On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 2:26 AM, Kevin O'Malley <kevmol...@gmail.com> wrote: > > The classic case is the Aztecs. They were taken out over a few short months in a military engagement from a vastly outnumbered force, not by disease.
There are a lot of factors involved in any historical developments -- most all of them acting non-linearly. For instance, the spanish 'Conquista' would not have proceeded as easily -- spectacularly -- as it did in México, if the Aztecs were not actually holding a tenuous balance-of-power over other, resentful peoples: who joined-in with the spanish to attack the mexicas. The spanish had plenty of experience in intrigue and duplicity and bribery, etc. Europa was full of it. The spanish had a well-blooded, experienced military structure, having begun in Afrika and the Canary Islands... etc. The balance of forces _favored_ any powerful outsider coming in to stir things up. So if the Aztecs had been in a stronger position -- the Conquista would have taken a different course; but the outcome would *still* have been much the same, in the end. At a longer, larger scale (i.e., the spanish might not have gotten such a large empire out of the process, etc.) > > > On Sat, Jul 8, 2017 at 5:20 AM, Brian Ahern <ahern_br...@msn.com> wrote: >> >> The Spanish had cholera. It was 100 times as effective as gunpowder.
