History questions not worth their own thread III

[.Shane.]

Thanks SG-17 for the answer.

Yeah, I was gonna reply and then read that. Its a pretty good high level answer.

 

[BuckyRea]

The historical basis of their foundation.

You should have just written GFE. For people who know the history, this is an adequate answer.

Connecticut, before the revolution, was electing its own governors. That's pretty significant, but still doesn't quite explain why there was never even a serious threat of a military coup in the United States after 1789 (with a possible exception of whatever shenanigans Hamilton was up to during the Quasi War).

 

[.Shane.]

That's pretty significant, but still doesn't quite explain why there was never even a serious threat of a military coup in the United States after 1789 (with a possible exception of whatever shenanigans Hamilton was up to during the Quasi War).

I can think of a few things off the top of my head:

1. As noted in my prior post: Traditional history of established democratic/republican institutions and culture.
2. Govt that created a system where the head of the military is a civilian and a 3rd body (Congress) controls the budget
3. Maybe most importantly and clearly something a lot of people don't realize: The lack of a significant standing army. The notion of a large standing army was anathema in the US until after WWII. The experience of the last 20 years being under England taught the US that standing armies are the tools of autocrats and oppressive regimes. Hence, in peace times you have small armies. You also rapidly demobilize following the end of hostilities (see any conflict prior to WWII).

 

[BuckyRea]

I just pointed to George Washington because it was easier and succincter. He was obviously not the only Founding Father who "mattered". If I'd gone and talked about Madison and Mason and Jefferson and so on and so forth that post would've gotten really long and boring.

Perhaps if you'd have inserted a phrase like "He as obviously not the only Founding Father who 'mattered'." It would have cleared up any confusion caused by you saying one thing but meaning something else. Given the topic, a long discourse about Madison & Mason & Jefferson would be quite on-topic and (at least for me) far from boring.

Actually, you bring in a point I wasn't considering (and another we probably should be more clear about). First, I wonder if the Constitutional debates, and particularly the experience with the opposition by the antifederalists, which eventually forced Madison et al to introduce the Bill of Rights in order to forestall a second, pro-state's rights Constitutional Convention, played an instructive role in how to accommodate dissent in the early Republic. Certainly there was a lot less dissent-tolerating in parts (but not all) of the Spanish-speaking republics. I'll have to do some reading up about that.

In large part, I think it was just because the Americans gelled in a way that the Bolivians or Colombians or Platans didn't.

I would argue that the Venezuelans certainly did "gel" for a while. Their degeneration to caudillos and (for lack of a better word) juntaism took considerably longer than, say, the more politically sophisticated Mexicans did. The Argentinians, like the Mexicans, were hopeless, just jumping right into civil wars. Something to consider about Argentina and Mexico were the greater size, geographically speaking, than the English speaking republic. Spanish criollo penetration into the interior ran much deeper than in the US. As a result, you had more fervent localism than in the US. On top of that, you had weird geographic combinations, like Argentina's Atlantic ports having claims to political jurisdiction over Peru. That'd be like Georgia in 1784 having a legal claim to Vermont--utterly unworkable.

Local flavors varied considerably less among the North Americans. For instance Georgia saw quite a large number of Yankees taking root there. One of New York's first two senators was a Massachusetts man. US political leaders seem to have been more geographically flexible, so perhaps having a generation full of transregional leaders is a factor.

I'm still thinking out loud here. But something to keep distinguished is the difference between democracy, which I carelessly used, and republicanism. Democracy doesn't have to mean universal suffrage, but even the Jeffersonian use of the term should imply a broader public influence in government compared to the term republicanism, which I take to mean simply that someone is getting elected, if only by the class of large landholders, and the military is staying out of it.

Its a combination of luck (in terms of the leadership group that emerged, primarily Washington) and that the colonial experience under British rule had prepared the 13 colonies in a way that the various Spanish colonies were not, for self-rule.

I'm just now reading more extensively on Latin America in the time of the Enlightenment, but I'm finding myself increasingly disabused of the perception that there weren't strong advocates of Constitutionalism among both the liberal and conservative factions--and even among the pro-peninsulare factions who'd resigned themselves to losing their colonial status once Napoleon finished screwing up Spain. Despite the number of military leaders who kept trying to fashion themselves as Western Napoleons, the books I've read so far seem to suggest that the criollo (creole) leaders tended to regard both the French Revolution and Napoleon's hijacking of the same with comparable levels of disgust.

Also, like the English colonies, the Spanish colonies had a sort of period of benign neglect prior to the 1760s, after which the Bourbon dynasty started trying to introduce more Enlightenment-era type efficiencies, centralized government, and regulations of local industry. The criollo elites weren't calling themselves "whigs" exactly, but they certainly did have a century in which the local governing officials had to keep the local eco-social elites happy. Quite a few more developed localities in South America had elected governing councils who resisted centralized control once the Bourbons started to reform everything. One book I'm reading (I'll post the name & source when I get back home & log on tomorrow) refers to the Bourbon era reforms as the second conquest of Latin America.

So, just like the North American colonies, the Latin American ones too, "varying experiences with independent self-governance" and extensive decades of "self-reliance." The "top-heavy, autocratic, and dominated by Royal appointees" of the Spanish empire is I think exaggerated in US-focused readings compared to the story one gets from Latin American histories.

Washington is the shining example. If he had said "I want to be King", its likely he would've been.

I suggest that that is an exaggeration as well. It may be a chicken-&-egg thing, in that Washington would probably not have been so revered & trusted had he been of the character to say "I want to be king" in the first place. But more on-point, the vehement and very nearly successful opposition to the 1787 Constitution shows that any effort to place even more power & authority into the national government would have touched off a bigger and more literal fight.

I think we can all agree that the self restraint of the Founders is a bigger deal here than the trust the general public & political systems were willing to place in them.

 

[Cutlass]

Thanks SG-17 for the answer.



That's a good point, but there's a bit more geographic separation between Sydney and Melbourne than Connecticut and Rhode Island.

When those colonies were first founded, they were of between good sized and huge by British standards.

England:
Area
- Total 130,395 km2
50,346 sq mi
Wales:
Area
- Total 20,779 km2
8,022 sq mi
Cornwall:
Area
- Total
3,563 km2 (1,376 sq mi)
Connecticut:
Area
- Total 5,543 sq mi
(14,356 km2)
Rhode Island:
Area
- Total 1,214[2] sq mi
(3,140 km2)

Even the small states weren't remarkably small in comparison to the political subdivisions of England.

 

[privatehudson]

I should probably know this since its one of the periods I read a lot about, but during WW2 were US army formations regional?

In other words the British army have a regimental system that reflects recruits drawn from specific counties or cities, and many British Army divisions were known by a regional title such as the 51st Highland or the 1st London. Specialist formations like the Paras and Marines were usually exceptions to this. I was wondering what the US Army system was like?

If I'm being honest I've not really thought about it before, but I've just finished watching "The Pacific" and it occurred to me that the characters in this and Band of Brothers were from throughout the USA. Since the former deals with marines and the latter with paratroopers though I'm not sure if this was common to the general infantry formations.

 

[Cutlass]

I think that there was some regionalism and mostly not. For example, many units were actually National Guard units. So those would be regional. Those units that were not regional deliberately may have had some regional aspects, because the Army had training camps in different parts of the country, and many of the men were sent to the nearest camp. So that would create an unintentionally regional unit simply because in some case many, but most likely not all, of the men in one group might find themselves in a unit with mostly men from the same region. But that would be a very broad region, and not a state. And so would not be comparable to the British regional units. So for example Fort Dix in New Jersey might receive all the recruits from the Northeast, Mid West, and Mid Atlantic regions of the US. But some other base the recruits from the South, and another from the West. The Marines used to send all their recruits from the East to Paris Island in South Carolina, but all the recruits from the west to Twenty Nine Palms in California.

In the Civil War units were often identified as from where they were recruited. In the world wars, an Army unit might be mostly the same men from recruitment through deployment. But all the specialist units would be drawn from the other recruits, and so could come from anywhere.

But for units that were deliberately from a state and kept the location name for some purposes, it's only the National Guard units when in national service. And I think in modern usage they don't typically identify themselves that way while deployed in national service.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Also, I suppose you could count racially segregated units as unintentionally regional.

 

[say1988]

I'd also question how long the nominal National Guard units maintained their state character after extended periods in combat?
I would expect that replacements were pulled from the general pool with little care for the origin.

I know that is what happened in Canada, most units were established with regional identities, but attrition quickly created units of wider origins. This often occurred long before entering combat as the units would see considerable attrition due to promotions and accidents even when not in combat.

 

[privatehudson]

Thanks for the answers so far. Something similar to what Say describes happened to the British army later in the war when some formations were disbanded to provide replacements for other divisions and troops previously allocated to say anti-aircraft formations were placed in the infantry. I understand it caused some controversy at the time.

 

[say1988]

It wasn't controversial in Canada for some reason, perhaps due to a less prominent regional identity.
I know that one battery in the 4th Field Regiment, was formed in the Ottawa area in 1939, almost solely with men from that area, and in 1942 (only a few select men had landed at Dieppe, so teh vast majority of changes was promotions) it had men from every province, from throughout Ontario, and a number of Americans (who joined up in 1941).

One question too, in Canada a large proportion of senior officers during WWII had spent time in the artillery. Was this something common throughout the world or was there some coincidence or reason peculiar to Canada (such as how, prior to WWI it represented a large proportion of the permanent force)?
It would make sense that artillery officers (paritularly in the middle levels) need better overall knowledge and understanding of the battle as a whole in comparison to, say, infantry officers as their job is spread wider (i.e. they need to know which targets to prioritize in a broad area). But whether this would actually true or have an impact is questionable.

 

[Cutlass]

I wonder, that might be similar to the US pre WWII experience. From a biography of Eisenhower that I read, the officers were supposed to specialize in one area. And the infantry was the least prestigious. So many career officers tried for the cavalry first, the artillery second. (IIRC) So when it came time for the Army to undergo massive expansion, the officers available may in many cases have been the ones that went into a career track that let them stay in and get some seniority. But wasn't needed later in the same numbers.

 

[Fetus4188]

What kind of reaction did the Great White Fleet elicit, both politically and from individual citizens in ports of call?

 

[Lord Baal]

I should probably know this since its one of the periods I read a lot about, but during WW2 were US army formations regional?

No, they were not. The reason for this is actually given in the special features section of another Spielberg-Hanks collaboration, Saving Private Ryan. In WWI formations were regional, resulting in several families losing all of their sons - in one incident I believe five sons from the same family were killed in the same battle - and more than one incident of all the men from a particular town who went away to war dying, often in a single, very bloody engagement. In WWII, to avoid such incidents, a deliberate policy of non-regionalisation was kept. This obviously was not the case in National Guard units, but all other units were drawn from a nation-wide pool, so as to avoid anything similar happening again.

What kind of reaction did the Great White Fleet elicit, both politically and from individual citizens in ports of call?

In Australia, it was practically treated as the Second Coming of Christ. After all, it was here to protect us from those evil, expansionist, and worst of all, Asian - the horror - Japanese folk. The men of Australia quickly grew to hate those Yanks pulling all their women though.

 

[privatehudson]

Interesting, I knew that the experience helped influence government policy to split up brothers previously serving together, and about the sole survivor policy but I did not realise there was a specific policy to deliberately avoid regular units having a regional character.

Do you know much details about the five brothers who were killed during WW1? The only reference I can find is to the Sullivan brothers during WW2 which suggests the navy were not quite so careful about the issue.

 

[Lord Baal]

Interesting, I knew that the experience helped influence government policy to split up brothers previously serving together, and about the sole survivor policy but I did not realise there was a specific policy to deliberately avoid regular units having a regional character.

Do you know much details about the five brothers who were killed during WW1? The only reference I can find is to the Sullivan brothers during WW2 which suggests the navy were not quite so careful about the issue.

The Navy weren't at that point, but they quickly changed their policy after that incident. I don't have anything with me at the moment about groups of brothers or whole towns decimated in WWI, but I do have some information lying around about it which I'll see if I can dig up. As I said, the special features for the Saving Private Ryan dvd mentions it in passing, and I'm sure I have a few other books that mention it. Nothing specifically on either the policy or the brothers I'm talking about though.

 

[privatehudson]

I have the film on DVD, don't recall that part of the special features but it has been several years since I watched them.

According to the wiki page on the brothers they were one of 30 similar occasions were brothers were serving on the same ship, and one group of four were split up before the battle of Savo Island. It seems like a long time to get around to splitting up the likes of the Sullivan brothers but I guess that's the military for you. Still its interesting to see the way that the Navy honoured the likes of the Sullivans and John Basilone with a destroyer named after them during the War which I don't think happened very often (if at all) in the Royal Navy.

 

[Cutlass]

The name USS The Sullivans is still in service, with a Burke class destroyer built in the 90s.

 

[say1988]

Still its interesting to see the way that the Navy honoured the likes of the Sullivans and John Basilone with a destroyer named after them during the War which I don't think happened very often (if at all) in the Royal Navy.

That said, the British tended to name far fewer ships after people to begin with.

 

[r16]

watching the Tudors on TV , time to time . HenryVIII got another beheading , Katharine something . The issue is had watched a movie years ago and she seemed to be virtous woman politically wronged in that version . Instead of adultery and all that . Did she or didn't she ?