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Date Posted: 09:15:51 10/29/05 Sat
Author: Celebaelin
Subject: Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!
In reply to: Sunshine 's message, "Wellington" on 08:08:06 10/29/05 Sat

First things first, we headed in this direction because of the question of moral imperative to fight for what you believe to be right irrespective of the likelihood of victory. All very well in fiction where the outcome is subject to the whim of the author but not so good in practice where pragmatism dictates that one should, where possible, choose ones' time and place to fight for maximum advantage.

I sense a certain British prejudice in this statement.

Yes and no, I cited Wellington because he was BRILLIANT, the fact that I am British of course has nothing whatsoever to do with my choice of general.

The real issue, in my opinion, is not necessarily who has the bigger army but who manages to bring to bear at a critical point and time those resources that he/she possesses.

Logistics. Indeed. I said military superiority and what I should have said was (historically) a numerical superiority on the field given a roughly eqivalent level of technology. Logistics was indeed the great skill of Napoleon, that and an understanding of the efficacy of Napoleonic period artillery, the delivery of several separate columns onto the same field at the same time by different routes was essential to Napoleon's successes and it was his great skill.

As a military genius, I think his legacy far surpasses Wellington.

Absolutely not. Ignoring the emphasis Wellington placed upon medical care being directed towards the treatment of casualties of all ranks so as to return them to fighting fitness (even the enemy, time permitting) and given that Wellington too was able to bring his forces to the field in co-ordinated fashion what we are left with is their relative mastery of deployment and use of strategy and in this I hold that Wellington was far superior (as was Kutusov in my opinion). We only have one instance to compare Boney and old Nosey directly and that is the rather exceptional circumstance of Waterloo but reports suggest that Wellington was fully expecting that battle to be a clash of giants, the greatest test of his skills as a general that he would ever experience. He was disappointed and said as much, he commented upon Napoleon's skills thus "By damn, the man is just a pounder after all", presumably refering to Napoleon's 12 pounders, his 'beautiful daughters' which wrough the greatest damage on the (outnumbered) British and Allied infantry prior to the ultimate turning point of the battle with the arrival of Blucher.

Conventional wisdom has it that a roughly 2:1 numerical superiority is required for a victory over a defensively deployed force all other factors being equal. At Salamanca Wellington attacked a French army of roughly equivalent numbers but much his superior in terms of the proportion of cavalry and trounced them. The ratio of casualties was roughly three to one with the British losing roughly 10% of their forces killed or wounded. That's a stunning victory for anyone who's in any doubt.

http://www.peninsularwar.org/salam.htm

Wellington's London residence, Apsely House has on display all the Field Marshalls Batons awarded to Wellington by the various nations of Europe (12 of them).

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