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Post by artraveler on Nov 9, 2019 12:33:34 GMT -8
One of the things that came out of the war was the American way of war. Frontal assaults and trenches were gradually out after the war and maneuver war became the thing. A lesson not learned in Europe. WWI is a prime example of how not to wage war. The summer German offensive involved elements of blitzkrieg thought but failed. Pershing's American army was better taught in maneuver and concentration of fire. There are very few American examples of frontal assaults in WWII, Korea, Vietnam or anytime since. The American way of war is simple and was most eloquently summarized by our best general from WWII George S. Patton "hold them by the nose and kick them in the ass". In 1992 General Schwartzkopt executed his famous end around on Iraq. The media gave him high credit for strategy but in reality it was already doctrine in Army and Marine war college and had been for at least 40 years. Concepts like air-land battle are only variations of Patton's summary. The value of simple to state doctrine to an army or a squad is that every person knows what to do in a given tactical situation. For Americans it is secure the front and flank. Personally, I prefer the more eloquent Patton.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 9, 2019 13:31:07 GMT -8
By 1917-8, there was no way to avoid frontal assaults, at least initially. The goal was to break through and then be able to maneuver, but this required coming up with a means of breaking through. In 1917, the Germans came up with a technique which they put into place at Riga and then Caporetto (aka the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the prior 11 all being Italian attacks). These involved Stosstruppen trained in the sort of attacks prefigured by John B. Gordon at Fort Stedman (as Douglas Southall Freeman pointed out in Lee's Lieutenants), though in the end his attack was driven back after initial success. Pershing apparently did use similar tactics.
The Allies were unable to accomplish this on the Western Front, but they did keep driving the Germans back. On the other theaters, the Allies accomplished breakthroughs at Megiddo, in the Salonica area, and at Vittorio Veneto (the breach being led by a corps under the Earl of Cavan). They were helped by the fact that the Central Powers were all ready to dissolve by then, and in fact the Austro-Hungarian front-line army more or less outlasted the empire. (The commander on the Italian Front, Boroevic -- an ethnic Serb -- tried to keep the Habsburgs on the throne.)
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 9, 2019 16:46:25 GMT -8
I just finished “The Smoke at Dawn.” I thought the first half of the book was very good. The second half got bogged down with personality conflicts between the generals. There was way too much of that.
It ends well with an epilogue about the rest of the lives and careers of the major players. Thomas is perhaps the most exemplary character. Cleburne was on the wrong side of history but usually on the right end of the battles.
There’s a quote at the end of this book from Grant about how Jefferson Davis (and his horrible picking and handling of generals) was one of the Union’s greatest assets.
Sherman is somewhat humbled by his part in it. He is sent off to help Burnside repel the siege of Knoxville by Longstreet. Eager to redeem himself (and Grant has apparently given him his opportunity for the purpose), Sherman finds that Longstreet has already been beaten and is heading back to Virginia. Invite by Burnside to a sumptuous banquet, Sherman also finds that reports of starvation within Knoxville has been exaggerated by Burnside in order to gain outside men and supplies.
And still nobody particularly likes or trusts Hooker.
There’s also a quote in the epilogue by a Southerner (I forget who) who said that the position on Missionary Ridge was so advantageous, the Yankees should have been repelled. He said it was the last best chance to crush a Union army.
From what I read, the defenses (and they had forever to prepare them) were amateurish and mostly ineffective. For example, the top line was placed so far back that they had no shot at advancing Union soldiers without standing up and thus exposing themselves. Proper pits, etc., were not prepared for the artillery either, making the artillerymen vulnerable.
However one feels about the cause, it was a disgrace to the South to have incompetent men like Jefferson Davis and Bragg in such high positions. But then the Union wasn’t short of nincompoops either.
And what a horrendous waste of men on both sides. This will never come through in a novel. You can write about ghastly injuries, but the sheer murderous waste of it all doesn’t make much of an impact.
As for Cleburne’s idea to free the slaves in return for their service as soldiers, nothing could show more clearly that the single issue of the war was slavery. The South’s entire rationale was slavery and thus the idea that the Southern whites were superior beings themselves. As Cleburne put it, the choice was between freeing the slaves or being a slave yourself to a powerful central government. The South chose the latter. They could make no other choice as wedded as they were to a filthy cause dressed up as “state’s rights.”
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 9, 2019 17:02:29 GMT -8
Very interesting point, Artler.
As soon as it was shown that Sherman’s attack on Bragg’s right flank was stalling, Hooker should have been relieved, extra forces thrown into those divisions, a feint in the middle commenced to confuse Bragg (which had been done anyway to take pressure off of Sherman), and then a very hard end run made on Bragg’s left flank (Thomas having personally taken command from Hooker).
The Union had the heights (Lookout Mountain) to the right of them secured. But Hooker took all day getting over a river. This book is full of examples of the passive-aggressive propensity of generals to get around refusing to obey an order by simply stalling.
As it was, the poor defensive setup (even given the advantageous ground) on Missionary Ridge, Sherman’s flank attack (which drew off many forces, including Cleburne, from the middle), as well as the bad manners of the Union soldiers on the front to take the idea of attack seriously, was able to win the day for the Union army. But, good god, no thanks to tactics.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 9, 2019 17:12:28 GMT -8
Thomas may well have been the best Union general. Note that Sherman's initial plan in 1864 -- to use most of his force (Thomas's Army of the Cumberland and Schofield's Army of the Ohio) to fix Johnston in place at Dalton while McPherson's Army of the Tennessee struck Resaca to cut Johnston's supply line -- was actually Thomas's idea to begin with. McPherson was able to reach Resaca undiscovered because Wheeler failed to cover Snake Creek Gap, but found the city held by a couple of Confederate brigades (reinforcements on the way to join Johnston), so he pulled back to the gap. It did at least force Johnston to withdraw (something he was quite good at) back to Resaca.
He also paid the heaviest price of any commander who actually survived the war. His sisters back home in Southampton County, Virginia (where Nat Turner rebelled a few decades earlier) never forgave him, and he never went back. He also only lived a few years after the war. Probably because of his Virginia background, Grant never trusted him and was planning to replace him before Thomas finally attacked and totally routed Hood at Nashville (and pulled one of the few really successful pursuits of the war). Hood resigned after the battle and the remnants of the Army of Tennessee under the senior commander (A. P. Stewart) marched all the way to North Carolina to join Johnston's forlorn hope facing Sherman.
McPherson was killed at the Battle of Atlanta, which was regretted by many on both sides. His fiancee in Baltimore came from a secessionist family who considered that good news. She was Not Pleased by their reaction. (Cleburne was married in early 1864, and my recollection is that she didn't long outlive him. At least they had most of a year, though I doubt they were together very much.)
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 9, 2019 19:01:53 GMT -8
The epilogue mentioned that. And although Thomas received criticism in the memoirs of both Grant and Sherman, Sherman gave a moving and stirring tribute to the United States Army when he gave official word that Thomas had passed.
I think Thomas was living proof that the “honor” so highly relied on by Lee and others as a rationale for joining the rebellion was not a definitive argument. It was simply their choice. They could have honorably done otherwise…as Thomas did
Sadly, apparently Longstreet was ostracize by the rabid Southerners for daring to team up with Grant after the war to try to reconstruct the South. Worse yet — far worse than if he had taken out his sword and hacked down a dozen innocent women and children in the streets of a Southern city — was that he joined the Republican Party.
I still remain on the fence a bit regarding Longstreet. I can’t say I know all that much about him. But I did gain an affinity for him after reading “The Killer Angels.” And from accounts in “The Smoke at Dawn,” he would have done his cause a great service if he had “accidentally” shot Bragg while cleaning his pistol.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 9, 2019 19:12:20 GMT -8
I did not know that General Thomas’ image was once on a bank note. [ Hi-Res] And he has quite a grand statue at Thomas Circle in Washington DC. [ Hi-Res] Longstreet has a fantastic bronze of him in Pitzer Woods at Gettysburg National Military Park. [ Hi-Res] There’s an agreeable quality to the visage of Longstreet. He could be mistaken for a friendly, soft Captain Kangaroo instead of the fearsome Confederate general that he was.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 9, 2019 19:34:45 GMT -8
At one point, Thomas oversaw the burial of bodies from Chickamauga in a military cemetery. The men asked if they should group the bodies by states. He demurred, saying, "No, mix 'em up, mix 'em up. I'm sick of states' rights." Tucker also notes his observation that if you ask people to traverse a wooden plank a foot off the ground, almost anyone can do it. But if you ask them to do so a hundred feet off the ground, hardly anyone can do it.
One thing about Longstreet is that he really held grudges. He and A. P. Hill got into a dispute in 1862 because a Richmond editor who had been on Hill's staff hyped Hill's performance. Longstreet wrote a letter (under the name of his top aide, G. Moxley Sorrel), rebutting the hype. As it happens, when Lee split his army into wings, Longstreet (who had the far larger wing because he did better in the Seven Days, probably because of Jackson being physically exhausted for much of the campaign) commanded Hill's division. When Sorrel sent some order to Hill, the touchy division commander refused to communicate him. This led to his arrest, a dispute that some thought might lead to a duel, and finally to Hill's transfer to Jackson in time for the Battle of Cedar Mountain, in which Hill's division saved Jackson's ass after much of his own division was routed by a small Federal force. (Banks was badly outnumbered in the battle.)
Hill forgave Sorrel, and eventually proposed him to command a Georgia brigade in his corps, to Sorrel's great pride. He may have forgiven Longstreet as well. But Longstreet never forgave him. (He also didn't like Early, though Early was one of the leaders of the anti-Longstreet crowd after the war so that was more a continuing feud.) It should be noted that Hill ended up in similarly hostile relations with Jackson, as did some other Jackson subordinates. (Richard Garnett, killed in Pickett's Charge, was the second commander of the Stonewall Brigade after Jackson himself. His actions in an emergency at Kernstown displeased the division commander, who cashiered him and later pursued a court martial.)
It's an interesting coincidence that the Confederates who mortally wounded Jackson at Chancellorsville were North Carolina troops from James H. Lane's brigade of Hill's division. Hill was taking care of Jackson until the stretcher-bearers came, and seems to have done well. He briefly commanded the corps as senior division commander, but then received a minor injury from Federal fire that disabled him for several days. The next senior commander was Brigadier General Robert E. Rodes, acting commander of D. H. Hill's old division because the new commander (Edward Johnson) hadn't shown up yet, so Hill named Jeb Stuart. (After the battle, in which Rodes performed well, he was promoted to command the division and Johnson was given Jackson's old division.)
Incidentally, there was some thought of Stuart as a replacement for his friend Jackson. There's no reason to believe that Lee ever considered this, but Freeman (I think) noted that Stuart wouldn't have hesitated to go for the high ground (Cemetery and Culp's Hills) after the first day's battle at Gettysburg, and whoever replaced him in the cavalry (probably Wade Hampton, the senior brigade commander) would never have gone off on something like Stuart's raid.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 9, 2019 20:32:14 GMT -8
When I was doing my MBA, I had a finance professor who had been the CFO of a large chemical company listed on the NYSE. Toward the end of one semester he held a mock board meeting with each student as a board member. He then set out an agenda which listed a number of different points which the board would discuss and then vote on.
We went through the exercise, during which there were many disagreements among us, some which got fairly heated. Toward the end of the meeting, we were having strong arguments about some point or another and did not seem to be getting anywhere. That was when the professor, as Chairman of the Board, called for order and took votes which left most of us unhappy with one result or another. The professor then smiled at us and pronounced the mock board meeting a success, saying something like "You see, reasonable people can disagree on things. This is something everyone needs to learn and it is an important lesson for business and life."
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Post by timothylane on Nov 9, 2019 20:42:26 GMT -8
That was a very valuable lesson. Too bad most professors don't take that attitude.
The closest any of my professors came to that was one (this was CS 548) who listed a group of computer companies with stock prices (hypothetical) if the government either did or did not intervene in the market by breaking up IBM (he once pointed that IBM was so big compared to the rest that the spin-offs would be the biggest companies in the field), which for the exercise was considered a 50-50 proposition.
He identified 4 different methods, all perfectly logical, for deciding which to invest in, and showed how each would result in a different choice. (I can still remember 3 of the methods.) His basic point was that one can get a variety of perfectly different logical results depending on assumptions. This was very similar, though not quite identical, to the point your professor was making. The latter's approach took more time, but it was probably also more effective.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 9, 2019 20:56:08 GMT -8
I have to agree with you. It was even more effective given the fact that all the students got along well and were not competing with each other for money or promotion. We were thinking only what was best for the company. That is theoretically the way a board should work.
Another quote from Durant's book, which I particularly liked, was a statement by a minor philosopher named Mario Nizzoli who apparently denounced "logic as the art of proving the false to be true." Perhaps the dialectic is the epitome of what Nizzoli had in mind.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 10, 2019 9:14:40 GMT -8
A very interesting and informative anecdote, Mr. Kung. I, of course, vehemently disagree that reasonable people will disagree on things.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 10, 2019 9:19:03 GMT -8
I’m going to absolutely assume that was an intellectually honest professor or else Mr. Kung would not have used that as an example. But in the real world today, we know that the least valued thing is a “diversity of opinion,” especially by those who value diversity.
Everyone desires to be right, to be agreed with, or just to meld into groupthink. One of the hardest lessons to learn is that we don’t know everything. That is, I could be wrong. This realization separates the Fascist Snowflakes from “the reasonable people” every time. Or most of the time. Maybe some of the time. Once in a while, for sure.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 10, 2019 9:27:19 GMT -8
That is certainly one reason people such as Ronald Reagan were so despised by the “intellectuals.” You have to denounce anyone who counters your complex web of lies with simple truths.
I like smart people but detest intellectualism. It is indeed the art of proving the false to be true.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 10, 2019 9:58:13 GMT -8
Logic is logic, to quote from "The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay". Good logic operating on facts is very useful. But then there's the sort of clever disputation that goes by the name of sophistry. This is what Aristophanes mocked in The Clouds, which introduced Cloud Cuckoo Land. The accusation of sophistry is what resulted in Socrates drinking a bowl of hemlock.
In essence, sophistry is cleverness for the sake of cleverness. It's what many debaters learn; in theory a good debater can take any side of an issue, though I never operated on that basis during my 3 years on the debate team at Louisville Country Day. That probably means I'm not a truly great debater, but I already knew that anyway. (I certainly wasn't an unbeatable debater.)
A good example of poor logic comes from the Blonde Squaw's explanation back in 2012 of why she thought she was an Indian (a Cherokee, to be precise, though that has nothing to do with her logic). She mentioned passing a picture of her "mamaw" (it's nice having a Massachusetts Senator use Southern lingo like that) every day and one of the adults pointing out that she had high cheekbones like "all Indians". Her mother had the same thing, though not the Blonde Squaw herself.
Now, it should be obvious to anyone with the slightest reasoning ability that if "all Indians" have high cheekbones and you don't , then you aren't an Indian (or, to be precise, any Indian ancestry you may have has become too attenuated to count). Anyone who understands formal logic will also see that even if all Indians do have high cheekbones, the fact that someone has high cheekbones doesn't prove that she's an Indian. A implies B (e.g., if you are an Indian then you have high cheekbones) is not the same thing as B implies A (e.g., if you have high cheekbones then you are in Indian). I've read that high cheekbones are also associated with Slavs, for example. And no doubt with other groups as well.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 10, 2019 10:46:01 GMT -8
Dr. P. only came to teaching late in life, after he had left the business world. He must have been in his sixties when I attended his class. So he had not been basted in the leftism of academia all his working life. He was also very strongly pro-America. He did not like divided loyalties.
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Post by artraveler on Nov 10, 2019 12:21:42 GMT -8
Now, it should be obvious to anyone with the slightest reasoning ability that if "all Indians" have high cheekbones and you don't , then you aren't This is the kind of circular logic that leads to fascism. Take an unprovable fact "some Indians have high cheekbones, some Jews are clever/communists/socialists/Christ killers, Blacks are lazy, rape white women, cheat at cards . . . " and assign it to an entire class of people. To do so is a sign of a weak mind and a bigot. Yet, day by day we hear the same song and dance from the progressive left.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 10, 2019 12:58:30 GMT -8
Of course, high cheekbones are at least a genuine inherited quality, like dark skin among blacks. Then again, not all blacks are very dark-skinned. Richard Dawkins once showed a photo of George W. Bush, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice and noted that if some alien were told that they represented 2 races determined by skin color, he would group Powell with Bush rather than Rice.
But of course my concern was with her logic rather than the degree of accuracy of the claim that "all Indians have high cheekbones." And her logic was severely flawed. That, and the errors associated with her version of "you didn't build that", are why I refer to as Blonde Squaw With Empty Head.
Incidentally, an interesting take on race and skin color can be found in Poul Anderson's parody of leftist lingo in "Withit's Collegiate Dictionary" from There Will Be Time. Among the entries are the racial categories -- black, red, yellow, or white. In each case, the definition includes, "From the color, which can range from brown to ivory." Especially in well-tanned people, as my sister used to be each summer.
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Post by artraveler on Nov 10, 2019 13:08:51 GMT -8
You can find lots of examples all through science fiction and fantasy. One of the best was the one with Frank Gorson, I forget the title, but I think it was third season. He and his adversary were locked in combat, one was black on one side of his face and white on the other. The other had opposite markings.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 10, 2019 13:24:06 GMT -8
Yes, I remember that episode, which is indeed from the third season of Star Trek ("Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"). Frank Gorshin was pursuing a rebel and was going to take him back to his planet, where it turned out that the two sides -- differentiated by which side was white and which was black -- had wiped each other out. So the last two beamed down to kill each other. (I realized the difference as soon as I saw both, but the crew of the Enterprise couldn't see it until it was explained. The point presumably is that they no longer paid any more difference to skin color than we do to hair or eye color.)
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