To: 
From: "Vern Humphrey" 
Reply-To: r_catholic-l{at}yahoogroups.com

To: seanmbrook{at}aol.com [mailto:seanmbrook{at}aol.com]
> >
> > VH> His circle of advisers were few, and he heeded them only as
> far as they
> > supported his aims.  The Duc D'Enghen is a case in point.
> > >
>  Because Talleyrand disliked Napoleon's judicial
>  murder of the Duc D'Enghien.  He called it "Worse
>  than a crime, it was a mistake."

Yes, indeed -- but it was AFTER the fact, not before.  Napoleon did not
seek advice in this case.
>
>  The Enghien affair is rather puzzling.  After all, that
>  Bourbon prince was living quietly in Germany.  So
>  far as I know, Enghien had not been plotting against
>  Boney at all.

True -- but without an heir, the Bourbon cause would evaporate.  Every
pretender who died, Napoleon reasoned, made him more secure.

Look at what happened to the Bonapartist cause when the Prince Imperiale
was killed by the Zulus in 1879.
>
>
> > VH> Just a decade or so later, the British tried exactly that,
> and a very
> > small
> > and extemporized American army beat them all hollow.
> > >
>  But, didn't Gen. Pakenham lose the Battle of New
>  Orleans because he used the wrong tactics?  That
>  is, FRONTALLY attacking a fortified and dug in
>  enemy.  Should Pakenham have tried to outflank
>  Jackson?  Or try to besiege New Orleans?

Would he have done better against a professional army, fully equipped and trained?
>
>  And this was an unnecessary battle.  It was fought
>  about two weeks after Britain and the US made
>  peace by the Treaty of Ghent.  Given faster com-
>  munications, the news of the Treaty might have
>  arrived in time in New Orleans to prevent a battle.

But the angel that looks out for the United States decreed otherwise -- by
trouncing their last, best hope, we confirmed the British in their view
that the United States was best left alone.
> >
> > VH> It was enough to beat the British when they DID try to take
> New Orleans.
> > >
>  Assuming Gen. Jackson used the right tactics.
>  And assuming the mistakes Gen. Pakenham made.

Assumptions that are quite reasonable -- Old Hickory might have been rough
and uncouth, but he had a lifetime of fighting experience in America.
Whereas the British really did the best they could.  Flanking movements and
seiges are more easily spoken of than executed in battle.
> >
> > VH> In America, it would have worked even better -- because you
> have a more
> > battle-worthy and woods-wise population.
> > >
>  Battle worthy?  The Byzantines impressed me as
>  being very determined fighters.  Their own courage
>  was what enabled the Eastern Empire to survive
>  so long in a hostile world.

And the Empire finally fell when they lost that edge, having taxed the
small landowner almost out of existance.
>
>  Another part of the theme system which interested
>  me was the merging of civil and military aurthorities
>  in the themes.  Before the reign of Heraclius (r. AD
>  610-641), the Eastern Roman Empire still used the
>  system of Diocletian in which civil governors and
>  magistrates handled non military affairs in the pro-
>  vinces.  With the military being in a separate chain
>  of command.  But in the disastrous century after
>  the assassination of Maurice (602), both civil and
>  military lines of command were united in the hands
>  of military governors called "stategoi."  With their
>  troops being the soldier farmers I mentioned above.
>
>  Was something like the theme system precisely
>  what the Eastern Empire needed?  Despite my
>  preferring to separate civil from military authority.

Most important was the ability to raise soldiers from small landowners.
That's really the old Roman system, and it worked well until Rome made the
same mistakes.


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