Mess_Romantic
Swinger
Yes I agree that the 'concept' of hearts and minds is an ancient one but it is the 'term' that I am interested in. I'm thinking John Adams may be our winner.
Xenophon said:Darth_Doctrinus said:The idea that a US SF bloke invented it is frankly risible. UK armed forces were doing this stuff while good old Uncle Sam thought carpet bombing was the answer to defeating insurgency.
You shouldn't believe all the propaganda D-D. US SF were operating on classic counter-insurgency lines in Vietnam in the 1950s and early 1960s. It all got away from them when MacNamara started to micromanage the whole thing as the campaign escalated in 1965.
Futsukayoi said:Does this mean that the US had SF operating under the French regime in the 50s (after all I think they had stopped helping Ho Chi Minh by then ). I had not come across this before and would be interested if anyone could point to any references.
Xenophon said:Futsukayoi said:Does this mean that the US had SF operating under the French regime in the 50s (after all I think they had stopped helping Ho Chi Minh by then ). I had not come across this before and would be interested if anyone could point to any references.
No. The US Govt provided an advisory mission to the South Vietnamese Govt after the French pulled out and the country was partitioned. The last couple of chapters of 'Street Without Joy' by Bernard Fall has some interesting background, 'Anatomy of a War' by Gabriel Kolko has a much more detailed account of how the USA was drawn into Vietnam.
Busterdog said:That's all well and good. The Brits were undoubtedly the first to use 'Hearts and Minds' as an operational tool (Gengis Khan and the 'Green Berets' aside) initially during the Malayan "Emergency" (as early as 1949) then in S.Arabia and Borneo. It worked in Borneo and Malaya (where we weren't really percieved as occupying forces) to a degree in Oman, not so much in the Radfan.
Trotsky said:Busterdog said:That's all well and good. The Brits were undoubtedly the first to use 'Hearts and Minds' as an operational tool (Gengis Khan and the 'Green Berets' aside) initially during the Malayan "Emergency" (as early as 1949) then in S.Arabia and Borneo. It worked in Borneo and Malaya (where we weren't really percieved as occupying forces) to a degree in Oman, not so much in the Radfan.
I have heard the term applied to a pre WW1 american campaign, may be in the philipines, I'll see if I can find my degree notes......
Trotsky
Busterdog said:Trotsky said:Busterdog said:That's all well and good. The Brits were undoubtedly the first to use 'Hearts and Minds' as an operational tool (Gengis Khan and the 'Green Berets' aside) initially during the Malayan "Emergency" (as early as 1949) then in S.Arabia and Borneo. It worked in Borneo and Malaya (where we weren't really percieved as occupying forces) to a degree in Oman, not so much in the Radfan.
I have heard the term applied to a pre WW1 american campaign, may be in the philipines, I'll see if I can find my degree notes......
Trotsky
I'm not sure Generals Otis or Leonard Wood applied 'Hearts and Minds' during the particularly brutal US campaign to colonize the Philippines which dragged on from 1899 through 1913.
Trotsky said:Busterdog said:Trotsky said:Busterdog said:That's all well and good. The Brits were undoubtedly the first to use 'Hearts and Minds' as an operational tool (Gengis Khan and the 'Green Berets' aside) initially during the Malayan "Emergency" (as early as 1949) then in S.Arabia and Borneo. It worked in Borneo and Malaya (where we weren't really percieved as occupying forces) to a degree in Oman, not so much in the Radfan.
I have heard the term applied to a pre WW1 american campaign, may be in the philipines, I'll see if I can find my degree notes......
Trotsky
I'm not sure Generals Otis or Leonard Wood applied 'Hearts and Minds' during the particularly brutal US campaign to colonize the Philippines which dragged on from 1899 through 1913.
IIRC they used protected villages, food denial and devlopment programmes, as I say I may be wrong so i won't comment until I can find my 15 year old essay on the subject................
Busterdog said:Trotsky said:Busterdog said:Trotsky said:Busterdog said:That's all well and good. The Brits were undoubtedly the first to use 'Hearts and Minds' as an operational tool (Gengis Khan and the 'Green Berets' aside) initially during the Malayan "Emergency" (as early as 1949) then in S.Arabia and Borneo. It worked in Borneo and Malaya (where we weren't really percieved as occupying forces) to a degree in Oman, not so much in the Radfan.
I have heard the term applied to a pre WW1 american campaign, may be in the philipines, I'll see if I can find my degree notes......
Trotsky
I'm not sure Generals Otis or Leonard Wood applied 'Hearts and Minds' during the particularly brutal US campaign to colonize the Philippines which dragged on from 1899 through 1913.
IIRC they used protected villages, food denial and devlopment programmes, as I say I may be wrong so i won't comment until I can find my 15 year old essay on the subject................
Remarkably similar to the strategies used by the Brits during the latter part of the South African War which was playing at the same time (including the use of concentration camps). Not many Hearts or Minds won there either!
intli said:pteranadon said:Except that the South African war was a success in winning hearts and minds. Despite the concentration camps the Boers joined the Union of South Africa which supported Britian in two world wars. During the Second World War the Union of South Africa provides 132,194 men out of around 320k white males between 20 and 40. I think the Brits did a deal with the Boers that led to stability for half a century.
During WW2 it was agreed that SA would only serve on the continent and not in Europe as there were quite a lot of nazi sympathisers among the boers. After the debacle at Tobruk in 41 the forces were re-built and later served in Italy. Also in WW1 Smuts wanted to show it was a 'white man's war' and blacks were not allowed to enlist. Rhodesians were attached to the SA forces against the Germans in S/W Africa and Tanganyika.
The military power employed went beyond American troops engaged in fighting guerillas. Soldiers contributed to diplomatic and economic activities as well as civic works. Even in remote locations, American troops supervised road construction. The Army built and ran schools and clinics, administered vaccines, and âconducted sanitation programs and other charitable works.â
As has become characteristic of the American way of war, the economic power employed was significant. Infrastructure improvements such as road-building and laying telegraph lines aided both military operations and the local economy. In a single two-month period near the end of the conflict, 1,000 miles of roads were built.35 Another program of dual benefit to soldier and citizen alike was disease eradication. The Philippines was plagued with malaria, smallpox, cholera, and typhoid.36 Army garrison commanders worked with local leaders to ensure clean water and waste disposal.37 Civil servants were paid relatively high wages.38 These and other policies convinced the populace of Americaâs sincere desire to improve the lot of the average Filipino.
Taft negotiated the purchase of 400,000 acres of prime farmland from the Vatican for $7.2 million, more than its actual value. Although the land could have been appropriated, the purchase kept the church, which had performed many municipal government functions under the Spanish, from resisting the US administration. Filipino peasants gained a significant benefit by purchasing parcels of land from the American administration. The US land purchase and resale was astute. It offered benefits that could not be matched by the insurgents to two constituencies. It also served as a wedge issue that separated the interests of the peasant guerillas from their land-owning principale leaders.
But Howe had no immediate interest in Philadelphia. Nor was he interested in destroying Washington. He only wanted to drive him out of New Jersey, so that he could get down to the business of restoring that territory to loyalty and order. He issued a proclamation offering pardon and the enjoyment of liberty and property rights to all who would sign a declaration of loyalty within sixty days. Even those who had fought in Washingtonâs army were included. New Jersey responded, almost en masse. To guarantee continued tranquillity, Howe established a series of strong cantonments along the Delaware, most of them manned by Hessians who had fought brilliantly at Fort Washington a month before.
It was now mid-December, true, and Howe, like almost all military commanders of that era, was anxious to get his troops into winter quarters. But was this excuse enough to discard total victory when he had it within his grasp? The answer would seem to be that Howe did not see total victory in military terms as the key to his policy. What he and his brother were aiming at, from the start, was peace by reconciliation. To achieve this they had to balance American extremists, who insisted on independence, against extremists of the opposite persuasion back home, who insisted on all-out repression. If they annihilated Washington and his army and captured the Congress, what would there be left to reconcile? The British extremists could be held in check only by making sure there was still an American force in being with whom to negotiate. The American extremists, on the other hand, had to be shown that they had no hope of winning independence against the might of Great Britain, and that to carry the rebellion further was folly. What better way to do this than to thrash the Americans repeatedly and drive them out of selected colonies, which could then be pacified and held up to the rest of the country as examples of British benevolence?
Howeâs letters to Lord Germain indicate this thinking. On September 25, before the fiasco at White Plains, he was writing: âI have not the smallest prospect of finishing the contest this campaign, not until the Rebels see preparations in the spring, that may preclude all thoughts of further resistance [authorâs italics]. To this end, I would propose eight or ten line of battle ships, with a number of supernumerary seamen for manning boats ⦠We must also have recruits from Europe, not finding the Americans disposed to serve with arms, notwithstanding the hopes held out to me on my arrival at this port.â
On November 30, Howe spelled out to Germain his plan for the next campaign. It was ambitious. An offensive army of 10,000 would move from Providence, Rhode Island, toward Boston; another army of 10,000 would move up the Hudson River to Albany, leaving 5,000 men to defend New York; finally, a defensive army of 8,000 men would cover New Jersey and pose a threat to Philadelphia, which Howe proposed to attack in the autumn. With the New England and middle colonies thus subdued, Howe planned to finish the rebellion in the winter by moving into Virginia and the Carolinas. Again, the phasing of his letter is significant. âWere ⦠the force I have mentioned sent out, it would strike such terror throughout the country that little resistance would be made to the progress of his Majestyâs arms.â Once more, Howe is thinking in terms of discouraging the rebels, rather than of defeating them in the field.
To make his new plans work, Howe asked for 15,000 more men. He was turned down. Further, Washington and his little army proved unwilling to roll over and play dead: striking through the sleet at Trenton on Christmas night, they captured almost the entire 1,400man garrison of Hessians. The victory restored the patriotsâ sinking morale. Howe at first called it a âmisfortune,â but a few weeks later, he was writing what is perhaps his most revealing letter to Germain:
It is with much concern that I am to inform your Lordship the unfortunate and untimely defeat at Trenton has thrown us further back, than was at first apprehended, from the great encouragement given to the rebels.
I do not now see a prospect of terminating the war but by a general action â¦
âI do not now see.â Quite casually, perhaps without realizing it, Howe here admits that until Trenton, a âgeneral actionâ was not included in his plan to end the war. Could this explain Washingtonâs repeated escapes from disaster at Long Island, Manhattan, White Plains, and throughout New Jersey?
Washingtonâs victory at Trenton could be attributed to the fortunes of war. But Germainâs refusal to send reinforcements seemed to Howe a low blow, especially since a well-equipped army was handed to General John Burgoyne for a descent from Canada to Albany. Burgoyne had a scheme of his own for ending the war. At Albany he would join with a force under Howe proceeding up the Hudson, and with another from the west under Barry St. Leger. If all went well, New England would be cut off from the rest of the colonies and the two halves of the infant nation could be conquered at will.
But a new note now enters Howeâs thinking: resentment. From Howeâs point of view, Burgoyne had stolen from him the soldiers he needed for the master plan he himself had proposed to Germain. Howe wrote to his lordship, telling him that the master plan would now have to be drastically altered. On April 1, 1777, he told Germain, âI propose to invade Pennsylvania by sea.â He admitted this meant evacuating the Jerseys, and added with irony: âRestricted as I am from entering upon more extensive operations by the want of forces, my hopes of terminating the war this year are vanished.â
Then, on April 5, Howe wrote to Guy Carleton, the British commander in Canada, telling him he had âbut little expectation that I shall be able from the want of sufficient strength in the army to detach a corps in the beginning of the campaign to act up Hudsonâs River.â Meanwhile, Germain in England wrote Howe approving his plan to invade Pennsylvania by sea. But at the same time he wrote to Carleton, assuring him he would write to Howe to âguarantee the most speedy junction of the two armies.â Alas for the hopes and dreams of George III, Germain never sent such a letter. All Howe ever got was a copy of Germainâs letter to Carleton, which nowhere contained a specific order limiting Howe to advancing up the Hudson River, and a paragraph in a later letter in which Germain, approving a modification of his Pennsylvania plan, trusted âit will be executed in time for you to co-operate with the army ordered to proceed from Canada.â A major disaster was shaping up: âGentleman Johnnyâ Burgoyne would be fighting his way to Albany to join up with Howe, who instead would be on his way to Philadelphia.
Co-operating with Burgoyne was the one thing Howe had no interest in doing. His defense of his decision to sail to Philadelphia pulsates with resentment in every line: âHad I adopted the plan to go up the Hudson River,â he told the House of Commons, âit would have been alleged that I had wasted the campaign with a considerable army under my command, merely to ensure the progress of the northern army, which could have taken care of itself, provided I had made a diversion in its favour by drawing off to the southward the main army under General Washington. Would not my enemies have gone further, and insinuated that, alarmed at the rapid success which the honourable General [Burgoyne] had a right to expect when Ticonderoga fell, I had enviously grasped a share of the merit which would otherwise have been all his own? and let me add, would not Ministers have told you, as they truly might, that I had acted without any orders or instructions from them?â
Nevertheless, according to Clinton, Howeâs plan to sail to Philadelphia and turn his back on Burgoyne (who was in no trouble at that moment, it must be admitted) appalled every man in the army except for Lord Cornwallis and Major General James Grant. Among his papers there is a memorandum Clinton wrote to a friend at the time: âBy God these people can not mean what they give out, they must intend to go up Hudsonâs River & deceive us all, if they do I for one forgive.â
But Howe did mean what he said: on July 23 he put his men aboard his brotherâs mighty fleet of 260 ships and set sail from Sandy Hook. Not even Washington could believe Sir William was going to desert Burgoyne, and for days the Americans were in a frenzy of uncertainty, distributing their army all over New Jersey so they could be ready to march north or south, depending on where Howe appeared. A week later, the Howes paused off the mouth of the Delaware. There, having been told that the Americans had blocked and fortified the river, they decided to bear away for the Chesapeake. Contrary winds and currents delayed them: not until August 14 did they enter the bay, and it took eleven days to reach Head of Elk, fifteen miles from New Castle, where the army disembarked.
Men and horses had suffered terribly from heat and from the shortage of fresh water. Almost all the animals had to be destroyed. And as the British historian Sir George Otto Trevelyan acidly points out, the net result of this incredible voyage was to place the British army ten miles farther from Philadelphia than it had been at Amboy, in New Jersey, the previous December.
Even so, Howe was to have one more opportunity to achieve total victory. At Brandywine Creek on September 11, Washington grimly accepted the challenge of a âgeneral actionâ to save Philadelphia, but he permitted Howe to repeat the tactics by which he had won the Battle of Long Island. While the Hessians under Knyphausen made a mock frontal assault at Chadâs Ford, Howe and Cornwallis swept around the American flank and appeared in the rear of John Sullivanâs brigade. These men, the bulk of the American right wing, were strung out along a two-mile line running through dense woods. Sullivan had to draw them in and shift them at a right angle to their first position to confront Howe. It was a dubious maneuver with untrained troops; if Howe had attacked as soon as he reached Sullivanâs rear, Sullivan and perhaps the rest of the American army would have retreated. But the British had been on the march since early morning, and it was half past two. Howe ordered a halt for lunch. Such consideration was typical of Howe, and it was why his men loved him so much.
When the British attacked at three thirty, Sullivanâs men were the first to break. But the center fought well, yielding ground stubbornly, and when Knyphausen attacked across the Ford, he met equally fierce resistance from Anthony Wayne. Still, by nightfall the terrific pressure exerted by the British had reduced the American army to almost total disorganization. Except for a few regiments under Greene, Christopher Ward tells us, âthousands of beaten men, already dispersed before the final retreat and now uncontrolled by any sort of military discipline, thronged the road in utter confusion.â But Howe ordered no pursuit. His men were weary, and he let them spend the next day resting on the field. And on September 26 he reached his major objective, when Cornwallis entered the rebel capital with a force of British and Hessians.
Meanwhile, Burgoyne was meeting disaster in the wilderness. Surrounded by a militia army three times the size of his own, he surrendered at Saratoga on October 17. But even before Howe heard confirmation of this doleful newsâin fact, on October 22, less than a month after he marched into PhiladelphiaâSir William sent in his resignation. His actual words are again interesting: âFrom the little attention given to my recommendations since the commencement of my command, I am led to hope that I may be relieved from this very painful service, wherein I have not the good fortune to enjoy the necessary confidence and support of my superiors â¦â
As we have seen, there is considerable evidence that the service was âpainfulâ to Sir William Howe from the day he arrived in America. His policy of peace by reconciliation had proved to be a will-oâ-the-wisp. He was about to be crushed between Washingtonâs stubborn belligerence and the growing impatience of the âhard lineâ ministers in the Royal government. When he went home to confront his enemies in the ministry, he stoutly defended his original goal. âFor, Sir, although some persons condemn me for having endeavoured to conciliate His Majestyâs rebellious subjects ⦠instead of irritating them by a contrary mode of proceeding, yet am I, from many reasons, satisfied in my own mind that I acted in that particular for the benefit of the Kingâs service. Ministers themselves, I am persuaded, did at one time entertain a similar doctrine â¦â