalteks (Tlaxcaltecah, reportedly exhibited 100,000 warriors to fight the Aztecs), the first recruited Totonists from the surrounding area of present-day Veracruz – the Spanish landing site, Texcocans, another tribes. erstwhile Hernán Cortés after 2 years of war, on 13 August 1521 he reached the walls of the capital of the empire – the town of Tenochtitlán – his army had about 100,000 men, of which Indian warriors accounted for about 99.5%! rather a feat, isn't it? Hernán Cortés conquered the Indian Aztec Empire mainly with Indian hands!

Why the Indians so (not)like Aztecs. The most crucial thing is to kidnap young men to sacrifice them to the gods. advanced tributes and further expeditions criminally against the opposition combined with cruel punishments specified as smoking alive, peeling off the skin, tearing off the nails, dismembering, mass and savage rapes, and another acts now called crimes against humanity. They had their reasons, let us admit, stronger than Poles at the end of the occupation.

So the beginning of the civilian war is the landing of the Spaniards on the Veracruz coast. 2 civilizations. Meeting. Then conflict. The evil, European, Christian, white-skinned, and the good, April, Aztec, native, Indian about... not white-skinned. The final and end of the civilian war is the capture of the Aztec capital, the town of Tenochtitlán by Hernán Cortés' army. And what did the Spanish see in the Aztec capital, and what did this war of civilization look like? Which civilization is better, which is worse? And can civilizations be compared? Value. Exalted! Humiliate those... worse! Colored! present it's a crime scene.

I wonder if specified historical connotations, in the sense of the war of civilization, were thought of by our rice Prime Minister erstwhile he mentioned Cortez's "burnt" ships? The only thing our Prime Minister is reasoning about is how not to lose power, how to cheat allies and how convincingly to lie to voters. Make water out of their brains. Lie, the more the better. I don't want to think or compose about our rice premiere. A small smart-ass, where the only thing that's weird is that he's been on top for so long.

It is better to compose about Hernán Cortez and his amazing conquests, though I admit aroused by our lying micro-class politician. About that later. Not today. That's adequate for today. About that later. God willing.

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