|
Post by anighttoremember on Jan 11, 2009 11:54:14 GMT -5
Most earlier Alamo movies show the Mexican Army getting into the mission by breaching the North Wall... yet in the new film, this does not happen. Did it happen?
|
|
|
Post by Jim Boylston on Jan 11, 2009 13:29:01 GMT -5
Most earlier Alamo movies show the Mexican Army getting into the mission by breaching the North Wall... yet in the new film, this does not happen. Did it happen? Depends on your definition of breach. If you mean physically knocked down part of the wall to gain entry, I'd say no. If you mean breached the perimeter line of defense and rushed the compound, I'd say yes. Jim
|
|
|
Post by stuart on Jan 11, 2009 14:03:10 GMT -5
Movies have a lot to answer for. As Jim says there's absolutely no evidence of any breach in the walls, but it does feature in the films prior to Alamo2004 for the very simple reason that its a whole lot easier to get the extras representing the Mexican Army into the compound through a "breach" than getting them to scale the walls for real. The unfortunate result is that the image has become pretty well embedded in the popular imagination.
|
|
|
Post by anighttoremember on Jan 11, 2009 16:44:43 GMT -5
Physically knocked down. But if there's no evidence, I'm guessing it's just up to a matter of opinion, maybe?
|
|
|
Post by Herb on Jan 11, 2009 18:22:32 GMT -5
The evidence that there was no physical breech is pretty conclusive. In fact, virtually all the Mexican criticism of Santa Anna, for launching the attack on the Alamo, was that he didn't wait for the cannon to open a physical breech.
BTW. welcome to the forum!
|
|
|
Post by marklemon on Jan 11, 2009 21:19:32 GMT -5
I believe the first inkling about a purported "breach" came to us via the Potter account. Looking at his map, (seen on pg. 695 of Hansen's "The Alamo reader,") we see such a thing indicated in the upper right corner of the compound. However, when he visited the Alamo n, I believe, 1841, he found a place which had been terribly abused and was very delapadated. By this time, the northeast houses were gone, as were the jacal and home of Sylvestre Reyes, whose two structures occupied the northeast corner's inner angle (the site of Potter's "breach,) in 1836. Now, just 5 years later, the area was a shambles, and what Potter saw and read as a breach in a wall, may have just been a portion of the back, or north wall of one of Reyes' houses still standing, positioned right next to a portion of the wall which had fallen, thus appearing to him as a "breach." In any event, whatever he saw, the record is clear that in 1836, this site was occupied by two structures, which survived the battle, and lasted for several more years after that. The "breach" is a fantasy, instigated by an erroneous observation, and magnified by Hollywood.
|
|
|
Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 14, 2009 8:51:16 GMT -5
Ironically, the original Disney "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" TV episode may have been more accurate in some ways than the more lavish, high-budget films (excluding 2004's "The Alamo" and maybe "Price of Freedom"). As Frank Thompson has pointed out, it's the only film (again, with possible exception of 2004) that gives the viewer a sense of the defenders being trapped and under siege. The final attack begins in the dark. Although Travis is heard to say "They've breached the north wall," no break in any wall is actually shown - the Mexicans just come pouring over the walls and gradually overwhelm the outnumbered defenders -- they do break through a main gate as well.
But Stuart's right -- Hollywood, on balance, has done more to distort than illuminate.
Herb is right --- see discussions here on Santa Anna's decision to storm the Alamo rather than wait for his siege guns to arrive, since the Mexicans had been unable to create a breach in any of the walls up to March 6. I recollect some Mexican accounts describing the Mexican soldados climbing the north wall, in some cases on each other's backs, others using the reinforcement timbers that had been placed outside the wall by the Texians.
Welcome to the forum!
AW
|
|
|
Post by Paul Sylvain on Jan 25, 2009 8:48:43 GMT -5
Some folks -- especially in the heat of battle, and seeing a flood of enemy pouring into the compound -- might easily have thought in terms of a "breach"l, but not in the literal sense. Not a hole.
Let's face it, when you are pushing hundreds or thousands of people at a position manned by a handful of defenders, sooner or later that position is going to be overun. Once it's overrun, it's like a break in the dam. The flood of enemy is going to unsue, like water over a bowled filled to the brim (right over the top). In that way, the wall was certainly breached, but not through a physical hole being punched through it.
I think, anyway.
Paul
|
|