9 thoughts on “Gettysburg Extended: Lee’s Brilliant Plan”
AltonJuly 4, 2011 / 2:13 pm
LOL, brilliant indeed. I take it that’s from the new blue ray release?
TF SmithJuly 4, 2011 / 7:07 pm
“I’ve Got a Plan So Cunning You Could Put a Tail on It and Call It a Weasel…”
IIRC, Fremantle wore mufti during his sojurn, since he was not actually an attache.
Some times, when one reads of the brilliance of Fremantle’s contemporaries in the British Army’s officer corps during this period when fighting peer enemies, especially in the Crimea and the 1st South African War, one has to wonder if “one war at a time” was really necessary.
Happy Independence Day
John FoskettJuly 6, 2011 / 6:56 am
These were, after all, the people who thought that the charge at Balaclava was “”a bloody good show”. If I’m Old Pete, at this point I’m getting very depressed……
Ray O'HaraJuly 6, 2011 / 11:02 am
The famed Charge at Balaclava was due to a garbled order and wasn’t deliberate. but seeing as the Light Horse actually got among the guns and suppressed their fire I often wonder what the effect of the Heavy Horse following in just after might have been.
The Allies might have missed a golden opportunity.
TF SmithJuly 6, 2011 / 4:54 pm
Balaklava was one of – ahem “several” – demonstrations of the British Army’s leadership challenges in the Crimea.
The 1st SA War had a few examples – as in, all three actions that were fought – not “quite” being up to the standards of Wellington’s performance…
TF SmithJuly 6, 2011 / 11:30 am
Colley at Majuba was brilliance personified, as well.
From Blackadder:
Melchett: Field Marshal Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field.
Blackadder: Ah. Would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy?
Captain Darling: How could you possibly know that, Blackadder? It’s classified information!
Blackadder: It’s the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that.
Melchett: Exactly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we’ve done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they’ll expect us to do this time! There is, however, one small problem.
Blackadder: That everyone always gets slaughtered in the first ten seconds.
Melchett: That’s right. And Field Marshal Haig is worried this may be depressing the men a tad. So he’s looking for a way to cheer them up.
Blackadder: Well, his resignation and suicide seems the obvious choice.
Melchett: Hmm, interesting thought. Make a note of it, Darling.
John FoskettJuly 6, 2011 / 1:41 pm
Excellent. As for garbled orders, I have a feeling that much which involved Lord Raglan was “garbled”…. “Rahther you’d ahsked, old boy….”
Ray O'HaraJuly 6, 2011 / 3:42 pm
Yes why didn’t they try flanking attacks, so what if there were no flanks to attack they should have done it anyway.
in popular Myth WWI is July 1st 1916 and every battle is thought to have gone like that. in the popular myth
TF SmithJuly 9, 2011 / 10:30 am
The British record in the Crimea in 1854-55 and in South Africa in 1880-81 was not exactly “mythical” – in alliance with the French, Turks, and Sardinians, they managed to achieve their goals in the Black Sea after a lengthy, costly, and generally close campaign, and in South Africa in 1880-81, they were beaten in the field by the local equivalent of a home guard made up of cowboys and farmers.
Basically, in expeditionary warfare against a local but peer (i.e. “european” or “white” enemy, to be blunt about it) enemy fighting on its own ground, and even though both the Russians and the Boers had their own very severe institutional and strategic problems, the British Army demonstrated the traditional weaknesses of small professional European forces with very limited capabilities for expansion that in peacetime were oriented almost entirely toward colonial/imperial and constabulary duties.
Other good examples from the 1860s are the French in Mexico and the Spanish in Santo Domingo; neither exactly covered themselves in glory.
Crossroads 
LOL, brilliant indeed. I take it that’s from the new blue ray release?
“I’ve Got a Plan So Cunning You Could Put a Tail on It and Call It a Weasel…”
IIRC, Fremantle wore mufti during his sojurn, since he was not actually an attache.
Some times, when one reads of the brilliance of Fremantle’s contemporaries in the British Army’s officer corps during this period when fighting peer enemies, especially in the Crimea and the 1st South African War, one has to wonder if “one war at a time” was really necessary.
Happy Independence Day
These were, after all, the people who thought that the charge at Balaclava was “”a bloody good show”. If I’m Old Pete, at this point I’m getting very depressed……
The famed Charge at Balaclava was due to a garbled order and wasn’t deliberate. but seeing as the Light Horse actually got among the guns and suppressed their fire I often wonder what the effect of the Heavy Horse following in just after might have been.
The Allies might have missed a golden opportunity.
Balaklava was one of – ahem “several” – demonstrations of the British Army’s leadership challenges in the Crimea.
The 1st SA War had a few examples – as in, all three actions that were fought – not “quite” being up to the standards of Wellington’s performance…
Colley at Majuba was brilliance personified, as well.
From Blackadder:
Melchett: Field Marshal Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field.
Blackadder: Ah. Would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy?
Captain Darling: How could you possibly know that, Blackadder? It’s classified information!
Blackadder: It’s the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that.
Melchett: Exactly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we’ve done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they’ll expect us to do this time! There is, however, one small problem.
Blackadder: That everyone always gets slaughtered in the first ten seconds.
Melchett: That’s right. And Field Marshal Haig is worried this may be depressing the men a tad. So he’s looking for a way to cheer them up.
Blackadder: Well, his resignation and suicide seems the obvious choice.
Melchett: Hmm, interesting thought. Make a note of it, Darling.
Excellent. As for garbled orders, I have a feeling that much which involved Lord Raglan was “garbled”…. “Rahther you’d ahsked, old boy….”
Yes why didn’t they try flanking attacks, so what if there were no flanks to attack they should have done it anyway.
in popular Myth WWI is July 1st 1916 and every battle is thought to have gone like that. in the popular myth
The British record in the Crimea in 1854-55 and in South Africa in 1880-81 was not exactly “mythical” – in alliance with the French, Turks, and Sardinians, they managed to achieve their goals in the Black Sea after a lengthy, costly, and generally close campaign, and in South Africa in 1880-81, they were beaten in the field by the local equivalent of a home guard made up of cowboys and farmers.
Basically, in expeditionary warfare against a local but peer (i.e. “european” or “white” enemy, to be blunt about it) enemy fighting on its own ground, and even though both the Russians and the Boers had their own very severe institutional and strategic problems, the British Army demonstrated the traditional weaknesses of small professional European forces with very limited capabilities for expansion that in peacetime were oriented almost entirely toward colonial/imperial and constabulary duties.
Other good examples from the 1860s are the French in Mexico and the Spanish in Santo Domingo; neither exactly covered themselves in glory.