How should Historical Military Figures be Judged?

[WarGamer]

I'm not going to express an opinion, just put the question out there.

Military leaders kill people. That's what they do. They conquer land kill armies.

But historians look at military leaders for how "consequential" they were/are.

in 732 AD, in modern-day Southern France... a Frankish King named Charles (later Charles Martel) would assemble an army of farmers and peasants, led by nobles to face off against one of the world's foremost military of the time, the Umayyad Caliphate led by Abdul Rahman Al-Rafiqi.

Near Poitiers, the forces met and the Umayyad army was crushed and the threat of Muslim invasion of Europe never arose again.

That's consequential. Were Charles or Al-Rafiqi moral men? Were either driven by a noble cause?



Re: the US Civil War

General WT Sherman used might to peel back public support of the Confederacy. He was quite effective. only fringe elements question whether Sherman was a war criminal. Was he a moral man?

General Nathan Bedford Forrest rose from Private to General. His tactics were so fierce and unconventional and successful that for a Century they were taught at the US Army War College and Heinz Guderian partially credits Forrest for the "Blitzkrieg" in WW2. General Patton descended from Confederate officers and recognized Forrest.

Was Forrest a moral man, a decent man? Driven by a noble cause?

The answers are all fairly obvious. But how does that affect his "historical record"?




Ok, now personal commentary.

I'm glad the public displays are coming down. It's clear that "MOST" of them were put up as a symbol of oppression rather than a memorial to a person. (Some exceptions being the CSA monuments built at Gettysburg, etc)

I'm split on whether a community should have the final decision to keep or remove monuments. I think it's morally right to take them all down. But I don't live in the community so maybe I shouldn't opine.

The one thing I do wish for... is that people could say General XYZ was a masterful commander and tactician and changed history whether we're talking about Hannibal, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charles Martel, George S Patton, Edwin Rommel or Georgy Zhukov WITHOUT talking about their character or morality.

Removing public monuments just might be the BEST thing to properly categorize the memory of the CSA leaders. When they're seen in museums and National Parks it's easier to get the real story about them...

One last thing, and I apologize for being verbose...

Please visit one of our National Parks dedicated to US Civil War battlefields. Pre-1980's, these were popular summer vacations and school field trips. Today they're being forgotten. It's the best place to learn about Lee, Sherman, Grant, Forrest and Hooker without social taint or influence.

[LakeArenal]

1. Individually.

[WarGamer]

2. Alexander the Great

Conquered half the known world... massacred millions.

Great military leader? Consequential?

George S Patton, renowned asshole... pushed the Nazis back over the Rhine.

Great military leader? Consequential?

[Tomconroy]

3. I guess it has something to do with

The cause you fight for. To my mind Grant, Sherman and Eisenhower were great men as well as great generals.
Lee was a great general, but has to be viewed as flawed because of the cause he chose to fight for.(Grant had a line about this at the very end of his Memoirs. Wish I could quote it from memory).
Interesting topic.

[WarGamer]

13. True.

But how do we judge the "cause"?

Especially going farther back in time, who had the stronger "cause", Charles or Al-Rafiqi?

What was Hannibal's cause? Or Genghis Khan?

[Tomconroy]

16. It does get tougher the farther back you go.

American Revolution I would think just. Napoleon I would have to think long and hard about.

[Marrah_Goodman]

53. I would not consider fighting to keep slaves "just".

[brush]

22. Grant's campaign to take Vicksburg and the Mississipi was brilliant, and...

once Lincoln recognized what he had in the western theatre and put him in charge of all Union forces, Lee was toast as his forces were no match for the partnership of Grant and Sherman.

[WarGamer]

25. Union leadership pre-Grant was timid.

I think there was a level of caution exercised by men like Hooker... maybe they didn't want to attack their West Point classmates?

But once Grant defined "total war"... it was over.

Thanks for the great reply!

[Claire Oh Nette]

31. Lee was toast.

[brush]

36. Oops. Yes.

[Chainfire]

4. Attempting to apply moral standards to war is chasing a ghost

Wars are immoral, the participants aren't saints. The most successful killers are heroes and the villains are the losers. We remember Tibbets for ending the war, not for slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians. Had the Axis won WWII, Eisenhower and Truman would have gone to the gallows and been remembered in the history books as mass murderers. Fifty million people died in WWII, there is nothing glorious about that. Perhaps we should never celebrate military heroes as it would make the act of war less appealing to the people who plan and operate it.

[WarGamer]

5. so the victors DO write the history...

great reply, I agree.

[Tomconroy]

11. I think WW II in particular was just.

Afghanistan for a little while was just. Not too many others lately though. The Civil War was absolutely just.

[marble falls]

6. Every so often I repaint the living room and get a new sofa. There's no problems with taking ...

... down statues ever. I don't get them. Lee wasn't art. I've seen it when I was younger, learned no history from it. And I don't think the more than 100 is nothing more than a poke in the eye.

What those civil war statues were about was letting black southerners know exactly where they were and what their place in southern society was. The proof of it is that 90% of these statues were put up after 1880 with the rise of Jim Crow.

When people want to drag down Grant, Sheraton, Pershing, McArthur, Eisenhower, Moses Cleveland, Whitey Ford - so be it.

List of memorials to Robert E. Lee - Wikipedia
[Search domain en.wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memorials_to_Robert_E._Lee
Robert E. Lee, a statue given to the National Statuary Hall by Virginia in 1909 (removed in favor of Barbara Rose Johns in 2020) The following is a partial list of monuments and memorials to Robert E. Lee, who served as General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States in 1865. At the end is a listing of monuments and memorials to Lee ...


How Many Confederate Statues Are There In America? The ...
[Search domain bustle.com] https://www.bustle.com/p/how-many-confederate-statues-are-there-in-america-the-number-is-appalling-77014
The SPLC report indicated that almost 300 of the statues were located in Georgia, Virginia, or North Carolina. However, Confederate monuments — possibly up to 1,000 total, according to USA Today —...


One good thing is we'll never have this problem with a statue of 45.

[LakeArenal]

15. Statue removal is just a symptom of an underlying problem.

I’m sorta on the side of no new statues of any humans. They have always seemed graven images to me.

The subject is subtly divisive.

In the end I think a community has the right to take down a statue it deems negative.

[marble falls]

30. I agree 100%. If we're going to teach history, we don't need statues to get it done.

[WarGamer]

45. Yup. Just good books.

Great history books are good today and 100 years from now, free of editorial bias or opinion.

[Yonnie3]

29. Recently (today!) departed statues in Charlottesville were donated by

an unabashed racist on land that was taken from blacks and given to the the City with the stipulation that it be whites only. This happened in the 1920s, the height of the Jim Crow era.

Read about Paul Goodloe McIntire here: https://art.as.virginia.edu/history-paul-goodloe-mcintire His name is on a lot of things around here.

You are correct in saying "what those civil war statues were about was letting black southerners know exactly where they were and what their place in southern society was."

[marble falls]

32. Good article.

[Hoyt]

7. In the South, a lot of these monuments were erected to intimidate and honor

racial hatred and discrimination.

Take Stone Mountain, probably the largest memorial to hatred in the world. The state bought the mountain from an honest to god KKK Wizzard, or whatever they were called. The state then raised money to pay for the damn carving and flew America’s Swastika over the park.

I’m fine with most of what I’ve seen in battlefield parks and enjoy going there.

[WarGamer]

21. Yeah, that's an obvious one!!

[Chainfire]

24. People believe what they are taught

I grew up in the Deep South, my ancestors were Southern Civil War soldiers and plantation and slave owners; In the 1950s we were taught that the Confederate leaders were all heroes and saints. We were also taught that us white folks were the master race (although that is not the terminology that they would have used). A lot of us accepted it as God's own truth and never questioned the rhetoric. I was a young adult before I began to question the validity of the message, quite a few Southerners never advanced past the message of their parents, teachers and preachers that the South was the victim of a great wrong foisted upon us by Damn Yankees. People believe what they want to believe...

When I study history, I read works from people on both sides of the conflict and it can give a whole new perspective on what is real and what is fantasy.

[WarGamer]

26. Absolutely. That last sentence is A+++

[leftieNanner]

28. My husband was doing some work in Charleston SC several years ago

He would go down there and stay for a week or two.

He bought a book that had newspaper reports from the Civil War. It juxtaposed articles from a "Yankee" paper beside a southern one, reporting on the exact same battle or circumstance. The difference in the reporting was pretty stunning.

History is truly written by the victors.

[Kaleva]

8. Depends on the person doing the judging.

Leaving in place or removing statues of military leaders isn't going to do squat to their historical standing. Their successes and failures will continue to be studied and debated for many generations to come.

We don't know where Goering, Himmler and other top Nazis are buried and I'm unaware of any statues of them but their lives are studied by many.

I have an interest in military history and it wouldn't bother bother me in the least if the statues came down or were relocated.

[Sneederbunk]

9. Always go with the winner.

[brush]

10. I'll get right to the point. Statues of traitors must come down.

That is all. Whether they were good strategists or technicians can be debate at military academies.

Ultimately it turns out Grant and Sherman bested Lee and the confederates decisively—once Lincoln put Grant in charge of Union forces.

[Journeyman]

12. Like most people, Robert E. Lee was an extremely complicated individual . . .

(reprint of a post I wrote back in 2017 -- don't have time today to adequately address your excellent questions)

Like most people — and especially those who rise to positions of decision and power — Robert E. Lee was an extremely complicated individual. Brilliant in some ways, I’ve never understood the mythos that arose around him during the rebellion. Certainly, he made some extraordinary tactical maneuvers, and won some battles he should have surely lost, but he made a disproportionate number of blunders as well, many of which cost him and the South much more than they could afford to lose and hope to prevail in their insurrection.

The ill-fated charge on the third day at Gettysburg is but one of many examples, though surely it is the most remembered.

For all his efforts, however, it is well to keep in mind that slavery was ultimately vanquished from our land because of Robert E. Lee. It is one of those supremely ironic situations that doesn’t get near enough recognition.

Up until the time Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia (June 1862) it was Mr Lincoln’s stated objective that if the South ceased its rebellion, and submitted again to Union control, then slavery would remain as it had been prior to the rebellion. The original 13th Amendment, the Corwin Amendment (after the Ohio Congressman who proposed it), held that slavery was to be unmolested in perpetuity. Mr Lincoln himself endorsed this idea in his First Inaugural.(1)

It was Robert E. Lee’s success against far superior Union forces in the Seven Days Battles that sealed the South’s fate and slavery’s demise. In driving the Army of the Potomac back, Lee turned Confederate morale around, and its soldiers took to battle with renewed purpose. That summer, however, convinced Mr Lincoln that every tactic needed to be deployed against the rebellion, including denial of its labor force (military manumission) and the eventual use of black soldiers. The die was cast -- by Robert E. Lee -- and the result was eventual total war and the destruction of Southern social and political order.

And there was another aspect of Lee that doesn’t get enough recognition, the idea that he saved the Union from a good deal of misery and unreconcilable destruction in the years after Appomattox.

In April 1865: The Month that Saved America (a book I cannot recommend highly enough; it’s one of the finest works on American history I’ve read), author Jay Winik details the enormous debt we owe Lee for the manner in which he surrendered. A lesser man may have given his men carte blanche to resort to guerrilla warfare and indiscriminate terror (and some Confederate commanders did), but Lee consistently held that his men should return to their families and fields, and energetically campaigned in the aftermath of the rebellion that reconciliation was in the best interest of everyone — South and North, freemen all.

All said and done, then, and pursued strictly from an historical stance, Robert E. Lee remains a deeply flawed, complex individual. And a proper discussion of his place in history is far outside the bounds of an internet discussion board.

(1) "I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.” ~ President Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural, March 4, 1861

[WarGamer]

19. Fantastic response, thank you!

[Tomconroy]

33. I've read April 1865. Very good book.

Just a slight thought on Lee's generalship. I've read that he was convinced that his army could only succeed when it took the initiative. It could never be an army for defense. This may explain why he took some gambles, like the third day at Gettysburg.
If he did believe that, I would say he had great strategic sense.
Who knows the result if Lee's venture north had succeeded?

[WarGamer]

37. I must say... I'm not the biggest fan of Lee from a military perspective.

Some say his decision making at G-burg was hampered by his health.

The CSA was better served by it's younger officers.

[Tomconroy]

40. If you know you ultimately will lose

A war of attrition, then you pretty much have to move north.

[WarGamer]

43. Of course.

But it can be argued that after day 1 the strategic initiative had been lost.

Either you take the high ground on day 1 or you choose another field, another day.

[Tomconroy]

44. So interesting. So many ifs.

[lame54]

14. Honestly

[likesmountains 52]

17. For a great insight, watch this recent show minutes from PBS about removing Lee from New Orleans

https://www.pbs.org/video/the-neutral-ground-b3aoig/

[WarGamer]

20. I will, thank you!

[ret5hd]

18. I think Gen. Smedley Butler...

redeemed himself very well later in his life.

[Tomconroy]

42. Not a lot of Smedley Butler fans left out there.

I think I know what you are referring to, though

[WarGamer]

23. You guys are awesome... thanks for the replies!

Lots of great thought...

[Mr.Bill]

34. The most appropriate monument to Lee

was putting Arlington Cemetary in his back yard. Think about that.

Another thought: I think it was Douglas McArthur who said great generals are not remembered for the orders they followed, but for the ones they disobeyed.

[Scrivener7]

35. Here's what I know: treasonous people, those who try to over throw a standing government

and who are unsuccessful, don't get statues.

I also wonder why we would take a person's character out of the decision about whether we would erect a statue of them.

Let's only put up statues of people with admirable characters and see how things go. We'd have a lot fewer statues of soldiers and a lot more of people who help others. That would be nice.

[WarGamer]

38. Statues probably don't have as much value in modern society

A statue of Julius Caesar was probably the ONLY clue Romans had for what he looked like... and monuments historically tend to be dedicated to a power base rather than a person.

In the modern age, statues are just art...

[Scrivener7]

39. Not just art. They all carry intrinsic political messages about what we, as a society or as a

locality, value.

[WarGamer]

41. I guess I should have said...

In modern society any NEW statues can be viewed as ART.

Of course, older statues... pre-digital age had deeper meanings.

Sometimes, though... they're just a tribute.

Like outside Yankee Stadium

[Scrivener7]

47. I think they still all convey a message about what we do or should respect, who we have

found worthy of that type of adulation. I think that's why they are often contentious.

A really wonderful example of this is the fight between the people who put up the 10 Commandment monuments on public ground, and the Satanists who demanded that statues of Baphomet be placed next to them.

I think the Satanists were making an important point. The Christians were demanding that the 10 Commandments be honored in the common spaces, the inference being that Christianity should be honored as our accepted religion. The Satanists were saying they shouldn't be allowed to do that.

[WarGamer]

49. agree, 100%

Using public anything to promote... anything is wrong.

[Scrivener7]

50. Lol! That's about the size of it!

[Clash City Rocker]

46. I rec'd this because it's been a fascinating thread

I’ll just throw in a few thoughts.

Most classical radio stations still play the works of Wagner. He was a brilliant composer, for certain, but he was a Nazi before the Nazis even existed. I have no trouble listening to his compositions, and even enjoying them. But if a statue of him was built near me, I would be offended by that.

I love Barack Obama. He’s the best president of my lifetime. But I don’t need to see a statue of him. Some jackass would probably vandalize it, anyhow. The positive impact he had on America, and the high esteem in which he is held by historians and ordinary Americans, is all the tribute the man needs.

Military leadership is a skill that has shaped world history, both for the better and for the worse. I think it’s safe to say that we will never get everyone to value peace, or to care what other nations believe, which means there will always be war, so generals will always be needed. I think it’s fine to admire and even study their methods. But I don’t need to see a statue of any of them, or, really, anyone else.

[WarGamer]

48. +1000 nt

[sanatanadharma]

51. In Uruguay, some military figures are being judged in court

In Uruguay, some military figures are now being judged in court for crimes during the dictatorship.

In Uruguay, a poet, writer or futbolista is likely to be more famous than any military since independence.
Of Uruguay also, in its first years the newly independent Uruguay massacred pre-europeans at a place known (in English) as "leave if you can".

Genocide is a crime against humanity.

[Klaralven]

52. I don't think that we should erect statures of or name things after military officers or politicians

If we need statues or names for things, they should be of people who made positive personal contributions in non-governmental careers.

Otherwise, we are just feeding the vanity of the wrong type of person.