History questions not worth their own thread II

[LightSpectra]

On a completely unrelated note, do you think it'd be reasonable to compare Paul von Hindenburg to Robert E. Lee, insofar that they were both moderately competent commanders that became deeply charismatic national symbols after their initial victories, but nevertheless heavily relied on the skill of their brilliant subordinates?

 

[Dachs]

I think that's a very reasonable comparison as far as it goes.

 

[Plotinus]

I've moved the discussion about Christian ethics to here.

 

[Agent327]

They were liberastic pinko fluffy bunnies "christians" - people who have absolutely nothing common with True Christians. Fluffy bunnies will burn in Hell

Thx for sharing.

 

[vogtmurr]

On a completely unrelated note, do you think it'd be reasonable to compare Paul von Hindenburg to Robert E. Lee, insofar that they were both moderately competent commanders that became deeply charismatic national symbols after their initial victories, but nevertheless heavily relied on the skill of their brilliant subordinates?

Lee could rely on the commitment of his troops. From what I've seen on these threads and in print, it doesn't seem to me that Lee could rely on brilliant subordinates. Who would that be; Stonewall Jackson ? He died before Gettysburg. Longstreet, Stuart or Early ? Competent maybe, but not brilliant and reliable.

Hindenburg was as much a front man, sharing his own role with Ludendorff. Lee had no equivalent who shared his role.

I think that's a very reasonable comparison as far as it goes.

- reasonable in that they were both charismatic symbols perhaps ?

 

[Louis XXIV]

Actually, I think Stonewall Jackson had a lot to do with Lee's success. Considering how much Ludendorff and Hindenburg were at each other's throats, I sometimes wonder about them.

 

[LightSpectra]

Lee could rely on the commitment of his troops. From what I've seen on these threads and in print, it doesn't seem to me that Lee could rely on brilliant subordinates.

Most of Lee's better ideas came from Longstreet (who was truly the best general on either side of the war), and heavily relied on the aggressiveness of Jackson. I give Lee credit for his ability to balance the two extremes, but after Longstreet's departure from the Army of Northern Virginia, you can clearly see who had the brains: Lee's overall strategic plan deteriorated, whereas Longstreet was on the verge of shattering the Western front if it weren't due to his frustrating incompetent commanding officer, Braxton Bragg.

Stonewall Jackson ? He died before Gettysburg.

Er, so one of Lee's best subordinates dying off before the most catastrophic defeat of his career is evidence that Lee wasn't a mediocre commander on his own?

Considering how much Ludendorff and Hindenburg were at each other's throats, I sometimes wonder about them.

I've never gotten that impression prior to the cancellation of the Spring Offensive. Ludendorff was politically savvy and realized the usefulness of being the man behind the throne (so to speak), whereas Hindenburg was delighted by the adoration that the German people gave him. They also made a good team insofar that Ludendorff's penchant for bold action (a trait he possibly picked up from his mentor, Count von Schlieffen) was balanced by Hindenburg's average military skills that kept him more closely grounded in reality, and also because the latter being a conservative Prussian noble made him the perfect embodiment of German nationalism and patriotism. (Also, in the earlier stages of the war, Hoffmann was a part of their team, and he's doubtlessly one of the greatest staff officers in history.)

The relationship between the two didn't deteriorate until Ludendorff's mental breakdown at the realization that the war was unwinnable (which was additionally stressful considering the Kaiser was going through the same strains to a lesser degree). Ludendorff hopped back and forth between the idea of continuing the war by using the winter to re-entrench and surrendering. Eventually he resigned and expected Hindenburg to follow, though the latter's sense of honor prevented him; Ludendorff was replaced by Wilhelm Groener until the end of the war. Ludendorff then invented the Dolchstoßlegende to absolve himself of operational failure and justify his own ultranationalist beliefs, and then threatened to expose the truth about Hindenburg if the latter didn't testify to the same thing in the post-war investigations. The rest is history.

 

[Dachs]

I didn't get the impression that Lee was a mediocre commander from the Overland Campaign. He did display an impressive talent for improvisation at that time despite losing basically all of his good corps commanders and several of his good divisional ones. Turning the North Anna line from a potential death trap into an impregnable fortress deserves credit. I think that once he was forced to realize that he couldn't rely on his subordinate commanders to take the initiative like he could in 1862 and 1863, he shouldered more of the burden himself, and it kind of worked. Of course, the Overland Campaign was basically the Seven Days' in reverse and over a much longer period of time, so it's not like Lee deserves plaudits for his operational generalship there. Tactically, though, he ran his army pretty well.

 

[LightSpectra]

I hold a completely different perspective of the Overland Campaign. The idea that Lee could bully a superior army from marching to Richmond-Petersburg, the same way he had done to McClellan in the Peninsula Campaign, was entirely implausible by mid-1864. The end result of the campaign was that he had lost 35,000 men to the Union's 40-50,000 and also had been knocked into a strategically indefensible but politically unrefusable trap at Petersburg. Although Grant had made his own share of blunders, he managed to best Lee in every way possible.

 

[Dachs]

I hold a completely different perspective of the Overland Campaign. The idea that Lee could bully a superior army from marching to Richmond-Petersburg, the same way he had done to McClellan in the Peninsula Campaign, was entirely implausible by mid-1864. The end result of the campaign was that he had lost 35,000 men to the Union's 40-50,000 and also had been knocked into a strategically indefensible but politically unrefusable trap at Petersburg. Although Grant had made his own share of blunders, he managed to best Lee at every turn.

I agree that Lee shouldn't have expected to win, and that the end result was a bad one (for the traitors), but his tactical management of the army perhaps prevented the campaign from being a total disaster and instead turned the whole thing into World War I v0.8. Like I said, operationally and strategically the Overland Campaign was a disaster for the Confederacy, but Lee's tactical leadership in the outing - which is one of the things you highlighted in your earlier post - was hardly "mediocre".

 

[LightSpectra]

I agree that Lee shouldn't have expected to win, and that the end result was a bad one (for the traitors), but his tactical management of the army perhaps prevented the campaign from being a total disaster and instead turned the whole thing into World War I v0.8. Like I said, operationally and strategically the Overland Campaign was a disaster for the Confederacy, but Lee's tactical leadership in the outing - which is one of the things you highlighted in your earlier post - was hardly "mediocre".

Good tactician, very charismatic, exceedingly poor strategist when he wasn't listening to Longstreet. Maybe "mediocre" is too faint a word, but I think his skills altogether considered can't be called excellent.

 

[Tee Kay]

It almost did in 1893. It proved to be too useful for the British as a buffer state against French Indochina, and insufficiently interesting for the French themselves. I dimly remember the French attempting some more subtle infiltration during the later Ayutthayan period, but contingency helped thwart that.

Phaulkon? That didn't end well. In any case it was unlikely to be successful.

1893 was a very close shave. Luckily for Siam there were richer prizes for the Europeans elsewhere, and sacrificing Laos, Cambodia and Saiburi helped buy survival.

 

[Dachs]

Phaulkon? That didn't end well. In any case it was unlikely to be successful.

Perhaps. I mostly know what I've read in period diplomatic histories, which emphasize the contingent nature of the failure in question.

1893 was a very close shave. Luckily for Siam there were richer prizes for the Europeans elsewhere, and sacrificing Laos, Cambodia and Saiburi helped buy survival.

I dunno if I'd say there were richer prizes, but certainly less troublesome ones.

 

[Tee Kay]

Perhaps. I mostly know what I've read in period diplomatic histories, which emphasize the contingent nature of the failure in question.

What do you mean by that?

Also, from the reparations thread:

Oh, well, there's your problem right there. Disregard Ferguson, acquire Strachan. (Or, in a pinch, Joll.)

What would you say is wrong with Ferguson's works? Personally I find his books repulsive, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is.

 

[Lone Wolf]

What would you say is wrong with Ferguson's works? Personally I find his books repulsive, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is.

I've read him. Obvious pro-British bias is what's wrong with him, obviously. He isn't that bad when it comes to 18th and 19th century, but when he starts to speak about 20th century, I start rolling my eyes at almost every sentence. I mean, "the British empire nobly sacrificed itself to save the world from the Nazis"? WTH is this guy smoking?

 

[privatehudson]

On the Lee debate I incline towards the opinion that Lee was almost certainly the best choice to command the Army of Northern Virginia given the alternatives.

As much as I admire Longstreet and his generalship he didn't do terribly well in independent command at Knoxville or to some degree at Suffolk. For all Jackson's talents on the offensive he seemed almost incapable of man management skills and drove many subordinates like Ewell crazy by not giving the slightest hint of his plans. Johnston didn't seem to comprehend the importance of informing Davis of his plans or reasoning, AP Hill and Ewell weren't even capable of commanding a corps properly and Stuart was best left in charge of the cavalry. Early is an interesting commander but not a realistic alternative until later on in the war.

That doesn't make him necessarily brilliant, but I've yet to see a convincing argument that any other commander would have done much better and most would have done worse.

 

[LightSpectra]

We're not talking about who the best chief commander would've been, since it's quite possible that all of them were subpar or worse.

 

[privatehudson]

The point I made might be at a tangent to your question but is still pertinent. Longstreet, the man you put forward as the war's best commander hardly shone when he got his opportunity for independent command either, did that cause you to rate him as moderately competent too, or dismiss it since as a corps commander he generally operated under another general's supervision?

Part of an army commanders job is to understand his immediate subordinate's abilities and utilise them to achieve his goals, so I don't see Lee using Longstreet's talents and advice as a negative point to Lee's generalship but a positive one.

Saying Lee wasn't very talented without Longstreet and Jackson is like saying that Napoleon wasn't much good without Davout or Lannes.

 

[Dachs]

What do you mean by that?

From what I remember, Jeremy Black seems to think that it wasn't totally impossible. To be honest, I don't know the details, and fixated on it mostly because of the Greek involved.

What would you say is wrong with Ferguson's works? Personally I find his books repulsive, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is.

I've read him. Obvious pro-British bias is what's wrong with him, obviously. He isn't that bad when it comes to 18th and 19th century, but when he starts to speak about 20th century, I start rolling my eyes at almost every sentence. I mean, "the British empire nobly sacrificed itself to save the world from the Nazis"? WTH is this guy smoking?

There's certainly a pro-British bias in some cases, but in other ones it's weird. He seems to think that the First World War was the UK's fault, basically, and takes the argument of guys like Zuber (that the Entente was essentially more aggressive than the Dual Allies, a fairly sensible argument as far as it goes) to extremes (the Entente Powers basically precipitated the war). His alternate history of the First World War is that the German Empire, had it won, would be all fluffy bunnies and so on, and its Zollverein Mitteleuropa would've been the European Union several decades early. And he blames the Entente Powers, mostly the Brits, for precipitating a costly war that put this off for decades and got millions of men slaughtered to no purpose. It's like he seized on elements of revisionist history which by themselves aren't all that bad and just ran with them in an absurd direction.

On the Lee debate I incline towards the opinion that Lee was almost certainly the best choice to command the Army of Northern Virginia given the alternatives.

As much as I admire Longstreet and his generalship he didn't do terribly well in independent command at Knoxville or to some degree at Suffolk. For all Jackson's talents on the offensive he seemed almost incapable of man management skills and drove many subordinates like Ewell crazy by not giving the slightest hint of his plans. Johnston didn't seem to comprehend the importance of informing Davis of his plans or reasoning, AP Hill and Ewell weren't even capable of commanding a corps properly and Stuart was best left in charge of the cavalry. Early is an interesting commander but not a realistic alternative until later on in the war.

That doesn't make him necessarily brilliant, but I've yet to see a convincing argument that any other commander would have done much better and most would have done worse.

This is an excellent post.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think Lee was a brilliant tactician who failed because the war was won strategically. He could get you any individual victory that was needed when on the defensive, but with the initiative. But he did it with high casualties. These casualties were understandable considering the weaponry, but not something the Confederacy could afford. I feel, were he in Europe in 1800, he would have been at home. But Lee's performance where he was showed he could only delay the north, not win the war. I feel Lee in the Civil War would have been equivalent to Napoleon in World War I.