Overestimated battles

I wonder whether restoring the Theme system might have been a viable alternative policy? It seemed to work OK dealing with Saracen raids in previous centuries, and had the advantage of not costing the treasury too much.

The major protection in the east though is the Armenian polities. Which were disarmed and mistreated by the Byzantine bureaucracy, inadvertently allowing Turkic encroachment more easy. In conjugation, the nobility in Anatolia, were weak to protect themselves and the prior rulers who at the expense of diminishing iconoclasm, had empowered the bureaucracy and nobility at the expense of the military.
 
There was Muslim infighting too. In fact, to be honest, the Muslims never really considered the Crusaders a big threat. They were never one big monolith, there were different factions. And rivalries that are comparable to the later Hapsburg Valois one. The rulers honestly assessed the Crusaders as just one more faction to fight, and this faction was obsessed land that (despite containing Jerusalem was economically poorer, smaller and often incompetent to boot. To the Catholics, the Crusades change a whole lot, but for the Muslims, there were honestly bigger fish to fry. It wasn't until Victorian times when Muslim elites (that were outside Palestine itself) considered it more than a blip and annoyance to be quickly lost to history because... they noticed how much the Europeans cared about them.
I don't recall suggesting that there was no Muslim infighting. If anything the fact that Muslims didn't consider the crusaders to be a priority goes with the idea that they could have lasted another century or so if they played their cards right.
 
Trafalgar, probably. Napoléon had already cancelled plans to invade England when it was fought, and realistically the best-case scenario for the French/Spanish there is a draw or very marginal victory - they are not going to decisively win.

You are underestimating the moral effect on the victors.

Pitt himself said after Austerlitz "Roll up that map of Europe, it will not be needed these 20 years".

He was wrong in detail of course, it only took 3 years for Bonaparte's plans to fall apart though it took 6 more for him to fail completely and another year for him to be properly chained.

But his pessimistic "bon mot" did represent the attitude of a large portion of the British Establishment.
Trafalgar settled the British nerves enough for them to resume their traditional "fraying the edges" strategy plus subsidising rebellion by Bonaparte's continental victims.

The impact of Trafalgar is not what it did to French plans but what it did to British resolve.

(Though of course, the unjustified contempt for the Spanish it put in Bonaparte's mind was significant too)
 
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You are underestimating the moral effect on the victors.

Pitt himself said after Austerlitz "Roll up that map of Europe, it will not be needed these 20 years".

He was wrong in detail of course, it only took 3 years for Bonaparte's plans to fall apart though it took 6 more for him to fail completely and another year for him to be properly chained.

But his pessimistic "bon mot" did represent the attitude of a large portion of the British Establishment.
Trafalgar settled the British nerves enough for them to resume their traditional "fraying the edges" strategy plus subsidising rebellion by Bonaparte's continental victims.

The impact of Trafalgar is not what it did to French plans but what it did to British resolve.

(Though of course, the unjustified contempt for the Spanish it put in Bonaparte's mind was significant too)

Except that Austerlitz occurred on 2 December 1805 - six weeks after Trafalgar...
 
Except that Austerlitz occurred on 2 December 1805 - six weeks after Trafalgar...

true ... but the moral effect was the same

After the initial shock of the news of Austrian and Russian failure at Austerlitz where they had numbers on their side,
looking back at the British success at Trafalgar where they were significantly outnumbered
enabled them to decide that they could and should continue the war but only on their terms.
 
true ... but the moral effect was the same

After the initial shock of the news of Austrian and Russian failure at Austerlitz where they had numbers on their side,
looking back at the British success at Trafalgar where they were significantly outnumbered
enabled them to decide that they could and should continue the war but only on their terms.

Keep in mind, the British made peace overtures the following year, under the "Ministry of the Talents", but Fox was turned down.

Trafalgar was an impressive victory for sure, but I don't know if it really affected the strategic situation that much.

And ultimately Austerlitz didn’t really either. It led to a “peace” that lasted a few months.
 
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Keep in mind, the British made peace overtures the following year, under the "Ministry of the Talents", but Fox was turned down.

Trafalgar was an impressive victory for sure, but I don't know if it really affected the strategic situation that much.

And ultimately Austerlitz didn’t really either. It led to a “peace” that lasted a few months.

Trafalgar removed Bonaparte's available battle fleet as an existential threat to the RN.
It meant the RN could concentrate on trade protection in the short term
and supporting British expeditionary forces, initially in distant waters but increasingly in Europe

It forced Bonaparte into a never-ending series of diplomatic blunders in an attempt to gain control of other countries fleets.
Even the economic cost to France of attempting to rebuild its own fleet was an ongoing drain.
Right up to 1814 he was building huge modern vessels hoping to have 104 ships of the line that summer.

FYI the RN had 85 of the line in commission in 1794 and only 99 in 1814 - though most were bigger more modern
Conversely, Frigates and sloops went from 98 to 135 and smaller escorts from 76 to 360.
That would not have been possible without Trafalgar.



As to peace feelers. Britain offered peace to Bonaparte many times

once in 1814 when Prussian Russian and Austrian Armies were approaching the Rhine
and British, Spanish and Portuguese forces looked down from the Pyrenees.

Bonaparte's reply: "Peace? no peace till Munich is in flames"

Even after Waterloo, he was willing to prolong the killing.
 
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As to peace feelers. Britain offered peace to Bonaparte many times

AFTER picking a fight to begin with. The British broke the peace of Amiens. Granted, their Napoleon was a product of the hated revolution and the Bourbon guests of the Hannovers might have reminded them how much they missed the old order and with the Holy Roman Empire with Britain, how could they possibly lose the upcoming war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Third_Coalition ?
 
AFTER picking a fight to begin with. The British broke the peace of Amiens. Granted, their Napoleon was a product of the hated revolution and the Bourbon guests of the Hannovers might have reminded them how much they missed the old order and with the Holy Roman Empire with Britain, how could they possibly lose the upcoming war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Third_Coalition ?
Not true.

Britain delayed implementing some terms of Amiens after Bonaparte explicitly broke several terms of the previous luneville treaty and made several other moves against Britain.

Britain demandied explanations and offered compromises eg. wrt malta.

Boneys answer was further violations

And as for the so called coalition, in 1803 there was none.
At the breakdown of Amiens Russia was on Bonaparte's side. Austria neutral. Italy Holland etc were already under french control.


Britain stood alone again for the best part of two years before Boneys attitude and demands drove first Austria then Russia to join them

And prussia within another year
 
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The problem was that the dynatoi gobbled up military land and often did not pay any taxes for them.Any attempt to restore the theme system would involve a massive crackdown of the dynatoi class, which most likely did not worth the trouble.

It's true that reforming the themes would involve taking on some powerful vested interests, but the current system was plainly failing to deal with Turkish incursions and the theme system had proved itself against similar threats in the past.
 
AFTER picking a fight to begin with. The British broke the peace of Amiens. Granted, their Napoleon was a product of the hated revolution and the Bourbon guests of the Hannovers might have reminded them how much they missed the old order and with the Holy Roman Empire with Britain, how could they possibly lose the upcoming war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Third_Coalition ?

Indeed. The British foreign policy was just as destructive for the continent as Napoleonic before the Continental System was introduced (as a response to the British blockade). What was British reaction to the creation of the Second League of Armed Neutrality? Attack on a neutral Denmark followed by the threat to the Russian Baltic ports (this bluff did not work out) and financing assassination of Emperor Paul. In which way an absolute British sea dominance was better for Europe than Napolon’s dominance on land? Nappy at least was not hurting the local economic development.
 
Britain stood alone again for the best part of two years before Boneys attitude and demands drove first Austria then Russia to join them

No offense but you are clearly confused about chronology. In 1804 Britain signed treaty with Sweden by which it was allowed to use Swedish Pomerania as a base for attack on Hanover. In the April of 1805 Anglo-Russian Treaty of St-Petersburg had been signed in which a stated goal was to reduce France to the borders of 1792 ( AFAIK, at that time Napoleon did not make any demands to Russia except for complaining that Alexander sent as an ambassador a person who was an outspoken enemy of the French Revolution and Napoleon). Austria joined few months later. I’m not sure if this was triggered by Naploeon’s demands (of which nature?) and not by a combination of a wish for revenge and the Russian-British incitement.

A picture of Britain as a brave innocent victim of Napoleonic aggression is popular but not necessarily convincing. BTW, did’t the Brits captured a big number of the French merchant ships before officially declaring breaking of Amiens Treaty? Just an idle curiosity.
 
Austerlitz did put an end to war for more than a couple of months with Austria. Prussia is another matter.

Indeed. It also put Russia out of war for long enough to allow Napoleon to defeat Prussia acting on its own (of course, Prussia was not forced to capitulate, yet, but the bulk of it forces was out of circulation). It can be speculated what would be result of Napoleon’s defeat at Austerlitz.
 
I would suggest the Battle of Rocroi. Especially if you're talking about what would have changed if it went the other way because the campaign and the whole Franco-Spanish War (which dragged on for another 16 years) would not have been significantly impacted by a Spanish victory.

I know there's an argument to be made that it impacted tactics because it was a defeat of the Spanish Tercio. However, I think it has an outsized importance rather because it was used as a favorable augur and for propagandistic affect during the early days of the Regency of Anne and Mazarin and because it was the first victory of Conde who would go on to have illustrious career. But in and of itself I don't think it was the dramatic turning point its been made out to be.
 
You are underestimating the moral effect on the victors.

Pitt himself said after Austerlitz "Roll up that map of Europe, it will not be needed these 20 years".

He was wrong in detail of course, it only took 3 years for Bonaparte's plans to fall apart though it took 6 more for him to fail completely and another year for him to be properly chained.

But his pessimistic "bon mot" did represent the attitude of a large portion of the British Establishment.
Trafalgar settled the British nerves enough for them to resume their traditional "fraying the edges" strategy plus subsidising rebellion by Bonaparte's continental victims.

The impact of Trafalgar is not what it did to French plans but what it did to British resolve.

(Though of course, the unjustified contempt for the Spanish it put in Bonaparte's mind was significant too)
That would be a interesting TL, brition making some kind of peace after the war of the fourth coalition, even only for a few years.
 
I know there's an argument to be made that it impacted tactics because it was a defeat of the Spanish Tercio. However, I think it has an outsized importance rather because it was used as a favorable augur and for propagandistic affect during the early days of the Regency of Anne and Mazarin and because it was the first victory of Conde who would go on to have illustrious career. But in and of itself I don't think it was the dramatic turning point its been made out to be.

Not to mention, it was the cavalry which decided the outcome, whilst the Spanish tercios held against all attacks until the French allowed them to march away unmolested. So to conclude based on Rocroi that the tercio was outdated would be unsound.
 
Kursk, even if the Germans win it has still boiled down to a war of attrition which they have no hope of winning.

Not necessarily. The battle was not intended nor designed to be followed by further combat. Its aim was to create the conditions for a favourable negotiated peace in the east. A decisive victory to restore Germany's upper hand going into talks.

The idea would then be to turn west and face the western Allies with the full weight of Germany's war effort, in Africa/Italy and for the coming landing in France.

My opinion is that the attack was a gamble too far and that too much weight was placed on the "wunderwaffe" tanks which were not properly tested and were rushed into battle with major flaws. The delay to accommodate them proved fatal. It would have been better to be more realistic, look at Germany's already high losses from 1941 up to May 1943, and end the war instead of launching the attack. Or if it must be done, make it a smaller surprise attack in May only.
 
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