1. AyraIsaac

    AyraIsaac New Member

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    For historians: about an invaded country that rose again

    Discussion in 'Research' started by AyraIsaac, Jan 26, 2016.

    Hello. I am writing a novel, and one of the main events is that where a kingdom is invaded by another (an empire, to be precise), at first due to greed then it is revealed for other reasons which are not important for me to point out. So far, the prince of the kingdom managed to escape, not without having his home destroyed and ravished, but then he is to gather allies and then retake his kingdom, rebuilding it, etc. My question is, is there any records in history where something like this happened? It doesn't have to be exactly the same, it can be a prince, general of the first country or whatever. I simply want a reference of the first idea: a country which is invaded, but is later able to rise again with the help of allies, and which manages to expel the invaders for good.
     
  2. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    Robert the Bruce - and his wife was held captive by the invaders, but did that stop him? No.

    Alfred the Great

    Harold (of Hastings) was exiled (along with his father and brothers), by King Edward the Confessor, before returning with an army and regaining his power.

    Malcolm Canmore...returned to defeat MacBeth
     
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  3. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Obvious example: France during World War II. Nazis took them over for a number of years, but with the help of the Allied Forces, France drove them out. Or the parts of China that were occupied by Japan during that same war.

    I suppose Athens could count. The Persians basically swept over, ransacked and burnt the city to the ground during the Persian Wars. The Athenians and her allies were able to repel the invasion and Athens rose once again. Actually, Athens had a bit of an empire going for a time afterwards, to the point that Sparta was getting a mite peeved about it. :p
     
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  4. Necronox

    Necronox Contributor Contributor

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    there's a few more as well in English/British history.

    The Catholic/protestant "debate" in English history resulted in the James (Old pretender, Young Pretender) enlisting help in mainland catholic Europe and trying to take back the british throne held by a protestant king with the help of the Scots and Irish. This is a lot better recorded then most due to it's modern history and important history to current monarchs.

    But as a whole, there is plenty of example, you could apply this to almost any country that had been "invaded" by another, or that the king got usurped one way or another. Relatively common occurrence. such as Edgar the Etheling, who went to multiples courts in hope for help returning to the throne of England now held by William the bastard or his descendants. Having died in 1126 without ever achieving his goal.

    It's very hard when you're invading a country or usurping a king to capture the entire of the royal family, especially if they have been the ruling royal family for some time. As such, there is almost always pretenders of the previous family wanting to take back the throne.

    In regards to Athens. The Athenians left Athens and burned it to the ground themselves before taking to the seas. So they where not really conquered.... They only returned once the Persian invasion was no longer sustainable. However, Athens took a very long time to return to it's pre-invasion power. having lost considerable colonies and tributes from cities around the Aegean isles and Boetica.

    Sparta for the most part, where not peeved about it. Thucydides in his "History of Peloponnesian war" makes a point that the Spartans and most other Greek cities admired Athens for having burned down their own cities. Athens did not have walls then and believe Athens could not be defended so they left.

    The main issue between Sparta and Athens was not a rivalry that occurred later in history, but it was more about the colonies and a number of smaller conflicts that eventually culminated in Athens building a wall against Spartan's wishes. The Athenian envoy to Sparta delayed and played for time long enough for the athenian walls to be build sufficiently high to be defensible.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2016
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  5. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    I thin the context was that you have a country that was completely conquered, completely overtaken by the enemy. This country eventually gathered its strength and allies and was able to repel the invaders.

    As for the second: What? I've always heard it was the Persians who burnt Athens to the ground as punishment for them assisting an Ionian revolt in what's now Turkey, why would the Athenians destroy their own city? Which is what the Persians would've wanted to do anyway? I'm intrigued by this.
     
  6. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    France was not a kingdom, and Athens was a democracy, so in neither case did the "royal family" escape and gather foreign aid.

    Neither James (Old or Young) nor Edgar Aetheling actually regained the throne they were entitled to...a bit like Daenerys Targaryen.
     
  7. KhalieLa

    KhalieLa It's not a lie, it's fiction. Contributor

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    The Celts sacked Rome twice before Rome got their shit together and conquered most of the known world at that time. Payback is a bitch.
    The Goths later sacked Rome which lead to the fall of the Roman Empire. What goes around, comes around.
     
  8. Necronox

    Necronox Contributor Contributor

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    @Shadowfax No, they didn't but they tried.

    @Link the Writer Unless we are talking about different occurrences. no, the Athenians burned down Athens so the Persian would not be able to use it or control it. Additionally, if Persia had taken Athens intact, they would have been able to use it as a important military base. The Athenians burned down their own city and destroyed it so it would be unusable by the Persians. Xerxes I, was both amazed and understandably angry because that effectively made his Greek campaign much harder, he no longer had a forward base as the Thessalonians which helped the Persians where too far away. It's an understandable and logical reason as to why the Athenians burned down their own city. The population left to Salamis, which prompted the famous Battle of Salamis.

    There is, however, a historical debate as to who actually razed athens to the ground. Multiple contoporary historians and general said the athenians burned down their city. some other said they merely sabotage their harbor or other important building. In either case, Xerxes certainly finished the destruction.

    Certainly the Persian went to Greece to punish the Greeks for the Ionian revolt


    Also, to note. Yes, athens and france did not have royal families, but they did have living national heroes and important political figures that dominated the political scene such as Themistocles.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2016
  9. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    As was mentioned by @Shadowfax, you could do worse than check out Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland. There's a saga for you. He wasn't the king when he started, but he had claim to the throne, and when the throne became empty through no fault of his own, he moved to take it. At one point the entire country of Scotland was in the hands of the English, and he was in hiding inside a cave with only a handful of followers (around fourteen trusted men.) He rose from there to unify the Scots (not an easy task!) and gain the throne of Scotland, which he held till his death, and passed to his son and grandson.

    The trilogy about The Bruce by Nigel Tranter is a really interesting read, and it's been collected into one volume and is available from Amazon. (Steps to the Empty Throne, Path of the Hero King, Price of the King's Peace (Coronet Books) Paperback – 1 Mar 1985.) These are novels, but Tranter certainly knew his history, and was able to portray it unforgettably well. The political situations that underpinned the whole era are well worth considering. These kinds of conflicts are rarely resolved simply by clashes of arms. All sorts of alliances and compromises have to be worked out as well.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2016
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  10. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    The Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War might fit. After the battle at Agincourt, some 40% of France's nobility was dead. Henry V followed it up with successful sieges in Normandy and signed the Treaty of Troyes, which married him to Catherine of Valois, assured his heirs would inherit the throne of France, and made the Dauphin, Charles VII, illegitimate. By that point, much of the country was controlled by the English or their allies. Even after Henry V's death, the Duke of Bedford smashed a Franco-Scottish army at Verneuil.

    It ended up taking the arrival of Joan of Arc, the death of the Duke of Bedford, the defection of the Burgundians, and many years of campaigning and military reform before Charles VII managed to retake nearly the entire country, but he did it.
     
  11. Necronox

    Necronox Contributor Contributor

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    I thought the burgundian king (charles?) died following his ill fated campaign against the swiss, where his lands where subsequantly divided up?

    Might look into it, could be confusing two different parts of the burgundian history...
     
  12. BrianIff

    BrianIff I'm so piano, a bad punctuator. Contributor

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    Based on the last sentence of the OP, the Soviets in Afghanistan might be of interest. Charlie Wilson's War, etc.
     
  13. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    That did happen, but the Hundred Years' War was over by the time Charles the Bold campaigned against the Swiss.
     
  14. King Arthur

    King Arthur Banned

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    The Bourbons after Napoleon I died.
     
  15. AyraIsaac

    AyraIsaac New Member

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    Okay, I thought I'd get e-mail notifications when someone replied to this thread. Guess not.

    Anyways, thank you all for your answers :) I'll go on checking all of the examples and see if any one actually works for me.
    Btw, @Link the Writer that's exactly the context I am looking for, yes.
     

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