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Both! At the same time! (Gotta ask: Did the Early Modern era punish drunkenness in combat at all, or is that more a later thing?)
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Nov 7, 2014 14:53
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xthetenth posted:Isn't the early modern just BYOB? Back in the day it was BYOBBB.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:23
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Spacewolf posted:(Gotta ask: Did the Early Modern era punish drunkenness in combat at all, or is that more a later thing?)
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Nov 7, 2014 16:25
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That sounds like sports.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:26
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JaucheCharly posted:That sounds like sports.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:29
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HEY GAL posted:Edit: Was it Lee who said McClellan was his favorite Confederate general? Someone said that, and it is true. He said McClellan was the best Union general and that Grant sucked but I'm sure this had absolutely nothing to do with one of them kicking his rear end all over the place 
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Nov 7, 2014 16:40
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Raskolnikov38 posted:He said McClellan was the best Union general and that Grant sucked but I'm sure this had absolutely nothing to do with one of them kicking his rear end all over the place I feel like Lee said that due to the more 'gentlemanly' way that McClellan conducted the war and the fact that he was extremely reluctant to waste his troop's lives, as opposed to Grant which didn't hesitate to send troops into impossible assaults (see Cold Harbour especially).
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Nov 7, 2014 16:46
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Also I was under the impression that outside of Grant and probably Meade McClellan was actually *relatively* competent compared to the other generals of the Potomac.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:51
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:Well I agree that after the day was over and Lee withdrew McClellan was too chewed up to begin a pursuit, but that point neglects the fact that there shouldn't have been a need for a pursuit. Lee had exhausted both wings, had his center collapse, McClellan had 8,000 chewed up men in the center with a commander that wanted to press forward to block Lee's only line of retreat and 20,000 untouched men in reserve that he could have called up to exploit this opportunity. Instead he pulled back because he feared the Confederates were marshaling 100,000 men on the opposite bank. It's loving bonkers, no matter what perspective you view it with. I'm not arguing the point at all, it's just the post I quoted was ireadanewbook.txt. Even if that book is right you ought to poke around at the historiography around an issue, see what pops out. That's minimal due diligence.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:54
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Tekopo posted:I don't know if I would say that Lee got his rear end kicked by Grant, considering the Overland campaign, Cold Harbour and the siege of Petersburg. I think mostly it was that Grant didn't give up, even after losses that would have stopped Generals that had been previously in command of the Army of the Potomac. Lee was pretty cool with ordering frontal attacks though on well defended positions, though, so I don't know if that would have influenced his opinions much. Frontal attacks were kind of the standard operating procedure of the day. McClellan's main strength was that he was a good organizer of men and material, and it helped that he genuinely cared about the well-being of his soldiers, and was able to reconstitute the Army of the Potomac from its near-dissolution after the both battles of Bull Run. Probably would have been better off with Winfield Scott's job. But as a fighting general, he was pretty terrible.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:57
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Raskolnikov38 posted:He said McClellan was the best Union general and that Grant sucked but I'm sure this had absolutely nothing to do with one of them kicking his rear end all over the place Actually a quick google search reveals a mix of quotes and people drawing the conclusion that Lee's opinion probably changed depending on whether you asked him before or after the war ended, and who was doing the asking. It's obvious why some people post-war might want to venerate McCellan (Democrat) and denigrate Grant (Republican and running for the Presidency) and pick and choose their historical record to do so.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:58
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sullat posted:Lee was pretty cool with ordering frontal attacks though on well defended positions, though, so I don't know if that would have influenced his opinions much. Frontal attacks were kind of the standard operating procedure of the day. I do agree that McClellan was more of an organizer (and a good one at that) rather than a field general.
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Nov 7, 2014 17:04
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I have to agree with Keegan's basic summarization of the situation: Lee was probably the last great Jominian general, and certainly the last of the American Jominians, and Grant and Sherman in particular were some of the first good, modern generals to really break with some of his basic principles. I'm not sure where McClellen fits into this. Transitionary general who hasn't been served well by straddling that tactical transition? Mediocre-to-average Jominian who just got out-generaled in the field but decent, early form of a bureaucratic army general who did great on the administrative side? I can't answer that one myself and will leave it to those with a better grasp on the man. I do suspect it's a bit more complex than him either being a genius or a retard, though.
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Nov 7, 2014 17:39
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I generally feel that Meade and McClellan are cut from the same cloth: they both did well in defensive engagements (7 Days could have gone a lot worse for the Union army than it did, although it is debatable if that was Jackson's fault or a particular brilliance of McClellan in defense), while squandering opportunities that could have certainly brought the war to a much quicker end (the Peninsular campaign and Antietam vs allowing Lee to escape post-Gettysburg).
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Nov 7, 2014 17:48
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Currently reading the facinating Singapore Burning by Colin Smith, and this Sakomoto track really comes to mind during the whole of it. Any bits of music you guys associate in your mind with some books?
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Nov 7, 2014 17:49
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Pardon my ignorance, but what is 'Jominian' referring to?
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Nov 7, 2014 17:50
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my dad posted:Pardon my ignorance, but what is 'Jominian' referring to?
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Nov 7, 2014 17:51
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Guys, did you miss  ? If McClellan is "your favorite Confederate general," what does that say about what he does?Lee old. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 17:57
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100 Years Ago The short and sad story of Francis Orme ends today, in a battle of minimal tactical importance. The Germans are starting to turn up the heat again round Ypres, and they simply will not just pick a spot and give it the beans. The Bergmann Offensive continues, and the German treaty port of Tsingtao finally surrenders after a long siege. There's also a great illustration today of just how up against it the BEF is. The Germans keep ranging their guns on points behind the front line, in order to break up the reserves and the supply chain. Excellent strategy, but completely worthless because all the blokes who can stand up and shoot straight are at the front, and the shells are landing harmlessly on deserted fields...
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Nov 7, 2014 19:11
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago So did the Germans ever realize that they were just hitting empty fields? You'd think that airplane recon would reveal that there is nothing behind the British trenches, but I don't know how effective airplanes are in WWI.
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Nov 7, 2014 19:59
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Alchenar posted:The more I consider Lee as a General the overrated I think he is. He's a professional and competent general when on the defensive and with the advantage of superior intelligence, even accounting for the utter incompetence of his opponents, but both times he goes on the offensive (each time for indiscernible strategic objectives) his judgement is suspect and he's lucky to extract his army back to Virginia intact. Offense was in general pretty challenging in the ACW (and Crimea, I think it's fair to group those), if you look at everyone's collective track record.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:08
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Don Gato posted:So did the Germans ever realize that they were just hitting empty fields? You'd think that airplane recon would reveal that there is nothing behind the British trenches, but I don't know how effective airplanes are in WWI. In general: Not widely used yet at this point, poorly developed, and certainly not well trusted. The Feldflieger Abteilung had a nominal strength of about 200 aircraft, and were detailed to the army or corps level, not dedicated to tactical reconnaissance. Progression from say, August '14 to August '15 was ridiculously rapid. In that time frame, aircraft started using wireless to actively correct bombardments and spot targets, and practical aerial reconnaissance cameras were developed. In '14, most of it was flying around, writing some poo poo down, landing, and hopefully getting the info to someone who would make a good decision with it. This sort of limited value to very big strategic stuff, such as identifying German dispositions before the First Marne.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:15
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Social history is the view from below. (Detail of the Battle of Luetzen mass grave site) (I gotta say, his teeth are really good. Good going, man.) HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 20:59
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HEY GAL posted:(I gotta say, his teeth are really good. Good going, man.) People only got bad teeth around the 18th century, when sugar became affordable for the common people.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:03
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Kemper Boyd posted:People only got bad teeth around the 18th century, when sugar became affordable for the common people.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:06
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I don't think there was any way that Grant's campaign against Lee was going to be anything but bloody. It should also be noted that Lee's army suffered a higher percentage of casualties (over 50%) than Grant's(40-45%) while fighting a defensive war on home turf near their capital. Grant's army also never suffered the number of casualties in the same amount of time as McClellan had at Antietam or Meade had at Gettysburg. Grant managed to capture 3 Confederate armies, the only ACW general to do so. I think there's a bit more to him than just being a "butcher".
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Nov 7, 2014 21:10
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Mustang posted:I don't think there was any way that Grant's campaign against Lee was going to be anything but bloody. It should also be noted that Lee's army suffered a higher percentage of casualties (over 50%) than Grant's(40-45%) while fighting a defensive war on home turf near their capital. Grant's army also never suffered the number of casualties in the same amount of time as McClellan had at Antietam or Meade had at Gettysburg.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:15
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HEY GAL posted:That gap is kind of sad though, since it makes me imagine what he looked like when he smiled at people he loved and who loved him. And now he ends up here. That's something that should strike us whenever we read about deaths in history, really. Every single one of these nameless skulls was a person that meant something to someone once. I remember when I went to Capela dos Ossos in Portugal (a bone chapel) I felt weird for a long time after.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:15
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Koramei posted:That's something that should strike us whenever we read about deaths in history, really. Every single one of these nameless skulls was a person that meant something to someone once. I remember when I went to Capela dos Ossos in Portugal (a bone chapel) I felt weird for a long time after. One reason I decided to stop researching the nazis for my master's was that occasionally the stories of T4 were getting to me in a bad way.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:25
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Don Gato posted:So did the Germans ever realize that they were just hitting empty fields? You'd think that airplane recon would reveal that there is nothing behind the British trenches, but I don't know how effective airplanes are in WWI. Partly they were deliberately doing things like stationing reinforcements in woods (the Germans well remember that the massive counter-attack they just copped at Gheluvelt came at them out of Polygon Wood). Partly there's not many aircraft. Partly the aircraft that are there can barely get up in the air because of low cloud, high wind, pissing rain, or a combination of the three. Partly the aircraft that can get up there don't have cameras yet and are reliant on verbal reporting when the plane lands again. But no, the last reliable German intelligence was that the British forces in Flanders were strong but defeatable by a determined attack, and since then they've not been able to get any information that would contradict this assessment. The other thing the Germans are remembering is how the BEF was supposed to have been smashed at Mons and then spent the next two months popping up to offer stern resistance in a number of unlikely places, from Le Cateau to La Bassee, from Armentieres to Pilckem. What we've got here is an early example of a military trying to learn the lessons of previous encounters, but not quite parlaying that willingness to learn into a later decisive victory. This for me is the real tragedy of the war at the grand level; it's not so much that the military establishments and the generals and the staff-wallahs were fusty and set in their ways, as many of them were trying their best to learn lessons and show willing and be adaptable and do all the right things...and then they tried again, having taken all these things on board, and still it didn't quite work.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:40
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HEY GAL posted:That gap is kind of sad though, since it makes me imagine what he looked like when he smiled at people he loved and who loved him. And now he ends up here. At least he got some dignity with death, unlike these poor bastards who's corpses were used as support walls for defensive fortifications and hospital insultation!
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Nov 7, 2014 21:51
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On the topic of German air recon, for whatever reason they decided to map out of all of Denmark during WW2. About 75% of the photos have been recovered and put online and into a map you can scroll/zoom around on. http://lw1944.flyfotoarkivet.dk/Default.aspx It is surprisingly good quality, considering the conditions and equipment at the time.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:55
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SeanBeansShako posted:At least he got some dignity with death, unlike these poor bastards who's corpses were used as support walls for defensive fortifications and hospital insultation! Edit: And I'm not sure where "getting stripped naked before your body's even cold, left on the field where you died, and set into an open pit by the inhabitants of the nearest village (last step optional)" fits on the dignity scale. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 22:07
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SeanBeansShako posted:At least he got some dignity with death, unlike these poor bastards who's corpses were used as support walls for defensive fortifications... The Department of The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same would like to point out that there are some Gurkhas at Armentieres right now who don't have any sandbags, so are building their parapet out of dead Germans instead.
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Nov 7, 2014 22:24
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I forget the specific battle so maybe someone can help/correct me, but I recall reading about a Roman battle where things went roughly and they made a makeshift wall of corpses by driving a spear through 4 of them at a time and into the ground.
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Nov 7, 2014 22:39
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Regarding Lee's opinion of McClellan, you really have to be careful with who said what when to whom. Lee died in 1870, never wrote any books or even (as far as I know) newspaper articles about his role in the war, and didn't give too many interviews. Most of what we assume about Lee came second- or third-hand years or decades down the line, from the likes of Ewell or Gordon or [insert newspaper-writer-out-to-make-a-splash here]. The quote where Lee said McClellan was the best Union general originates either with John Singleton Mosby or Cazenove Lee, the son of one of Lee's cousins. It's very possible that Lee himself never said anything of the sort.
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Nov 7, 2014 22:41
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Tekopo posted:I wasn't saying that he was, but it is clear that Lee had a very low opinion of him, especially after the Overland campaign. I think it depends when he's talking and who he's talking to. I wish I remember the source but sometime after the Civil War Lee is at some kind of event and somebody was starting to trash talk Grant and Lee quickly defended him and his skill as a General.
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Nov 7, 2014 23:51
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HEY GAL posted:It's symbolic. (So are cannon and, for some reason I still don't understand, pontoon bridges.) Hey Gal, when you say the company doesn't exist anymore do you mean all legal obligations are finished? So, for instance, if the pontoon bridges are taken, then I don't have a legal obligation to swim across this river and try to save you. You are on your own and I am not committing desertion.
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Nov 8, 2014 00:03
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I shouldn't post things when I can't remember the source, but there was a British military historian who did a comparative study of Lee and Grant. Going in, he expected to find that Lee was the better general but ended up changing his mind. He pointed in particular to how they issued orders. Grant, he felt, gave very clear and easy to understand directions while Lee's were far more vague. That was fine when the subordinate receiving them was Jackson or Longstreet, who didn't need a lot of help, but not so good with lesser officers. I think we tend to underestimate how hard it was to command an army back then. With the communications available and the rough terrain they were usually operating across, it was challenging just to keep your units coordinated. All those Union generals didn't intentionally give Lee an exposed flank to smash into. For the Overland Campaign, both Lee and Grant were good enough they weren't going to get badly outmaneuvered by the other. And both were aggressive enough they were willing to keep their armies right next to each other, bashing away, for months.
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Nov 8, 2014 00:04
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MrMenshevik posted:Hey Gal, when you say the company doesn't exist anymore do you mean all legal obligations are finished? So, for instance, if the pontoon bridges are taken, then I don't have a legal obligation to swim across this river and try to save you. You are on your own and I am not committing desertion. That said, I'm honestly not sure if the presence and state of your flags determines just whether or not you can run or your relationship to literally everything in the Articles of War. However, I have read a bunch of mercenary contracts that speak of legal obligations relating to the regiment/company "as long as the flags fly on their poles," and they may have meant that literally. Incidentally, this period makes a distinction between "fleeing the flag" (Fahnenflucht) and "desertion" (Außreisen) that the 18th century won't. For the 18th century, leaving at all is "Fahnenflucht" and it's bad. For the 17th, just walking off is Außreisen, and it's bad but not, you know, that bad. Leaving the flag in a literal sense (for instance, leaving the field once the flags are out of their cases and unfurled) is really bad. And the flag doesn't have to even be unfurled, depending on who you are: I read a case once where a Fendrich killed a college student in a fight and then immediately skipped town. The first thing everyone did when they figured out he was gone is go to his room and remove the flag, and they seemed more bent out of shape about the fact that he had "abandoned his flag" than about the killing. (It was pretty clearly self defense, at least according to the witnesses.) All ceremonies are carried out in the presence of unfurled flags. When it's time to nail them on new poles, that's a little ritual in its own right. In Nuremberg once, when a soldier was punished by the city executioner and made "dishonorable" by his touch, he had to undergo a ritual in which he passed under his company's flags before he was "honorable" again and therefore fit to be a soldier. I read an account of a mutiny where the company sent, I think it was the Lieutenant, down to deal with the mutinous soldiers, and one of the things he said was "This flag has been entrusted to me and to you. I will follow it, and when I die I will be wrapped in it." He didn't mean that literally, he would have seen what happens to the dead. But you can see the place his company's flag occupied in his mind. Edit: Pictures: Like everything else, flags were opulent and splendid.  "ACT OR SUFFER STRONGER THINGS" (?) Detail:  The designs could be embroidered, as here, or painted on. The ground is either silk or a silk-linen blend. Different flags within the same regiment keep the same color scheme; often, the Oberst's personal company (if he has one) has a similar scheme but with more white  "AFTER THE CLOUDS, THE SUN" "something in German that expresses the same sentiment but this picture is too small for me to get it"  "MAY YOU BE PRESENT, OH JOVE, THE BEST LEADER" "Thus it cannot be otherwise/ So God will be my field commander" HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 00:23
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