More On War
Reinhard-Siegfried (h9407313@hkusua.hku.hk)
Tue, 08 Jul 1997 14:31:41 +0800
Hello,
By no means do I like that system of deciding one's position according
to one's blood. But I want to stress the fact that Napoleon's enemies
are not as incompetent as many of you think so. Many of them might be of
average talent only but they had amassed years of real battlefield
experience before fighting Napoleon. The most serious mistake they
committed was that they always followed their old methods in war,
pretending that Napoleon was just another soldier of average talent like
them. This is the same mistake committed by the FPA fleet commanders in
the Battle of Astate against Reinhard. (They assume Reinhard is just
another noble of the Reich. Well if Reinhard were just as good as
Merkatz or the "theoretic" Staaden, the FPA fleet commanders would have
been right to stick to their original plan.)
Democracy does not guaranttee that the best soldiers go to the top, or
the best military decisions are taken up by the "leaders" of the
democracies. Yang says that armed forces and the principles of democracy
are somehow contradicting each other. How did the democracies get it all
wrong in military terms at the beginnings of the two world wars of this
centuries? (For example, France was almost beaten at the beginning of
WWI and was actually overrun at the beginning of WWII.) Were the people
allowed to vote to decide whether the Allied troops should land at
Normandy or the Balkans (as the British wanted originally) to open up a
"second front" in Europe in WWII? Or were the soldiers allowed to vote
when their lives were in fact at stake? Democracy in practice also
guaranttees that the ideal situation never occurs. Napoleon's being
given his first independent command (in his First Italian Campaign) was
not due to the fact that France was then more democratic than before.
It's because of a series of political bargains thanks to the politicians
in Paris. No one then believed he was destined to be a great soldier.
The fact that Yang isn't the Commander of the FPA Fleets before the FPA
is ruined is yet another evidence illustrating these two points
concerning democracy.
Josh Yuan is right to point out that the nobles weaken (the rule of) the
kaiser in the Reich. I want to give an example of how they weaken the
army of the Reich. Marshal Mueckenburger, the Commander of the
Reichsfloette before Reinhard, intends to replace the ineffective dual
command system of the Iserlohn with a single command system there, after
his many experiences there. (It is mentioned in the Series after
Iserlohn has fallen to Yang.) But the nobles oppose to this reform
because it means the reduction of jobs for them! We see how Yang
exploits this weakness of the Reich troops there in his conquest of
Iserlohn. In short, before Reinhard comes to power, the Reich is a big
but ill-governed country compared to the FPA. Its potnetial strength
appears only after the reforms introduced by Reinhard. (This is another
evidence of the greatness of Reinhard, not only as soldier but also as
statesman.)
Reinhard-Siegfried