06-24-2004, 02:12 PM
Ah... Fuller.<br>
In my opinion, if you want to know about Caesar, forget about Fuller.<br>
If you want to know about the history of tank warfare, then read Fuller.<br>
Fuller did not write about Caesar. He wrote a parable about how Caesar would have fared better with a couple of panzer divisions.<br>
What must be considered is that John Frederick Charles Fuller was an ardent advocate of armoured tank warfare at a time where its importance was not yet fully apprehended by the military establishment.<br>
His ideas of using tanks in concentrated thrusts, shared by others like Liddell-Hart, De Gaulle and Guderian were considered dangerous BS by the British and the French, but not by the Germans who put them to good use in 1940 to invade two thirds of Europe in no time.<br>
Fuller had good reason to know that massive tank attacks worked since et was the one who organized the famous Cambrai offensive in 1918, one of the first massive tank attack of history, which gathered close to 400 machines.<br>
So Fuller was out to prove that Caesar would definitely have fared better with a better cavalry (read: tanks). It is a mediocre criticism of Casar's campaigns, not an analysis of these campaigns and it tells more about the atmosphere in military circles round the 1920/1930's than about the first century BC.<br>
I am not really interested in people living in the XXth century telling me what they would have done had they been into Caesar's caligae.<br>
I am interested in what Caesar actually did. And for that, the best book is the one by Theodore Ayrault Dodge, at least as far as the military career of the Divine Julius is considered.<br>
As a general rule I am suspicious of writers who tell me a story while at the same time explaining to me what I must make of it... <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 6/24/04 4:25 pm<br></i>
In my opinion, if you want to know about Caesar, forget about Fuller.<br>
If you want to know about the history of tank warfare, then read Fuller.<br>
Fuller did not write about Caesar. He wrote a parable about how Caesar would have fared better with a couple of panzer divisions.<br>
What must be considered is that John Frederick Charles Fuller was an ardent advocate of armoured tank warfare at a time where its importance was not yet fully apprehended by the military establishment.<br>
His ideas of using tanks in concentrated thrusts, shared by others like Liddell-Hart, De Gaulle and Guderian were considered dangerous BS by the British and the French, but not by the Germans who put them to good use in 1940 to invade two thirds of Europe in no time.<br>
Fuller had good reason to know that massive tank attacks worked since et was the one who organized the famous Cambrai offensive in 1918, one of the first massive tank attack of history, which gathered close to 400 machines.<br>
So Fuller was out to prove that Caesar would definitely have fared better with a better cavalry (read: tanks). It is a mediocre criticism of Casar's campaigns, not an analysis of these campaigns and it tells more about the atmosphere in military circles round the 1920/1930's than about the first century BC.<br>
I am not really interested in people living in the XXth century telling me what they would have done had they been into Caesar's caligae.<br>
I am interested in what Caesar actually did. And for that, the best book is the one by Theodore Ayrault Dodge, at least as far as the military career of the Divine Julius is considered.<br>
As a general rule I am suspicious of writers who tell me a story while at the same time explaining to me what I must make of it... <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 6/24/04 4:25 pm<br></i>
