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From: mtxinu!sybase!eallen@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ed Allen)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Military Books for beginners
Message-ID: <1991May23.055301.14672@amd.com>
Date: 21 May 91 19:21:35 GMT
References: <1991Apr23.053719.23595@amd.com> <1991May18.051207.11395@amd.com>
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From: mtxinu!sybase!eallen@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ed Allen)


I was very impressed with Liddell-Hart's Strategy on first reading, but
less so as I read other perspectives on some of the example battles
and wars he uses as support.

I particularly find his comparison of Grant and Sherman to be very flawed.
He lauds Sherman's indirect approach in the March to the Sea and lambasts
Grant for running a meatgrinder campaign in the East.  He totally misses
the fact that these two generals were working together on ONE strategy,
and that Sherman was only able to do what he did because of the power
of Grant's force to pin the majority of the Confederate army.  His
evaluation of Grant as the inferior general for lack of using the indirect
approach is strange in light of Grant's campaign against Vicksburg. Just
maybe he should have considered that Grant was good enough to adapt to
the situation he found on the scene, instead of going at length to push
a single strategic concept as the only viable one and its users as the
'best' generals.

Ed Allen eallen@sybase.com

	[Meatgrinder campaigns always deserve lambasting.
	 A general who has no better use for good men than turning
	 them into sausage deserves no praise, successful or not.
	 --CDR]