John Pope Quotes
Let us understand each other. I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found, whose policy has been attack and not defense.... Meantime, I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases, which I am sorry to find so much in vogue amongst you. I hear constantly of ‘taking strong positions and holding them,’ of ‘lines of retreat,’ and of ‘bases of supplies.’ Let us discard such ideas.... Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of themselves. Let us look before us, and not behind. Success and glory are in the advance, disaster and shame lurk in the rear.
His aggressive tactics which had served him so well in the West got his army into trouble at the Second Battle of Bull Run, where he was out maneuvered by Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. He was sent back to the West.
John Pope, 1822–1892, Civil War Union General, Statement to his Eastern Troops when he was transferred from the West, July 14, 1862
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He polished the army but had little strategic appreciation for the strengths of the Union, its industrial capability, logistical capability, and its greater manpower pool. He was reluctant to fight, and when he did, was happy to take territory, that meant little, when Lincoln and other strategists argued that the object should be to destroy and degrade the Confederate Army and the Confederate capacity to support the Army and continue to make war.
The Emperor was writing to his son to explain the defeat of Japan. In what was a bit of revisionist history, the Emperor neglected to mention that with the exception of some of the incursions in China, Hirohito had personally approved every Japanese invasion including Pearl Harbor. Further, it was he who had approved the orders that Japanese troops should fight to the death rather than retreat or surrender.
An irony is that Timosheko used German Prussian traditional military strategy to successfully defend against the German invasion of Russia.
The General refused. He had already achieved a strategic victory and it was only a matter of time when the Dutch would withdraw on their own as their supply lines were cut off and the populations wanted them out.
He was objecting to the current crop of senior military officer who have little experience in fighting and much in academic, strategic and technical training. Many however see him as a dinosaur who does not realized the complex nature of the modern military missions. In general, we have won almost all of our fighting battles but often failed in our maintaining civil society, occupation, nation building, military procurement, preventing sexual assault of our own troops by our own soldiers, assuring mental health of our soldiers. Hackworth, detractors argue, wants to change what already works and ignore what does not.
Ivan Khrfistoforovich Bagramyan. Most militaries including ours have generally been trained and equipped for the last war and not the next war.
General Shafter had a major attack of Gout, a terribly painful disease for which there was little relief at the time. As a result he had little involvement in the battle of Santiago at the most critical period. Crassus was an incompetent general in a famous Roman battle.
Two days later Lee surrendered at Richmond, and the Civil War was over. On April 14, Lincoln was assassinated. He died the next day.
These tactics were revolutionary in China and the rest of the world. They were unexpected and were very effective. The non communists however were corrupt, exploitative, and divided. The communist revolution in China might well have not succeeded had the capitalist forces not been so corrupt and badly led.
John Pope was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War. He had a brief stint in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) in the East.
