True decisive battles in WORLD HISTORY

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Unlike Crypiss there are no bans here. He entitled his thread world battles but then proceeded to mainly concentrate on the Americas!! UI

I am not even sure that the Spanish Armada and invasion in 1588 is even taught in American schools, probably not as it's hardly taught over here these days. Truly fascinating though, especially when you cut through the myths and get to the reality. On paper the Armada and its 123 ships should have made short work of the British Navy. However most of the ships were designed to come in close and throw across grappling irons to capture a ship. Sir Francis Drake has far more nimble ships and he practised beforehand on the optimum distance to fire broadsides at the enemy.

Those guns weren't very accurate and choppy seas made that even worse. So he eventually decided that around 100 metres was the optimum distance ensuring greatest accuracy and avoiding being grappled. He found out at the Battle of the Isle of Wight that he was totally right in his tactics.

It was absolutely vital that the Armada was stopped in joining up with land forces based in Holland. So the Armada badly unsettled by Drake's tactics headed off to Calais to meet up with them. Sadly for them Drake had one more trick up his sleeve, he sent in fire ships towards the Spanish and routed them. They fled in disarray and headed for Scotland and then came around the west coast of Ireland in an attempt to limp back home. Many ships foundered on the threacherous Irish coast and some finally made it back.

If the Armada had landed on the Kent coast as intended it is abundantly clear that the Dad's Army hastily assembled would have been no match for the seasoned troops of King Phillip. Queen Elizabeth had little understanding of military matters, especially nautical warfare, so when asked to provide reinforcements she sent militia when Drake and Admiral Howard wanted more guns, powder and cannon balls. She was far too stingy to send those and it's true to say that it was Drake's brilliant idea to use fireships that saved Merrie Olde England from the Papist threat. Just think but for that you'd all be speaking Spanish now.
 
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It's definitely taught in elective history classes such as world history and western civilization but history has been a class in the US that is notoriously dumbed down to provide teaching jobs for coaches and to keep football players academically eligible or eliminated because public school administrators don't want to spend money teaching the humanities. You could make an argument that in US Public Schools that history classes of any sort are some of the universally worst taught classes in our country.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
It's definitely taught in elective history classes such as world history and western civilization but history has been a class in the US that is notoriously dumbed down to provide teaching jobs for coaches and to keep football players academically eligible or eliminated because public school administrators don't want to spend money teaching the humanities. You could make an argument that in US Public Schools that history classes of any sort are some of the universally worst taught classes in our country.
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Here is something that will help you understand the complexities and importance of those battles.

 
I have actually read on the Spanish Armada Tom. From decent sources. JFC Fuller to be exact. Michener wrote well on it too.

An interesting question for you. When discussing WWI with Brits there seems to be a split with the British public on Gen Haig. Most consider him an out of touch aristocratic donkey who butchered his men but a great number of others view him as the winning general. Most Brits though seem to be in agreement that Gen. Pershing was a mad man. Why is that? Is it because he refused to permit The British Army to command US Troops?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I have actually read on the Spanish Armada Tom. From decent sources. JFC Fuller to be exact. Michener wrote well on it too.

An interesting question for you. When discussing WWI with Brits there seems to be a split with the British public on Gen Haig. Most consider him an out of touch aristocratic donkey who butchered his men but a great number of others view him as the winning general. Most Brits though seem to be in agreement that Gen. Pershing was a mad man. Why is that? Is it because he refused to permit The British Army to command US Troops?
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Dan Snow is a historian and that's a BBC video from a series he did on historic battles. I will address your questions about the่ Great War later.
 
Havana Moon said:
Dan Snow is a historian and that's a BBC video from a series he did on historic battles. I will address your questions about the่ Great War later.
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Did you know about Lord Howard luring part of the Armada into a notorious stretch of water, near Weymouth, called the Portland Race? I used to live in Poole and would go sailing around there so that was well known to the locals.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I have actually read on the Spanish Armada Tom. From decent sources. JFC Fuller to be exact. Michener wrote well on it too.

An interesting question for you. When discussing WWI with Brits there seems to be a split with the British public on Gen Haig. Most consider him an out of touch aristocratic donkey who butchered his men but a great number of others view him as the winning general. Most Brits though seem to be in agreement that Gen. Pershing was a mad man. Why is that? Is it because he refused to permit The British Army to command US Troops?
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What is the difference between 'actually read' and 'read', just curious?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I have actually read on the Spanish Armada Tom. From decent sources. JFC Fuller to be exact. Michener wrote well on it too.

An interesting question for you. When discussing WWI with Brits there seems to be a split with the British public on Gen Haig. Most consider him an out of touch aristocratic donkey who butchered his men but a great number of others view him as the winning general. Most Brits though seem to be in agreement that Gen. Pershing was a mad man. Why is that? Is it because he refused to permit The British Army to command US Troops?
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I don't know much about Pershing to be honest, apart from a missile being named after him. Haig fervently believed that the war could only be won on the Western Front. This is a view shared by AJP Taylor, a left wing historian who I've actually read! Yes the trenches were brutal and Haig and his generals made many mistakes not least during the battle of the Somme. They genuinely believed that no German could survive the artillery barrage lasting nearly a week. They found out the hard way that wasn't true.

Whilst it's is easy to say that they were donkeys commanding lions, it should be borne in my mind that the Brits were inventing new forms of warfare and tactics. Rolling artillery barrages, tanks, aerial surveillance, tunnels under the enemy and narrow gauge railways carrying supplies and munitions to the front all.played their part.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I have actually read on the Spanish Armada Tom. From decent sources. JFC Fuller to be exact. Michener wrote well on it too.

An interesting question for you. When discussing WWI with Brits there seems to be a split with the British public on Gen Haig. Most consider him an out of touch aristocratic donkey who butchered his men but a great number of others view him as the winning general. Most Brits though seem to be in agreement that Gen. Pershing was a mad man. Why is that? Is it because he refused to permit The British Army to command US Troops?
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Dan Snow actually brought up evidence in the form of memoirs handwritten by Medina Sedonia and only recently discovered.
 
Havana Moon said:
I don't know much about Pershing to be honest, apart from a missile being named after him. Haig fervently believed that the war could only be won on the Western Front. This is a view shared by AJP Taylor, a left wing historian who I've actually read! Yes the trenches were brutal and Haig and his generals made many mistakes not least during the battle of the Somme. They genuinely believed that no German could survive the artillery barrage lasting nearly a week. They found out the hard way that wasn't true.

Whilst it's is easy to say that they were donkeys commanding lions, it should be borne in my mind that the Brits were inventing new forms of warfare and tactics. Rolling artillery barrages, tanks, aerial surveillance, tunnels under the enemy and narrow gauge railways carrying supplies and munitions to the front all.played their part.
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True the Brits did and of course the story was more complicated than Haig just being stupid. However a lot of the criticism of Haig dies appear to be justified. Essentially that at that time and with the advantage still belonging starkly to the defensive his continued offensives were suicidal and gained no strategic advantage.

Which brings me back to Pershing. The only evidence I can find for the resentments towards Pershing is that Haig and senior British commanders and politicians were apoplectic that Pershing refused to permit them to command American troops. That to me is odd as it wasn’t like Pershing had any choice. Permitting British or French Command of American troops would not have been politically tenable with the American public.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
True the Brits did and of course the story was more complicated than Haig just being stupid. However a lot of the criticism of Haig dies appear to be justified. Essentially that at that time and with the advantage still belonging starkly to the defensive his continued offensives were suicidal and gained no strategic advantage.

Which brings me back to Pershing. The only evidence I can find for the resentments towards Pershing is that Haig and senior British commanders and politicians were apoplectic that Pershing refused to permit them to command American troops. That to me is odd as it wasn’t like Pershing had any choice. Permitting British or French Command of American troops would not have been politically tenable with the American public.
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This BBC article on the WW1 is remarkably well balanced and fair, I believe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zq2y87h
 
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I’m currently reading a publication by an Air Force historian about the issue of amalgamation during WW1. Will comment more after I read that and your link.
 
Havana Moon said:
This BBC article on the WW1 is remarkably well balanced and fair, I believe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zq2y87h
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Balanced certainly. Fair? I’m not so sure. Much of the support of Haig is based on Allied Victory in WW1. The problem with that is that without the bolstering in manpower the Allies desperately needed from America’s entry into the war the Allies almost certainly would have lost the war during the Spring Offensive of 1918.

Also, the victory was phyrric as the Allied Victory in WW1 was inconclusive and had to be fought again twenty years later. Britain’s era of Imperial Empire had ended and the Edwardian class system had crumbled.

Much of what was stated in the link you provided is true. Haig was certainly qualified to command, competent by the measure of that time, faced with extraordinary circumstances no Britsh Commander had ever faced and at the end he stood among the Allies as a victor.

That doesn’t mitigate his great failings as a General. His lack of imagination, his inability to accept facts that contradicted his beliefs, his callousness towards his men and casualties and his inability to learn lessons from mistakes. For example during the American Civil War US Grant sent men in uniform lines to attack a fixed defensive position at Cold Harbor. Within a few hours Grant Lost 7000 men and the Confederates didn’t even have machine guns or high explosive artillary. Grant recognized it as a huge mistake and never repeated it again. Haig made an even bigger mistake at the first day of the Somme and repeated the same mistake nearly 160 times before weather ended it for him.

Ultimately though Haigs defenders are silenced by the weight of opinion of esteemed military historians as Winston Churchill, B.H. Liddel-Hart, J.F.C. Fuller and John Keegan in that though Haig was certainly no donkey, a great commander he was not.
 
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