Re: Were the Japanese trying to surrender for months before Hiroshima?

On Mon, 22 May 2006 20:17:16 +0200, Dr A. N. Walker wrote
(in article <e4sv7c$o8t$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

In article <0001HW.C09675C00062E494F058A530@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
the auroran sunset <upm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
indeed.. it is strongly suggested that hannibal would have won if he had
just
plucked up the courage to march on rome, rather than waiting around in the
italian countryside for another decisive battle or a voluntary surrender..

Possibly. But Rome was a strongly-defended city, and I think
it's doubtful whether Hannibal had the men or supplies to mount a long
siege.

my impression was the rome never keep an army at home, although they did have
weapons supplies in various of the temples and richer senators' homes, so
could call up and arm a militia. i haven't looked at this closely, but my
impression was that all that stopped anyone and everyone taking rome was
roman armies elsewhere in italy. perhaps i'm misunderstanding.

Even after Cannae, Rome was not short of troops, it just had
them in the wrong places; and it still had control of the sea.

it wasn't short of man-power, but i thought it was short of trained trooped.
istr they also lost large number of veteran centurions at cannae, although
that was a problem that became more significant much later.

It's
just conceivable that an instant march on Rome might have found the
defences so undermanned that a straight frontal assault would have
worked; but more likely that it would have been repulsed. It's
worth remembering that an army in hostile territory moves at the
speed of its slowest units; there's no point the cavalry arriving
one day, the infantry two weeks later, with any stragglers being
picked off en route. By contrast, any Roman cavalry or detached
units that manage to work their way back to Rome are instantly
available for the defence.

makes sense. as i said above, i may well be misunderstanding how defendable
rome itself was.. but if so, why do the romans panic every time they hear
someone is marching on them, where other town just shut themselves up for a
siege? perhaps those other cities panic also, but we don't have the relevant
sources!

meanwhile fabia using eponymous fabian tactics and scipio outflanking him by
sailing off to africa and marching on carthage, meant he lost the
opportunity
created by his march and defeats of the major roman armies in italy.

He was hoping, of course, that the rest of Italy would flock
to his support. But they didn't;

sure, that was a major miscalculation, based on ignorance. the italians may
have had problems with roman rule, but there's no way they'd fight on the
side of 'barbarians'! that's another aspect of those times i find
interesting: just how little even the leaders seemed to know about the rest
of the world.

and Hannibal spent over a decade
wandering around wherever he chose [as long as he kept away from the
major cities], desperately trying to keep his dwindling army fed and
watered while the Romans just watched and waited. The big "What If"
is what if Carthage had actually supported him and sent men and
supplies instead of leaving him swinging in the wind.

a recurring problem for despotic regimes: there are always chancers in the
wings ready and waiting to form a coup, no matter how many of the family they
managed to kill off.

the parallels are quite interesting!

The more interesting WW2 parallel is not USA vs Japan, but
Germany vs the UK immediately after the fall of France. Could or
should Germany have invaded immediately? The RN and RAF still had
command of the Channel, so the invasion would have been costly.
But our recovery from Dunkirk was much faster than the German
build-up, so that by the end of the Battle of Britain, there was
no serious doubt that an invasion would fail. Earlier, it would
probably have failed; but it was still the only chance. But
the Austrian painter, like Hannibal, hoped that the opposition
would roll over and surrender.

interesting thought and post. thank you.

to infinity and beyond.
--
the auroran sunset / tithonus / fennel
personal website: http://www.aoiko.net/
party: http://www.emancipationparty.org/
work: http://www.abelard.org/

.

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