More shocking stats

WW1 did not just happen, there were clearly 2 agressors.

 

Which 2?
General theory these days is that WW1 was a slide into war arising from the complex series of European alliances, the tensions of the 'Great Game' and the 'Balance of Power', and was sparked off by the turmoil of the Austro-Hungarian Mess (sorry, Empire).

Putting the 'war guilt' squarly on Germany (or anybody else) is not entirely fair. IMHO.

Anyway, in WW1 the 'aggressor' comes out as Germany & allies, as they made the first military advances.

 

Following the latest historical studies it can be clearly said that Germany and Austria were the agressors.
Both wanted war, but 2 different wars.

Austria wanted a small war against Serbia, Germany wanted the big war against Russia and France.
From around 1910 on, the chief of german staff, general Moltke feared that in a few years, the franco-russian alliance would become to powerfull for Germany and therefore at several occasions urged his governement to seek war as soon as possible, before it would be too late.
Two conditions were to be fullfilled:
1. Austrian support had to be guaranteed.
2. To the german people, Russia should look like the agressor.

Altough the german emperor and a big part of the governement did not want war, in the critical days of the summer 1914, the hardliners in Germany and Austria started the war.
Russia and France were clearly agressed and could do nothing but defend themselves.
Britain had the choice to join in or not, fortunately it did the right decision.

The best book I've read about this topic is from american author David Fromkin and is called "Europe's last summer".
I can only recommend it.

 

What about the Roman wars of conquest? They eventually lost everything, but not until generations had passed. Or what about the empire of Alexander? He himself certainly didn't lose it. Or the wars of Louis XIV, wherein he conquered Burgundy and whole parts of Belgium? He was poor and broken in the end of his reign but he kept his gains. The war of Spanish Succession was a complete victory for the agressors. Hey, what about the invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror? What about the conquests of the Huns, or Chengis Khan? Hmm, some reevaluation may be required, Ricky.

 

This is why I said most!

You missed the Franco-Prussian War, and the Ruso-Japanese war (1905), and Indo-China/Vietnam (vs France & vs America).

However, you have thought of what, 7 sets of wars?

Ok -

Actually, the Roman invasion of Gaul was kicked off by the Celts attacking Rome. Similarly their expansion into Africa by the Punic wars, started by Carthage, and so on.

Then to counter your 6, I give you WW1, WW2, Korea, the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Yom Kippur War, The Suez Crisis, every Crusade ever launched against the Holy Land (with the possible exception of the First, which at least captured Jerusalem), Gulf War 1, the various soviet/Japanese conflicts in the 30's & 40's, The Napoleonic Wars. That will do for now (12!).

 

Napoléon wasn't always the agressor.

 

Ricky, sorry, but I accidentally removed your last post when splitting the thread.

 

Arrgh!
Ok, I'll go find the stats...

Did you know that someone replied to it, and the reply is in the 'Hundred Year's War' topic!

 

Yeah. Unfortunately we can't split posts and move them to another topic. We have to start 'em with the split. Sorry Ebar...

 

Ok, here we go:

Shocking stats from the US Civil War:

First up, the war ended with over half a million deaths.

After the Battle of Gettysburg, 37,000 rifles were found, abandoned on the field.

24,000 were still loaded
18,000 had at least 2 bullets in the barrel
6,000 had up to 10 bullets in the barrel
1 rifle had 24 bullets (each with powder) loaded!

Ulysses S Grant was apparently right to say that:
"Most of my soldiers are so poorly trained they can't even load their rifles."

(and try not to delete it this time! )

 

Some more odd stats from the American Cvil War:

Fort Sumter, in Chareston, was a Union fort, attacked by the South early on in the war.
The Confederate attackers fired 4,000 shells into the fort over 34 hours, but did not manage to kill any Union soldiers. The Union troops surrendered anyway, and fired a 100 gun salute to the Confederates.
The 50th cannon blew up, and killed one of it's crew.

So, only 1 Yankee soldier died - in an accident!

 

This is appaling. No matter how many stories you hear of the horrors of the battlefield, for some reason this simple stat gives me much more of an idea of the petrifying fear and the clinging to whatever is familiar to you in the heat of battle. These people simply can't think or act anymore, they just repeat a drilled action over and over...

 

I wonder, was the lack of success due to poor marksmen ship or the inability of horizontally fired cannon balls from smoothbore to put a dent on the fort's thick wall.
If you compare it later on to the siege of Fort Pulaski near Savanna Georgia, you can clearly see the devastating effect of shaped projectiles fired from rifled cannons on the besieged confederate fortress.

 

To my limited knowledge, most of the weapons used by both sides were the single-shot muzzle-loading rifles, I am surprised they found 6,000 weapons with 10 bullets in the barrel. I didn't think the Winchester was that popular during the civil war, and I wasn't aware of any weapons at the time that could hold up to 24 bullets at one time.

Interesting facts which further illustrated the horror of civil war, the casualty of this war was greater than WWI, WWII, Korean and Vietnam combined.

 

No, none could. The point of the statistic is that these rifles had misfired, then been reloaded, up to 24 times, because, as Roel pointed out:

Well, when you get Americans on both sides, fighting a war with modern weaponry and Napoleonic tactics...

 

Quite true, Ricky; the appalling casualties came from outdated tactics being pitted against modern weapons, including not just rifles but artillery firing exploding shells. It wasn't until 1864 that generals willing to try new tactics rose high enough in their respective armies to make any kind of difference.

Just as a side note, there were repeating rifles extant in the Civil War, the Spencer and the Henry. The latter was a forerunner of the Winchester, BTW. Some Federal units bought such weapons for themselves from the manufacturer, as they were never issued to the Union Army. Seems the officer in charge of that department was afraid that the soldiers would waste ammunition if issued repeaters. :roll:

 

Yes, I can see how providing them with 24 bullets without teaching them to pull the trigger after loading the rifle is a much better strategy.

Oops, this is plagiarism. The phrase, swapping "providing them with 24 bullets without teaching them to pull the trigger after loading the rifle" for "hiding behind a rock", appears in the online comic RedvsBlue.

 

The 24 bullets in them referred to muzzle-loading muskets that their owners had just kept reloading without firing, a commone enough ocurrence in th Civil War. The Henry repeater, forerunner if the Winchester, carried 14 rounds, IIRC,

 

I'll take your word on it. My point was that the infantry were still wasting bullets, not because they were given the opportunity by issuing repeaters, but because of fear.

Do you get this in reenacting btw?

 

or quite possibly the first round has mis-fired, and they never quite noticed that fact.

As to wasting bullets, they found that muzzle-loaders encouraged bullet wastage, as the men would fire them off at extreme range, in order to be fully reloaded when the enemy got near.