History Thread!

[A True Kaniggit]

11 hours ago, Galactus said:

It's also worth noting that the americans learned and learned fast during the Civil War. The armies that faced each other at Bull Run were *far* different than what they were later in the war. A lot of the stuff going on during the early parts of the Civil War were indeed quite farcical. 

Wait! Are you claiming standing in the open trading volleys isn't a good idea? What madness is this?!

[TheKitttenGuard]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Wait! Are you claiming standing in the open trading volleys isn't a good idea? What madness is this?!

It started to be a bad idea when rifles were able match the rate of fire of smoothbores.

 

[A True Kaniggit]

25 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

It started to be a bad idea when rifles were able match the rate of fire of smoothbores.

 

What! A serious reply to what is obviously a sarcastic question? What madness is this?!

[Galactus]

4 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Wait! Are you claiming standing in the open trading volleys isn't a good idea? What madness is this?!

That's not really the main thing, inept tactics is one thing, but more about the difficulty the early ACW armies had in moving, reforming, and generally acting on the strategic level. (generally only feasible becasue their opponents were equally new at this)

 

[Maithanet]

On 1/20/2018 at 1:32 AM, A True Kaniggit said:

I think when people claim that the European powers should've taken a lesson from the U.S. Civil, they specifically mean the later battles of the war when the Union is often attacking prepared Confederate defensive positions. In battles such as Cold Harbor and Spotsylvania the Confederacy was able to inflict about twice the number of casualties they suffered, in spite of being outnumbered 2:1.

Not to mention the use of trench warfare during the Siege of Petersburg.

The problem is this war took place about 50 years before WWI. Hard to apply lessons from a war that happened half a century in the past that you weren't directly involved in.

The Siege of Petersburg is probably the best example, but there are a great many indications from the ACW that technology was swinging in favor of defensive fortifications.  Attacking an entrenched enemy usually failed even with superior numbers.  The ratio of troops to front mileage was much lower in the ACW than on the Western Front, which meant that a truly fortified line across the country was never going to happen.  This allowed cavalry to remain effective as a harassment and scouting arming.  But in campaigns where space was limited, such as Petersburg, the results were very similar to 1914 - failed frontal assaults, constant maneuvering to expand the front lines and turn the enemy's flank, and an eventual stalemate once all avenues for flanking were exhausted. 

[Galactus]

13 hours ago, Maithanet said:

The Siege of Petersburg is probably the best example, but there are a great many indications from the ACW that technology was swinging in favor of defensive fortifications.  Attacking an entrenched enemy usually failed even with superior numbers.  The ratio of troops to front mileage was much lower in the ACW than on the Western Front, which meant that a truly fortified line across the country was never going to happen.  This allowed cavalry to remain effective as a harassment and scouting arming.  But in campaigns where space was limited, such as Petersburg, the results were very similar to 1914 - failed frontal assaults, constant maneuvering to expand the front lines and turn the enemy's flank, and an eventual stalemate once all avenues for flanking were exhausted. 

But Petersburg was eventually abandoned when holding it became untenable: It did not face the same issues as WWI. As said, siege warfare was nothing new. It was the wider strategic implications of it that made WWI special. (where siege warfare could basically be extended and reinforced indefinitely) 

[Maithanet]

10 hours ago, Galactus said:

But Petersburg was eventually abandoned when holding it became untenable: It did not face the same issues as WWI. As said, siege warfare was nothing new. It was the wider strategic implications of it that made WWI special. (where siege warfare could basically be extended and reinforced indefinitely) 

Petersburg was abandoned because a combination of the effective embargo, the very large front and desertions meant that the Confederates could no longer hold the line.  It was not the result of successful maneuvering or superior firepower.  This is similar to the eventual result of WWI, where superior firepower and numbers could not carry the day for the Allies, and instead they had to rely on long term strategies like blockade, attrition and exhaustion to defeat Germany. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 1/9/2018 at 8:29 PM, A True Kaniggit said:

Didn't want to go off on a tangent in the U.S. Politics thread. But McClellan should've won the war in '62 when he was on the peninsula. 

Edit: He didn't because he was dumb enough to continuously overestimate the numbers the Confederacy could bring to the field.

Was he really that dumb.  I always wondered why McClellan didn't fight harder against the Confederates.  You are absolutely right he should have ended the war in 1862 with his attack on Richmond.

[Jace, Extat]

You're forgetting that 'federates counted for five Union Jacks on account of the transitive properties of free markets and slave blacks.

[Yukle]

5 hours ago, Maithanet said:

... This is similar to the eventual result of WWI, where superior firepower and numbers could not carry the day for the Allies, and instead they had to rely on long term strategies like blockade, attrition and exhaustion to defeat Germany. 

This battle of attrition is only part of the reason Germany lost. The influenza pandemic that struck the world in 1918, killing far more people than the war did, hit Germany before it hit the Allies.

Germany's ability to reinforce itself was broken, allowing its lines to crumple. By the time the Allies were hit - just a few months later - they had already broken through key points in the lines and were behind the trenches and fortifications.

The role of the pandemic in how the war happened is not well studied, given its magnitude, possibly because it contradicts our preferred view of history as the story of human agency and decisions.

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Yukle said:

The influenza pandemic that struck the world in 1918, killing far more people than the war did, hit Germany before it hit the Allies.

That's interesting.  I haven't seen much written about the 1918 flu and the impact on the war.  It is usually discussed as sort of a grim afterthought to WWI - that the flu killed more people than the entire war, and like the war, it was specifically deadly for the 18-35 group. 

[Yukle]

6 hours ago, Maithanet said:

That's interesting.  I haven't seen much written about the 1918 flu and the impact on the war.  It is usually discussed as sort of a grim afterthought to WWI - that the flu killed more people than the entire war, and like the war, it was specifically deadly for the 18-35 group. 

Yeah, it was devastating and so tragically overlooked.

Flu normally targets the very old and very young, but this flu strain targeted the immune system. The conditions of the war made it spread when it would normally be self-quarantining (as normally, if a flu strain is too deadly then everyone infected dies before being able to spread it much).

So the emaciated and injured soldiers who had it could spread the disease since their immune systems weren't really strong enough to offer much of an immune response to the flu. Without the cytokine storm that normally comes with flu infections, they didn't have increasing immune responses and therefore didn't have deadly reactions. But they were normally taken off the front lines, and would therefore spread it into the hospitals. Then it would go through the nurses and doctors to the supply lines - all of these were usually sick and starving people who wouldn't be in the deadliest demographic. And those who were dying were dying from opportunistic pneumonia infections, which wasn't immediately obvious as a secondary infection rather than a response to something far easier to spread.

By the time the diseases hit the major cities, via the returning sick soldiers, most doctors were already dispatched off to war, leaving fewer experts to provide an effective response. When the flu hit, it was in the unusual position of targeting those with healthy immune systems most of all, due to its nature. It had an unusually high fatality rate - something like 20% (when a normally catastrophic pandemic might be about 0.5-2%). Newborns and the very old were at risk, as they always are since even a small stress can be fatal, but the disease was extremely dangerous for healthy adults in their prime.

Flu is outrageously easy to spread. Coughing into the air can spread it, since the virus particles will float for extended periods. WWI effectively made the perfect conditions to spread a pandemic among the healthiest people... and then that pandemic did spread.

It was only a matter of pure chance that the same thing didn't again happen in WWII. Seriously deadly influenza strains seem to be random, but they do tend to crop up every 50 years or so. Most of the time, they are so dangerous that people die before they can spread too far... which is a morbid way to avoid a catastrophe.

[S John]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Was he really that dumb.  I always wondered why McClellan didn't fight harder against the Confederates.  You are absolutely right he should have ended the war in 1862 with his attack on Richmond.

It’s interesting to remember that the commanders on both sides often knew each other personally, and whether via personal knowledge of McClellan possessed by the Confederate brass, or by leaked intel, or even by info gleaned from the Northern press - the Confederate command was absolutely aware of McClellan’s cautiousness and deliberately stoked it.  There are anecdotes of the same confederate unit marching in a circuit over and over in order to appear to Federal observers that massive amounts of troops were flowing in, among other similar deceptions. 

McClellan should have realized that his estimates of enemy numbers had to be off considering the population disparity between the North and South but he pretty much always thought he was outnumbered, though I think to be fair we have to mention that he was often tricked into beleiving so by his adversary and didn’t want to attack a defensive position unless he had superior numbers.  I think in the early stages of the war he can be at least somewhat forgiven for not wanting to commit to the hard fighting that it was actually going to take to win.  I’m not sure that fact had been fully realized yet.

[A True Kaniggit]

17 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Was he really that dumb.  I always wondered why McClellan didn't fight harder against the Confederates.  You are absolutely right he should have ended the war in 1862 with his attack on Richmond.

S John already gave a good answer, but yes. Believing he was always outnumbered is why McClellan was never that aggressive during his campaigns. During the Peninsula Campaign he landed with around 120,000 men. But he believed he was facing over 200,000 (the confederates actually had less than half that number).

[Maithanet]

3 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

S John already gave a good answer, but yes. Believing he was always outnumbered is why McClellan was never that aggressive during his campaigns. During the Peninsula Campaign he landed with around 120,000 men. But he believed he was facing over 200,000 (the confederates actually had less than half that number).

I agree that is what happened.  But you can't minimize what a huge mistake that was.  Failing to seize the initiative when in a superior position is unacceptable.  And this isn't just hindsight bias, there was plenty of reason to doubt that the Confederates could possibly have 200k men at that time.  Lincoln knew it was virtually impossible, and he wasn't a general at all. 

[A True Kaniggit]

22 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I agree that is what happened.  But you can't minimize what a huge mistake that was.  Failing to seize the initiative when in a superior position is unacceptable.  And this isn't just hindsight bias, there was plenty of reason to doubt that the Confederates could possibly have 200k men at that time.  Lincoln knew it was virtually impossible, and he wasn't a general at all. 

Hey, I'm not trying to minimize his mistake. The whole reason this came up is because someone mentioned McClellan in the U.S. politics thread and I'm incapable of hearing his name and not criticizing him.

On 1/9/2018 at 7:29 PM, A True Kaniggit said:

Didn't want to go off on a tangent in the U.S. Politics thread. But McClellan should've won the war in '62 when he was on the peninsula. 

Edit: He didn't because he was dumb enough to continuously overestimate the numbers the Confederacy could bring to the field.

Edit: But to give McClellan some credit, I'm going to repeat the old saying. (Can't remember the exact wording, so I'll paraphrase,  but you get the gist)  McClellan did raise, train and organize a large army. If only he knew how to use it. 

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Hey, I'm not trying to minimize his mistake. The whole reason this came up is because someone mentioned McClellan in the U.S. politics thread and I'm incapable of hearing his name and not criticizing him.

I wasn't trying to criticize you.  I was just pointing out that unwarranted passivity by a general can be just as bad as a reckless attack.  And McCellan is a great example of that. 

[S John]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I wasn't trying to criticize you.  I was just pointing out that unwarranted passivity by a general can be just as bad as a reckless attack.  And McCellan is a great example of that. 

He also stands in pretty stark contrast to the commanders on the other side, many of whom were bold, clever, and personally brave (often getting themselves killed) - and at times incredulous at their good luck that McClellan wasn't stomping all over them with his gigantic army.  But the Confederates understood that they had to be that way if they were going to win pretty much from the outset of the war.  It took some time for the Union to figure out what the game was - or at least it took them some time to get a guy in charge of the Army who understood it.  I think Lincoln pretty well knew what was up which is why he was always on McClellan's ass. 

To use a sports analogy, his opponents were just a bad match-up for McClellan.  They knew his weakness and exploited it.  It was going to take grizzled old bastards like Grant and Sherman to say 'I'm going to take this huge army I have and utterly crush you with it no matter what it takes' in order to win the war.  That wasn't Mac's style.  And yes he repeatedly utterly failed to seize the initiative by convincing himself that he didn't have it.  

[Jace, Extat]

4 minutes ago, S John said:

He also stands in pretty stark contrast to the commanders on the other side, many of whom were bold, clever, and personally brave (often getting themselves killed) - and at times incredulous at their good luck that McClellan wasn't stomping all over them with his gigantic army.  But the Confederates understood that they had to be that way if they were going to win pretty much from the outset of the war.  It took some time for the Union to figure out what the game was - or at least it took them some time to get a guy in charge of the Army who understood it.  I think Lincoln pretty well knew what was up which is why he was always on McClellan's ass. 

To use a sports analogy, his opponents were just a bad match-up for McClellan.  They knew his weakness and exploited it.  It was going to take grizzled old bastards like Grant and Sherman to say 'I'm going to take this huge army I have and utterly crush you with it no matter what it takes' in order to win the war.  That wasn't Mac's style.  And yes he repeatedly utterly failed to seize the initiative by convincing himself that he didn't have it.  

It does kind of suck that all the interesting generals were traitors. Definitely a factor in why I never really studied the War of Reunification, besides the fact that I only recently started to look at firearms as anything other than a plague on military history.

The only reason I don't feel the inclination to kind of shrug at graveyard statues of Confederates is because they also erect statues of Davies or whatever the fuck his name was.

Talk about being on the wrong side of history.

[Maithanet]

5 minutes ago, S John said:

He also stands in pretty stark contrast to the commanders on the other side, many of whom were bold, clever, and personally brave (often getting themselves killed) - and at times incredulous at their good luck that McClellan wasn't stomping all over them with his gigantic army.  But the Confederates understood that they had to be that way if they were going to win pretty much from the outset of the war.  It took some time for the Union to figure out what the game was - or at least it took them some time to get a guy in charge of the Army who understood it.  I think Lincoln pretty well knew what was up which is why he was always on McClellan's ass.

Yes, but also remember that the Confederates had some significant short term advantages that helped a great deal in '61 and '62.  More horses, better horses, and far more trained horsemen meant that Union cavalry was consistently beaten.  This in turn meant that Confederate commanders had better scouting, while Union commanders had more supply problems.  Confederate generals were almost always fighting on home soil, which meant interior lines, shorter supply routes, and superior intelligence.  Confederate infantry had higher morale early on because "defend your homeland" is an easier sell than "defend the union". 

Obviously in the long term these advantages were overwhelmed by the Union's superior industrial capacity, naval supremacy and population.  But it really isn't surprising that the beginning of the war went well for the Confederates in Northern Virginia, when they were focusing on that theater above others (for example, defending New Orleans and Vicksburg), and they had those advantages.