Posted on 11/14/2004 5:23:06 PM PST by Cyropaedia
"How about Washington losing nearly every single battle against a military with supply routes based thousands of miles away. His best strength was (oddly enough) the french and his endurance."
And how about comparing the tools that Washington and his British opponents had? Whatever the shortcomings of British leadership, the British infantry battalion was one of the best tactical units of its time. Whereas Washington's army had to be put together on the fly, lacking the backbone of experienced NCOs that European armies had.
Washington's military decisions were always sound, and he hung in there until the Continental Army could match the British volley for volley -- and win. (That might have *something* to do with his losing nearly of his battles. Once his army was good enough to win battles he won the war.)
And let's compare the *strategic* results of General Washington's string of battlefield defeats to Marshall Bonaparte's string of victories. Wars are intended to achieve goals -- if you fail to achieve your goal, especially when the strategic goal is achievable (and they were for both France and the United States) -- I don't care how many battlefield victories a general wins, he isn't much of a general.
Washington's greatest military accomplishment is rarely recognized as one. It was his successful campaign -- after the end of the American Revolution -- to get his officers to go home, and fight thier battles politically, instead of setting up a military dictatorship in the United States. Look at how many other generals failed that test -- including Cromwell, Bolivar, Napoleon, and Julius Caesar. If you want to see what would have happened had Washington made himself Lord Protector or King George, just look at the history of Mexico.
Maybe, but you're not being honest if you're trying to claim that the North's opposition to slavery (such as it was) was based on concern for the slaves.
What do you mean Gandalf isn't a real person. I have known him all my life and I would swear he was real! :)
Excellent points about George Washington's military and political skills.
However, I think the Almighty had something to do with Washington's fiercely republican outlook and his eschewing any notion of a crown for himself or any sort of special status or power.
It was a great personal tragedy for George Washington, but we should all probably be quietly grateful that The Father of His Country was himself childless. If George Washington had had a son, he might not have been the George Washington we know and love. Personal tragedies sometimes make a man better than men know how to be on their own.
I think there were two reasons for Northerners to oppose the spread of slavery. One was moral revulsion of slavery - a view shared by Lincoln and the abolitionists. The second was the fear voiced by other Northerners that slave labor would take away jobs from paying labor in the new states. Lincoln and the abolitionist's opposition was noble and moral. Those who opposed slavery only to protect their own jobs were self-serving and their stance was immoral. Thus, I agree that the North is not completely blameless or pure in their actions or motives.
However after taking all of that into account, anything that the North did pales in comparison to the Southerns who actually held the slaves, broke up slave families separating wife from husband, mother from daught, and kept generations in bondage and who went to war to perpetuate that institution. You can find all the pride you want in those aristocratic and noble gentlemen, but their fair faces and noble words were used to defend actions that were no better than the barbarism practiced today by those with dark complexion and dirty faces in the Middle East.
I forgot Belisarius. D'oh.
Hannibal, Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, and Scipio Africanus.
El Cid, Alexander Nevsky.
Maurice of Nassau, Gustavus Adolphus, Vauban.
Geez. There are just too many from which to choose!
For starters, that's a tactical decision, not a strategic decision. Strategy is the decision to invade the North, which approach to take to Washington, etc. But once the armies were engaged at Gettysburg, you're talking tactics, not strategy.
And your point is incorrect anyway. For Lee to have assumed that Meade did not reposition any of his forces during the night and ensuing morning was reckless. Particularly since the union rear areas through which the reserves would move was not within Lee's observation.
Meade had the tremendous advantage of interior lines, as well as excellent observation of the Confederate troops once they left the treeline. That made it much easier for him to reposition his reserves or to shift troops as needed to meet Lee's frontal assault.
Even if the attack had been pressed home more quickly, and even if Longstreet had provided better flank protection, there were too few men involved to 1) deal a hammer blow to the middle, 2) guard the flanks of the attacking divisions, and 3) resist the inevitable counterattacks by Union reserves. Given the number of troops committed and the tactical advantages held by the Union, the Charge was a dumb, desperate move. Too few men attacking too many, with the defenders having the advantage of terrain and reserves.
Lee's best chance to win that battle was on the second day. Early in the day, he should have sent a division or two from Longstreet's corp in a deep envelopment around the Round Tops. Had he done that, then hit Sickles' exposed Corps later in the day and pressed on as he did to LRT, the flanking Rebel division would have collapsed the entire left flank of the union line.
Robert the Bruce - and the evidence is found at Bannockburn
and Nelson - and the evidence is found at Trafalgar.
Maybe there are better military commanders, but there are no better fought battles than those three (and no less a historian than Winston Churchill agreed with me on two of the three).
To answer your question, in determining whether someone is a great military commander, their cause matters not. The question was not, in the hypothetical posed by the starter of this thread, who is the greatest human being that ever lived, or the most influential or the kindest. Who was the greatest military commander.
When asking that question, you are looking at some pretty bad actors--Genghis, Caesar, Napolean, Nazis, Muhammad and Saladdin, the Turks, Cyrus, and your favorite villain, Sherman. To determine "greatness" in military matters, you look at what their objective was, and their cleverness, efficiency, leadership and other ways they accomplished their objective.
What an incredible dodge to claim that the North could have achieved its objective by ways other than Sherman's March, including by surrendering and allowing the south to secede. That betrays another failure to understand the question asked. The North could have continued to fight the war McClellan's way, and perhaps would have won eventually, although I doubt it. That would not have made the North's general's great, however, because they would have been squandering their resources and accomplishing their goals in a stupid way, much the way Russian tsars and commissars won by sending waves of peasants at an enemy until the enemy ran out of bullets.
They could have chosen not to fight at all, but that would not have been a very good way to achieve the objective, now would it?
The question assumes that there is a general, he has an army, the army is given an objective, and the general achieves it. Now who did it the best?
Would you say that the best football coach is the one whose team had the fewest penalties? The one who forfeited the game? Or the one who won by the highest score, or defeated the strongest team? Hmmmmm. Think on that, and when you can tell me which football coach is the greatest, then maybe you can ponder which military commander is the greatest, and take your sesquicentennially old grievances out of the equation.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
It shows what kind of character that Washington had. People like GW are very rare..
Well, you weren't showing much hospitality to my compadre either. The rule of thumb is to treat others the way YOU would prefer to be treated. (I know they know about the Golden Rule in OK...) As for OU and UT, well, I am a graduate of UT, but could care less. I'm not a football fan. Since the Nations supported the Confederacy, I don't usually see such volatile statements from your state......
And I take an insult to Marse Robert PERSONALLY!
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