Telegraph: George Washington named Britain's greatest ever foe

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

War of 1812, the Brits won a battle at Bladensberg MD, marched into DC and burned down the White House and the Capitol.

However, it wasn't as serious as it sounds - Washington DC was maybe the 6th or 7th most important city in the US at that time, and unless the Brits were able to subdue New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Charleston and New Orleans too, they weren't going to get anywhere.

Here would be a fun question: Who is the best British general in history? It's kind of shocking of how such a military can be so successful for literally centuries and rarely have a true visionary as a leader. A lot of people are going to say Montgomery, but I think he was a better press agent than general in a lot of respects.

(Also, as a complete aside, I think the one true genius among Confederate generals was Forrest. It's not fun to praise him, but it's the truth. Lee was a brilliant organizer and inspiring leader and he was solid tactically. Forrest was possessed of mad genius).

[Corcaigh]

Here would be a fun question: Who is the best British general in history?

The Duke of Wellington is an obvious one.

And you gotta rank Oliver Cromwell too. For kicking the **** out or both the English and the Irish.

[thehogs]

the odd thing is that over here we take no notice at all of the War of Independence, G Washington etc, Now and again when I was at school some classes that took history studied the US and that period but mostly it was 18th C Europe onward i.e. the rise of Britain as a world power, Empire etc and of course plenty on how we defeated the French (after 20+ years of warfare and the impact of Russia, Prussia etc.) and of course we won the war against Hitler (despite the enormous impact of the US and USSR.....). Whats that old saying about history is written by the victor?

[Predicto]

Here would be a fun question: Who is the best British general in history? It's kind of shocking of how such a military can be so successful for literally centuries and rarely have a true visionary as a leader. A lot of people are going to say Montgomery' date=' but I think he was a better press agent than general in a lot of respects.

[/quote']

Only three possibilities. Oliver Cromwell, The Duke of Marlborough, or the Duke of Wellington. I would go with Marlborough.

[thehogs]

The Duke of Wellington is an obvious one.

And you gotta rank Oliver Cromwell too. For kicking the **** out or both the English and the Irish.

probably Wellington. Montgomery gets a lot of press from WWII but I reckon he was vastly overrated with an ego to match that was partly responsible for the disaster of Operation Market Garden (Arnhem).

Cromwell was a ****. He raised my old home town (Dundee), killing men, women, children. He would probably be done for war crimes today. Made crucial changes to how the army operated though that had a major influence in the years to follow.

[Corcaigh]

Here would be a fun question: Who is the best British general in history?

The Duke of Wellington is an obvious one.

And you gotta rank Oliver Cromwell too. For kicking the **** out or both the English and the Irish.

[HailGreen28]

Here would be a fun question: Who is the best British general in history?

The Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill. Of course he was dismissed in disgrace by his lessers, after his victories.

(I'd put Bernard Montgomery of WWII way down the list. He wasn't even the best British general of that war, let alone compared to other nations during the same time, let alone compared to British generals throughout history.)

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

This is interesting. If you asked that same question about American generals, we would be having terrible arguments over several dozen names, I suspect.

Are American generals better? Do we overpraise our generals?

[FanboyOf91]

Cromwell. He built the best army in Europe, killed his king, and installed himself as England's finest military dictator.

[thehogs]

This is interesting. If you asked that same question about American generals' date=' we would be having terrible arguments over several dozen names, I suspect.

Are American generals better? Do we overpraise our generals?[/quote']

overpraise? possibly. I think we tend to see victory as being one by the 'British Army', it is after all the men in the trenches etc that take the enemy positions for all the tactics of a general.

[Predicto]

This is interesting. If you asked that same question about American generals' date=' we would be having terrible arguments over several dozen names, I suspect.

Are American generals better? Do we overpraise our generals?[/quote']

In their history, the Brits have won many times more major battles than the USA has. Think about Agincourt, Crecy, Blenhem, Salamanca, Waterloo, Balaclava, Omdourman, the Marne, Amiens, Battle of Britain, El Alamein... that's a lot of military history. Even more if you add the naval victories over the Spanish Armada, Nelson in Egypt and Trafalgar, and so on.

I think you may be right. The Brits have a tendency to tear town their leaders of the past and look for flaws, while we have a tendency to romanticize our leaders of the past.

[zoony]

overpraise? possibly. I think we tend to see victory as being one by the 'British Army', it is after all the men in the trenches etc that take the enemy positions for all the tactics of a general.

I disagree. Generals are EVERYTHING on the battlefield. Any (worthwhile) account of military engagements is really a story of the generals.

And speaking of overpraise, Monty might have been one of the most incompetent, bumbling, idiotic generals of the 20th century. A complete doofus.

It is strange to me that the greatest military power of the 19th and most of the 20th century didn't have any generals when they needed them most.

---------- Post added April-19th-2012 at 05:17 PM ----------

I think you may be right. The Brits have a tendency to tear town their leaders of the past and look for flaws, while we have a tendency to romanticize our leaders of the past.

nonsense. Explain their love for Montgomery to this day.

Typically, generals don't get praised in a monarchy. For the same reason Hitler was threatened by Rommel.

[Predicto]

overpraise? possibly. I think we tend to see victory as being one by the 'British Army', it is after all the men in the trenches etc that take the enemy positions for all the tactics of a general.

Absolutely, and rightfully so. The Brits didn't build the great Empire because they had the best individual generals. A lot of the military leadership in British History was purchased or inherited by nobles, not earned by merit. What the Brits did have was a culture of tremendous personal bravery and duty that motivated the officers and common soldiers alike.

[zoony]

Absolutely, and rightfully so. The Brits didn't build the great Empire because they had the best individual generals. A lot of the military leadership in British History was purchased or inherited by nobles, not earned by merit. What the Brits did have was a culture of tremendous personal bravery and duty that motivated the officers and common soldiers alike.

They had a Navy is what they had. The fact that their country is a ****ing island might have had something to do with that.

That last sentence sounds like something Madonna would tell a reporter in her faux English accent.

[Predicto]

nonsense. Explain their love for Montgomery to this day.

Typically, generals don't get praised in a monarchy. For the same reason Hitler was threatened by Rommel.

I don't think the praise for Monty is universal in the UK. But people do tend to rally around their own when they get attacked from outside. Monty was not great, but he was also not the bumbling incompetent doofus that you saw in the movie Patton. Americans like to say that he was horrible, but it's exaggerated. He was extremely cautious, but he was miles better than the clowns he replaced.

---------- Post added April-19th-2012 at 02:31 PM ----------

They had a Navy is what they had. The fact that their country is a ****ing island might have had something to do with that.

That last sentence sounds like something Madonna would tell a reporter in her faux English accent.

It's also truth, for the period when they built their empire. You can't keep hundreds of millions of people under control in India and Afganistan and Persia and Canada and Australia and Kenya and South Africa with just a Navy.

The British social structure of the 1800s was heavily built on "stiff upper lip" and victorian values. It was led by junior officers who all went to the same schools and lived in the same social circle, and for them, cowardice was viewed as the ultimate dishonor. By the 20th Century, that romanticism had worn off, but for a while, the British held a huge empire with an army that was tiny, but extremely professional and extraordinarily brave.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

The fundamental difference is likely that nearly all US generals "earn" their rank while too many British generals were (historically) given their ranks.

[thehogs]

I disagree. Generals are EVERYTHING on the battlefield. Any (worthwhile) account of military engagements is really a story of the generals.

And speaking of overpraise, Monty might have been one of the most incompetent, bumbling, idiotic generals of the 20th century. A complete doofus.

It is strange to me that the greatest military power of the 19th and most of the 20th century didn't have any generals when they needed them most.

---------- Post added April-19th-2012 at 05:17 PM ----------

nonsense. Explain their love for Montgomery to this day.

Typically, generals don't get praised in a monarchy. For the same reason Hitler was threatened by Rommel.

I wouldnt disagree over Montgomery (as I mentioned in a previous post) and his period of command has been reviewed by some over the years. You have to recall that even with halting Hitler in the summer of 1940 Britain was still faced with military disaster and total defeat as we approached 1943. Submarine warfare was strangling the country, Africa was going badly and our eastern empire of old had been over run by Japan. When El Alamein turned things in North Africa Churchill (understandably) milked it for everything and catapulted Montgomery to heroic levels. Monty had the kind of ego that didnt exactly try to step away and the media of the day played it for what it was worth to the max. You need to go back to the Napoleonic wars and Wellington and Nelson to get anything comparable. The cost of WWI meant that most gereals of that time, even good ones, were regarded with contempt.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

It was led by junior officers who all went to the same schools and lived in the same social circle, and for them, cowardice was viewed as the ultimate dishonor.

I'm surprised to see you of all people buying so freely into this kind of romanticism. Are you saying that Prussians or Russians or even the French were led by officers who were cool with cowardice? Is bravery really unique to British soldiers?

[JMS]

JMS' date=' why was Hitler's first move against the Sudetenland if not for reversing the humiliations of the Armistice?[[/quote']

Yes nothing says I'm reversing a humiliating peace settlement with France like negotiating a new treaty to annex the Sudetenland from the Czechoslovak Republic!!..

Hitler's stated reason for wanting the Sudetenland was probable close to accurate in Sept of 38. Hitler's stated reason was to repatriate the largely German population of the Sudetenland with the fatherland. It's also the stated reason he invaded Poland a year latter almost to the day. Here early in WWII, Hittler was bending the other European leaders to his will. He was seeing how far he could go before the shooting started, and he learned pretty far.

Early in the War Hitler was trying to accumulate german minorities in neighboring countries picking off the weak men of Europe before turning on some of the countries who could give him more of a fight.

Ultimately WWII was more about Race and Racial purity than it was about getting back at France.. Although when he did invade France he did enjoy rubbing their nose in it. Signing his new peace treaty in Paris in the same train car where Germany was forced to sign the peace treaty which ended WWI....

WWII was about conquest and reaffirming the Nazi ideology and German race as the master race. Hitler was after German domination of Europe for no other reason than because he believed it was Germany's right as the "master race".

---------- Post added April-19th-2012 at 06:35 PM ----------

War of 1812, the Brits won a battle at Bladensberg MD, marched into DC and burned down the White House and the Capitol.

However, it wasn't as serious as it sounds - Washington DC was maybe the 6th or 7th most important city in the US at that time, and unless the Brits were able to subdue New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Charleston and New Orleans too, they weren't going to get anywhere.

Yep, that's a good one too. I didn't think of that.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

JMS, you are 100 percent right. As always. Well done.

Now, I want to get back to Predicto being such a Anglophile. What's up with that?

[JMS]

PS...JMS' date=' read a book called "Germany 1945." It goes into detail on how the way borders were drawn and how populations were moved after WWII was designed to avoid the problems of WWI. The Polish borders were pushed west and something crazy like 6 million Germans were forcefully removed from towns they had occupied for hundreds of years. The idea was that no future German leader could lead a war of "liberation" of Germans in other countries. There was also a lot of attention paid to whether borders could be defended or not.

[/quote']

Never heard of that book. I guess I'm as interested in what was done in 1945 as I am in who did it. If that was done in Poland it was done because the Soviet Union and Stalin wanted too. And to be accurate, Stalin did that to just about every country he controled after WWII. Moved populations around, and tried to redraw tweak historic problems with a little Communist ethnic cleansing.

Ultimately' date=' none of that mattered because Germans of 1945 unlike those of 1918 knew that they had been defeated and were dealing with an occupation. There was very little resistance to the occupation (even in the Soviet and surprisingly brutal French zones) because no one was harboring a belief that they had been cheated or backstabbed.[/quote']

That and the fact that in 1953 when east germany tried to revolt against Soviet domination it was ruthlessly put down 513 people were killed in the uprising, 106 people were executed under martial law or later condemned to death, 1,838 were injured, and 5,100 were arrested sent to the gulags.

Communism is really really good at one thing. supressing revolts and politcal expressions from it's people.

As for the lasting effects of Germany with regards to poland. Man I remember when spynsters around Nato puckered when Germany united as everybody wanted to know what Germany was going to do about that land they lost in WWII. I remember walking down the steps in my appartment in Germany as the German prime minister was giving up all claims on the polish territory, and my german landlord slammed his fist on the table and cursed. I don't think that was a done deal at all that Germany would give up claims to the polish land in the 1990. It was very controversial in Germany.

[Predicto]

I'm surprised to see you of all people buying so freely into this kind of romanticism. Are you saying that Prussians or Russians or even the French were led by officers who were cool with cowardice? Is bravery really unique to British soldiers?

I didn't say it was completely unique' date=' nor is it something about the British in general. It WAS something about the British for less than one century, the Victorian years represented by Rudyard Kipling and White Man's Burden and all that crap. Britain in that period was overflowing with confidence, it was taking over country after country, and its soldiers were few but remarkably good. In that period, they were certain that they were the masters of the world, they expected to win every battle, and they fought like it.

If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,

Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:

So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,

And wait for supports like a soldier.

Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

So-oldier of the Queen!

---------- Post added April-19th-2012 at 04:05 PM ----------

JMS' date=' you are 100 percent right. As always. Well done.

Now, I want to get back to Predicto being such a Anglophile. What's up with that?[/quote']

I'm not such an Anglophile. But I have studied how the British Empire was built, and a (short lived) culture of romanticized Victorian heroism (and hubris) clearly played a massive part in it.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Never heard of that book. I guess I'm less interested in what was done in 1945 than who did it. If that was done in Poland it was done because the Soviet Union and Stalin wanted too.

Churchill was no longer Prime Minister but he was obsessed with the "new" Polish border as early as '43, I believe. All four countries were in favor of de-Germanization of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Stalin did do it in a particularly Stalin-esque manner, but it was in agreement with the three other powers.

And, by that, I mean, you are right. 100 percent.

---------- Post added April-19th-2012 at 06:14 PM ----------

I didn't say it was completely unique, nor is it something about the British in general. It WAS something about the British for less than one century, the Victorian years represented by Rudyard Kipling and White Man's Burden and all that crap.

It also helped that the Brits were conquering territories without things like guns and medicine. I don't see anything particularly unique in the British Empire that didn't exist in the Conquistadors or the Homesteaders heading into Indian territory.

Seriously, the Conquistadors essentially wiped out the populations of one and half continents with nothing but 300 people and a resistance to small pox. I forget which conqusitador it was that walked from Central America to freaking Kansas. But he was a badass. And every village he encountered on his return trip was empty because everyone died.

(Tony Horwitz argued in A Voyage Long and Strange that by the time the Pilgrims arrived, North America was already more or less depopulated because of the diseases brought by the Spanish).

[zoony]

---------- Post added April-19th-2012 at 04:05 PM ----------

[/color]

I'm not such an Anglophile. But I have studied how the British Empire was built, and a (short lived) culture of romanticized Victorian heroism (and hubris) clearly played a massive part in it.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the empire was built on ships.

What did their army ever do besides conquer primitive brown people? We kicked them out of this country as soon as we were able. They never made any headway in Europe or against anyone who could fight back.

Color me unimpressed. Their navy? Yah, badass. Their army? Not feeling you there

[JMS]

JMS' date=' you are 100 percent right. As always. Well done.

Now, I want to get back to Predicto being such a Anglophile. What's up with that?[/quote']

It's not important that I'm right (again). It's much more important that you realize you are wrong and don't really know what you are talking about(again). With realization comes anger, but then humility and then curiosity, and then finally learning. If you have achieved realization, you are 20% down your path to becoming an enlightenned grown up. Good for you. Personal growth is something to be proud of..