05-16-2018, 03:07 PM
(05-14-2018, 08:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I would indeed have added the victory at Tours over the Moors in 732; it allowed the growth of Western Civilization.
There is the debate, as I mentioned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours
...start at "Historical and Macrohistorical Views".
Looks like I'm caught up here. My Turn.
Under-rated operation #1: Operation Husky (Sicily).
Husky finally knocked Italy out of the Axis. The Germans know had to suddenly take up the slack in (of course) Italy, the Balkans, and on the Eastern Front as well. The diverted troops were a nice chunk of the surplus that the Germans had previously used for attacks (e.g., Kursk). All this was at minimal cost to the Allies, so very cost effective. In the long run, more important than Kursk, anyway.
Under-rated operation #2: Fort Donelson. ...Fort Donelson was a psychological blow to the Confederacy in general and Tennesseans in particular. It guaranteed the loss of Columbus, Kentucky (“the Gibraltar of the West”), the “Great Western Iron Belt” (a major iron producing region), and Nashville, Tennessee (the state’s capital and a vital communications hub). Easier to quantify were the millions of dollars’ worth of supplies that the Federals captured at Fort Donelson and the millions of dollars’ worth of property that the Confederates destroyed to prevent its falling into Yankee hands. This included two partially constructed gunboats.
The number of Confederate soldiers who surrendered (over 13,000) was unprecedented at that point in the war. This alone qualifies Fort Donelson as a Confederate disaster. To put the sum in perspective, the Confederates lost more prisoners at Fort Donelson than they had during the entire war up to that time. A different comparison shows that the Confederates lost more prisoners at Fort Donelson than the Federals had in every engagement during the war up to that point. The ramifications were immediately understood, as paroled U.S. soldiers petitioned the government to be exchanged for a return to duty.
Although the Confederates would suffer catastrophes aplenty in the coming years, the only Federal surrender to rival Fort Donelson was at Harper’s Ferry during the Antietam campaign in September 1862...
What if the men who were captured at Fort Donelson been able to fight at Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862? If the Confederates had fought and held on 16 February, and even if they had lost as many as 4,000 additional killed and wounded and additional 2,000 captured, the 8,000 additional evacuees would have been available for future operations. Admittedly, not all of those 8,000 men could have fought at Shiloh. In the period of time between 16 February and 6 April 1862, typical attrition (death, desertion, and discharge) might have amounted to 3 percent, cutting that number down to 7,760. Accounting for those who would have been sick, under arrest, or absent (about 30.3% of total strength, or 2,351) still would have added about 5,409 additional men to the 41,669 who were actually “present for duty or extra duty” on the first day at Shiloh. That would have resulted in roughly 12 percent more combat power, assuming that these men would have been as competent, as well equipped, and as well supplied as the average Confederate soldier in that battle. This increase in combat power certainly would have resulted in heavier losses for Grant’s Army of the Tennessee on 6 April, and if it had resulted in them being thrown back an additional kilometer toward Pittsburg Landing or Owl Creek, it might have resulted in disaster. Had Lew Wallace’s men arrived earlier, Grant might have been saved, but not because the reinforcements marched to the battlefield more quickly, but because the battlefield would have marched more quickly towards them. At the very least, Beauregrad’s Army of the Mississippi would have been in better shape to face the Yankees the next day, and for month’s afterward. [modified from my Master's Thesis]