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Post by marklemon on Apr 26, 2008 18:14:14 GMT -5
I realize that I'm going to receive criticism about what I'm about to say, but here goes.... the thought keeps popping up in my mind every time I read many of the fascinating posts on this forum, by incredibly learned and well-meaning members, (which seem to bestow upon the garrison, or it's commanders, a sense of well-thought out tactical preparation or sophistication that they, I suspect, probably didn't engage in) that we may be overthinking things a bit.
With so much affection for the subject (I include myself in this number) and more importantly, so much hindsight and time to engage in it, we may be falling prey to the temptation to embue the defenders (and sometimes the attackers) with a bit too much proclivity for tactical thought. I sense that with so many learned and experienced members here, we may be engaging in "strategy by transferance," that is to say, supposing that Travis, Bowie, et al, must have logically thought the way we see it today. This thought is summed up by Civil War author Maragaret Storey: "If history teaches us anything, its that people do not understand fully what they're experiencing as they're experiencing it."
I get the nagging, but very real, feeling that Travis, having no real infantry training that I know of, and perhaps feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the reality of the situation he was in, probably didn't make any "phased defense" plans more complex that to simply fall back into the "hardened" long barracks and, possibly the church, when all else failed and things began to "go south" at the walls..
On the other hand, some members here tend to write posts about the tactics of what men were supposed to go where, to support others elsewhere in the compound if such and such happened, and so forth. Other topics include the rotating of sentries, basing them out of a dedicated "sentry HQ" supposedly in the Charli House, etc, etc.
In reality, I think that Travis probably looked the place over, saw some obvious weaknesses, and seeing the apparent strength of the long barrack and church, made the most rudimentary plans to strengthen that place against being overrun. The evidence is clear that Jameson, at least, had an understanding of what may occur, and made some attempts to address them. But as far as a comprehensive defensive strategy, while the defenders may have in fact had one, I seriously doubt that they did, other than to hold out for as long as possible until help came, and, barring that, to hold the walls until forced back into the long barracks. I have even read on other forums posts that theorize that the "breakouts" were planned maneuvers, wanting, perhaps, not to imagine that men faced with a massacre, simply wouldn't want to get away from that situation in any way possible. Even the 24th Regiment of Foot, disciplined British Regulars at Isandlwhana, deteriorated and fled for their lives when they at last were overrun by Zulus.
If I, or many others here, most with military experience, had been there in 1836, especially knowing what we know now, we may still have, in the end, been overrun, but we surely would have had many more plans in play. I just don't see the Texian volunteers thinking that deeply, especially after having lain around Bexar for almost 2 months basking in the afterglow of their recent victory, doing relatively little work, and not knowing they'd have to fall back into the Alamo until it was basically too late.
As for the attackers, while the Mexican army was no slouch when it came to tactics, I also wonder about the complex tactical plans and thinking supposedly used by them during the assault. While it is probably true that Santa Anna did correctly forsee some defenders fleeing or breaking out (thus the cavalry posting to the east and southeast) I am not convinced that there was any real plan to "squeeze" them out. I basically think that Santa Anna wanted to overtax, and overwhelm the few defenders at the walls by attacking at several places at once with overwhelming numbers, knowing that whatever happened after that, would be to his advantage in the end. He certainly wasn't worried about incurring casualties. He rightly guessed that he wasn't up aginast regulars, and that volunteers tend to "vote with their feet." But again, I doubt that much more strategy than that was employed.
I don't want to come off as sounding dismissive, and surely, I can be completely wrong in what I am feeling. But I wanted to throw it out there, just for the record, and topic for future discussion.
Mark
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Post by Jim Boylston on Apr 26, 2008 18:40:36 GMT -5
I think I agree with half of your post, Mark. I don't think the defenders had much of a game plan; I don't see much evidence for it.
Santa Anna's plan, on the other hand, seems to me well developed. We may be over analyzing the "squeeze play" angle, but he clearly prepared for defenders hightailing it, and mentioned it in his plans.
He also sought to get his men under the cannon quickly to minimize losses from the artillery, and a lot of the details in his orders even smack of micromanagement.
I don't think he was particularly innovative here as the attack seems pretty textbook to me, but it was efficient.
Something I've often wondered, that might tie in here, is this:
Were the defenders familiar enough with military tactics that they saw only evidence of a prolonged siege and were then surprised by a change-up escalade attack?
Hey, I can over-think it with the best of them...
Jim
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Post by stuart on Apr 27, 2008 3:17:08 GMT -5
I argued some time ago that the defenders (with the possible exception of that well-known fantacist Green B. Jameson) saw the Alamo as a hasty refuge - as a lifeboat if you will - rather than as a military fortress and from February 23 were just winging it.
I think Mark's point should also be interpreted more widely and that what he's describing is the natural result of far too much introspection. I remarked in a similar conversation while I was over that I tend to cringe when people describe themselves as Alamo historians. I'm as interested in what happened at the Alamo as anybody here - after all according to most historians it was all my great great great grandfather's fault for stripping the place of men and supplies - but to properly understand and appreciate what was going on it really is necessary to take a step or two back and look at what else was going on in Texas and beyond rather than confine ourselves to the walls of the Alamo
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Post by steves on Apr 27, 2008 4:16:13 GMT -5
I argued some time ago that the defenders (with the possible exception of that well-known fantacist Green B. Jameson) saw the Alamo as a hasty refuge - as a lifeboat if you will - rather than as a military fortress and from February 23 were just winging it. I think Mark's point should also be interpreted more widely and that what he's describing is the natural result of far too much introspection. I remarked in a similar conversation while I was over that I tend to cringe when people describe themselves as Alamo historians. I'm as interested in what happened at the Alamo as anybody here - after all according to most historians it was all my great great great grandfather's fault for stripping the place of men and supplies - but to properly understand and appreciate what was going on it really is necessary to take a step or two back and look at what else was going on in Texas and beyond rather than confine ourselves to the walls of the Alamo But we wouldn't be human if we didn't indulge in the odd 'what-if?' or 'why didn't they...?'  .....You want to see 'overthinking' try some of the Whitechapel murder sites ;D....And I think I recall your prescence years ago at a long discussion at a Kirby Hall as to how the Nairn night attack should have been done..... But yes,these things have their place,but they're not research...informed guesswork based on parrellels,maybe & good for 10 minutes intellectual fun...but we weren't there,we don't know....'Just the facts,Ma'am....' Steve |
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Post by Herb on Apr 27, 2008 9:49:41 GMT -5
Mark,
I'll agree with part of your post, I don't think there was that much tactical expertise on either side. As Jim, says, I think, in the case of the Mexican Army followed the basic tactical model of the time and they successfully executed a very simple plan.
Some of the "overthinking" topics you mention are more people debating what could have been done - a lot of which was poorly understood or not at all understood in 1836. That maybe not much value historically, but it is fun to do!
I'll add my own controversial thought, to your comment about "tactical thought". I tend to believe that we culturally over value tactics. While tactical errors will lose battles, at the tactical level of war I tend to think it is more the capability to rapidly and correctly execute battle drills than tactical expertise that wins battles.
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Post by elcolorado on Apr 27, 2008 10:37:05 GMT -5
I understand what you're saying, Mark. And I agree with several of your points. There are times when some of us, myself included, tend to over-analyze or inject contemporary thinking and solutions.
I have no problem with discussing the "what-if's" as long as they are not applied as facts. Sometimes, I view the story and/or history of the Alamo as a huge puzzle with some of the pieces missing. With that in mind, I can understand the natural tendencies to want to "fill-in the blanks" or to make certain pieces fit so that actions or events make sense to us. We're human...it's going to happen.
As for myself, my feathers remain "unruffled." I appreciate your intentions, Mark. And I concur with your observations and concerns. I think they'll benefit our discussions by keeping us cognizant of our thoughts, our comments, and by helping us maintain the proper perspective.
When evidence is insufficient or absent, I feel reasonable speculation is acceptable. But we should strive to keep ourselves from entering the "unreasonable zone" in order to maintain the "serious studies" atmosphere we all value.
Glenn
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Post by marklemon on Apr 27, 2008 21:20:16 GMT -5
Glenn,
You put it more succinctly than I did. As usual, I tend to bloviate and usually end up beating a dead horse. Really the bottom line in what I was trying to say is that the Texians were long on guts and heroism, and woefully short on military thinking, especially military engineering. Trying to ascribe any real sort of tactical planning or defensive skill to them is saying more about us, and what we'd do, than it does them. This goes not only for what they did, or didn't do, in the fight, but also for what they did or didn't do in their preparation for it. Even Jameson, who did his best apparently, showed by his (admittedly second-hand) map his utter lack of knowledge concerning defensive positions. The huge ill-conceived "half-moon" batteries he contemplated would have been impossible to defend, especially with the men on hand.
I will readily concede the point that the Mexicans used more tactical skill in their assault. In fact, it seems very clear that they exercised more skill in the assault, than the Texians did in their defense, their smaller numbers notwithstanding. As has been said elsewhere, and in Rick Range's book which is coming in the near future, if the Texians had had the benefit of trained engineers among them, and a slightly higher level of motivation between December and February, the end may have been the same, but many, many more Mexicans would have been killed. And there is even the ever so slight chance they may have held out.
As it was, however, the thing was brutally simple- an inititial shock of hard fighting, followed by breakthrough, then a bloody mopping-up operation.
I sense in myself sometimes, and see in others, the desire to compensate for this simple quick brutality, by injecting more strategic and tactical thinking than probably happened, especially on the Texians' side.
One characteristic of the battle is that it was so short, ( the battle that is-the 12 day seige was mostly lacking any real significant fighting) that devotee's of it are forced to parse the most minute of the known details, then filling the voids-and there are many- with speculation. As you say, that is acceptible, and reasonable- as long as we label it as such. What we should strenuously fight is the temptation to state that something is a fact simply because it makes sense.
Studying this battle makes me continuously grateful that, in my area of greater knowledge, the Civil War, there were so many witnesses on both sides, not to mention photographic coverage to boot. That is a snap compared to the dark abyss that the Alamo can be when subjected to the light of intense scrutiny.
Mark
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Post by billchemerka on Apr 27, 2008 21:57:02 GMT -5
"Overthinking" has a benefit: it creates interesting web forums such as this one. As Walter Lord said: "The Alamo is a special case in point. It has a mystique or nebulous quality that makes the amateur scholar almost on par with the professional historian." How can the "amateur scholar" be almost "on par?" Well, for one, it is always best to remember that each hypothesis offered here best results from using the Scientific Method, a process that Ernst Bernheim clarified for the social sciences in his late 19th century work, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode.And it's proper to avoid The Fallacy of Historical ["What if?] Questions that that David Hackett Fischer so carefully warned about in his superb Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought. And what did David McCullough say about "what if?" questions applied to the past? "Pointless," said the Pulitzer Prize winner. Something from historians James Davidson and James Lytle: "The past is not history; only the raw material of it." That "raw material" is, of course, evidence. But evidence is not facts: facts are created. We will never know everything about Texas' 13 days of glory. But a little "overthinking" (and with proper guidance from Bernheim, Fischer, et al.) helps fill some of the gaps. All the best to all! [If this reply sounds like something a former teacher would write, you are correct.] |
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Post by marklemon on Apr 27, 2008 22:54:32 GMT -5
If I read him correctly, I tend to agree with Mr Lord on this point. But the nebulous quality of which he speaks is nothing mystical...it's simply a result of not having the facts. The disappearance of Amelia Earhart has a "mystique" only because we don't have the facts surrounding her death. But this has also opened the flood gates for every loon in the marsh to come up with his own pet theory, from alien abduction, to being executed by the Japanese. Accam's Razor applies here: the facts show that she really was quite overhyped as a skilled aviator, her navigator Fred Noonan was an erratic alcoholic, and she most likely missed Howland's Island and ditched at sea. The same goes for "Flight 19."
The Alamo is a similar case in point....the huge gaps in the "known," caused by having no real eyewitnesses on one side surviving, no systematic method of recording the facts or interviewing the multitude of Alamo dispatch riders, and no photographic documentation, all lead to the "mystique." The result is certainly a "nebulous" state of affairs...but here is where we must strictly check ourselves.. Not having the facts available does not give us license to invent them.
If Lord's saying that this lack of hard data allows a gifted amateur to school himself and to put forth reasonable hypotheses that perhaps had escaped the professional historian, I wholeheartedly agree. However, if he's saying that this quality (lack of facts) allows a "your guess is as good as mine" situation, I profoundly disagree. One must, be he amateur or professional, strive mightily to absorb every scrap of data he can, place each in the overall context of the event, and digest it all, before embarking upon what Jake Ivey calls "informed speculation." To be sure, "informed speculation" is sometimes the only thing we have to fill in those gaps. But even then, we must be quick to label such speculation as just that. A clear demarkation line should be drawn between the known, and the speculative, however "informed" it may be.
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Post by billchemerka on Apr 28, 2008 5:00:24 GMT -5
Not having the facts available does not give us license to invent them. If Lord's saying that this lack of hard data allows a gifted amateur to school himself and to put forth reasonable hypotheses that perhaps had escaped the professional historian, I wholeheartedly agree. Indeed! And, yes, that's what Walter Lord suggested. History is the organized study of the past. The key word is "organized." And that's what Bernheim was codifying in the late 19th century. As one searches for the truth in any historical quest, one must differentiate between impossibilities, possibilities and probabilities when comprehensive evidence is lacking. That's why Ernst Bernheim placed such an emphasis on the process: Heurtistik (gathering the evidence), Kritik (evaluating the evidence), Auffassung (comprehending the meaning of the evidence) and Darstellung (the presentation of the new idea in terms of the evidence). The best way to learn the process: formal training. However, if such training was a prerequisite to participate on this thoughtful forum, then only a few would be able to engage in discourse. And where would the widespread enjoyment stem from? To return to the original question: Yes, there a bit too much "overthinking" on this forum at times, but it's preferable to "underthinking" every time. |
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Post by Herb on Apr 28, 2008 9:19:41 GMT -5
Bill, Mark,
I think your last couple of posts catch the essence of what this forum tries to accomplish.
I couldn't agree more, and as theories are developed and tested, we have to constantly remember, to reevaluate those theories to see if they still fit, when new evidence is uncovered.
Mark, I don't think you could be more right. While everybody is entitled to their opinion, an opinion unsupported by reliable facts doesn't even deserve the term "speculation". Jake Ivey's phrase that you often use "informed speculation" is what we should all be striving for in our discussions.
Again, I think this a key element in any of our debates. The impossibilities are rarely a problem, here, but sometimes we need to watch the possibilities, simply because something is possible obviously does not make it probable.
I don't know if it is a problem or not, but sometimes a thread, the Charli House topic comes to mind, where the discussion shifts from historical probabilities to a "what would I do?" situation. I don't want to take this thread off topic, but maybe some might want to discuss it in a new thread?
And finally, Bill, sums it up best:
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Post by sloanrodgers on Apr 28, 2008 13:54:58 GMT -5
But we wouldn't be human if we didn't indulge in the odd 'what-if?' or 'why didn't they...?' ..... Well, I guess I'm not human. I really never think about what ifs' and why nots' in history. In my opinion it would be like engaging in what couldn't
haves' in history. I just look for the facts and follow them down the road to a conclusion. If I find enough facts, the speculation will be minimal and the results more satisfying than questions of what might have been. It is an interesting light-hearted topic for some who wonder, what if Davy had lived and so on.  |
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 28, 2008 15:16:43 GMT -5
But we wouldn't be human if we didn't indulge in the odd 'what-if?' or 'why didn't they...?' ..... Well, I guess I'm not human. I really never think about what ifs' and why nots' in history. In my opinion it would be like engaging in what couldn't
haves' in history. I just look for the facts and follow them down the road to a conclusion. If I find enough facts, the speculation will be minimal and the results more satisfying than questions of what might have been. It is an interesting light-hearted topic for some who wonder, what if Davy had lived and so on. Well, up to a point. I think it can be worthwhile to ask "what if" because it's a way to explain why what DID happen happened. For example, what if Lee had cancelled Pickett's charge? The fact that he did not gives us what really did happen, so then something LIKE the reverse must/might be true had he NOT ordered the attack. That's a bit flakey, I know, but here's another fleeting reason. We're supposed to learn something from history. OK, ok -- I know that NO ONE does, but we should at least try. By asking "what if," we can see where disastrous mistakes (as well as little ones) began -- what decisions triggered them. If we do idientify the turning points and the decisions, it is possible that such mistakes could be avoided in the future. However, I see little evidence that this ever happens. Maybe I'm just getting more cynical (is that possible??). AW |
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Post by marklemon on Apr 28, 2008 17:23:30 GMT -5
We may have strayed a bit from the original point of this thread, but that's ok, because some really good points have been raised.
What I think I was trying to get at, is that many of us, myself included, sometimes tend to project what WE would have done in a certain situation, with absolutely no supporting documentation. Instead we use a sort of reverse logic, and say, or imply that, because there is no documentation to REFUTE our speculation, it well may have happend. In short, lack of documentation refuting an hypothesis, is not evidence that your hypothesis is valid. Lack of evidence is not evidence. When we allow ourselves to do this, we MUST state that we are engaging in speculation. Depending on whether or not we bring any evidence to our speculation, determines whether or not we can say our speculation is "informed."
As for the question of "what if.." that is a completely different matter. I like to engage as well as anyone else in "what if..." speculations....it is harmless, and imaginative guesswork which enables us to bring our knowledge of the men, weapons, and tactics to bear on a situation that did not occur, thus,(hopefully) sharpening our imaginative/perceptive skills. Engaging in it does no harm, as long as we keep things in perspective. Implied in that question is the fact that the thing DID NOT happen, but what would the consequenses be if it did? In so doing, we recognize, and maintain the realm of reality versus fantasy.
Bottom line: when we hold ourselves strictly to what is known, or can be safely inferred by supporting evidence, we can rarely go wrong, or find ourselves in an untenable position. Stray from that, and we become dangerously vulnerable. Loss of credibility is not far behind.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Apr 28, 2008 19:28:27 GMT -5
The story of the Alamo naturally lends itself to Monday morning quarterbacking, or "what-ifs", to be certain. Santa Anna had the benefit of knowing when he would attack, and could set all the pieces and plans in place accordingly. The men inside the Alamo did not know when it would come -- and when it came in the pre-dawn darkness, they went from sleep to the midst of the confusion of the battle and a fight for thier lives.
Beyond falling back to pre-set positions, I doubt there was much of a cohesive plan as the men stumbled from sleep to full-pitched battle in the dark. You also have to consider that these men were not battle-hardened, trained soldiers. When you look at the roster of defenders, you see they were lawyers, farmers, merchants, schoolteachers. Knowing that, you have to admire what the defenders managed to do. But lacking proper military training and experience, I think the only tractic at play was one of just fighting as long and as hard as they could for as long as they could. In that, they certainly succeeded.
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.....You want to see 'overthinking' try some of the Whitechapel murder sites ;D....And I think I recall your prescence years ago at a long discussion at a Kirby Hall as to how the Nairn night attack should have been done.....
