24 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  2. Re: Civil War USA
    Maybe that the Brits were not all that bad after all!!

  3. For those who’re interested in what happened at Gettysburg, there’s also the movie made more than 20 years ago. It’s long (around 4.5 hours) and the dialog is rather clunky in places, but it does have a star-studded cast.

  6. By the way, large numbers of officers were killed at Gettysburg on both sides, including not a few generals, for example, Union corps commander Major General John F. Reynolds and Confederate Brigadier General Lewis Armistead.
    Gosh, how the heck did they manage to get themselves killed?
    After all, everybody knows generals just sit back comfortably somewhere in the rear and let the lower class cannon fodder charge to their deaths, don’t they?

  7. “Why ANY form of PR electoral system is wrong. Australisan politicians horse-trading; Australians will get a government they DIDN`T vote for.”
    Yup. The political classes love PR of course because it serves to institutionalize their parties and their control.
    Which is precisely why citizens ought to despise it.

  8. JJM,
    Its working exactly the way the left side wants it to work. Near impossible for a conservative to govern and the left consolidates after divvying up the pie amongst the parties.
    Its a feature not a bug.

  10. All of these docu-histories have this annoying music in the background….. as if the music will convey the “proper feeling”. I detest it. Can’t listen to it.
    They were all Americans. Most of those “rebs” from the southern states thought they were fighting for freedom. Slavery had no benefit for them and in fact was a deterrent to their prosperity. The southern aristocracy thought differently. It was a different time and can not be viewed properly through the lens of today’s perspectives.
    Vicksburg fell (surrendered) on July 4. Strategically more important and every bit as important as Gettysburg for re-energizing the war effort in the north. Also more important if you consider that it finally brought competent generals to the leadership in the north.
    The best perspectives on the civil war can be found in the biographies of U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman. They’re free if you have a kindle. Both good reads. Lots of incidental insight into both the war and the politics.

  11. “It’s a feature not a bug.”
    Denmark has PR. I recommend the excellent Danish political series “Borgen” for those who want to see what happens when a parliament is subject to an almost constant stream of coalition-building among parties in order to form every government.

  12. Belgium ended up with 11 parties in the Parliament after the election of June 2010. None had more than 20% of the members. A government was not sworn in until DECEMBER 2011 when a coalition was formed.
    It lasted until an election in May 2014 and a coalition was sworn in in October 2014.
    Government by logjam. That’s what PR does. (Well actually government by the bureaucracy, as there is no real government to change policy.)
    It’s not a bug, it’s a FEATURE

  13. The Liberals love proportional representation because the political parties get to choose many of the MPs without the help of the unreliable voters.

  14. Those two victories were indeed the turning points of the American civil war.
    Gettysburg was the last major attempt by the Confederacy to invade the Union. The capture of Vicksburg, after a long siege, divided the Confederacy and gave the Union a way to move men and materiel along the length of the Mississippi without opposition.
    After that, the Confederacy’s war was merely a holding action at best.
    It was Grant’s tactic of attacking Vicksburg from the rear by land, which the Confederates didn’t expect, that persuaded Lincoln to make him the head of the Union army. Until then, Lincoln had a succession of generals who were ineffective or, such as in the case of George McClellan, was reluctant to fight. (The story is told of Lincoln asking him that if he wasn’t going to use the army whether he could borrow it for a while.)

  15. After all, everybody knows generals just sit back comfortably somewhere in the rear and let the lower class cannon fodder charge to their deaths, don’t they?
    Only those who foolishly don’t understand the important differences between the British Army and the American armies of the North and South. Some will continue to demonstrate that foolish inability to understand the lessons of history.

  19. AGW RIP.
    …-
    “Brexit doubt weighs on green energy groups”
    “The financial uncertainty triggered by the UK’s vote to leave the EU has sent shudders through virtually every industry, but Europe’s renewable energy sector faces even greater insecurity.
    The successful Leave campaign was led by several political figures opposed to tackling climate change by replacing fossil fuel power stations with wind farms and other sources of renewable energy.”
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c304fd50-3ed7-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a.html#axzz4DNeC3UnY
    …-
    “Brexit Puts UK Commitment to Paris Agreement in Doubt” (grauniad)

  20. Nice our PM was marching in the Pride Parade representing us all. I imagine he had Wynne close by? Doubt Ben Levin was there unless he got a day pass.

  21. Plenty of British generals have been killed in Battle, You may recall Lord Uxbridge, Wellingtons second in command had his horse killed and his leg shot off by a cannon while standing next to wellington. Admiral Nelson, was killed while on the deck of his flag ship. I am sure I could come up with more but its past my bed time and I have to go to work tomorrow. Besides, it’s not good for commanding generals to be killed in battle, because it tends to make their armies fall apart and lose.

  22. Plenty of British generals have been killed in Battle
    Yup, almost always the best ones. The incompetent ones like Haig stayed well behind the lines.

  23. A general sitting in a trench in ww1 wouldn’t have been particularly useful. Personally I don’t think Haig was that incompetent. What would any other general done in the circumstances? The Germans did lose the war and had more casualties than us. The Germans also had the advantage of not having to attack. They established new territorial boundaries with the western front and then all they had to do was sit there. It was up to us to repel them. You could argue that we could have waited until the tank was invented and produced in sufficient numbers to ensure a successful breakout. But that could have taken years and not worked. If the Somme offensive didn’t happen when it did the Germans might have won in the east then they would have been able to take all those resources and use them in the west. There were no easy answers to the stalemate on the western front. Given that we beat the Germans I would argue that Haig was at least as competent as the German generals, especially given their simpler war aims.

  24. Exactly what a general is expected to do, and where he’s best placed to do it, both depend on what kind of operation you’re attempting in what kind of war. In a war of mass armies fighting out of trenches, there really isn’t a lot a general can do on the front lines except familiarize himself with the terrain for future reference. He’s better off in the rear areas, keeping in touch with his entire front and organizing reserves and supplies. If anything, the further back the better, or so the British considered. The closest the British army came to losing WWI was on Oct. 31, 1914, when the Germans managed to drop a shell onto a likely looking chateau not far behind the English lines, and landed it right on the dinner table as the entire general staff of the BEF was sitting down to lunch. It was actually fortunate that the BEF was fighting for its life at the time, because that meant they were so closely engaged that the field officers pretty much had to handle everything anything and nobody could even contemplate disengaging and moving, right through the period when the army’s ability to organize a move was eliminated. They were able to improvise a new headquarters by the time they could actually use it, but it was close. What’s being described in this thread as cowardice and incompetence was thought at the time to be hard-earned wisdom.
    In a war of motion, by contrast, you need your general right in the front lines since he’s there to control the action and that’s where the action is. In the Second world war tank generals routinely rode in the first ranks and were taken prisoner, if not necessary killed, with about the same frequency as any front line troops.

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