Pakenham It In

As we have seen, TFSmith is more than happy to steal from authors. Unfortunately, when he does give them at least partial credit, he misrepresents their ideas. Witness the following quote, assigned to a 'distinguished historian':

The central tactical lessons of the war eluded many of the senior officers; the reasons for their humiliating reverses was not the marksmanship of one’s enemies, nor the quality of their artillery and small arms, nor the crass stupidity of a given general or admiral – all myths which the citizenry found it convenient to believe. It was that steam and iron at sea and rifled weapons and the trench ashore had decisively tilted the balance against attack and in favour of the defence. And even in the 1860s, these were not new lessons: similar ones could have been drawn from the results of actions afloat and ashore in the Russian War, less than a decade prior.

Presumably the 'distinguished historian' is not Thomas Pakenham, who must have died at the age of twelve in the nuclear holocaust that consumed mainland Britain. However, the changes made to the quote are significant:

The central tactical lesson of the Boer War eluded them. The reason for those humiliating reverses was not the marksmanship of the Boers, nor their better guns or rifles, nor the crass stupidity of the British generals- all myths which British people found it convenient to believe. It was that the smokeless, long-range, high velocity, small-bore magazine bullet from rifle or machine-gun - plus the trench - had decisively tilted the balance against attack and in favour of defence.

The observant reader will notice that TFSmith adds his own interpretation- that these lessons were visible earlier, and that the British must have been idiots not to have noticed them. Perhaps this suggests he sees himself as a distinguished historian, on a par with Pakenham. That he is no historian, let alone a distinguished one, can be seen by the complete nonsense to which he clings dogmatically. We earlier surmised that he believes Union soldiers armed with muzzle-loading rifles firing two shots a minute were more effective than Boer soldiers armed with breech-loading rifles firing six or more. TFSmith now piles piffle on top of nonsense by suggesting that Union soldiers were as effective on the defensive as Boer soldiers armed with magazine-loading rifles firing fifteen shots a minute and machine guns firing five hundred.

Needless to say, this particular historical interpretation is not supported by scholars who specialise in the tactics of the American Civil War. Paddy Griffith, for instance, argues that:

It is hard to find any evidence at all to support the notion that the elaborate earthworks of the Civil War were any more necessary than they had been in Napoleonic times... the reasons for the change from Napoleonic practice must be sought almost entirely in the minds of the combatants. A more educated American population was less ready to risk death without at least a semblance of personal protection, and a high command imbued with the flannelling of the Vauban and Mahan schools was blinded to the inner character of mobile warfare.

Although Brent Nosworthy is less sceptical about the role of musketry and earthworks, he is no less scathing about the kind of suggestion that TFSmith makes:

Some modern historians have criticised European military authorities for not learning the lessons provided by the 1864 and '65 campaigns about the value of constant entrenchment... An example of historical analysis at its worst... absolutely preposterous

Indeed, the two words 'absolutely preposterous' sum up almost the entirety of this TL.