Strangely the best way for Germany to win that battle would have been not to fight it at all. With Germans waltzing all over europe and with no visible enemy to fight at home, we probably would have lost the will to fight on.
Most Overrated Battles (as PoDs)?
- Thread starter John Fredrick Parker
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Strangely the best way for Germany to win that battle would have been not to fight it at all. With Germans waltzing all over europe and with no visible enemy to fight at home, we probably would have lost the will to fight on.
anyway, moving on from Zama, the next battle i would like to add to this list is the battle of monmouth,1778 in the american revolutuion.
The whole battle was, basicly, a huge rearguard action that thanks to charles lee's bungling escalated into a full scale battle-at the end of which it was a draw-with henery clintons army able to escape to new yourk and continue to threaten washingtons army while washington overromancicised about it and, thanks to spin docters ( so much for honest george
) made into an iconic battle, thus enhancing his reputation.
much needed spin for the americans and washington? yes. any stratigic, tactical gains? none at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monmouth
The whole battle was, basicly, a huge rearguard action that thanks to charles lee's bungling escalated into a full scale battle-at the end of which it was a draw-with henery clintons army able to escape to new yourk and continue to threaten washingtons army while washington overromancicised about it and, thanks to spin docters ( so much for honest george
) made into an iconic battle, thus enhancing his reputation.much needed spin for the americans and washington? yes. any stratigic, tactical gains? none at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monmouth
Because the paintings of washington at monmouth are everywhre, its one of the most researched american battles, it goes on the list with bunker hill, trenton, lexington and concord as a heroic, decisive victory against tyraany.
overromancicised does mean overrated.
It does? This is the first time I've heard anyone mention anything of the sort, and I'd like to think I'm better read than the average person on the American Revolution.
And overromanticized doesn't mean overrated in regards to its importance as a POD.
If anything, it's an example of a battle underrated as a POD.
underrated? it was a rearguard action! a overpopulerised rearguard action! it achieved no purpose.
an example of a underrrated american battle is germantown in 1777-had washington won their ( as he nearly did) he could have won the war their and then. the oppotunity however, was lossed.
anyway, moving one, another overrated battle is marathon, 490 BC. How you may ask? well, the persian army at the time was way to small to really conquer greece, and was really just a punitive expedition to punish athens and place a propersian ruler. while this could be argued as the first step to persian domination......... in truth, with athens punished-who else was their to punish? the other city states were insignificent and not worth conquering or would make peace with persia in return for independence. life would by and large continue as normal.
Athenian democracy would certainly be derailed, but not wiped out. it would survive. the main threat really came 10 years later when the persians were really intent on wiping out athens and greece. in short, marathon is significent only in that it set the stage for the real, wider and more threataning war to begin.
And yet if things had gone right instead of wrong for the Americans, it could have done some serious damage to Clinton's army.
Thus, not overrated as POD material.
And this is untrue of Monmouth?
he wouldnt have been able to really crush clinton-it might be like trenton but not another saragota.
and anyway, i was hoping you might be more interested on my take on marathon.
I'd ask why not, but you want to move on, so that's alright by me.
Unfortunately, I don't know enough on the wars with Persia to comment on Marathon.
to your prevoius point- because clinton was not burygone. he was more cautios, an all round good tactition. He would easily be able to extract himseelf from the battle because unlike germantown he was expecting it, unlike saragota he has a numerical advantage in men and artillary and a better tree of command-all his commanders obeyed him, were competent and unlike the americans not all holding individual agendas that could threaten a battle plan. Washington lacked this.
And is it really used often at all as a POD in the first place? Can't be overrated if it's not common. I've never seen an ARW TL using Monmouth as a POD.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Wait, but what if the Persian Army had won at Marathon? Would they have been able to do some kind of damage to Athens? If so, wouldn't that make the full scale Invasion of Greece under Xerxes, well, somewhat less likely? If so, that would be a hell of a PoD.
This is certainly a fair point -- though, in fairness to Elfwine, there actually have been threads examining this very question (including one by me sometime back), so it's used to some extent...
I mean, I don't see Persia getting that much more involved in mainland Greek affairs than they did after Marathon-it's sort of on their periphery, they would likely have far bigger fish to fry in Egypt and Mesopotamia(and ran into some nasty problems whenever they got too involved in the Balkans and the Black Sea coast north of the Bosphorus if memory serves) and they can already get what they want by sponsoring local kings. Their main goal was less to take over Athens than to stop the Athenians from sponsoring revolts in Anatolia, correct?
I would...what do you have to say about Marathon? A,yes,the Persians went there to 'punish' you say and what was the definition of Persian punishment in your way of thinking?
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On the contrary,they would have succeeded...what is your point of disagreement?
succeeded at what?
They might have destroyed the Royal Air Force. still does not help them invade Britain.
Might have forced Britain to withdraw from the war at best if the the uboats were successful too.
I do believe that in 490BC persian " punishment" involved a regiem change. After marathon though.......punishment took on a genocidal meaning.
and yes, i suppose persian victory at marathon would be a significent pod ( and very,very interesting) but not in the way its usually porttrayed ( persians take over europe blah,blah,blah.)
Democracy wopuld be delayed, but i doubt the new persian backed regiem would last long once persian attention looked elswhere.Once the persian empire collapsed, Athens, now with persian as well as greek way of thinking and more determaind then ever not to be enslaved and too protect its empire takes advantage of the chaos and starts an empire-with no macadon or a more powerful sparta opposing them. ( so yes-a big pod-but not in the way you might expect and certainly overplayed.)
Anticlimacus
Banned
Rocroi: it is usually seen as the end of the tercios, but the fact is that they were already exhausted before. The had lost important battles before, they won battles after it and the casualties are overrated.