What made the Duke of Marlborough a particularly great commander?

See OP and Blenheim was won by Britain's allies

None of Marlborough victories prove the "quality" of the redcoats as most of the troops who fought under him werent British

What do you think made italians not great? Its weird because of some of the greatest commanders of the period were Italian... hmm

Sorry, but you know nothing about the battle, Eugene was fighting the Barvarians, the British army was the one that broke the french army causing it to rout.

Its a good thing your user, because you exhibit alot of bare-arse ignorance

>the British army was the one that broke the french army causing it to rout.

Yeah, the """"British"""" army
70% of the troops fighting under Marlborough in that war werent British but Dutch and Hanoverians

>What do you think made italians not great? Its weird because of some of the greatest commanders of the period were Italian... hmm

over a millenia of paying other people to fight their wars for them going back to the roman era meant you had no army tradition and a populace too afraid to fight lest their spaghetti overcook

how do you explain the great commanders Italy HAS produced over the years though (granted they often did serve in other country's Armies)

I see this man, and all I think is Malplaquet

his reputation will never recover

The great thing about Marlborough was his ability to move his army at an incredibly hihg speed through Europe, and being able to keep his army well-maintained despite constant marching. From the Veeky Forums perspective he achieved very little as a commander in battle, but as a commander in general he is praised widely for his administrative prowess and his flexibility.

How do I get information on/discuss relative troop quality between nations in various 18-19c conflicts without it being coloured by /int/posting retards. Go to Veeky Forums?

What exactly made him so great at creating a fast moving army? Did it come down to managing logistics and having a good understanding of what was needed but when it was too much as well so as to not "weigh the army down" essentially? Sorry if this sounds ignorant of me, I just dont understand how he would make that work individually and why it was so impressive.

It was a great number of reasons that made him able to traverse so quickly: firstly he had a keen interest in the supply lines leading to his army, ordering new roads be built or already existing ones expanded in order for his supply wagon to keep coming and his army better roads to march on.

Secondly he was a fantastic raider, razing many small towns throughout Austria, he did this either when his men had low morale and needed perking up, or when he was trying to lure the enemy to a certain position.

Finally, he made use of the environment around him. At one point he needed to get to Austria from Flanders in a matter of months, and found that the area around him were vast forests meaning that he would disappear into the tree line whenever the enemy caught wind of his position. Hiding constantly meant that he soon developed a knack for skirmishes and small battles, grounding the enemy down slowly by raiding supply lines deep into enemy territory.

This maneuverability meant that he could often get the first attack off in a battle, as well as being a consistently annoying for the enemy as they often found him in places that he blatantly shouldn't have been. For me he's like the coldsteel the hedgehog of military commanders in that he could seemingly teleport behind the enemy and say "heh nothing personal Camille"

his austrian counterpart was superior

No. He's just a butthurt Frog. Britain had a professional army, so the redcoats have always been seen as fairly competent. It was a comparably tiny army though, since due to being an island nation Britain didn't need a large army.

Because you'll never know when he'll come back from war (was it Easter?).
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine.

what made Eugene so much better than Churchill??

k

Thats a joke, even napoleon said the spanish army was the worst in europe.

>Brits were the worst soldiers in Europe during the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars

seriously were does this meme come from?

it doesnt come from the actual records of the time, because french commanders of the 1th century and napoleonic wars actually respected british troops and the battle record of the british contingent in allied armies was pretty fucking good.

bad generals on occasion but even when the generals screwed up breaking british infantry was acknowledged to be a hard task

Lyl

Go educate yourself.

youtube.com/user/USMarineRifleman0311/videos

>youtube
>USma-

LOL

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

didn't click

>seriously were does this meme come from?
Gee I wonder...
might it be (((those))) that would seek to erode this board from within...
...to set their rot in such a way that it is deep an intractable...
...to disrupt the ideals of this board and transform it into a black parody, a shitposting paradise...

>it's that same French guy

It comes from the bong commanders themselves, the aristos in charge of the British army were way more frigid to their troops than the French army where many top ranking officers themselves came from low ranks.

>From the Veeky Forums perspective he achieved very little as a commander in battle

Blenheim, Ramillies Oudenarde, he destryed french armies repeatedly, captured twns regularly and essentially turned what was at the time considered to be the most powerful army in the world into his whipping boys.

sure geopolitics of the perid meant france would survive, and the untimely death of the austrian emperor meant that a bourbon sat on the throne of spain, but not under the terms the french had desired and significant territorial concessions were gained

social commentary is one thing, although wellignton also said the arm made 'fine fellows' of its recruits

battlefield performance is the question not the social status of the men

>nothing personnel kiddo
Because his wife was friends with the queen

>It's the /pol/ screencap of the same 2 threads again like this is some kind of argument

>everyone who criticizes Britain is French

Wrong
The contrary is true though

Still millions times more of a proof than your butthurt assumption on this flagless board

I'm not the dude you're responding to lmao

just stop, nigger

>but not under the terms the french had desired and significant territorial concessions were gained
That's actually the contrary, since Louis XIV had agreed before Malplaquet to stop supporting the claim of his grandson.

Well, Veeky Forums contains more than one brit...

but rebelled at the idea of being forced t tae arms against him.

the allies owned the french in the northern theatre, and the british got the closest thing to a desirable outcome that was possible fr them after the death of joseph I - at which point allied victory meant the union of the austrian and spanish crowns a outcome at least as undesirable as a bourbon on the throne.

still hasnt been answered BTW.

no citation of british troops being bad n the battlefield, badly led ocassionally, and badl supplied sometimes, but never being fund wanting on a battlefield

All this post does is expose jealousy desu

Yep
The British jealousy toward France that is hard to detect on Veeky Forums due to lack of flags

never understood why the english shuld be thought jealous of the french, scornful yes, contemptuous frequently, pitying frequently, but jealous?

the english beat the french, they amassed a larger empire, more wealth, a far larger modern global influence and a far more profound influence on the course of human destiny, all the french have in which they can claim is slightly better cooking, and a short corsican who lost

I think you're both wrong
The British arent "jealous" of the french, they're just butthurt.
Butthurt because regardless of what England accomplished, there's still the fact that France conquered them and soiled their language forever in the 11th century that is haunting them
That and the fact that France (and Germany and Italy) were able to conquer Europe while Britain never could.
It's not as much jealousy as it's butthurt about the fact that French achievments make British ones look pale in comparison

The entire foundation of English national identity is butthurt at France, ever since it first appeared in the course of the Hundred Years War, when the French kings and nobility ruling England directed that butthurt outward towards France for their own gains, so the English would forget they were being ruled by foreigners. If you had to sum up into a single phrase what being English means, it means "not being French". Or rather the delusion of not being French. Because at the same time the English owe everything good or great about their country to France and to their French overlords, who left an impact so deep that you cannot utter a single thought in English without paying homage to them. This is the central cognitive dissonance of the English psyche.

And this is why it became such an obsession for the English to one day surpass France, in anything, in a desperate hope to overcome their inferiority complex. But they failed. Over and over and over, England never managed to match France in any relevant field, from the military to the arts. The only accomplishment they so pathetically cling to is that they briefly managed to conquer the most malaria-infested nigger swamps lost in the world's butthole, which they desperately try to pretend constitutes a great achievement and not just a consolation prize for those countries too weak to make it on the European continent.

Even today, when both countries are long past their prime, Britain forever remains just below France in everything it attempts, and that despite turning itself into a vassal of America in the hopes of riding its coattails, which makes France's proud independence all the more infuriating to them. And so they continue to whine and moan at France while the French barely even notice.

There are disturbing racial undertones in this post.

lol wut

>This is the central cognitive dissonance of the English psyche.
Literally racist pseudo-science tier

It's about culture you tit, a concept clearly too complex for your tiny race-obsessed mind.

>Because at the same time the English owe everything good or great about their country to France and to their French overlords
Ah yes, because Horatio Nelson, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Fleming, William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton were French, weren't they?

>England never managed to match France in any relevant field, from the military to the arts.
Except in Sciences, Literature, Navy and Music. Fields in which England has surpassed France.

>Britain forever remains just below France in everything it attempts
Could you explain pic related for me, please?

>And so they continue to whine and moan at France while the French barely even notice.

>I've never been to the uk: the post

>Ah yes, because Horatio Nelson, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Fleming, William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton were French, weren't they?
"Everything that is courteous, honourable and elegant in the English culture comes from the French invasion".
- Sir Walter Scott

>Sciences
Admittedly England is the second greatest country in the sciences, but second after France.

>Literature
Completely unfounded. The entirety of English literary reputation comes from American cultural dominance, and is based solely on the admittedly great Shakespeare and the rather mediocre Dickens.

>Navy
lol even the famous British navy got obliterated by the French in the American War.

>Music
Both countries are mediocre in music, in that field I'm afraid Germany rules.

>Could you explain pic related for me, please?
lmao, pic related.

>>I've never been to the uk: the post
>I've never read an English newspaper or an English online post: the post

>"Everything that is courteous, honourable and elegant in the English culture comes from the French invasion".
A quote isn't an argument.

>Admittedly England is the second greatest country in the sciences, but second after France.
England has outdone France in Sciences. Penicillin, Atomic theory, Calculus, The laws of motion and discovering the most elements of any country on earth.

>Completely unfounded. The entirety of English literary reputation comes from American cultural dominance, and is based solely on the admittedly great Shakespeare and the rather mediocre Dickens.
>My opinion is higher than popular opinion

George Orwell, shakespeare, Charles dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ian Fleming to name a few.

The most notable french author is Victor hugo.

>lol even the famous British navy got obliterated by the French in the American War.
Nile and Trafalgar.

>lmao, pic related.
Yet Britain's also growing faster than france anyway, with the difference widening every year.

>I've never read an English newspaper or an English online post: the post
I AM English.

Everyone here likes France. We go on holidays to France. Pretty much everyone here views France positively.

>That and the fact that France (and Germany and Italy) were able to conquer Europe while Britain never could.

france never conquered europe, the beat the spanish only after the spanish had cllapsed due to decades of internal misrule, the germans as the holy roman empire degenerated int the longest running joe in history and italy never got its act together after the fall of rome.

as for germany, even at its zenith the german hold was tenuous, lasting brief months before its decline began, and the romans succeeded mainly by coopting everyone else into their system, having spanish and greek emperors even before the decline.

the english never set out to conquer europe conquest of europe was always a fools game a chimera,a quagmire requiring vast amounts of money to try and take and nearly as much to hold, they did however manage to capture a not insignificant chunk of everything else

>"Everything that is courteous, honourable and elegant in the English culture comes from the French invasion".
>- Sir Walter Scott
says the scotsman.

in truth the fundamental difference in the nature of the two nations and the reason the english truimphed in the long struggle for dominance in the 18th and 19th centuries was the innate resistance to the idea f absolutism and aristocratic rule that the french brought with them, shown from the magna carta onwards and ending in a society in which the poorest man could rise to a fortune and be lauded for it.

>Admittedly England is the second greatest country in the sciences, but second after France.
second, but to america, and then only because f the enormous gains made in the later 20th century, france takes third with germany nipping at its heels.

>A quote isn't an argument.
I was hoping it would make you understand that it's English culture itself that is deeply French, at least in its upper class form.

>Penicillin, Atomic theory, Calculus, The laws of motion and discovering the most elements of any country on earth.
Antibiosis was discovered by the father of modern Medicine, Louis Pasteur. Calculus was founded by Nicole Oresme, and modern algebra by Descartes. Newton's first laws of motion were in fact discovered by Jean Buridan. The very modern concept of the chemical element was defined by the father of Chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier.

Not to mention thermodynamics, electrodynamics, film, photography, the internal combustion engine, the steam engine, the automobile, the aircraft, the mechanical calculator, the mechanical clock, the dry compass...

>The most notable french author is Victor hugo.
The greatest French author is probably Marcel Proust. But since you're apparently going by pop culture popularity, ever heard of The Three Musketeers or the Count of Monte Cristo? Or of Captain Nemo or In 80 Days Around the World? Or of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, or the Quest for the Holy Grail? Or of Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast? Or indeed of les Miserables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame...

Even in pop literature France surpasses England, despite the massive advantage English pop literature has from being written in the lingua franca. Although the difference becomes far more clear when you look at actually great authors like Camus, Flaubert, Balzac, Stendhal, Musset, Baudelaire, or Zola.

>Nile and Trafalgar.
American Revolutionary War

>the difference widening every year
Almost entirely due to euro devaluation.

>Pretty much everyone here views France positively.
So where does all the shitposting come from?

Hello, my british friend.

>the innate resistance to the idea f absolutism and aristocratic rule that the french brought with them, shown from the magna carta onwards and ending in a society in which the poorest man could rise to a fortune and be lauded for it.
Is this supposed to be a joke? Are you American?

>second, but to america
lol, guess that's a yes.

>>lol even the famous British navy got obliterated by the French in the American War.
eh what, they won the battle of the chesapeake somewhat narrowly, largely due to the british admiral making a few mistakes, before being rather heavily defeated at the saintes a few months later.

a narrow tactical victory followed by a heavy defeat is not remotely the same thing as obliterating the british navy, indeed french naval losses were significantly higher

Replied to the wrong guy mate

>france never conquered europe, the beat the spanish only after the spanish had cllapsed due to decades of internal misrule, the germans as the holy roman empire degenerated int the longest running joe in history and italy never got its act together after the fall of rome.
Come on bong, I know you're buttdevasted each time frogs are mentioned, but try to keep your shit together
As someone neutral in your feuds, this whole paragraph makes you sound irrationally mad ("France didnt conquer Europe, they only did because this, this and that")

>as for germany, even at its zenith the german hold was tenuous, lasting brief months before its decline began
Still we held alone against the entire world
Twice
Meanwhile, you bongs cowered on your island while we bombed you

>and the romans succeeded mainly by coopting everyone else into their system
Through conquest, yes

>the english never set out to conquer europe conquest of europe was always a fools game a chimera,a quagmire requiring vast amounts of money to try and take and nearly as much to hold
Yes, conquering only defenseless subhumans centuries backward in technology was very clever, no one is denying that
But don't try to implies it was as glorious as what Germany, France and the Romans achieved in Europe

>Meanwhile, you bongs cowered on your island while we bombed you
apart from north africa, and the fact that we bombed you harder.

>Yes, conquering only defenseless subhumans centuries backward in technology was very clever,

ignoring the obvious racism inherent in that sentence you seem to be a little ignorant of the history of the conquest of india.

notably the bit about most of the sides using european weapons, european training and european mercenary commanders.

the british were seldom much better trained than their opponents - both sides normally consisted of primarily native raised and trained troops with small contingents of europeans- and frequently outnumbered, the conquest of india was done by flintlock muskets against flintlock muskets, often flintlock muskets backed by several thousand irregulars

>Sciences
no

>Literature
Most definitely

>Navy
200 percent

>Music
Absolutely not