05-22-2005, 05:01 PM
Napoleon was a very succesful general. Xerxes was not. Napoleon would have told Xerxes to give him 100,000 men to conquer Greece, and he would have done it.
I've no wish to be rude, Floof, but this sounds remarkably like bovine scatology to me! Napoleon came severely unstuck in Russia because HE PERSONALLY failed to provide for the worst-case scenario which he encountered. He repeatedly failed to defeat the British, simply because they were prepared to stand until the French broke themselves against them. As Wellington put it, "They came on in the same old way and we saw them off in the same old way" ( Yes, he did also say it was "a damned close-run thing"). Napoleon failed to do anything new. It strikes me the Ancient Greeks, in their attitude at Thermopylae, were just like the Brits and would have "seen off" a general like Napoleon in much the same way.
What evidence is there that Xerxes ( Or the ACTUAL strategist of his army) was not a successful general? This is not a sarcastic or rhetorical question - I don't know what his "track record" was but Mardonius did a fine job after Thermopylae and it seems like the Greeks ( as well as being brave and well-armed) were damned lucky that their silly squabbling didn't lead to disaster and that the two most important men in the Persian army were killed at Plataea.
I've no wish to be rude, Floof, but this sounds remarkably like bovine scatology to me! Napoleon came severely unstuck in Russia because HE PERSONALLY failed to provide for the worst-case scenario which he encountered. He repeatedly failed to defeat the British, simply because they were prepared to stand until the French broke themselves against them. As Wellington put it, "They came on in the same old way and we saw them off in the same old way" ( Yes, he did also say it was "a damned close-run thing"). Napoleon failed to do anything new. It strikes me the Ancient Greeks, in their attitude at Thermopylae, were just like the Brits and would have "seen off" a general like Napoleon in much the same way.
What evidence is there that Xerxes ( Or the ACTUAL strategist of his army) was not a successful general? This is not a sarcastic or rhetorical question - I don't know what his "track record" was but Mardonius did a fine job after Thermopylae and it seems like the Greeks ( as well as being brave and well-armed) were damned lucky that their silly squabbling didn't lead to disaster and that the two most important men in the Persian army were killed at Plataea.
