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Also: > Though unknown to the west for many centuries, Subutai's exploits were first featured by the British military theorist B. H. Liddell Hart in his book G
by lqet 7y ago
Also:
> Though unknown to the west for many centuries, Subutai's exploits were first featured by the British military theorist B. H. Liddell Hart in his book Great Captains Unveiled after World War I. Liddell Hart used the example of the Mongols under Genghis and Subutai to demonstrate how a new mechanized army could ideally fight using the principles of mobility, dispersion, surprise, and indirect means. Though he gained little support in Britain, Liddell Hart's books were read in Germany, whose armies during the initial 1940–41 invasions of France and Russia bore an astonishing similarity to the campaigns of Subutai, 700 years earlier. In particular, Erwin Rommel and George Patton were avid students of Mongol campaigns
- nerdponx 7y agoWhy would an innovation like this go ignored for so incredibly long?
- ranger207 7y agoIt requires significant mobility and logistics to achieve: every Mongol had horses and could live off the land, but armies between them and WWII relied on infantry and artillery who required long logistical trains. It wasn't until mechanization that the Mongol's strategies could be replicated.
- harlanlewis 7y agoThe wonderfully-titled (and wonderfully written) Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry covered some of the unique and hard to copy advantages specific to the Mongols. As you point out, logistics has as much to do with it as fighting tactics. They're covered here in part 4 of a longer series, just scroll down a bit. https://acoup.blog/2020/02/28/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-iv-desert-power/ https://acoup.blog/2020/02/28/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
- ranger207 7y agoYep, I was reading his "Gondor heavy infantry kit review" last night, and almost quoted it in my last comment as to why the Mongols could produce such an effective fighting force and subsequent societies couldn't: "every army is a battlefield instantiation of the society that created it."
- rjsw 7y agoNot sure that the statement about him getting little support in Britain is correct. The British Army was fully mechanized in 1939, even infantry regiments had plenty of Universal Carriers [1] to help move supplies around. The German Army was still using horses in 1945. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Carrier
- blaser-waffle 7y agoEveryone was using horses in 1945. Only the US, who got into the war late, and who had a massive industrial base, showed up heavily motorized. The Brits ended up motorized mostly because of 1) the US supplying them, and 2) they left many of their horses on the continent when they pulled back from Dunkirk. The US sent tons of jeeps to the USSR too.
- rjsw 7y agoThe British Army wasn't using horses in 1940 so didn't leave them at Dunkirk.