who were the toughest, fiercest warriors of all time? spartans? romans? vandals? huns? mongols? nazi stormtroopers?
by fierce, i mean brave, disciplined, ferocious, tenacious, undaunted by superior forces.
it’s probably not the answer you want, but a lot of (mainly English) troops died in WW1 charging out of trenches across muddy fields towards fortified machine-gun posts.
As someone said about those troops and their leaders:
‘lions led by donkeys’.
You’ll probably get a lot of opinions on this subject. History is full of incidents of isolated small groups of people succeeding against overwhelming odds. But if it’s a martial culture your after, I’d give the nod to the Gurkhas of Nepal.
The Gurkhas are renowned for their ferocity, fearlessness, and “enjoyment” of hand-to-hand combat, even in modern warfare. The weapon most often associated with them is the khukuri knife, a wicked, heavy blade with a dog-leg bend in it.
Interesting OP. I’m curious to see other opinions.
For general, endemic pugnaciouness, I vote for the medieval West European “Frank” and his near contemporary, the Japanese samurai.
The Fremen of Arrakis.
Yeah, but Montanans are a naturally ferocious bunch anyways… oh, wait… nevermind…
From what I’ve learned about the Maoris, they were some tough customers. Their descendants gave the Kiwi divisions a much-deserved reputation in WWs one and two.
The Watusi were pretty bad-ass. A combination of remoteness and utter commitment to the warrior life has allowed them to keep their tribal identity to this day. My vote for greatest small-army commander of the last half of century twenty is Paul Kagame, the man who not only stopped the Hutu massacre of the Tutsi people, but kicked the ass of a far larger and better equipped army to boot. (Note: that doesn’t make Kagame a good person, just a baaaad mother-shutyourmouth.)
John Keegan has coined a term: “warrior mountain peoples.” These peoples, from Gurkhas to Chechens to Afghanis to the various Balkans have proven to be the most dangerous and tenacious fighters, still largely unbeatable even in modern warfare. I’ll try to find some of his writing on that.
For modern times:
I’ll second the Gurkhas. Nasty SOBs, those mercenary types (and I mean that in a good way). I’ll also nominate the French Foreign Legion…they give up any life they may have had before on joining, y’know.
If proven results count versus subjective opinions, then the answer would clearly be the Mongols led by Temuchin.
– DD
The 1977 Philadelphia Flyers.
Well I have always been impressed by what I have heard of the Picts, but They were Berserkers, so the disciplined part doesn’t really apply. In order to fit in all of your categories I would say the Knights Templar.
Hard to peg, in an across-history type of comparison.
Someone already pointed out the Gurkhas and other mountain-peoples in the sense of living cultures.
From those mentioned in the OP, in antiquity I think the Spartans led the culturally purest warrior lives, but the Mongols the best ones at being warriors (and on the vastest scale). The Romans at the top of their form were the finest soldiers and quite capable of unspeakable ferocity (as Larry Gonick wrote: How many languages even need to coin a word for “killed every tenth person” [decimate]?) plus, they kept it up successfully for 8 centuries – the Huns and Vandals were ferocious but they were up against the Romans at their lamest and half the time were actually fighting the Goths anyway.
The OP mentions “Nazi stormtroopers”, but proper storm troops were a late part of a fierce mainstream Germano/Prussian military tradition, and the “nazi” element was just an added pathological factor.
The mentioned-elsewhere Franks and Samurai were “pugnacious” and fierce, but tended to get their shorts up in a knot if someone didn’t “fight fair” i.e. their way.
If I were to go to recent historic time (20th. C.) and move away from a classic “warrior culture” towards folks who just did and endured what they had to do and endure under the circumstances, I’d have to also nominate the (North)Vietnamese.
jrd
Maybe I’ll have to reconsider my answer … Dave Schultz vs the Mongols? hmmmm
Here’s a choice quote from John Keegan’s A History of Warfare, page 189:
“…Genghis Khan, questioning his Mongol comrades-in-arms about life’s sweetest pleasure and being told it lay in falconry, replied, ‘You are mistaken. Man’s greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding [and] use the bodies of his women as a nightshirt and support.’”
Schwartzenegger fans, take note.
You forgot the swiss mercenaries during the middle ages.
Is Winkelried a Swiss name? Ich weiss nicht?
Very true, courage takes many forms. In much the same manner you could nominate any number of repeated charges against entrenched positions during the American Civil War e.g. Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg.
By all reports that I have seen, the Gurkas are ranked so highly because their reputation doesn’t depend on where they are in action. Many heroic stands against numerically or technically superior opposition are “home town players” being able to exploit to full effect their intimate local knowledge of the terrain.
One group that hasn’t been mentioned are the Maori of New Zealand who came into conflict with the British late in the colonisation phase. With stone age technology (didn’t even have bows and arrows) and captured muskets, they fought the British to a stalemate and negotiated the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.
The Pathan tribesmen must be worthy of mention here along with the Indian and Pakistani army units involved in last years hand to hand combat in the Himalayas.
I think you have to be able to draw a distinction between the fearsome reputation of the Mongols, which was due largely to their sheer brutality on non-combatants, and the proffessionalism and courage of such as the Ghurkas.
The Romans were better organised than everyone else and one could say they were courageous but this is more than outweighed by their bestial savagery.
Perhaps one should note that the Scots were about as able as any warrior ever was, so effective was their method of attacking massed ranks it took the English years to defeat them and then they adopted the Scottish charge along with Scottish regiments which were used to such devastating effect in the Napoleonic wars.
The Scottish charge was to run at the massed ranks of the enemy but instead of marching in all neatly lined up they went in as a huge informal crowd which made picking out individulas with musket fire difficult, they would stop maybe fifty metres away and fire one round of small arms and while their ememies were still reeling from the shock of it would storm into their ranks windmilling their swords.
It’s effect was not just ability to take out the opposition but also the terror and fear that was sent out to observers in other units who would break up and lose good order when their turn came to face the Scots.
The English eventually did learn how to deal with this form of attack by using soldiers who were better trained and had more trust in their fellows to look after each other but the Europeans never did manage to work it out.
An anecdote about the bravery and discipline of the Gurkhas:
One British commander was asking his Gurkha troops to volunteer for a mission that involved jumping out of a plane. Three of them volunteered.
As he was talking to them, it became clear that they didn’t know of the existence of parachutes. Imagine–they were ready to jump without parachutes!
Seeing as how the Highlander Scots were one of the few people anywhere who were able to repel the the Vikings there may be a grain of truth to what you say.
However, lets talk about a bunch of guys who would sail across oceans in open boats. These same people were also known for burning their boats upon arrival on enemy shores. Talk about motivational training! If you wanted to see home again, you’d better frickkin’ win!
Considering the wide range of territory the Vikings prowled and the considerable amount of @ss that they kicked, my vote goes with them.
[sub]Me being half Danish has nothing to do with it.[/sub]