Korean War 70 years later Win Lose and A draw

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
The US Will Not Risk Even One Drop of American Blood for Taiwan

Exactly, this is the thing that makes me laugh with these self-deluding politicians in Taiwan. They know deep in their heart, a foreign country is not going to risk their soldiers' blood to protect a place that has no importance or add any strategic value.

Particularly, if they are going to be on the receiving end of a bad ending!
 

Quickie

Colonel
It is rather convenient that the number of people who were actually captured in the siege was unrecorded so people can inflate the numbers accordingly. And even if we factor in the civilians like you so desperately want the numbers will still look like this

1) Zeelandia : Troops=1800 (highest estimate)
Civillians= 800 (lets generously assume that every women child and infirmed people held a weapon that day, which is unlikely but hey lets give you a crutch here)
Total : 2600.

2) Lowestoft : Number of people killed (2500 highest estimate)
Number of people captured (somewhere around 2000)
Total : 4500 , and this is not factoring in the rest of the Dutch who participated in the battle but was unharmed and/or escaped with more than 96 ships suriving that conflict and for a ship of the line the average sailors was around 200 to 600. The total number of people add up would be 20 x 96= 19200 (EDIT : The Dutch Fleet at the time consisted of 103 ships carrying 4,869 guns and 21,613 men which was divided into several squadrons.

You can try to whitewash the number of people being killed as slight (despite the fact that not all people at Zeelandia died in combat) but the simple fact remain that more people participated and was killed or captured in a single battle that took place in a single day than a siege that took near a year.


We can see by your post that you claimed that the two were the same when they weren't as shown here:



But if you agree in your post here that the company does not equate to the Dutch Republic, then we can move on to the next step to clarify that while the rulling class has significant stakes in the company, the VOC does not at any point of time in history represents the totality of Dutch millitary and financial might.


So what ? It was not the Dutch Republic, it was not the VOC and it was certainly not VOC money that paid for the army. The British East India Company is completely irrelevant to this discussion and a red herring at best.


Because it shows the number of resources that one side had pitted in that battle. For all intents and purpose the numbers that were committed to Zeelandia was a bare fraction of what the Dutch Republic had at the time.
It was not a battle of survival for the Dutch Republic at the time nor was it a battle of national importance for it.
Compare that to the Russo-Japanese war that was the gist of the subject at the time which was a war short of total conflict and we can see why historians mark that as the defining stage which an Asian nation was able to beat a Western power in a modern conflict whereby the entire resource of a nation was directed towards war efforts.


You can keep saying that, but the simple fact remain that the VOC did not did so is a fact and this in light of greater conflicts that the Dutch Republic fought. And an equal claim can be made that the did not have the resources at the time to make a comeback even if the chances were good.

1) Zeelandia : Troops=1800 (highest estimate)
Civillians= 800 (lets generously assume that every women child and infirmed people held a weapon that day, which is unlikely but hey lets give you a crutch here)
Total : 2600.

(Don't speak like that. You're being rude to people who use a crutch. Nothing wrong to use a crutch. You'll probably use one when you get old enough.)
What about the allies? I have to keep repeating this. It's hard to believe they have almost no allies when the numbers killed were 1600, meaning that only 200 surrendered and the rest numbering 1600 killed?
The number of 1800 soldiers was for the Zeelandia island alone. If you read the wiki article, there was also a garrison of 500 soldiers at Fort Provincia and hundreds of other soldiers on the islands in Bay of Taiwan.

So what ? It was not the Dutch Republic, it was not the VOC and it was certainly not VOC money that paid for the army. The British East India Company is completely irrelevant to this discussion and a red herring at best.

It's not a red herring. The British East India Company is a good example of the amount of resources the Dutch VOC would have had and what they could do with it in terms of how many soldiers they could hire etc. It's not like what you've claimed that these East India Companies had very limited resources and the ability to hire only 10,000 soldiers or so. The reasons why the Dutch East India Company didn't go beyond 10000 soldiers had nothing to do with limited finance and resources but more to do with geopolitical reasons and opportunity of the time.

Compare that to the Russo-Japanese war that was the gist of the subject at the time which was a war short of total conflict and we can see why historians mark that as the defining stage which an Asian nation was able to beat a Western power in a modern conflict whereby the entire resource of a nation was directed towards war efforts
.

The battle at Fort Zeelandia is more significant than you think since it determined the fate of Taiwan over the next hundreds of years. This is the opinion of a few authors who have written about it

"The Siege of Fort Zeelandia of 1661–1662 ended the
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's
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and began the
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's rule over the island. Taiwanese scholar Lu Chien-jung described this event as "a war that determined the fate of Taiwan in the four hundred years that followed".

"Andrade, Tonio (2008).
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.
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. New York: Columbia University Press.
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."

As for the rest of the post:
It seems that we disagree on the extent of the power of the East India Companies and what their actual purpose was. I tend to think of them as a vehicle for colonization with the financial and political backing of the government, while you seem to think they are private companies with limited private resources that depended on how much money they made or lost and these companies would prefer to have no link to the government.
 
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Max Demian

Junior Member
Registered Member
Most importantly, although the US did declare war against Japan after Pearl Harbor attack, and sought revenge against Japan in 1942 in Western Pacific, it didn't join fighting in the main battle field of WW2, the European field, until June, 6th, 1944 when Soviet Red Army's front forces were fast approaching German borders.
...
Looks like "Just4Fun" is not trolling, but someone else is. Right?

LOL. The strategic bombing over Germany conducted by USAAF from 1942 never happened?
Just4Fun said:
That is, the US is the canniest war opportunist known in human history. It didn't join the winning side of the WW1 until the war was just about to end. It took the same opportunistic stance in WW2, joining the winning side only before the war was about to end.
What does that make the ROC then? They only declared war on Japan only after the US and the Allies declared war on them, more than 4 years after the Marco Polo bridge incident.

Just4Fun said:
And it didn't initiate a war against a major power in its entire history of two hundreds years.
How about that lil war of 1812, where the US declared war on the United Kingdom, and suffered the White House and Capitol being burned down?
 
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D

Deleted member 13312

Guest
(Don't speak like that. You're being rude to people who use a crutch. Nothing wrong to use a crutch. You'll probably use one when you get old enough.)
What about the allies? I have to keep repeating this. It's hard to believe they have almost no allies when the numbers killed were 1600, meaning that only 200 surrendered and the rest numbering 1600 killed?
The number of 1800 soldiers was for the Zeelandia island alone. If you read the wiki article, there was also a garrison of 500 soldiers at Fort Provincia and hundreds of other soldiers on the islands in Bay of Taiwan.
Putting aside the poor attempt to deflect the accusations of you trying to shore up your claim by any means possible. It is also equally hard to believe that the Dutch was able to raise a same number of native compared to their garrison.
But sure lets throw in the extra 500 men if you want , or the other "hundreds" of people. Like it would make a dent against the tens of thousands the Dutch Republic raised.

It's not a red herring. The British East India Company is a good example of the amount of resources the Dutch VOC would have had and what they could do with it in terms of how many soldiers they could hire etc. It's not like what you've claimed that these East India Companies had very limited resources and the ability to hire only 10,000 soldiers or so. The reasons why the Dutch East India Company didn't go beyond 10000 soldiers had nothing to do with limited finance and resources but more to do with geopolitical reasons and opportunity of the time.
And example which is completely irrelevant with the subject at hand. Did the VOC raised more troops ? Did it bought more ships ? The answer would be no and no. Saying that they had the financial resource to do so but did not is wishful thinking at it best. Unless you can prove that the VOC had the money on hand by way of ledgers or accounting or if they had fielded an army of corresponding size on the field.
To put it quite simply, if they could then they would had done so. "shoulda coulda woulda" is a pathetic excuse.

The battle at Fort Zeelandia is more significant than you think since it determined the fate of Taiwan over the next hundreds of years. This is the opinion of a few authors who have written about it

"The Siege of Fort Zeelandia of 1661–1662 ended the
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
's
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
and began the
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
's rule over the island. Taiwanese scholar Lu Chien-jung described this event as "a war that determined the fate of Taiwan in the four hundred years that followed".

"Andrade, Tonio (2008).
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
. New York: Columbia University Press.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
."
Maybe for Taiwan, but the rest of the world went along its merry way with none the poorer. Well except for the VOC but not the Dutch Republic.

As for the rest of the post:
It seems that we disagree on the extent of the power of the East India Companies and what their actual purpose was. I tend to think of them as a vehicle for colonization with the financial and political backing of the government, while you seem to think they are private companies with limited private resources that depended on how much money they made or lost and these companies would prefer to have no link to the government.
Opinions are opinions and facts are facts. Just as how your opinion that the VOC can raise bigger armies if they choose so does not ring with the fact that they never did so at any point of their history.
 

Quickie

Colonel
You're just repeating the same type of arguments that I've responded to in my previous post.

My argument has at the start never been about the size of a particular battle but about the type of vehicle those East India Companies were and the extent of backing they got from the government.


Here is the proof from the lion's mouth that the Dutch East India Company was not the average private company you seem to suggest.

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The company (Dutch_East_India_Company) was historically an exemplary company-state[e] rather than a pure for-profit corporation. Originally a government-backed military-commercial enterprise, the VOC was the wartime brainchild of leading Dutch republican statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and the States-General.
From its inception in 1602, the Company was not only a commercial enterprise but also effectively an instrument of war in the young Dutch Republic's revolutionary global war against the powerful Spanish Empire and Iberian Union (1579–1648). In 1619, the Company forcibly established a central position in the Javanese city of Jayakarta, changing the name to Batavia (modern-day Jakarta). Over the next two centuries the Company acquired additional ports as trading bases and safeguarded their interests by taking over surrounding territory.[54]
 
D

Deleted member 13312

Guest
You're just repeating the same type of arguments that I've responded to in my previous post.

My argument has at the start never been about the size of a particular battle but about the type of vehicle those East India Companies were and the extent of backing they got from the government.


Here is the proof from the lion's mouth that the Dutch East India Company was not the average private company you seem to suggest.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


The company (Dutch_East_India_Company) was historically an exemplary company-state[e] rather than a pure for-profit corporation. Originally a government-backed military-commercial enterprise, the VOC was the wartime brainchild of leading Dutch republican statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and the States-General.
From its inception in 1602, the Company was not only a commercial enterprise but also effectively an instrument of war in the young Dutch Republic's revolutionary global war against the powerful Spanish Empire and Iberian Union (1579–1648). In 1619, the Company forcibly established a central position in the Javanese city of Jayakarta, changing the name to Batavia (modern-day Jakarta). Over the next two centuries the Company acquired additional ports as trading bases and safeguarded their interests by taking over surrounding territory.[54]
And yet you went on to bring up presumptive numbers of natives involved in the conflict, the potential numbers of troops that the VOC can raise and so on.

You can try as you like, but the fact is the Siege of Zeelandia does not count as the first instance an Asian power manage to contest a European power on equal grounds.
 

Quickie

Colonel
And yet you went on to bring up presumptive numbers of natives involved in the conflict, the potential numbers of troops that the VOC can raise and so on.

You can try as you like, but the fact is the Siege of Zeelandia does not count as the first instance an Asian power manage to contest a European power on equal grounds.

It's not presumptive, just a guess as reasonable as possible.

People can have their own opinion as to how important an event is. Just don't force it on others.

No time now. I got to get back to work
 
D

Deleted member 13312

Guest
It's not presumptive, just a guess as reasonable as possible.

People can have their own opinion as to how important an event is. Just don't force it on others.

No time now. I got to get back to work
"a guess as biased as possible to suit my agenda " Fixed that for you.
"How many natives should the Dutch have on their side ? Let's make it the same number as the defenders, just so it gives them the edge".
"People can have their own opinion as to how important an event is. Just don't force it on others."
Ironic, since you were so insistent on making Zeelandia such an apocalyptic and groundshaking event when it clearly wasn't.
 

Quickie

Colonel
How is that ironic? Read the sentence again.

You still at it?

I knew you were somewhat pesky. I didn't know you're that pesky.

You're wasting my time.
 
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