Posted on 08/20/2014 5:31:44 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
His march through Georgia has been gravely misunderstood ― as has Israel’s strategy in Gaza.
William Tecumseh Sherman 150 years ago took Atlanta before heading out on his infamous March to the Sea to make Georgia “howl.” He remains one of the most controversial and misunderstood figures in American military history. Sherman was an attritionist, not an annihilationist — a strategist who believed in attacking the sources that fuel and field an army rather than butting heads against the army itself. To review his career is to shed light on why the Israeli Defense Forces were both effective in Gaza and hated even more for being so effective.
Much of the South has hated William Tecumseh Sherman for over a century and a half, but not because his huge army killed thousands of young Confederate soldiers (it did not). Grant did that well enough in the horrific summer of 1864 outside Richmond. Rather, Sherman humiliated the plantationist class by staging three long marches during the last twelve months of the Civil War — from Tennessee to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Savannah, and from Savannah up through the Carolinas. In each of these brilliantly conducted invasions, Sherman, with a few notable exceptions, sought to avoid direct fighting with Confederate forces, either outflanking opposing armies that popped up in his way, or entrenching and letting aggressors wear themselves out against his fortified lines. He did enormous material damage, as he boasted that his enemies could do nothing to impede his progress — humiliation being central to his mission.
Instead of fighting pitched battles, Sherman was interested in three larger strategic agendas. War in his mind was not a struggle between militaries so much as between the willpower of entire peoples ....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
There are a lot of Southerners on Free Republic. You’re not likelly to win much support for a thread celebrating Sherman’s genius.
Great general.
“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.”
A some point, after all of the history, intellectualizing and analysis, you simply fight for your own tribe. I am a Southerner. I do not care much for Sherman.
At some point...
not just southerners...ex-yankees, thinkers, etc!!!
;)
Dick.G: AMERICAN!
aka: Gunny G
*****
I am a native Southerner (waiting for the accusations to fly).
I admire Sherman only in that he determined what needed to be done and then did it—with brutal efficiency—likely ending the war sooner than otherwise.
Patton was cut from the same cloth.
“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.”
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Oh, for leadership like that today. Please, God, bring us leaders like Sherman. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
This VDH article is about successful tactics in a war and that the IDF is waging its war against Hamas with true genius.
And yes, it is still possible that this turns into a re-litigating the civil war thread ....
They say Adolph Hitler was very intelligent too. Attributing the IDF tactics to W.T. Sherman is a joke. Sherman’s ethos was the opposite of Israel’s.
Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tsu said that the real target of the general is not the enemy’s army. The real target is to destroy the enemy’s willingness to fight you.
amen that
“They” who? Give Nazi weapons of the time to someone even of average intelligence and WWII becomes orders of magnitude tougher for the Allies to win. Certainly no unconditional surrender in ‘45. Hitler was a military moron, thank God.
Since we have unionized the American school system, there are no more 'teachers,' only 'educators.' The average student nowadays know less and less history with each passing year and what they are actually taught in the classroom from Kindergarten to Grad School is not actual history but rather different shades of leftest opinion squeezed more and more by the changing political correctness of the unions' patron, the Democrat Party.
As we see happening in Ferguson, it ain't what actually happened that matters... 
it is how much loot there is and how it can fill the coffers of the race baiting Democrat Party.
Sherman isn’t hated in the South for “humiliating” the plantation class. He’s hated for deeds such as burning down Columbia, SC.
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