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

To: seanmbrook{at}aol.com [mailto:seanmbrook{at}aol.com]
> >
> > VH> Not ignore them, but work around them -- put low-ranking
> people in ALL
> > the
> > decision-making positions, and eliminate the high grandees.
> > > > > >
>  E.g., put competent officers in all the decision
>  making slots?  But doesn't that also mean the
>  Armada being commanded by an officer chosen
>  strictly for his competence?  Not by a politically
>  well connected figure head?

Yes -- instead of appointing a high-ranking incompetent, he should have
appointed NO ONE of high rank, and chosen lesser men of competence
throughout the fleet.
>
>  I think it's fair to say not all aristocrats were
>  incompetent.  Arguably the greatest general of
>  that age, Alexander Farnese, was an aristocrat.

Individuals are one thing, the system of nobility another.  Consider how
one of the greatest Roman defeats, Arausio, was caused because a Proconsul
of high birth wouldn't obet a Consul of low birth.
> >
> > VH> There's a lot of re-thinking going on in that area, but I have to
> > agree, the
> > generals of WWI did not rise to the level of competence their positions
> > demanded.
> > > > >
>  And it's puzzling.  I can see how elderly officers
>  can become mentally ossified, but why should so
>  many of the YOUNGER Entente generals have
>  been such bunglers?

Who trained them? :-)
>
> > SMB> I don't know.  Professionalize the officer corps?
> > > Make sure they have had at least a military training?
> >
> > VH> How do you do THAT?  What buttons do you push?
> >
>  I don't know.  Peter the Great of Russia insisted that all
>  officers had to first serve in the ranks before getting com-
>  missions.  Maybe candidates should first do two years
>  in the ranks before going to West Point or Annapolis?

That's part of it.  Another part is a ruthless pruning of the officer
corps, firing incompetents and keeping only the best.
>
> > VH> "Training" sounds like a good idea, but how do
incompetents
> train others
> > to
> > be better than they are themselves?
> >
>  Then it seems to come down to only blind luck that
>  we get any competent generals and admirals.
>
Or by enforcing strict standards from the top down -- get rid of the incompetents.

I'm tempted to tell the story of Henry Harward here -- he was a lieutentant
whose position was overrun during the Zulu war of 1879.  At the last
moment, he ordered the senior NCO to gather what men he could and make for
a farm house.  Herward then mounted his horse and rode off.

At his courtmartial, he said he had only been in the company less than a
day, that he stayed with his men until the situation was hopeless, and then
he went for help.  He was acquitted.

The Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, Sir Garnett Woolseley, added a
letter to the report of the trial.  He could not reverse the acquital, but
he said to let it pass without comment would make it appear he endorsed
"a monstrous theory" -- that anything could justify an officer
abandoning his men in combat.  "The more hopeless their position, the
more it is his bounden duty to remain with them and share their fate, for
good or ill."

The Commanding General of the British Army, the Duke of Cambridge approved
the letter and ordered it read at the head of every regiment in the Army.

Harward was acquitted, restored to duty -- and disgraced for life.


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