Show 70 - Twilight of the Aesir II

“The Vikings say to the Anglo-Saxons, 'Let us have free passage across this path, and let us set up fairly on the other side, and then we'll have a battle and see who's better.' Imagine the Spartans at Thermopylae. The whole point was to choose a place where you could hold off a giant army with a small number of quality troops. Imagine the Persians saying to the Spartans, 'This isn't fair. Let's go out into a big field where we can both line up and settle it mano a mano.”— Dan Carlin

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Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

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Never surrender structural advantage for fairness

“Aethelred's machinery of power set in motion what was the most intense mobilization of armed forces to be seen in England since the days of the Romans. These coordinated efforts are testimony to the authority and organizational skill of the Anglo-Saxon crown. Thousands of subjects across England, men, women, and children, the free and enslaved, peasants and merchants, were set to work. Fellers cut down trees.”— Dan Carlin

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Leadership & Management · Operations & Execution · Strategy & Decision Making

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Internal conflict squanders collective effort instantly

“From the English perspective, Sweyn's Christianity must have set him apart from many previous Viking raiders and may have made him a more palatable figure to accept as an overlord. This was not an invading army whose leader could be baptized and sent home pacified once his men had been defeated or paid off, as Alfred had done with Guthrum in 878 or Aethelred with Olaf Tryggvason in 994. Sweyn was unequivocally Christian and most probably travelled with a retinue that included chaplains.”— Timothy Bolton

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Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics

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Adopt target identity to remove takeover objection

“Olaf visits a temple dedicated to the traditional Germanic gods. The locals show up and beg Olaf to allow them to continue the ancient practices. Olaf and his men listen to this pleading and turn around, and in the temple are all these statues: Thor, Odin, Freyr. Olaf takes his weapon and destroys the statue of Thor. His men then begin to destroy the statues of the other gods. You can imagine how this must have horrified the faithful.”— Dan Carlin

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Psychology & Behavior · Strategy & Decision Making

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Proving impotence destroys authority

“Aethelred gives them 10,000 pounds of silver. This is considered to be the first of Aethelred's payments that will eventually be called 'Danelgeld.' There is ample precedent throughout the entire history of the Viking era for paying Vikings to leave you alone. The problem that Aethelred's going to have is that those earlier payments were always connected to trying to gain some time, some breathing room to come up with a better solution so you didn't have to pay them forever.”— Dan Carlin

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Strategy & Decision Making · Economics & Markets

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Paying threats without plan attracts more threats

“There is a difference between militia armies fighting in the age of missile weapons being the dominant weapon versus the kind of fighting that they're going to do at the Battle of Maldon. Many countries celebrate our early militias. The United States had Minutemen who would keep a musket over the fireplace, grab it, run out, line up next to your neighbor, and shoot at the Redcoats 50 or 100 yards away. That is a very different thing to what the fyrd has to do against the Vikings.”— Dan Carlin

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Strategy & Decision Making · Operations & Execution

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Missile vs melee: counterability changes everything

“If you are a fan of the history of the Middle Ages in Europe, because it's a huge problem over the course of the history of the Middle Ages in Europe. And that is who gets to decide who the bishops and archbishops are in all these areas. It's things like an instant bureaucracy, just add Jesus. Can you imagine the Chinese or the Russians being able to decide, for example, who the United States Secretary of State might be?”— Dan Carlin

History & Geopolitics · Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

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Conversion means foreign control of key positions

“In 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard leading his army in person arrives in England. He does not attack this realm that he hopes to rule. He goes up to the north, to the areas that used to be dominated by the Danes, lands and gives speeches to cheering crowds promising to bring stability and peace to the island, and he is hailed where he lands as the new King of England. He advances into the Five Boroughs, also part of the Danelaw, and they hail him as the new rightful ruler.”— Dan Carlin

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Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

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Secure friendly territory first for legitimacy

“Defeat at Maldon was a devastating blow to the English, as much psychological as physical. Ever since the days of King Alfred, their identity had been defined by military success against the Danes. The Church had been telling Englishmen that their success was due not to their prowess but to their piety, especially when expressed in support of monastic reform. Things had improved greatly in King Edgar's reign because 'he exalted God's praise far and wide and loved God's law.”— Mark Morris

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Psychology & Behavior · History & Geopolitics · Philosophy & Reasoning

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Explanation for loss determines solution attempted

“One of the ideas that Aethelred has to come up with some sort of long-term solution is to try to co-opt at least one of these guys and use him against the others. And the one he chooses to co-opt is Olaf Tryggvason. Aethelred pays him even more money, more than double the 10,000 pounds of silver. He treats him royally, has him come to a meeting, and basically tries to do with Olaf what the realm in France did with Rollo: turn the poachers into gamekeepers.”— Dan Carlin

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Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

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Turn poachers into gamekeepers

“There's a real transactional nature to a lot of the ancient and medieval beliefs with gods that you don't see as much anymore. Take for example the famous story of how Constantine converts to Christianity. It's a very transactional deal. He's about to fight a battle and he has a dream where it says, 'If you paint your shields with the Christian symbol, you will triumph tomorrow.' So he gets up, has all his soldiers paint the Chi Rho on their shields, and he wins the battle. Boom.”— Dan Carlin

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Psychology & Behavior · Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics

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Beliefs adopted for immediate utility not salvation

“University of Oslo historian John Vidar Sigurdsson points out that this transactional attitude applies when it comes to Scandinavian nobles and kings to other kings and other chieftains, so why not to the gods? They have unstable relationships with all of these entities. To their way of thinking, if another more powerful god existed who could offer better protection and help, then the Norse gods had failed, and it was therefore necessary to change sides and begin worshiping the new god.”— John Vidar Sigurdsson

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Psychology & Behavior · Philosophy & Reasoning

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Gods judged by results not theology

“The longstanding tactic of converting the kings to Christianity who then take their people with them. Make no mistake about it, Odin, Thor, and the rest of the Norse pantheon are fighting a defensive rearguard action against the most dangerous foes these gods have ever faced. It's not the giants and the eventual destruction of Ragnarok. It's the Christian God, and the many powerful states and their armies who go to war under that banner.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management · History & Geopolitics

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Convert leaders, followers convert themselves

“The principle that lasting fame and your name never being forgotten is the true immortality. That's why you do all these great deeds. That's why you carve runes into stone so that these people's memory lives on, and then they're not truly dead, they live on somewhere. I'm going to make the obvious point that more people know who Thor is today than ever knew about him during all the ages when all the Germanic peoples everywhere worshiped him.”— Dan Carlin

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Philosophy & Reasoning · Culture & Society

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Memory is immortality

“In 991, almost 100 longships appear off the eastern coast of Britain. They take an island over and are looking to attack a town called Maldon when the Anglo-Saxons confront them. The guy who confronts them is a nobleman named Braethnoth. He's got the wonderful Anglo-Saxon name. Maybe 60 years old, shows up with his personal retinue of thanes. The first stringers on both sides are comparable. It's the second stringers where the Viking warriors have a real advantage over the British.”— Dan Carlin

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Strategy & Decision Making · Operations & Execution

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Equal elites, unequal depth decides victory

“The historian I was reading points out that according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, before some of these battles that the Anglo-Saxons fought with the Vikings, some of the leaders were vomiting. The implication is they're vomiting because they're scared. In the tense and oppressive atmosphere before battle, the men found an outlet for their anxiety through aggressive and obscene shouting. Wild battle cries and primitive howling could be heard across the plain.”— Dan Carlin

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Leadership & Management · Psychology & Behavior

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Visible leader fear destroys follower morale

“The huge sums that were raised had been repeatedly squandered through a combination of cowardice and incompetence on the part of the king and his counselors. Many people may have drawn the conclusion that rather than paying endless amounts to make the Danes go away, it might be preferable simply to let them take over.”— Marc Morris

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Leadership & Management · Psychology & Behavior

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Wasted sacrifice makes any change preferable

“In 1012, Aethelred joined forces with the only man in England able to protect his position, Thorkell the Tall himself, the man who had led the Danish army for the past 3 years and who had done his utmost to destroy Aethelred's country, to murder and ransack his subjects, and to fleece the king for money. Thorkell had naturally become a widely renowned and deeply feared figure in England.”— Dan Carlin

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Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

DUR_ENDURING

Hiring your destroyer destroys legitimacy

“Trying to disentangle Christian conversion from an actual belief level, from the power politics of the day, and everything else going on is very difficult. When you read the sagas, you can see how often the kings here, whether it's Harald Bluetooth or others, will see people's reticence to convert to Christianity as a personal attack on their authority. Partly they're converting to Christianity because it enhances their authority.”— Dan Carlin

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Leadership & Management · Psychology & Behavior · Strategy & Decision Making

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Resistance to change is power preservation

“Magic might not be real, but the effects are. If some king goes to the Oracle at Delphi in the ancient world and asks the prophetess, 'Should I go and attack this rival kingdom?' And the prophetess says yes, you should go attack this kingdom. And he does. Well, that may be a bunch of bunk, but he acted on it, and people died, and kingdoms rose or fell because of it. How real does that make the magic?”— Dan Carlin

Psychology & Behavior · Strategy & Decision Making · Philosophy & Reasoning

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Belief creates reality through action consequences