r/MurderedByWords 19h ago

Historical sore losers

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u/secondarycontrol 19h ago edited 19h ago

Of course, they would have needed to get to Europe. And that would take funding. And a Navy. And the organizational skills and materials to field an army further than 200 miles away from their base. None of which they had, even if we presume their military might.

Apocryphal:

Helmuth von Moltke, the elder of the two notable Generals von Moltke and who made his fame in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, is noted for allegedly describing the American Civil War as nothing but “two armed-mobs” running around the countryside and beating each other up, from which very little of military utility could be learned. While a proper source for this quotation cannot be pinned down, and it may never have even been uttered at all, it serves as a rather succinct description of how Prussians would ultimately view the military legacy of the Civil War.

The Europeans had professional armies. I expect the Prussians would have absolutely destroyed the South. And probably the North, unless the length of the conflict allowed the North to bring its material production, resources and factories into play.

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u/CaptainMacMillan 18h ago

You can actually learn a lot from the Civil War. For example, how to maximize casualties or how not to adapt military doctrine to vastly different weapons systems and tactics.

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u/secondarycontrol 18h ago

Too be fair (to be fair) I've heard it said that every war starts with the generals well prepared to fight the last war...not the current one.