History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VIII
- Thread starter Flying Pig
- Start date
IIRC there's simply not enough information on them to give a real answer. Wasn't as though any of those fancy tombs were for peasants.
Last edited:
Generally professional but limited. It was fashionable to hold him up as an example of the "right" kind of general some decades ago (the contrast between them in the film Patton picks up on this) but over the past few decades I would say that scholars have rediscovered some of his less admirable qualities (while by comparison Patton's generalship remains highly regarded).
The events in northwest Europe during the fall and winter of 1944 generally do not reflect well on him. He followed faulty strategic analysis, an overinflated ego, and a misplaced sense of nationalism into a path that led him to deeply flawed military decisions that got many Americans unnecessarily killed and lengthened the war, while simultaneously being insubordinate and sabotaging his commander's intentions. He was a bad and hypocritical boss who relieved officers who disagreed with his vision in a constructive way, while supporting ones who blindly followed orders into disaster. Bradley's actions from August to December would have earned him a court-martial from an impartial judge, so long as that judge could ignore the propaganda effect on the American public of relieving one of its highest-ranking officers.
Most of the rest of his career was somewhat better. He appears to have rediscovered how to be a good subordinate when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; although he waffled on whether Truman should relieve MacArthur in Korea, he ultimately supported the President's decision and was willing to give a memorable address to Congress in doing so.
Here's another Egyptian question. It mostly comes from a low-level history book, but it claims that Egypt didn't want cats outside of Egypt and would bring them back to Egypt, if possible. Considering the range of cats and that Mesopotamia, and not Egypt, was a center of domestication, is there any truth to that claim?
Absolution
King
Browsing some answers in Quora, I've got the impression that the Roman inevitable reliance on slave labour was its greatest disadvantage, as an "Empire" / politically organised culture. Is it true, and not exaggerated?
Disadvantage in what way?
Obviously it's one of the more monstrous moral atrocities to ever occur in human history, but I assume you're not talking about that.
Gen.Mannerheim
Grand Moff
Which is absolutely mindblowing to me.
Name an ancient empire that didn't engage in slavery in some form. Sure you can find plenty of late Republican authors and statesmen making a lot of hay over the large number of slaves in Italy & Rome at that time. However much of this is rooted in political talking points to win favor with the mob in the various political struggles of that day.
Absolution
King
Now I realise it wasn't clear at all.
A disadvantage for the functioning of the empire, for its survival, for the cultural hegemony of the Romans, for a potential further expansion, and pretty much anything.
Many answers to questions like "If xyz didn't happen, could the Roman Empire survive until modern era? / conquer Easter Europe?", while being extremely long and detailed, all start with explaining how the slave labour was an essential part of the Roman society, and end up with how Rome couldn't maintain themselves anymore because more army means more resources which mean more slaves which mean more conquered people and so on.
That's one example. I know I'm a bit vague, but I assume some of you know the issue and don't need my full description. In case you don't, I'll search for links to some examples.
MacArthur was considered far more of a hero than he should have been. He should have been relieved by FDR in 1941.
Buster's Uncle
AC2 Owner
Mac had a couple full-time PR people working for him when he was Army Chief of Staff in the mid-30s. -I believe that explains many mysteries about what he got away with for the rest of his life. He was just a big famous 'war hero' deal by his own design. He was already running for president 20 years before he was free to run, and woulda got it, too, if he'd been willing to do the work touring and kissing babies.
Ah.
Most historians don't view slavery as an essential part of the collapse of the western empire. The late Roman economy is usually described as being "fine". The state was not short of funds until it lost control of actual tax-paying territory (and the means by which this occurred are still hotly contested among historians). For the most part, historians tend to view the end of the western empire as a combination of two things: failure of elite management and military catastrophe. The causes of both of those things are still a matter of dispute, but slavery was not essential to either one of them. In fact, it is very possible to construct a factually accurate narrative of the fall of the west without mentioning the word "slave" once.
The empire certainly didn't suffer from a shortage of slaves. While Roman territorial expansion ended in the second century, Roman military operations did not. Up through the fifth century, Roman armies continued to mount expeditions into neighboring territory to destroy political enemies and take slaves. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that either a) the Roman economy started to fall apart or that b) this event occurred because of a lack of slaves.
So yes, I would say that these Quora answers do exaggerate the situation. Although slavery was an essential part of the Roman society and economy, nothing about slavery caused the Roman Empire to collapse.
MacArthur never should have been brought back in the first place. He had the preposterous idea in his head that "the Japanese" feared his name so much that they would never attack the Philippines if he were commander. While I obviously enjoy the benefit of hindsight, I think that FDR's decision to end MacArthur's retirement was, apart from Japanese internment, his greatest miscalculation. Most other generals would indeed have been relieved after the sort of fiasco that MacArthur presided over in the Philippines.1 But he was too politically dangerous to relieve, and instead he went on to establish a personal fiefdom in the South Pacific, diverting American resources, wasting American (and Filipino) lives, and lengthening the war with Japan.
Psychoanalysis is usually a bad idea in history, but it's hard to avoid the notion that he had a massive ego and was tremendously overconfident. When fighting against an enemy with little ability to maneuver, the overconfidence could be a boon, because things that would be risky against a wily and resourceful enemy were comparatively easy against a less-competent or underresourced one. But when fighting against an enemy that could take advantage of mistakes, like the Imperial Japanese Army in December 1941 or the Chinese People's Volunteers in November 1950, MacArthur's personality flaws led to real military catastrophes of the first order.
He could obviously come up with some very good ideas, usually about the operational level of war. While he never came up with "island-hopping", and in fact remained very wedded to outmoded ideas about land-based air cover that wasted time and lives and nearly caused two military disasters, he eventually managed to figure out a way to conduct the New Guinea campaign that bore some resemblance to military logic. The campaign was mostly pointless, but at least by 1943 it was well-run. And, of course, the Incheon landing was a risky and brilliant maneuver that he seems to have shepherded through almost entirely on his own initiative. The irony of MacArthur being the quintessential example of the American "political general" was that he had little understanding of either politics or strategy, even though he was quite competent at operational art.
1 = That said, the American military struggled with relieving higher commanders in the Second World War, even with cause. MacArthur kept his post after the fall of the Philippines. Bradley and his pet generals, Hodges and Patton, kept theirs after their open insubordination in the fall of 1944. Patton avoided relief over the slapping incidents in Sicily in the summer of 1943. Lower-level commanders, like Lloyd Fredendall or Charles Corlett, were relieved, sometimes with cause (Fredendall) and sometimes without (Corlett), but if you commanded a numbered field army or higher, you were safe as houses.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Who would you think was the better WW2 general?
Buster's Uncle
AC2 Owner
Dachs, who was it who said, of his dad and meeting him when he was his father's aide in the pacific east (Japan?), "I had never met a man more flamboyantly egotistical, until I met his son."?
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Just had a quick look at his Wiki and noted all the orders he ignored. Do you think the fall of the Philippines could have been averted if he stuck to previous plans? Would there have been relief forces available after the hold-out plan?
That's a question that deserves its own thread.
Among the Americans? They had a lot of generals who were good at different things.
There were several outstanding corps and division commanders, like Ted Brooks, Alexander Vandegrift, Joe Collins, Gee Gerow, Geoffrey Keyes, and Matt Ridgway. Due to the rapid expansion of the peacetime military, the Americans took time to produce good leaders at those levels, but by 1944 they had a collection that was better than most.
The leaders of American numbered field armies were a bit more uneven in quality. Sandy Patch and Truscott were probably the best and most well-rounded. Bill Simpson and Walter Krueger were competent and steady. Hodges was an unimaginative tactician who wasted his men's lives, and probably the worst of the lot.
Patton is tough to evaluate. He was an imaginative thinker who saw the operational level of war better than any other Western general. He got the most he could out of limited subordinates, like Eddy, Middleton, and Walker. He was also frequently insubordinate in destructive ways, and had trouble abandoning some of his preconceptions despite repeated failures. His actions during the breakout in France show just how superb a commander he could be; his actions during the frustrating fall campaign in Lorraine show how he easily he could slip into bad habits.
At army group, Devers was excellent. (His only drawback was not his fault: Eisenhower didn't like him, was unwilling to give him necessary support, and prevented his forces from crossing the Rhine in December 1944, shortly before the Battle of the Bulge.) Clark was often competent but rarely better than that, and sometimes worse; he fully deserved the opprobrium that came down on him for diverting an entire field army to occupy Rome for prestige purposes rather than attack retreating Wehrmacht units. Bradley was unable to think on the operational or strategic levels of war and was frequently insubordinate, but he also conceived and executed the most brilliant operation the Western Allies ever mounted during the war, COBRA. (Whether you give Bradley credit for organizing it, Collins and Brooks credit for tactical control and feel for the battle, or Patton credit for turning a breakthrough into a real exploitation, is a matter of debate.)
Eisenhower did his job about as well as anyone can expect him to have done. He lacked operational experience but had a strong theoretical background. More importantly, as a leader of an international military force, he kept the Western Allies mostly going in the right direction despite some incredibly trying circumstances (and subordinates). He certainly did better than MacArthur at avoiding strategic blind alleys, and he rarely, if ever, wasted lives. It is hard to imagine Ike providing a subordinate with limited resources and then ordering him to take an objective or "not come back alive", as MacArthur did to Bob Eichelberger during the Buna campaign.
And then there's Marshall, who was the greatest strategist America ever produced, and arguably its greatest general.
I don't know. That's a delightful quotation, though. Apparently it appears in something by William Manchester - possibly his biography of MacArthur, American Caesar.
No. The Philippines were probably going to fall to Japan regardless. American and Filipino forces in-theater were too small in number and too low in quality. MacArthur's error was in failing to mitigate the damage. Eisenhower, who was in the War Plans Division at the time and who was responsible for overseeing the Philippines, said that MacArthur "might have made a better showing", but was realistic about the allies' prospects.
After Pearl Harbor, no relief force was going to be able to follow War Plan Orange and steam directly to the Philippines' rescue. Even if the Pacific Fleet were intact, Navy planners thought that progress through the Marshalls, Carolines, and Marianas would probably take two years, not the six months that the Army assumed. (Naturally, the Navy failed to inform the Army of this belief.) Holing up in Bataan was not going to end well, regardless. Trying to fight the Japanese on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf was even more obviously not going to end well. Ideally, President Quezon could have declared the Philippines neutral and convinced the Americans to withdraw to forestall a Japanese invasion entirely, but it's hard to see the Americans agreeing to such a course of action and even harder to see the Japanese giving up on an invasion in such a case; they'd probably have just occupied the islands anyway.
Militarily, then, MacArthur was dealt a bad hand. He then proceeded to waste what assets he already had. Instead of facing court-martial, like Admiral Kimmel and General Short in Hawaii, MacArthur got a Medal of Honor and a starring role in the ongoing war effort.
Buster's Uncle
AC2 Owner
Yeah, "flamboyantly egotistical" really gets right to the point and sticks with you.
Buster's Uncle
AC2 Owner
I googled it, and from Wikipedia:
- ^ Jump up to: a b Fairbank, John K. (12 October 1978). "Digging Out Doug". New York Review of Books. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
A name like Arthur MacArthur lends itself to flamboyant egotism, one must concede.
Buster's Uncle
AC2 Owner
Oh, that was child abuse.
Similar threads
