For cinema, they made the best kind of war stories. Battles have a strong narrative content-focused in time, place, and action. The rise of Hollywood over the course of the 20th century helped secure battle’s place high on the pedestal of pop culture. Meanwhile, Cressy's book on decisive battles of the Western World propelled combat into the center of Victorian pop culture.Īn addictive attention to battle endured well into the next century, even with the advent of "push-button" nuclear warfare and the resurgence of messy, shadowy insurgencies like Vietnam. Clausewitz and Jomini, the two-top commentators on Napoleonic warfare, went through a lot of ink describing the role of battle in diminishing the enemy's capacity to wage war. Blame Waterloo (1815), the climatic one-shot campaign that ended Napoleon's run as the military master of Europe. Sometimes this critical competitive edge comes from losing battles-when the loss sparks the actions that lead to winning.įor much of the 19th and 20th century, the Western way of war was battle-centric. Gaining a decisive advantage over the enemy is the ultimate high-ground. War is a competition between thinking, scheming, determined adversaries. Never underestimate the importance of learning from losing for the task of turning defeat into victory.ĭefeat can be an integral instrument of victory. Never underestimate the importance of battle in the struggle of fighting and winning wars.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |