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I'm currently reading "Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton" by Martin Van Creveld, and there's this bit about Moltke revising the way officers are taught about logistics, specifically he instituted something called "Mehlreise":quote:Apart from initiating the first serious study of the Plan’s logistic aspects, Moltke felt that the Problem is, I can't find anything about this with Google. All the hits lead back to this book. Kinda weird that something like this is mentioned nowhere else in literature.
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Apr 2, 2024 11:34
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Was it a known thing that particularly brutal or incompetent officers would catch a stray musket ball in the chaos of battle?
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Apr 2, 2024 11:42
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busalover posted:I'm currently reading "Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton" by Martin Van Creveld, and there's this bit about Moltke revising the way officers are taught about logistics, specifically he instituted something called "Mehlreise": Does that book have a footnote with its source? Frankly google sucks for this kind of thing. A lot of the info you would be looking for just isn't online.
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Apr 2, 2024 12:30
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Cyrano4747 posted:Does that book have a footnote with its source? Some super cursory loving around in the Bundesarchiv's search turned up these papers for a logistical exercise "KLEINE MEHLREISE" in the 70s so apparently it was a reference that some dorky logistical officer knew enough to make 50 years ago.
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Apr 2, 2024 12:37
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The Lone Badger posted:Was it a known thing that particularly brutal or incompetent officers would catch a stray musket ball in the chaos of battle? That doesn't seem terribly likely to me. Battles were rare, linear warfare doesn't give you much of an opportunity for that kind of "chaos", and losing your officer, even if you don't like him, has a pretty direct impact on the cohesion of your formation and thus your chances of survival.
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Apr 2, 2024 12:44
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Cyrano4747 posted:Some super cursory loving around in the Bundesarchiv's search turned up these papers for a logistical exercise "KLEINE MEHLREISE" in the 70s so apparently it was a reference that some dorky logistical officer knew enough to make 50 years ago. Ah, that's funny. Yeah I just looked, there's a footnote, apparently the author took it from Friedrich von Cochenhausen's "Heerführer des Weltkriegs" (1921). e: That Heerführer seems to be a collection of writings, by different authors. busalover fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 12:54
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busalover posted:Ah, that's funny. Yeah I just looked, there's a footnote, apparently the author took it from Friedrich von Cochenhausen's "Heerführer des Weltkriegs" (1921). Well, next step would be to track down a copy of that and see where he was getting the info. Sometimes you do this and find out that it's a dead end and you have no loving clue where the person got the info, which for some random book from the 20s or worse the 19th century means it might just be bullshit. But as often as not they'll have some reference in there, even if it's not up to the standard of modern citation, that tells you where to go.
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Apr 2, 2024 12:56
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Cyrano4747 posted:Well, next step would be to track down a copy of that and see where he was getting the info. I got curious and looked into the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Sadly, this particular collection is not part of the corpus, it seems. But did you know there where two different Friedrich von Cochenhausen who could have written whatever paper from this collection was quoted? One died in 1929, the other in 1946, and both wrote books about the military. The second von Cochenhausen is listed as the author of 34 books, and as having helped on 25 more, but the quoted work is not part of the list. Could be this means the other Cochenhausen wrote it, could mean the national library just doesn't have it.  Depending on what exactly was quoted, up to four different Friedrich von Cochenhausen could be originally responsible. Libluini fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 13:31
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busalover posted:Ah, that's funny. Yeah I just looked, there's a footnote, apparently the author took it from Friedrich von Cochenhausen's "Heerführer des Weltkriegs" (1921). Was there a mention of which edition was meant? Because if there is more than one, knowing which one was quoted could help identifying the author.
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Apr 2, 2024 13:37
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Was the officer who paid for a commission responsible for paying his troops? What happened to the unit if he died?
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Apr 2, 2024 14:18
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Libluini posted:Was there a mention of which edition was meant? Because if there is more than one, knowing which one was quoted could help identifying the author. Nope. This is the entire footnote, copy-pasta'd: F. von Cochenhausen, Heerführer des Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1921) pp. 26-7.
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Apr 2, 2024 14:22
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ilmucche posted:Was the officer who paid for a commission responsible for paying his troops? What happened to the unit if he died? AFAIK, no. Dumb analogy, but it'd be like if you bought the position of "Manager at McDonalds" but not the franchise/location itself. You're in charge of the employees but you don't personally pay them. The franchisee or whoever still does that.
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Apr 2, 2024 16:05
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busalover posted:Nope. This is the entire footnote, copy-pasta'd: Huh. All my searching did was find out that confusingly, there's a second book by the same publisher, with the same title, from 1939. I think this might be a later edition of this same book, though. Apparently von Cochenhausen is quoted multiple time s in the 2008 book "Krieg um die Alpen", by Alexander Jordan. I'll try to get my hands on that book to see if those modern quotes give some more details.
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Apr 2, 2024 16:23
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Jamwad Hilder posted:AFAIK, no. Dumb analogy, but it'd be like if you bought the position of "Manager at McDonalds" but not the franchise/location itself. You're in charge of the employees but you don't personally pay them. The franchisee or whoever still does that. Ok yeah that did seem like it would be dumb. Just still, buying commissions and the regular line guys having to deal with it sounds like it could suck real bad. I checked out acoup and it looks like he's doing a series on phalanxes which sounds very exciting
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Apr 2, 2024 23:24
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Fangz posted:That doesn't seem terribly likely to me. Battles were rare, linear warfare doesn't give you much of an opportunity for that kind of "chaos", and losing your officer, even if you don't like him, has a pretty direct impact on the cohesion of your formation and thus your chances of survival. I utterly disagree. You just got flogged 50 times and you’re given a lethal weapon in smoke and confusion and the man who ordered it is standing with his back to you. Worrying about your units cohesion is the last thing on your mind at that point.
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Apr 3, 2024 00:26
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Comstar posted:I utterly disagree. You just got flogged 50 times and you’re given a lethal weapon in smoke and confusion and the man who ordered it is standing with his back to you. Well, there's a non-zero chance he's in front of you, but it's incredibly unlikely. You're also probably more worried about Not Dying.
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Apr 3, 2024 00:33
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People don't tend to get flogged and then immediately fight a battle. There's lapses of discipline, it's usually when they are drunk, in the middle of the night, and not in combat. This was the case with fragging in Vietnam too. You're not worried about unit cohesion in the abstract, you're worried about "we need to all stick together because there's guys out to kill us". It's a very primal feeling and it's been drilled into you with all of your training. Fangz fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Apr 3, 2024 |
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Apr 3, 2024 00:46
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It's also worth pointing out that flogging as a practice was considered widely more socially acceptable in the 18th century and earlier - particularly, on board ships and within military units the troops themselves generally approved of flogging (when deserved) as being essential for maintaining discipline and keeping the unit in good order. That's not to say anyone LIKED being flogged of course, but if Private Fuckup got drunk and fell asleep on watch and got flogged for it, the general reaction from the troops would be more "What a stupid bastard, that'll learn him" rather than "Poor soul!" When everyone around you is telling you "You deserved that, don't do it again" it's harder to work up the kind of rage and resentment that leads to shooting your superior officer. Plus this is a period where "You must respect officers as your social superiors" is a lot more ingrained in popular culture, which, again, raises the bar required to consider murder an acceptable solution - not to mention the much more terrifying punishments in store if what you did somehow came to light, which it might very well do if all the soldiers right next to you (i.e. witnesses) consider you a crazy madman instead of someone with a justified grudge. I will note the emphasis on "when deserved," though. I'm more familiar with the naval side of things but seamen were generally accepting of flogging as an important way to instill discipline in raw hands who didn't know how the ship worked yet, but could get deeply riled up when someone with good seamanship and generally good conduct was flogged unnecessarily. One the bloodiest and most violent mutinies in Royal Navy history occurred, in part, because the captain had a habit of "flogging the last man down from the yards" - which is insane, because the last man down from the yards are inevitably going to be the people working on the yardarms at the very end of the yard, generally the most skilled and experienced hands, and there isn't actually any way for them to NOT be the last down from the yards without doing some very stupid and unsafe poo poo. It's like saying "The last man down from the ladder is going to be punished!"
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Apr 3, 2024 01:33
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Jamwad Hilder posted:AFAIK, no. Dumb analogy, but it'd be like if you bought the position of "Manager at McDonalds" but not the franchise/location itself. You're in charge of the employees but you don't personally pay them. The franchisee or whoever still does that. Depending on period. A colonel raising their own regiment in the 17th century (depending when/where) is actually on the hook for all that, plus equipment, and. Is hoping to get reimbursed later. On the plus side it has his name on it and also he gets to choose how to dress his little dollies.
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Apr 3, 2024 01:37
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As far as naval mutinys go has there been a case where the crew just all agreed to slit the captains throat for being really annoying and when asked about it everyone just goes, "Oh yea, dude went crazy jumped over board. Weird as hell."
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Apr 3, 2024 01:37
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Tomn posted:.One the bloodiest and most violent mutinies in Royal Navy history occurred, in part, because the captain had a habit of "flogging the last man down from the yards" - which is insane, because the last man down from the yards are inevitably going to be the people working on the yardarms at the very end of the yard, generally the most skilled and experienced hands, and there isn't actually any way for them to NOT be the last down from the yards without doing some very stupid and unsafe poo poo. It's like saying "The last man down from the ladder is going to be punished!" Tell us more- what happened to the captain and crew.
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Apr 3, 2024 01:43
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Alchenar posted:I was struck by a point made on twitter the other day that the US and UK are basically the only countries in the world that have institutions that have survived intact for 250+ years and there's a certain complacency/confidence that comes with that that many other countries just don't have. *eyeballs the Vatican"
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Apr 3, 2024 02:05
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The Vatican as a nation-state is actually much younger than the USA, although the Roman Catholic Church is of course much older. The modern conception of the state did not burst upon the world like Athena from Zeus's brow
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Apr 3, 2024 02:14
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Comstar posted:Tell us more- what happened to the captain and crew. The ship in question was the HMS Hermione under Captain Hugh Pigot, and the Wikipedia article has a pretty decent summary. In short, the crew eventually got fed up enough that they straight up hacked apart the captain and most of the officers, throwing them overboard possibly while they were still alive, and then defected to Spain. The Royal Navy ended up cutting the ship out, seizing some of the mutineers still on board, and tried those they could get. It's worth noting that this was actually quite unusual for mutinies - even the more famous incident of the HMS Bounty didn't actually involve bloodshed, and most "mutinies" were more in the way of general strikes that ended through negotiation between the mutineers and either the captain or Admiralty directly. That's why striking is called striking, in fact - if the sailors strike the yards (i.e. bring the yards down on deck) and refuse to hoist them again the ship can't go anywhere and negotiations are required. Further, throughout the 18th century the mutineers tended to actually get their way, with Admiralty agreeing to replace an unpopular captain or the captain agreeing to better treatment, with no more than token punishment for a few "ringleaders" just to emphasize that "Yes, we agreed to your demands but we're still your lawful authority, got it?" Sometimes some of the officers would even side with the mutineers to an extent, basically telling Admiralty "Well, you know, they have a point really." To some extent this isn't that surprising - sailing is a highly skilled technical profession that requires the close cooperation of the crew, and if the crew refuses to work they have quite a bit of bargaining power given that it's not easy to replace them. There's a reason why press gangs were a thing after all, and it wasn't because of an inexhaustible supply of skilled sailors. This started to change around the the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, however, particularly with the Nore Mutiny - what seemed like harmless, even quite reasonable general action suddenly took on the whiff of bloody revolution, while the sailors themselves started to get more radical ideas than simply ensuring better, reasonably living conditions on board for themselves. The Navy came down much harder on mutiny after this point, and it was no longer considered a slightly unusual but generally accepted thing for sailors to do in bad conditions. This was also mixed in with a heavier dose of paternalism, however - previously the relationship between officers and crew was more "As long as they obey orders, are in fit condition to obey orders, and don't make a mess of things I don't give a drat what they do or how they are," but around the start of the Napoleonic Wars culturally officers were beginning to feel they had more of a duty of care to their sailors, not only for their body but also their mind and souls. You get a lot more preacher captains, or captains trying to build a public library on board to entertain and educate sailors, better attention paid to their welfare in general and so on. So less tolerance of dissent, so to speak, but also more care to make sure they don't have cause to dissent in the first place. That moves us on into the Victorian period which is where I'm out of my sources, I'm afraid, but that covers the 18th century at least.
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Apr 3, 2024 02:19
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Nessus posted:The Vatican as a nation-state is actually much younger than the USA, although the Roman Catholic Church is of course much older. The modern conception of the state did not burst upon the world like Athena from Zeus's brow Right but the specific reference was to 'institutions' not nation states and the Church kind of beats the US and the UK into a cocked hat there 
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Apr 3, 2024 02:26
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Defenestrategy posted:As far as naval mutinys go has there been a case where the crew just all agreed to slit the captains throat for being really annoying and when asked about it everyone just goes, "Oh yea, dude went crazy jumped over board. Weird as hell." Robert Corbet might fit your bill. On the other hand, his death happened during action and after he had been wounded, so the circumstances are murky in a way that isn't purely shiftiness. A fictionalized account of the action takes place in Patrick O'Brian's The Mauritius Command.
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Apr 3, 2024 03:40
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Nessus posted:The Vatican as a nation-state is actually much younger than the USA, although the Roman Catholic Church is of course much older. The modern conception of the state did not burst upon the world like Athena from Zeus's brow This is going to depend a LOT on how you define nation-state, and frankly I would argue that the concept never fits the Vatican because it is not organizing itself along the lines of "nation" as the term was understood by 18th and 19th century nationalists who are its origins. Hint: "nation" in this sense is synonymous with Volk. "Nation-state" is a very specific thing and doesn't just mean a modern nation. I'll add to this that under most definitions neither the United States nor the USSR are nation-states (although there is also a strong argument to be made that in the case of the USSR it's an imperialist Russian nation-state sitting at the heart of an empire of vassal states). That said, the Papacy is driving around full sized armies during the 16th century Italian Wars and had enough land under its direct administration that you can pretty comfortably call it a state. There are a lot of hairs to split about how it fits into our modern conception of a state, but when compared to its contemporaries it is very obviously something more than just an ecclesiastical organization.
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Apr 3, 2024 03:48
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Well, there's a non-zero chance he's in front of you, but it's incredibly unlikely. The rank and file are in no position to tell if their commanders who made real decisions were competent or incompetent. Orders for regiments to move forward into an ill-conceived attack or to stick around for a forlorn defence are made at levels so far removed from the common private that you wouldn't even really know who to shoot. Most of the time the blame fell on the commanding general or his immediate subordinates and they wasn't really standing around in the line of battle where you could cap him unnoticed. Everyone else from brigadier on down usually just followed orders and after the first few volleys there was too much smoke to tell what the hell was going on. If a regiment or brigade is told to advance, the colonel or brigadier goes and orders his men to advance. If they are told to hold a position they deploy their men into line of battle where they are told. Its not exactly their call to make. If they were complacent and their men weren't well drilled enough to execute the basic maneuver then they would get canned by their superiors well before you got around to capping him yourself. Same thing if they were insubordinately slow with acting on orders that put their unit in a dangerous position or left another unit in a dangerous position by not being where they were supposed to be. The most damning mark on field officers usually were if they were cowardly and wouldn't lead their men into battle or displayed cowardice on the line. That was something that was very frowned upon by the men in the ranks. If it was a go-getter colonel who insisted on trying to keep an attack moving after the ranks decided it wasn't going to happen by either going to ground or falling back, well the go-getter colonel is usually the one standing tall waving his sword around trying to keep his men moving and would promptly eat musket balls.
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Apr 3, 2024 05:33
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Is William Bligh a unique captain in that he got mutineered out of his position twice or are there multiple historical examples of officers getting tossed into a boat by pissed off sailors multiple times?
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Apr 3, 2024 06:04
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feedmegin posted:Depending on period. A colonel raising their own regiment in the 17th century (depending when/where) is actually on the hook for all that, plus equipment, and. Is hoping to get reimbursed later. On the plus side it has his name on it and also he gets to choose how to dress his little dollies. So what I'm hearing is this was just 17th century Warhammer for rich folk
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Apr 3, 2024 06:12
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D-Pad posted:So what I'm hearing is this was just 17th century Warhammer for rich folk
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Apr 3, 2024 07:18
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A Festivus Miracle posted:Is William Bligh a unique captain in that he got mutineered out of his position twice or are there multiple historical examples of officers getting tossed into a boat by pissed off sailors multiple times? I always feel a bit sorry for Bligh. He seems to have been a generally competent dude and a whole bunch of famous historical people seemed to have held him in esteem. But you get mutinied once and couped by corrupt colonial forces and noone really remembers the other stuff.
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Apr 3, 2024 09:59
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hello I hope this is the right thread for this but I have received excellent reccomendations in the past from this thread regarding naval history books: can anyone reccomend a good book about American aircraft carriers? I have always been fascinated by them and would love to read about their technical history and/or people's experiences on them.
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Apr 3, 2024 10:54
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Elissimpark posted:I always feel a bit sorry for Bligh. He seems to have been a generally competent dude and a whole bunch of famous historical people seemed to have held him in esteem. Very much keying into Tomn's post, Bligh's recurring failures as a leader were 1) inconsistency and 2) taking things personally. Life at sea was (still is...) by necessity ordered and disciplined. Warships in the age of sail were tough and strict and the ship's company were quite prepared to enforce both the Articles of War and the myriad unwritten codes that seamen lived by. Like most leadership situations, and especially military ones, most crews not only didn't particularly chafe against the harsh punishments but expected their officers and their captain to enforce them when they were deserved. Not doing so was seen as weak and not upholding their side of the social order. They also expected the rules and discipline to be meted out fairly and consistently. Favouritism or persecution was not tolerated by the lower deck. What drove the Hermione's crew to breaking point wasn't so much Pigot's brutality but his injustice. While captains inevitably varied in their treatment, permissiveness, mores and overall style, a crew could adapt to a commander who was stricter in rules or harsher in punishments than normal, or had particular or peculiar standards in certain areas or certain behaviours they wouldn't tolerate. So long as these standards were consistently and fairly applied. Bligh's recurring failing was to 'blow hot then cold'. Particularly on the Bounty he started off with a quite permissive manner and routine, apparently in the hope or expectation that the men would follow his own example of behaviour and morals. When the men didn't spontaneously turn into Bligh Clones when given the chance, he took this as both a personal insult and a sign of his crew's moral failing and suddenly clamped down. Bligh clearly wasn't a 'people person' and a lot of his actions were well intentioned but counterproductive. He was very concerned with the health and morale of his crew (which is admirable) but his men chafed at the daily mandatory ration of sauerkraut (an experiment in warding off scurvy) and Bligh's reaction was to line up the men every day and personally ensure every one ate his ration, which was seen as humiliating. Similarly, Bligh imposed periods of 'mandatory fun' in the evenings where the men were required to dance, sing and sky-lark which was entirely counterproductive. The pattern grew more contrasting as the voyage continued, with Bligh being distant and permissive then suddenly cracking down and micromanaging the routine, then letting off again, apparently in the hope that the crew would have learned how things should be done now...and then feeling personally and morally offended when some of them inevitably didn't. This produced the other poisonous element - unwittingly or not Bligh soon developed clearly different attitudes to those of the crew who he judged to meet his standards and those who he felt had let him down. And that just made things worse, because the 'out group' (whose main failing, let's not forget, had been to just act like sailors when given a lot of latitude by their commander...latitude that was then suddenly withdrawn and they felt retroactively punished for) had even less reason to work and behave as expected. The Bounty expedition was a tough situation for any leader. It was underresourced, Bligh was the only officer (and just a Lieutenant) and the voyage was long and dangerous. With the ship's great cabin given over to the plants Bligh had to live, eat, sleep and work in the chartroom, putting him in amongst the warrant officers and senior ratings and he amongst them. Bligh also made the unwise decision to be the expedition's purser, meaning he had the potential to keep any surplus from the ship's books after the voyage. Unfortunately that made him directly responsible for the crew's pay and their supplies, which captains usually were not. Pursers were near-universally disliked and mistrusted with a reputation for withholding pay and getting rich by buying cheap, low-quality food and selling it to the ship at a hefty personal profit. Then you factor in the delay to the schedule caused by the prolonged attempt to round Cape Horn against the weather and then having to reach Tahiti going east, thus enforcing a long stay on the island while the breadfruit was prepared. Typically, Bligh essentially suspended naval routine at the start of the stay and then swung back the other way towards the end as he realised he had to get the crew back into order for the voyage home. The whole situation was a tinderbox that even someone without Bligh's personality quirks and lack of emotional intelligence would have found challenging. He was provably a competent sailor, an exceptional navigator and cartographer, a capable tactician and brave in battle. He had a curious and scientific mind and, following his mentor Cook, wouldn't accept losing his men to disease or malnutrition on long voyages. He just seemed to lack the ability to realise that not everyone would behave exactly as he would if given the choice, and took it as a personal insult to him and a moral failing on their part, when they didn't do so. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Apr 3, 2024 |
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Apr 3, 2024 11:35
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Alchenar posted:I was struck by a point made on twitter the other day that the US and UK are basically the only countries in the world that have institutions that have survived intact for 250+ years and there's a certain complacency/confidence that comes with that that many other countries just don't have. nah
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Apr 3, 2024 12:17
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Kvlt! posted:hello I hope this is the right thread for this but I have received excellent reccomendations in the past from this thread regarding naval history books: can anyone reccomend a good book about American aircraft carriers? I have always been fascinated by them and would love to read about their technical history and/or people's experiences on them. For US carrier developments before the war: Hone, Thomas, Norman Friedman, and Mark Mandeles. (1999). American & British Aircraft Carrier Development. For US carriers in 1942: Lundstrom, John B. (2006). Black Shoe Carrier Admiral. For US carriers from 1943 to the end of WW2: Reynolds, Clark. (1968). The Fast Carriers: Forging an Air Navy. For a bit of color from a memoir: Coyle, Darcy. (1989). Censored Mail.
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Apr 3, 2024 13:02
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yeah, if we're going only by institutions, both the Spanish monarchy and the little lordship of Liechtenstein are older than the US Switzerland, being founded in 1291 of course takes the pot, as probably the oldest democratic state in existence. What surprised me looking this up was how young the UK is: The United Kingdom was officially founded by the Act of Union in 1800, making the modern UK actually a tiny bit younger than the USA.  But again, only going by institutions, the crown of England is older than dirt, of course.
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Apr 3, 2024 13:19
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Libluini posted:yeah, if we're going only by institutions, both the Spanish monarchy and the little lordship of Liechtenstein are older than the US But in terms of institutions with continuity of power the Spanish monarchy only goes back to 1975. The current political iteration of the French state only dates to 1958. Germany has only existed in its current political and geographic form since 1991 and so on. Of course, if we're going by current official name and borders the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a relative youngster, only existing since 1921. I think the aspect that Alchenar mentioned has more bearing on national myth than historical reality. Speaking on behalf of the UK, my response to "there's a certain complacency/confidence that comes with that that many other countries just don't have" is "and that's putting it mildly". When the conventional history that you're taught is that your last political revolution was over 300 years ago and was actually just done by means of parliamentary paperwork, and your last actual revolution/civil war was decades before that and was essentially reversed because we didn't like how it panned out, it's easy to bathe in national exceptionalism and get confident in the stability, ability and integrity of your institutions. Even morseo when those institutions claim credible lineage back 1000+ years. At least, it presents differently to countries that have a history with a revolution (or several) that created new institutions or which have had monarchies become republics become fascist regimes become communist regimes become democracies. I would wager that the average citizen of, say, Croatia, has a higher appreciation of how national institutions can be fallible or ephemeral, that political settlements can change and that nations can come and go, than the average Brit. Maybe my country's political course over the past decade has made me cynically blinkered...but there's been a huge amount of complacent chest-puffing "nothing can go wrong for us...coups, collapses and corruption are things that happen to other countries, not here on sceptred Albion" going on.
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Apr 3, 2024 13:59
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I think the Tories have made a pretty good run at convincing the British public of government fallibility lately.
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Apr 3, 2024 14:06
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Those people are high on the jimson weed, although I suppose the UK has not had an active coup attempt the way the US has.
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Apr 3, 2024 14:07
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