Posted on 01/10/2014 5:48:26 PM PST by dynachrome
War is unquestionably mankind at his worst. Yet, paradoxically, it is in war that men — individual men — often show the very best of themselves. War is often the result of greed, stupidity, or depravity. But in it, men are often brave, loyal, and selfless.
I am not a soldier. I have no plans to become one. But I’ve studied war for a long time. I am not alone in this.
The greats have been writing and reading about war — its causes, its effects, its heroes, its victims — since the beginning of written text. Some of our most powerful literature is either overtly about war or profoundly influenced by it. Homer’s epic poems are about war — first, ten years of battle against Troy and then ten years of battle against nature and the gods. Thucydides, our first great historian, wrote about the Peloponnesian War — the great war between Sparta and Athens. Rome was built by war and literature, and the world has been influenced by that ever since. The American Empire is no different — our men came home and wrote about the Civil War, about the Spanish-American War, about WWI, about WWII. A new generation has come home and has written (and is still writing) powerful books about the counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The study of war is the study of life, because war is life in the rawest sense. It is death, fear, power, love, adrenaline, sacrifice, glory, and the will to survive.
(Excerpt) Read more at artofmanliness.com ...
Herman Wouk’s, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.
War and Remembrance was very explicit in its depiction of the Holocaust, and the made-for-TV miniseries was faithful to the book in its’ depiction.
Better yet, back in the early '60s our NCO Club had a personal description of this from a former sergeant of the Wehrmacht who was captured there, survived a march/transport of prisoners to Siberia, escaped, and got back to the lines using "skis" made of wooden barrel staves. He had pictures of the invasion of Poland, and of the battle of Stalingrad. His description was horrifying, but professional. He was a really nice guy and gave the very impressive demeanor of a soldier who has been through it all, and still tough.
Excellent list. I would add “Brave Men” by Ernie Pyle, Lee’s Lieutenants” by Douglas Freeman, “Company H” by Sam Watkins, Livy’s account of the 2nd Punic War, “Defeat into Victory by William Slim, “The Supreme Commander” by Stephen Ambrose and “The Last Valley” by Martin Windrow.
I remember reading where a university fraternity started that rumor or idea. IMHO it was the South attacking Ft. Sumpter and prior to that the attempted shelling of a supply ship a few months before. Then of course Lee invaded at Bull Run/Manassas.
I am no CW historian and I've gone into this argument before so I really don't want to get into it anymore but thanks for your post about those books.
My supposed favorite Chiang story goes something like this:
When the General was asked what he thought about the French Enlightenment he said, “It is too soon to tell.”
I would add:
Once There Was A War-John Steinbeck and
Brave Men-Ernie Pyle
Both are correspondent observations of servicemen during WWII.
Mk III Panzers?
Company Aytch! I loved that book!
Stopped them dead in their tracks and pretty much destroyed the German army on the western front.
Oh yeah, there were some engineers who did their duty and blew bridges, and the Germans had a problem with gas too.
And yes, we lost more men in the Bulge than in the Pacific.
Say what? P G t Beauregard was in tactical command at First Manassas. Lee was, I believe off on a bootless mission in western Virginia. ‘Invaded’, um, federal forces were operating in Virginia with the goal of defeating the CSA force covering Richmond. A federal success at Manassas would have been followed up with a drive through Fredericksburg toward the rebel capital. Somehow defending against an invading army does not become ‘invading’.
Fighting for the Confederacy, Edward Porter Alexander: Alexander was the premier artillery commander for the Army of Northern Virginia who just happened to have fought in every major battle in the eastern theater of war. This is my favorite Civil war history of all and I've read hundreds. Not only do you get great coverage, and insights, into all the major battles but Alexander give a great account into the everyday life of a confederate soldier. If you are a civil war buff this is a must read.
Campaigning with Grant, Horace Porter - this is basically the Union version of Alexander's book. Porter was a staff officer for U.S. Grant from Vicksburg through the end of the war. His memoirs give the best account of Grant's Overland campaign ever written and paints an amazing portrait of Grant, one of most fascinating characters in American history. This is one book I never wanted to end, it is just incredible. Another must read.
The 13th Valley, John Del Veccio: One of my favorite books of war fiction ever. The Vietnam war produced perhaps the greatest volume of war fiction of any American war and this was the best of the bunch. A riveting tale which is just a joy to read and impossible to put down.
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer: Whatever you may thing of Mailer personally, this was THE WWII novel with incredibly powerful characterizations. Another must read.
For those who like war books you cannot go wrong with any of these books.
Tainan, you and I have had this conversation before and I still disagree with you, and I also think you don’t know my opinions regarding Chaing Kai Shek.
First, you might be surprised but I completely agree with you about Chaing. He was milking, or rather extorting, money out of Uncle Sam without ever really intending to fight Japan. Chaing’s strategy was to have the United States defeat the Japanese for him. He was simply playing the “give me money or I might collapse” card for all it was worth. Support for CKS was simply wasted money and resources in my opinion. But Chaing was only practicing what I consider to be traditional Chinese attitudes in terms of diplomacy and dealing with foreign devils. He still believed in the inherent superiority of the Middle Kingdom, and it was for us smelly barbarian rubes to do his dirty work for him. Tuchman even remarked about it in her recounting of the ancient Chinese proverb “We can always fool the foreigner.”
And that’s where you and will differ on Tuchman. And you know the passage in “Stillwell and the American Experience in China” we are talking about which is found on page 622 of my edition. Tuchman states that the Communist Chinese position in international affairs was not fixed in 1944, and that by not seeking cooperation with them, we lost out on opportunities. She did not speculate on how it would have turned out, only that it could not have been worse than what actually happened.
I have a number of issues with this statement as I consider it highly illogical, and should have been patently illogical to Tuchman. Either the Chinese Communists were Chinese first and Communists second, or they were Communists first and Chinese second. Let’s take the first possibility. If they did not represent hard-core Marxist-Leninists, then they were going to pursue traditional Chinese policies and patterns in dealing with foreign powers. Such as, “we can always fool the foreigner.” In other words, they would have been no less likely to extort money out of manipulating the United States than Chaing Kai Shek’s Kuomintang.
On the other hand, if they were Communists first and Chinese second, it would have been a major break with traditional Chinese policies. But it would have been a break not at all in favor of the United States. No matter what course the United States took, they Chinese Communists were going to be inimical to our interests.
If you look at the domestic policies of Mao’s Communists, it’s pretty clear they were communists first and Chinese second. His xenophobic closure of China to the west, and the murder of millions of his own people as he “fundamentally transformed” China, makes it pretty clear that there was no way cooperation with Mao was going to get us anywhere different than it got us anyway. Look at Soviet Russia at the same time. Unquestionably communist first and Russian second. We cooperated extensively with them during this time. Look where it got us.
So either Tuchman completely disregarded all she knew about China in writing that paragraph, or she completely disregarded the historical record and context of the United States in dealing with communist nations and what those political systems were all about. Either way she made a completely illogical statement, or she was a closet communist supporter. I’ve chosen to believe that such an intelligent writer of history could not have made such an error of logic.
On that, I suppose we will always disagree.
I have to admit when I first read “Stillwell and the American Experience in China,” I was intrigued by Tuchman’s statement that we lost opportunities by not pursuing closer relations with the Chinese Communists in 1944. But I was also intrigued by the post-war memoirs of German generals in how they believed they could have defeated the USSR and won the war. After considering the German generals’ memoirs, I created what some of my history friends call “henkster’s Law” regarding alternate histories. Put in context of the German war effort, “henkster’s law” states that an alternate history is not valid if it involves Hitler not being Hitler and the Germans not being the Germans.
Applying “henkster’s law” to Tuchman, it would read that the lost opportunities were not really opportunities at all if they involve Mao not being Mao and the Chinese not being the Chinese. There is no question that Mao was on a path to “fundamentally transform” China into a Marxist-Leninist state. In order to do so, he had to do certain things, and two of them stand high on the list. One was killing a lot of his own citizens. This seems to be a prerequisite in fundamentally transforming a society into a communist state. The other was that all, and I mean ALL western influence had to be eradicated.
I know you are a keen student of Chinese history, and are undoubtedly far better versed in it than I. However, there are a few things I do know about China. When you look at China in the mid-1940s, their experience in dealing with Americans and Europeans (they would probably lump us together for the most part, just as we lump “Chinese” together) was not a good experience. Mostly from a business aspect. The Europeans had carved out their “spheres of influence” and pushed the Chinese around. For a proud people with a sense of cultural superiority, this did not sit well. So for Mao to be Mao, and to fundamentally change China, the westerners had to go, and be gone for at least a generation. For us to propose economic relations with China was a non-starter, as Mao would be suspicious of a “spheres of influence” agenda.
So that’s the key reason I don’t think it would have made any difference. Had we made overtures to Mao, he would have tried to milk the Americans of everything he could while it was expedient to do so. He would probably have used anything to his advantage against CKS. He would still have waged a civil war against CKS as soon as the Japanese were gone. He would have willingly accepted assistance from the USSR. He would have expelled the Americans as soon as possible. And the China we knew from 1945-2014 would be the same.
Ironically, that’s kind of the impression I got from reading the last paragraph of “Stilwell and the American Experience in China.”
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