Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
An assumption for those promoting the "Shouldda learned from the Civil War" line is that the nature of the next war may be predicted by the dynamics of the previous one. In some cases the previous ones are instructive, and in some cases they are not.
The most obvious example of the latter is France relying on the lessons of WW I in their preparations for future conflicts with Germany. The defense was supreme in WW 1, and the French had erred by placing their pre war emphasis on a spirited offense..a lesson which they were extracting from their defeat by Prussia four decades years earlier. So, when WW II erupted upon it, France was very much prepared to fight WW 1 again, the Maginot Line was to be the ultimate entrenchment which kept the fighting off French soil. They were not prepared to cope with the Blitzkrieg innovations which rendered static defenses obsolete.
.
We have the advantage of hindsight, which is always 20-20 after the events have unfolded. What certainty could the military and political minds of the early 1900's have had, that the lessons of the American Civil War still applied and were to be amplified?
Pickett's Charge taught to not make rash assaults, not to not make assaults. Note that Lee's army made several assualts that worked well the first 2 days of the battle.
Since the Great War was fought with far more advanced weapons than the American Civil War was it's hard to see what lessons Europeans should've learned. And besides, the Europeans had their own black powder rifle wars to learn from. And the Boer War and Russo-Japanese War were more valuable lessons as far as the Great War is concerned as they were fought with modern high explosive cannon and smokeless powder magazine rifles and machine guns. And the British learned a great deal from the Boer War.
There was very little rashness to Pickett's Charge and I'm dying to know about those several successful Confederate assaults, Seminary Ridge not withstanding.
As for what lessons the europeans should have learned was that day of the frontal bayonet charge should have been thrown on the trash heap of history.
Also, investment on something heavier than 75 mm artillery piece would have been helpful.
There was very little rashness to Pickett's Charge and I'm dying to know about those several successful Confederate assaults, Seminary Ridge not withstanding.
Pickett's Charge was quite rash; Lee's blood was up and he was overconfident, he also chose about the worst possible place in the Federal line to send the attack in.
On the first two days of the battle Confederate assaults drove Federal troops from several positions; the ground north of town where the Eleventh Corps collapsed for one. Also the position in the salient on the Emmitsburg Rd., the Devil's Den and the Wheatfield come immediately to mind; you know, the wrecking of the Third Corps and much of the Second and Fifth Corps by Longstreet.
Again, I argue that the lessons that informed the Great War were seen in later wars fought with modern weapons and not in our Civil War which is more rigrhtly thought of as the last of the old wars not the first modern one (unless we're talking naval warfare); indeed I'd argue that even the Franco-Prussian War was far more modern.
One wonders how you think they should've fought if not by attacking the way they did. Concentration of manpower was still needed to drive the enemy from the field given the paltry firepower of the rifle musket.
Last edited by Irishtom29; 03-16-2010 at 11:14 PM..
Honestly, the trenches wouldn't have been all that terrible if not for the mortars, potato grenades, and other explosives, as well as gas techniques, all of which wrecked havoc upon such Stone Age methods as trench warfare. It was the technology of the time, coupled with the ancient tactics that everyone hates. If we could've done without one or the other, the war would've been better, but as said earlier, they can't use amazing tactics, when the opponent's trenches are as good as endless.
The American Civil War demonstrated rather conclusively demonstrated that the rifle made the tactics of Napoleonic warfare obsolete for all time. Every European country had observers on both sides of the line, so when WWI arrived why were European Armies still prepared to make frontal attacks in formation against fortified troops with rifles and machine guns?
Why did none of this apply to the Franco-Prussian war 1870-71 then? Muskets were even more powerful and actually the French Chassepot rifle was much more powerful than the Prussian rifles. Yet they won in a war of movement, overcoming the better muskets and trenches whatsoever. The lesson from the Franco-Prussion war was to forget about anything in the Civil War and do the opposite.
Trashing all WW I generals is a popular sport, but condemning their absense of tactical imagination overlooks how limited their options were. It is not possible to make a brilliant flanking attack when no flanks exist. The entire western front was entrenched, from the Swiss Border to the English Channel, the choice was between frontal assaults and no assaults at all. All of the thinking had to go into how to make an assault which overcame entrenched, multi layered defenses. Most of the war was experimentation toward that end.....super preparatory bombardments....the elan of the attackers....poison gas.....walking barrages...no preliminary bombardment in order to achieve surprise...tanks...storm trooper tactics.
None of the above was ever more than partially successful, but what else was there for the generals to do?
exactly.
It was a time of transition in warfare and in the arms race.
The Civil War had been the first modern war but it was not the first version of truly mechanized warfare.
even if you take the gatlin gun into account it was by and large not the more heavier mechanized warfare WW1 and later wars were to become
But WW1 was the first in experimentation with heavy machinery.
It was all new, not only for the weaponry but even for the mobility.
tanks were slowly starting to replace cavalry, then you had planes for the first time ever too
and even mustard gas and a new level of chemical warfare not seen before.
everyone was in the experiment phase. In WW2 they had learned more how to fully utilize those weapons and improve on them, so they knew how they could make them work better on the battlefield.
criticizing how things went in WW1 is like giving someone a gun who's never shot one ever before, never been taught how to hold or aim a gun the right way, then having him shoot at a far-away target over and over but starting to blame him or being angry because after 100 tries he still hasnt gotten it down yet and misses the target.
Yup. They faked it, just like the supposed moon landing.
Yeah, they totally faked the most violent war in history.... If you've done any research at all, you know that it happened. The remaining trenches, the loss of life, the destruction of property.... To deny the reality of the Great War requires utter blindness.
The moon landing? Seriously? Are you one of /those/ people? Conspiracy theorists are the scum of all nerds, and I hope you know that.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
