The Points Of Some Stories Sharing The Psychotechnic History Background
"Maurai": Good military leaders are not good political leaders.
"Quixote and the Windmill": a redundant robot.
"Cold Victory": History turns on accidents.
"What Shall It Profit?": A dead-end kind of immortality.
"The Troublemakers": Psychotechnics applied in a generation ship.
"Gypsy": Nomadism can become a preference.
"The Pirate": The past should be respected.
The Points Of Two Stories With A Slower-Than-Light Interstellar Background
"The Faun": Ecological coordination is a good idea.
"Time Lag": Interstellar war affected by time dilation.
Obviously, the same point can be made against different backgrounds.
12 comments:
Napoleon was a military genius and on the whole an excellent politician -- in the sense of knowing how to get his own way.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Only up to a certain point. Napoleon started making grave mistakes by 1808, starting by forcing Ferdinand VII of Spain to abdicate, and then imposing his brother Joseph as king, in the teeth of violent opposition by the Spanish, who hated him as a usurper and "intruder king." Another mistake was arresting Pope Pius VII and taking him into captivity in that same year. An act which alienated not only Catholics, but shocked even Protestants. And Napoleon's supreme mistake was misjudging Alexander I of Russia and invading the "Third Rome" in 1812.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, he made strategic mistakes (started trusting his intuition too much, and/or being surrounded by sycophants). But in terms of -French politics- his touch was sure. He was never in danger from popular uprisings in France itself; he was overthrown only by overwhelming foreign force, and when he came back from Elba, the Bourbons had to flee as fast as they could.
incidentally, he remarked afterwards that his main mistake in Russia had been listening to too many Polish noblemen, who warned him against agitating the peasants.
He said that if he'd gone in with a "peasants, you are free -- rise and take the land and kill the boyars!" program, widely publicized, he'd have won. It's a possibility.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
While I agree that for most of his dictatorship in France itself Napoleon was seldom seriously endangered by internal revolt, there was increasing discontent with his rule, esp. as France faced defeat.
I'm recalling how, during the Hundred Days, Napoleon's second rule of France was not totally unchallenged. There was open rebellion against him in parts of western France, in favor of Louis XVIII, serious enough that I read Napoleon had to send 10,000 troops to hold down the Vendee region. I have wondered if those 10,000 men could have given him a winning edge at Waterloo!
Intriguing, what might have happened if Napoleon had tried stirring up a serf rebellion during his invasion of Russia? Even so, logistics and General Winter might still have beaten Napoleon.
Ad astra! Sean
"Deux ennemis, le czar, le nord,
"Le nord est pire."
The Russian strategy against the French involved starving them by denying them the opportunity to forage.
Russian irregulars -- peasants, Cossacks and others -- destroyed small French foraging parties.
Meanwhile the main Russian armies refused battle, retreating, but staying in close enough contact that the French mainly had to stay grouped in large, hard-to-feed bodies close to each other.
(Napoleon's usual strategy was to divide his forces into a wide net of fast-moving columns living off the land, uniting for the climactic battle.)
The Russian strategy worked -- but it worked because the peasantry remained obedient to the Czarist authorities and the army, and supported them.
If the peasantry had turned against the nobles and the Czar, it would have been impossible. The Russians would have had to engage in decisive battle near their western frontier, which was what Napoleon wanted them to do.
In WW1, the Germans were afraid of suffering Napoleon's fate if they advanced too far into Russia.
But the crucial difference was that by 1914, the Russian government couldn't retreat because it was (rightly) very uncertain of popular support if it did.
So they stood and fought near the German frontiers, and the Germans beat them like a drum, until by late 1916 they were on the verge of collapse.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I think that bit of French you quoted basically means: "I have two enemies, the Tsar and the North" (with the latter meaning "Winter"?).
Mr. Stirling: Iow, Alexander I used the sheer vastness of Russia, keeping his main armies close, but not too close to the Grande Armee, and harassing attacks on those French foraging parties to stretch the French so thin they finally snapped like an overstretched rubber band.
As you said, that might not have worked if Napoleon had tried stirring up a serf rebellion!
But, I think you are underrating the Tsarist Army of WW I. Yes, in 1914 and 1915 there were times it came close to collapsing. But by 1916 that was not really the case. By then Russia was mobilizing vast resources, both in industry and manpower, for the war with the Central Powers. In fact, too MANY men had been called up, more than the Russian armies really needed. And THAT was a mistake, leading to too many reservists in or near Petrograd who had not yet become REAL soldiers. It was a mutiny of reservists, not battle hardened front line troops, which triggered the March tragedy in 1917.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"Two enemies, the Czar, the North.
"The North is worse."
Paul.
Sean: the Czarist government also bungled food distribution, among its many other mistakes, which is why the cities erupted. Inflation had gotten out of hand, there was no real rationing system, and the vastly-enlarged factory workforces were simply not getting fed.
Also, the Russian army never had the measure of the Germans. The Brusilov Offensive in 1916 against the Austrians succeeded, but as soon as German troops showed up it was rolled back and it was the Russian army's last gasp.
The concurrent attempt to attack in the north, against the Germans, ended in slaughter and failure. Granted Brusilov was the Russians' best general by far, that's indicative. Then the Russians started to lose defensive capacity as well.
The Russian attempt at economic mobilization produced some results, but it was as much in spite of the Russian government as a result of its policies. Which, by the way, included a rooted distrust of private industry by the bureaucracy. Russian governments hated to rely on private industrialists; they much preferred either making everything in State arsenals, or importing weapons from abroad. Patriotic Russian businessmen had to work around the officials as often as not.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I agree, actually, about the Tsarist gov't making many mistakes. And being far too statist in managing the economy. But Solzhenitsyn's massively researched MARCH 1917 (almost half way thru the second volume) convinces me it was not as bad as you described. If I can trust MARCH 1917 there was plenty of food, for example, in Petrograd.
While the Russian offensive in 1916 failed, we don't know how the war would have turned out if there had been no March Revolution. The front line armies remained loyal to the Tsar, after all, to the very end.
I blame the March collapse on a paralyzing loss of self confidence by the Petrograd authorities. And by the astonishing incompetence of the PM, the Commandant of the Military District, and the Interior minister. And the shocking dereliction of duty by the Colonel in command of the Volynian regiment, whose mutiny was the tipping point. For an HOUR AND A HALF the baffled and uncertain mutineers hung around their parade ground. And what did the Colonel do? NOTHING, he went home instead of taking the quick and probably nearly bloodless measures that would have ended the mutiny!!!!!!
Ad astra! Sean
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