Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba Quotes
The object of a general is not to fight, but to conquer: he fights enough who obtains the victory.
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.
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo Alba,1508-1582, Spanish Duke & General, Statement to The Archbishop of Cologne who wanted General Alba to attack the Dutch in Cologne, Quoted in S.A. Bent, Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men, 1887
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
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.
See a similar sentiment by Tallyrand
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.
Written when he was forced to share command with General Francois Kellerman.
Not understanding this point has been the cause of much difficulty for military leaders from the war of 1812 through the Iraq war, the success or failure of the effort depended on a successful peace.
Clark had commanded the American and NATO forces in the Serbian War where all the military and political objectives were accomplished with heavy losses to the Serbian’s and none to the allied side—what many think was the most successful war in American History. Like Eisenhower in WWII one great challenge was the political and strategic one of keeping the coalition of all the allied governments working together. His perspective had been like Eisenhower’s which was much wider and geopolitical than most military officers.
Ikle wrote this over a decade before both the military and civilian leaders fell into this trap in the 1994 Iraq War.
Clark was particularly brilliant in the Serbian War, where he led America and NATO to a major victory without a single American being killed. There had never been a major war like it, where air power and negotiating carried the victory. And yet, that strategy was not very useful for Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. See {597899} for another of his quotations in this theme.
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.
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3rd Duke of Alba, known as the Grand Duke of Alba (Spanish: Gran Duque de Alba, Portuguese: Grão Duque de Alba) in Spain and Portugal and as the Iron Duke (Dutch: IJzeren Hertog) in the Netherlands, was a Spanish noble, general and diplomat. He was titled the 3rd Duke of Alba de Tormes, 4th Marquess of Coria, 3rd Count of Salvatierra de Tormes, 2nd Count of Piedrahita, 8th Lord of Valdecorneja, Grandee of Spain and a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. His motto in Latin was Deo patrum Nostrorum ("To the God of our fathers").
