History.

This is coolbert:

Here are two news items, one confirming history, the other denying it.

Thanks in both cases to the web site Jungle Trader.

1. "Vanished Persian army found in Egyptian desert"

"Archaeologists have found the remains of a great Persian army believed to have disappeared in the Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago."

"According to Greek historian Herodotus, King Cambyses II sent 50,000 warriors to attack the Oasis of Siwa but they disappeared after reaching El-Kharga oasis."

"'A wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear,' wrote Herodotus."

An entire Persian army, 50,000 marching on the Oasis of Siwa, engulfed, enveloped, by a sandstorm of prodigious proportions. So much so that the entire army perished, disappearing from the face of the earth, gone and not found, UNTIL NOW!

The Oasis of Siwa is located about five hundred miles west of the Nile, in the Libyan. An OASIS occupied for millenia, and OASIS of life in a desert almost devoid of all life.

An oasis sacred to the god Amon and famous for an oracle. An oracle sought out by Alexander [The Great] who HIMSELF ALSO ALMOST SUCCUMBED [with the most significant portion of his army] TO THE PERIL OF THE Libyan Desert.

"Prior to his campaign of conquest in Persia, Alexander the Great reached the oasis, supposedly by following birds across the desert. The oracle, Alexander's court historians alleged, confirmed him as both a divine personage and the legitimate Pharaoh of Egypt."

The Oasis of Siwa, also an important possession coveted by the various combatants fighting it out in the Libyan Desert during World War Two [WW2].

"The British Army's Long Range Desert Group was based here . . . Rommel's Afrika Korps also took possession three times."

2. "Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt"

English historians, revisionists, "reassess" Agincourt and say that English victory was not quite triumphal as advertised.

Agincourt. An English army, under the personal command of King Henry, tired, sodden, exhausted, sick, withdrawing to safe quarters, encounters and defeats a much superior and much more numerous French force. A victory - - very decisive and against the odds - - a victory by the English that becomes A THING OF LEGEND!!

[the English are better than the French - - and Agincourt proves it, so is the perspective!!]

NOT so fast now?!

"[an] exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his [Henry] by as much as five to one" [this is the common and widely accepted history!!]

"The historians have concluded that the English could not have been outnumbered by more than about two to one. And depending on how the math is carried out, Henry may well have faced something closer to an even fight"

[this is NOW the revisionist history!]

My own perception and instantaneous intuitive reaction is that the figures as generally accepted are probably correct, but just not exactly understood.

* Henry was severely out-numbered, but had a cohesive unified force under his command, fighting as a combined unit. The French were not so!

* All the English actually were committed to battle, the totality of the English force participating in combat. A much smaller percentage of the French force saw combat, the remainder becoming bystanders who after the initial clash of English bowmen and French heavy cavalry, were constricted by the terrain, the wet conditions, and the PILE of dead bodies from entering the fray! The English were focused with their energy, the French were not!

The French, throwing in the towel, having seen enough for one day, "the moral is as to the physical as three is to one" - - Napoleon!!

coolbert.