Patterns in history: War and weather

I love history. When learning history, I try to capture long-term patterns and remember events through these patterns. Unlike conspiration theorists, I do not assume these patterns have meaning beyond mnemonic devices. And then again…

9/11 and temperature

History is full of patterns. Some of these patterns are real, others are like objects we tend to see in the clouds. The real patterns often have a causal nature. During the 9/11 event, the airplanes did not fly. This caused strange weather with unusually large variations between day and night. Meteorologists explain this by certain positive effects of airplane pollution on the weather. During the COVID19 crisis, the weather in Israel was unusually wet, possibly because there was a drastic reduction of pollution in Europe.

These patterns are actually scientifically explainable and easy to comprehend.

How did Russia win so many wars?

Historians often claim that “the general winter” is very much responsible for some of Russia’s greatest military achievement. Both the winter of 1812 when Napoleon captured Moscow and the winter of 1942 when Hitler came very close to capturing Moscow were exceptionally cold, maybe the coldest recorded. The aggressors’ armies were simply not prepared for such intense cold, and the armies were decimated. One of the reasons the Japanese attacked Pearl-Harbour and did not declare war on Russia was very simple: Japan was not prepared for a war in Siberia. So Russians moved a huge reserve army to counterattack the Germans and eventually win the war.

Was that a coincidence? The huge release of materials by explosive devices could alter the weather. I did not see any trustworthy meteorologist claiming either way about this subject.

Three times every 100 years

There is an easy to remember cycle: three times every 100 years there is a huge war or revolution, and the dates are almost recurring. Now, this is a mnemonic device. If you check the bloodiest conflicts they do not always follow this cycle, but it would be more comfortable if they do.

• 1989 – Berlin wall fell
• 1939 – WW2 started
• 1914 – WW1 started
• 1871 – Paris commune revolution
• 1848-  Republican revolts against European monarchies
• 1815 – Waterloo ends Napoleon’s conquests
• 1789- French revolution
• 1748- Austian succession wars ended
• 1700–1721 – Great northern war
• 1688 – Glorious revolution in England by William III of Orange
• 1642 – English revolution started
• 1618 – Thirty years war started

As we continue back in the history the pattern becomes weaker, but it is still useful, for example

• 1492 – Columbus discovers America
• 1380- Kulikovo battle, Russia’s victory against Mongols
• 1337 – The 100 years war started
• 1242 – Mongols conquer Russia
• 1095 – The first crusade
• 793- Viking invasion of England
• 636 – Battle of Yarmouk (great Byzantine loss)
• 615 -Hijra (Muslim calendar started)

How clearly there were huge revolutions, wars and plagues almost all the time, and the specific events and dates were selected almost arbitrary. Yet if we can memorize 3 events per century roughly using this cyclic mnemonic device, we will remember a lot of events. Other events will fill-in the gaps between the events we choose to remember and we get some sort of coherent scale. If you want you can add more recurring events: for 60s for example.

Why history deals so much with crisis events?

Just like the news, history deals very much with scandals. There are several reasons:

• Flashbulb memory. Certain traumatic events make us notice and memorize very well what happened during the trauma.
• Rating. Scandals drive ratings. We talk about historians who are looking for juicy conflicts.
• Change. A common outcome of a crisis is a profound change in society and in technology.
• Chain of events. Large changes may generate complex chains of events with a  much wider scale of influence than the original conflict. For example, the Napoleonic wars were an outcome of the French revolution, but the French revolution was caused by a financial crisis due to France’s involvement in the American revolution which in turn was an aftermath of the seven years war which was an Anglo-French colonial conflict and so on.
• Conspiracies. People see patterns in historical events and look for explanations…

Agriculture shaping global events

We can take the strange patterns in the opposite direction looking for how strange weather patterns cause historical events. Below is a graph of winter severity in Europe with a very wide filter (https://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-between-energy-supply-population-and-the-economy/winter-severity/).

More about the medieval weather read here:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-16006-1_3

300BC – Celtic expansion, Alexander the great conquests… A little ice age.

50BC -Roman conquest, facing repeating waves of barbaric invasion. A little ice age.

400AD – Migration period. Roman Empire falls. A little ice age.

1300AD – Onset of a little ice age. Famine, black death, 100 years war. (~30% population decrease)

1600AD -Another ice age. Bitter wars with a hungry population in all of northern Europe. (~30% population decrease)

Every time the european weather gets cold and wet, the crops fail and there is a huge wave of wars and migrations.

Good weather was also causing migration wars due to overpopulation, like the viking conquests and the crusades…

To be honest, there were wars and migration throughout history and weather was not the only major factor. Empires were pushing barbaric tribes from the steppes, religions were generating huge waves of conquests, plagues were destabilizing huge areas…

So what do we learn?

As we are looking for patterns and conspiracy, the noisy data becomes more organized. We learn to ask better questions and remember the details. If anyone tells you we learn from history, I would put a huge question mark on such statements. An elephant might remember a water source, which was useful 30 years ago. Artists and politicians may be inspired by historical events, but very educated strategists often repeat historic mistakes. Many rebellions died in very bloody ways trying to recreate past glory and historical victories.

I guess the main things we can take from history is a sense of awe and humility. We can also take some context: historical patterns of plagues, wars and revolutions repeat themselves. If our ancestors survived each of these events, so will we and our children.