The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Further, they continued to believe, as Lord Gower put it, that the rebellious language of the Americans “was the language of the rabble and a few factional leaders,” and that the delegates to the Continental Congress, “far from expressing the true sense of the respectable part of their constituents,” had been chosen “by a kind of force in which people of consequence were afraid to interpose.” While there may have been a certain validity to his idea about the people of consequence, it was not as determining or as general as he supposed.

  Lazy preparation was a product of these assumptions. Although the coming of hostilities was a predictable consequence of the Coercive Acts of the year before, no measures for military readiness had been undertaken in the interim. The swaggering Sandwich, long an advocate of forceful action, had done nothing as First Lord of the Admiralty to prepare the Navy, essential for transportation and blockade; in fact, he had reduced its strength by 4000 men, or a fifth of the total, as late as December 1774. “We took a step as decisive as the passage of the Rubicon,” General Burgoyne was to say some months later, “and now find ourselves plunged at once in a most serious war without a single requisition, gunpowder excepted, for carrying it on.”

  In April 1775, General Gage, upon learning of a large quantity of rebel arms stored at Concord, twenty miles away, took the obvious decision to despatch a force to destroy the stores. Despite his attempted secrecy of movement, the warning signal lights flashed, the messengers rode, the Minute Men gathered at Lexington, exchanged fire and were scattered. While the redcoats marched on to Concord, the alerted countryside rose, men with their muskets poured in from every village and farm, and engaged the returning British troops in relentless pursuit with deadly accuracy of fire until the redcoats themselves had to be rescued by two regiments sent out from Boston. “The horrid Tragedy is commenced,” sadly acknowledged Stephen Sayre when news of the event reached London.

  That actual war had commenced beyond retrieval seemed still uncertain in England, and the event inspired a last impassioned appeal to common sense from John Wesley, the Methodist leader. In a letter to Lord Dartmouth on 14 June, he wrote, “Waiving all considerations of right and wrong, I ask is it common sense to use force toward the Americans? Not 20,000 troops, not treble that number, fighting 3,000 miles away from home and supplies could hope to conquer a nation fighting for liberty.” From the reports of his preachers in America he knew that the colonists were not peasants ready to run at the sight of a redcoat or the sound of a musket, but hardy frontiersmen fit for war. They would not be easily defeated. “No, my Lord, they are terribly united.… For God’s sake,” Wesley concluded, “Remember Rehoboam! Remember Philip the Second! Remember King Charles the First!”

  5. “… A Disease; a Delirium”: 1775–83

  Crisis does not necessarily purge a system of folly; old habits and attitudes die hard. Conduct of the war by the Government was to be marked by sluggishness, negligence, divided counsel and fatal misjudgments of the opponent. Lax management at home translated into lax generalship in the field. Generals Howe and Burgoyne had been disbelievers to start with; when Howe was in command his indolence became a byword. Other military men doubted the use of land forces to conquer America. The Adjutant-General, General Edward Harvey, had judged the whole project to be “as wild an idea as ever controverted common sense.”

  Ministers underestimated the task and the needs. Materials and men were inadequate, ships unseaworthy, too few and short of able seamen; problems of transport and communication were unappreciated in London, where direction of the war was retained at a distance that required of two to three months for letter and reply. Overall, performance was affected by the unpopularity of a war against fellow-subjects. “The ardor of the nation in this cause,” acknowledged Lord North after Lexington and Bunker Hill, “has not arisen to the pitch one could wish.” Meager results in recruiting, with fewer than 200 enlistments in three months, led to the mercenary employment of Hessians from Germany (amounting ultimately to one-third of all British forces in America). While employment of mercenaries was customary in England’s wars at a time when military service was very low in the esteem of the common man, the use of the Hessians did more than anything else to antagonize the colonists, convince them of British tyranny and stiffen their resolve. The American Revolution, given its own errors and failures, cabals and disgruntlements, succeeded by virtue of British mishandling.

  It was not until four months after Lexington and Concord, and a month after news of the battle of Bunker Hill, that America was declared in “open and avowed rebellion,” the interim being consumed by ambivalent policies, quarrels over office and customary absences for the grouse and salmon season. The King, during this time, had been pressing for a declaration of rebellion and of determination to prosecute “with vigor every measure that may tend to force those deluded people into submission.” Lord Dartmouth as Secretary for the Colonies was still seeking any opening for a non-violent settlement; moderates outside the Cabinet and the experienced under-secretaries hoped to avert a break; the Bedfords were hot for action; Lord Barrington was insisting that the colonies could be subdued by naval action alone through blockade and interruption of trade; the brothers Howe—General Sir William and Admiral Lord Richard—named Commanders-in-Chief respectively of the land and sea forces in America, believed a negotiated settlement preferable to a fight and were seeking joint appointment as peace commissioners to accomplish this purpose; Lord North, averse to the definitive, was trying to delay anything irreversible.

  THE TROJANS TAKE THE WOODEN HORSE WITHIN THEIR WALLS

  I. Terracotta relief from a large (4-foot-high) amphora of the 7th century B.C., showing the Wooden Horse with wheels attached to its feet and Greek wariors emerging. Found in Mykonos in 1961.

  2. Roman wall painting from Pompeii, c. 1st century B.C., showing the Wooden Horse being dragged into the city of Troy. At upper left, a woman, possibly Cassandra, appears brandishing a torch, while at lower left, she (or another) is seen hurrying forward as if to intercept the Horse. Although badly faded, this picture is unusual at Pompeii for its tragic grandeur and dramatic effect.

  3. Bas-relief depicting an Assyrian siege engine of a period about half a century before Homer. The structure consists of a wheeled battering ram and mobile tower, from the reign of Ashurnasipal II, 884–860 B.C.

  4. Laocoön, Roman, c. A.D. 50

  THE RENAISSANCE POPES PROVOKE THE PROTESTANT SECESSION

  1. Sixtus IV, by Melozzo da Forli. The Pope is shown appointing the prefect of the Vatican Library (kneeling figure). The central standing figure in red is Sixtus’s nephew Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II The two figures on the left are the dissolute nephews, Pietro and Girolamo Riario, the latter a prime mover in the Pazzi conspiracy who was assassinated in 14–88.

  2. Innocent VIII, tomb monument by Antonio del Poliamolo in St. Peter’s.

  3. Alexander VI, by Pinturicchio, in a fresco of the Resurrection of Christ, in the Borgia Apartments of the Vatican.

  4. Julius II, by Raphael. Detail from The Mass of Bolsena, a fresco in one of the stanze by Raphael in the Vatican. The two figures immediately to the right of the Pope’s robes portray Cardinal Raffaele Riario and the Swiss Cardinal Matthäus Schinner.

  5. Leo X, by Raphael.

  6. Clement VII, by Sebastiano del Piombo.

  7. The Battle of Pavia, 1525, Brussels tapestry.

  8. The traffic in indulgences, woodcut by Hans Holbein the Younger.

  9. Lutheran satire on papal reform, woodcut in Ratschlag von den Kirchen, 1538.

  THE BRITISH LOSE AMERICA

  1. The House of Commons in the reign of George III, by Karl Anton Hickel, 1793, showing the younger William Pitt addressing the House.

  2. “I know I can save this country and that I alone can” William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, by Richard Brompton, 1772.

  3. “George, be a King!” George III, from the studio of Allait Ramsay, c. 1767.

&n
bsp; 4. “He passes for the cleverest fellow in England” Charles Townshend, British School, painter unknown.

  5. His mistress took England’s mind off America. Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, by Pompeo Baioni, 1762.

  6. “A great empire and little minds go ill together.” Edmund Burke, from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

  7. Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1771.

  8. The distractions of great estate—racehorses belonging to Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, exercising under the eye of the Duke and Duchess, by George Stubbs, 1761.

  9. “Oh God, it is all over!” Frederick, Lord North, by Nathaniel Dance, C.1770.

  10. “Wilful blindness”. Lord George Germain, engraving after George Romney.

  11. (RIGHT) The Able Doctor, engraving from the London Magazine, 1 May, 1774. Lord North, with the Boston Port Bill protruding from his pocket, endeavors to pour tea down the throat of America, who ejects it in a stream into his face. America is held down at the ankles by Lord Sandwich, who lewdly peers under her skirts, and by Lord Mansfield in wig and judge’s robes. On the left, figures representing France and Spain watch with interest while Britannia covers her eyes. On the floor lies a torn document inscribed “Boston Petition”.

  12. The Wise Men of Gotham and Their Goose, mezzotint, published 16 February 1776. Ministers slaughter the goose that lays the golden egg, overlooked by a picture on the wall of the British lion sound asleep. On either side of the picture are verses explaining the fable, which include the couplet “And more their Folly to compleat/They stampt upon her Wings and Feet” On the ground is a map labeled “North America” on which the dog urinates.

  AMERICA BETRAYS HERSELF IN VIETNAM

  1. Cartoon by Fitzpatrick, 8 June 1954.

  2. Cartoon by Mauldin 25 November 1964.

  3. Cartoon by Herblock, 21 July 1966.

  4. Cartoon by Oliphant, 7 March 1969.

  5. Cartoon by Sanders, 14 March 1972.

  6. Cartoon by Auth, 1972.

  7. ( LEFT ) Secretary of State John Foster Dulles leaving a session of the Geneva Conference, April 1954.

  8. Fact-finding mission. General Maxwell D. Taylor and Walt Rostow with General Duong (“Big”) Mirth, commander of South Vietnamese field forces, at officers’ club in Saigon, October 1961.

  9. Operation Rolling Thunder. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, watch planes taking off from U.S. aircraft carrier Independence, 18 July 1965, to attack targets in North Vietnam.

  10. A certain skepticism. Senators J. William Fulbright, John Sparkman, and Wayne L. Morse listening to the testimony of General Taylor at the Fulbright Hearings, February 1966.

  11. Antiwar demonstration on the steps of the Pentagon, 21 October 1967. Military police are reinforced by Army troops to prevent the public from storming the entrance.

  12. The Tuesday lunch at the White House, October 1967, with Battle of Saratoga in the background. Those present, clockwise from President Johnson’s left, are Secretary of Defense McNamara, General Wheeler, Press Secretary George Christian, Walt Rostow (at the foot of the table with only a fraction of his head showing behind Christian), Assistant Press Secretary Tom Johnson, CIA Director Richard M. Helms, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

  Against the pressure of the Bedford Cabinet and the King, he had to give way. His Majesty’s Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition was issued on 23 August. In announcing the Americans’ “traitorous” levying of war upon the Crown, it clung to the view that the uprising was the work of a conspiracy of “dangerous and ill-designing men,” in spite of the stream of reports from General Gage and governors on the spot that it was inclusive of all kinds and classes. Insistence on a rooted notion regardless of contrary evidence is the source of the self-deception that characterizes folly. By hiding the reality, it underestimates the needed degree of effort.

  Meanwhile, in Philadelphia moderates of the Continental Congress succeeded in obtaining the Olive Branch Petition, which professed loyalty and allegiance to the Crown, appealed to the King to halt hostilities and repeal the oppressive measures enacted since 1763, and expressed the hope that a reconciliation might be worked out. George III’s refusal to receive the petition when it reached London in August and his Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion, which followed within a few days, effectively terminated the American overture, for what it was worth. In Parliament, a motion by the opposition to consider the Olive Branch a basis for negotiation met with the usual rejection by the majority.

  Following the Proclamation, the definitive act was the removal of Dartmouth to the office of Lord Privy Seal and his replacement as Secretary for the Colonies by a vigorous advocate of “bringing the rebels to their knees” by armed force, Lord George Germain. A Sackville of Knole by birth* and younger son of the 7th Earl and 1st Duke of Dorset, he had overcome a strange history of court-martial and ostracism to maneuver himself into favor with the King and, by plying him with the advice he wanted to hear, to gain the critical American post in the Cabinet.

  As a Lieutenant-General and commander of the British cavalry at the battle of Minden in 1759, Lord George had inexplicably refused to obey the order of his superior, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, to lead a cavalry charge to finish off a victory over the French. Dismissed from the service, called a coward by society, tried for disobedience to orders, he was declared by verdict of the court-martial “unfit to serve His Majesty in any military capacity whatever,” the sentence being recorded in the order book of every British regiment. “I always told you,” wrote his poor half-mad brother Lord John, “that my brother George was no better than myself.”

  Although the tag of cowardice fitted queerly with a strenuous military career of more than twenty years, Lord George never explained his conduct at Minden. Hard and arrogant, he stemmed from one ancestor who “lived in the greatest splendour of any nobleman in England,” from a grandfather who avoided a charge of murder only by the friendly intercession of Charles II, from a father created a Duke when George was four years old, whose house was so crowded with suitors and visitors on a Sunday as to give it the appearance of a royal levee. Not a likable man, Lord George had already made enemies by his criticisms of fellow-officers, yet he was able after some years, with Sackville support and an aggressive will, to rise above disgrace and retrieve the status owed to his rank and family. Made harder if not wiser by his experience, he was now to become the minister in active charge of the war.

  Opposed like the rest of the Cabinet and the King’s friends to any effort at conciliation, Lord George resisted rigorously the plan of a peace commission to treat with the colonies. When Lord North carried this point, to which he was previously committed, Germain insisted on drafting the instructions. His terms required the colonies to acknowledge, prior to a parley, the “supreme authority of the legislature to make laws binding on the Colonies in all cases whatsoever.” Since their consistent rejection of this principle for ten years was what had led them to rebellion, it was fairly obvious, as Lord North pointed out, that this formula would condemn the peace commission to failure. Dartmouth said flatly he would resign as Privy Seal if the instructions stood; North hinted that he would go if his stepbrother did.

  Interminable discussions of the terms followed: whether the phrase “in all cases whatsoever” should be in or out; whether colonial acceptance of the supremacy principle must precede or be part of negotiations; whether the commissioners should have discretionary powers; whether Admiral Howe should hold both the naval command and membership on the peace commission. Mingled with these disputes were intrigues about who should fill several court and sub-Cabinet posts from which opponents of the war had resigned, while Parliament, upon reconvening in January 1776, spent its time arguing over contested elections and the high prices charged by German princes for the hire of their troops. The peace proposals as finally settled went no further t
han North’s conciliation plan of the year before, already spurned by the Continental Congress. Neither King nor Cabinet had any thought of considering American terms for a form of autonomy under the Crown; the peace commission was intended mainly for public effect and the still persisting illusion of dividing the colonies. Under Germain’s domineering direction, wrote Franklin’s friend the scientist Dr. Joseph Priestley, “anything like reason and moderation” could not be expected. “Everything breathes rancor and desperation.”