English Generals

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Major Destruction
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RE: English Generals

Post by Major Destruction »

Does Prince Rupert deserve a mention?

The British king thought highly enough of him to give him as a prize (and also as a means of getting him out of the Army for fear of taking the crown) the largest piece of real estate ever given to one man.

That should be enough of an acolade. He certainly would not win any popularity contests.

He could be described as a man of intense loyalties but few friends, proud, reserved and morose, uncompromising, unpolitical, undiplomatic, single-minded in his chosen craft of war, (no, I am not describing Montgomery but it sounds similar). Considered as the equal of Newton or Wren, he was a scientist, alchemist, artist, architect and lady's man.

A Bohemian prince, son of Frederick the V and Elizabeth, a Scottish princess, his geneology can be traced back to Attila, Charlemagne and William the Silent. In 1642 at the age of 22, he was named General of Horse and was to serve the Stuart family's cause for many years, eventually rising to Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord.

He turned his talents to commerce while in his early forties and before he turned 50, he and his company were sole proprietors of all the lands that drained into the Hudson Bay. The town of Prince Rupert in British Columbia is named for him.

As a side question, and apart from Rupert and Alexander; how many generals have had a town or city named for them?
They struggled with a ferocity that was to be expected of brave men fighting with forlorn hope against an enemy who had the advantage of position......knowing that courage was the one thing that would save them.

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sven
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RE: English Generals

Post by sven »

ORIGINAL: Major Destruction



As a side question, and apart from Rupert and Alexander; how many generals have had a town or city named for them?

Wellington, Custer, Washington, Greene, Lafayette, Hamilton, Churchill, Houston, Jackson, Knox....you were asking?
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EUBanana
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RE: English Generals

Post by EUBanana »

if you're talking about strictly English generals...  well, a few names picked more or less at random

...does William the Conqueror count?  [:D]

Thomas Fairfax (did most of the heavy lifting when beating up Cavaliers in the early civil war)
Cromwell
Robert Clive?  He must have had some nous if he bagged India from under the noses of the Frogs/Portuguese
Wellington
Herbert Plumer
Edmund Allenby
maybe Kitchener?  He crushed an insurgency, and pretty quickly too, a rare skill it would appear.  [8D]
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RE: English Generals

Post by EUBanana »

ORIGINAL: morvwilson
The British simply have not won a land war waged on a contental scale since the 100 years war.

What about World War 1? (with the French and a few Yanks and Belgians, but the BEF was responsible for over 50% of the advance in 1918, and the bits the US did well at was where they borrowed the British Tank Corps...).
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RE: English Generals

Post by morvwilson »

ORIGINAL: EUBanana
ORIGINAL: morvwilson
The British simply have not won a land war waged on a contental scale since the 100 years war.

What about World War 1? (with the French and a few Yanks and Belgians, but the BEF was responsible for over 50% of the advance in 1918, and the bits the US did well at was where they borrowed the British Tank Corps...).
Great Britian was not alone in WWI, as you yourself say. In a single year the US sent over 3 million men. I don't think that I would regard that number as a "Few". You may also want ot review the American offensive that was spearheaded by the Marines.
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morvwilson
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RE: English Generals

Post by morvwilson »

ORIGINAL: Kevin E. Duguay


And a fun fact! King Richard the Lion Heart was the only English King that did not speak english. He only spoke French![X(]
Very true! In fact French was considered the language of the ruling class as late as the time of Edward IV.
Another interesting tidbit is that most frenchmen at this time did not speak french. Practically every county had a different language.
It was not until 4-500 years ago that English was even used as a written language. If you were educated and needed to write something down you used latin or french.
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RE: English Generals

Post by Trower44 »

ORIGINAL: morvwilson

It was not until 4-500 years ago that English was even used as a written language. If you were educated and needed to write something down you used latin or french.

That's not quite true. English began to be codified at the start of the seventeenth century and replaced Latin and French as the language of court and official documents. However, documents written and intended for use more locally (church records, local courts, etc.) were written in the vernacular for centuries and can be read by most speakers of Modern English with a little practice.[:)]
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RE: English Generals

Post by Trower44 »

ORIGINAL: morvwilson

Great Britian was not alone in WWI, as you yourself say. In a single year the US sent over 3 million men. I don't think that I would regard that number as a "Few". You may also want ot review the American offensive that was spearheaded by the Marines.

'Only' 1.3 million US servicemen actually made it to the front. In terms of the men deployed by the other Allied powers fighting on the Western Front this was little more than a drop in the ocean. They did indeed fight bravely against the retreating Germans although the failure to apply the lessons learned by the Allies in the previous four years resulted in much higher casualties than would otherwise have been incurred.[:)]
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RE: English Generals

Post by EUBanana »

ORIGINAL: morvwilson
ORIGINAL: EUBanana
ORIGINAL: morvwilson
The British simply have not won a land war waged on a contental scale since the 100 years war.

What about World War 1? (with the French and a few Yanks and Belgians, but the BEF was responsible for over 50% of the advance in 1918, and the bits the US did well at was where they borrowed the British Tank Corps...).
Great Britian was not alone in WWI, as you yourself say. In a single year the US sent over 3 million men. I don't think that I would regard that number as a "Few". You may also want ot review the American offensive that was spearheaded by the Marines.

Already have done, fact was the Argonne Forest was just one offensive as part of the greater Hundred Days Offensive at the end of the war. It remains true that the BEF did the lions share of the work in 1918.
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sean82uk
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RE: English Generals

Post by sean82uk »


Marlborough
Wellington
Henry V
Edward the Black Prince
Edward III
Edward I
Cromwell
Robert Clive
Moore
Wolfe
 
Not too bad a list I would say, it competes with other continental countries quite well.
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RE: English Generals

Post by Mike Scholl »

ORIGINAL: ktotwf

No, Wellington was not a better General than Napoleon. He was a different General, in the sense that Napoleon was the Emperor and could do pretty much whatever he wished. Wellington always had political masters to answer to...

Put Wellington in Napoleon's place...could Wellington have done the things that Napoleon did? I sincerely doubt it. Wellington wasn't a meglomaniac pursuing his "star". He wouldn't have even tried the things Napoleon did.

Could Napoleon have done the things Wellington did? He did a couple times. No, he didn't. Napoleon commanded the French Army, the terror of Europe and probably it's most potent military machine. He never had to fight against it. Wellington did so successfully for 8 years...., with a polygot force and inferior numbers most of the time.

Wellington is just overrated, and mostly because of Waterloo, which is itself ironically overrated. True, Napoleon hardly showed any competence on the field at Waterloo..., but that was hardly Wellington's fault.
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