HFQ Thoughts/reflections SPOILERS

More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went...

JeffEngel wrote:

OJsDad wrote:Just finished the book yesterday and a couple of thoughts;

1. The land war seems to be setting up to emulate the Western Front of WWI.

That comparison may not go too far. I don't see a trench line stretching from Hsing-Wu's Passage to the Gulf of Dohlar to put a brake on mobile operations; if there were, it wouldn't have transport systems behind the lines to move reinforcements rapidly to areas with breakthroughs going on to stop them; and the opportunities for amphibious landings along all that shoreline would remain. The American Civil War comparison is still more apt, operationally and politically.

2. I'm waiting for Koryn Gahrvai to lead an army from Corisande to break the back of the Go4.

3. Maigwair is reminding me so Khumalo from the Honorverse series. Seemed inept at the beginning but the situations they have found themselves has allowed them to the leaders they could be. I'm not even sure that Maigwair believes in the Jihad anymore.

I'm not sure he's yet faced up to what it is about. He's grown in competence, leadership and confidence - it's not clear he's grown in imagination, or if he's looking up away from all the details to comprehend what winning or losing would entail.

Clyntahn knows what it would mean very well, but that's so horrific for anyone else on the Temple side that, if they're not simply a moral vacuum like Rayno, they're not looking at that if they can possibly avoid it. Duchairn's painfully aware of what losing the jihad would cost: the unity of Mother Church on Safehold, God's voice speaking only in discordant multitudes, and the permanent possibility of jihad everywhere. But he's apparently been refusing to consider what winning the jihad means: Safehold according to Clyntahn, a third of Haven turned into a concentration camp, the depopulation of the Out Islands, the rule of fear forever everywhere.

Duchairn and Magwair are both failing in their responsibilities by not facing those terms without flinching away, but given their place, given how little confidence they ought to have that they could bring it down to any soft landing, given how terrible the dilemma is, it's an understandable failure.

I would suspect that a Clyntahn regime wouldn't last very long. Totalitarian regimes usually don't last very long although I can think of some exceptions. I doubt his would survive his death. In order to survive the peace following the Jihad if they won, they would have to come up with a substitute for terror.

Don

Montrose Toast wrote:More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went...

Suggest picking up books on the eastern front in World War One like Prit Buttar's Collision of Empires and Germany Ascendant. The first book discusses 1914 on the eastern front and the second discusses 1915 in that theater of war.

Bottom line is that, in an environment of extensive frontages with resulting low densities of troops and artillery, tactical success in breaking through the initial defensive positions does not result in operational or strategic success. The losses of men and material required to achieve that initial tactical success when couple with the limitations of men and horses prevent successful exploitation and pursuit to operational and strategic depths even with railroads. It takes wide use of internal combustion engines to achieve and retain operational and strategic success in this environment.

Of course MWW/RFC might decide that dragons, high roads, and canals can duplicate the support structure of motorized armies. It is his story after all and I just really, really enjoy going along for the ride.

Montrose Toast wrote:More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went...

CCCP?

CCCP is the Russian-language version of USSR.
Cheers
John

Keith_w wrote:

Montrose Toast wrote:More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went...

CCCP?

John Prigent wrote:CCCP is the Russian-language version of USSR.
Cheers
John

quote="Keith_w" quote="Montrose Toast" More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went... /quote

CCCP?/quote

Yes, I was aware that CCCP is the Russian for USSR. It was posted in response to "Most do not realize how that front went", to which I was responding that where that front went was CCCP.

FYI, my great-uncle, 6th Battalion, Royal Marines, was killed in Murmansk during the Russian Civil War.

Montrose Toast wrote:More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went...

Couple odd thoughts. RFC made quite a point of spelling out how dependent the entire MHGA was on the Holy Langhorn Canal for supplies. There is a river that goes from the Northeastern end of the Gulf of Dolar to (and past) the junction point where the Bedard Canal ends and the Langhorn begins. If the navy of Charis did not have to worry about the last remaining enemy fleet-in-being, they could send City-Class Ironclads at the least steaming up that river. And if Earl Hanth didn't have something else to be doing, he would have an army to accompany the ships that could sit on that canal junction and fortify like hell, especially if he could move during the winter.

Which leads back to Thirsk. I agree he's no turn-coat; I can't see him defecting to Charis. But I think he not only CAN be brought to stage a coup (in conjunction, probably, with Alvarez), he will feel compelled to do so. He was -- barely -- willing to let the new Charisian prisoners be sent off to Zion, but there is no way he will allow his own men to be sent off. And Clintahn will certainly demand it as soon as the men who returned after losing the Charisian captives to Seamount are all well enough to travel. Either Thirsk gets the Royal Council and the King to refuse the demand (in which case they will effectively break with the Go4), or he will feel his loyalty to them take a back seat to his loyalty to his subordinates and he attempts a coup. Either scenario could end with Dohlar becoming neutral at the least, freeing the navy and Hanth to take a crack at that MHGA supply line.

Sargon wrote:

Montrose Toast wrote:More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went...

Couple odd thoughts. RFC made quite a point of spelling out how dependent the entire MHGA was on the Holy Langhorn Canal for supplies. There is a river that goes from the Northeastern end of the Gulf of Dolar to (and past) the junction point where the Bedard Canal ends and the Langhorn begins. If the navy of Charis did not have to worry about the last remaining enemy fleet-in-being, they could send City-Class Ironclads at the least steaming up that river. And if Earl Hanth didn't have something else to be doing, he would have an army to accompany the ships that could sit on that canal junction and fortify like hell, especially if he could move during the winter.

Which leads back to Thirsk. I agree he's no turn-coat; I can't see him defecting to Charis. But I think he not only CAN be brought to stage a coup (in conjunction, probably, with Alvarez), he will feel compelled to do so. He was -- barely -- willing to let the new Charisian prisoners be sent off to Zion, but there is no way he will allow his own men to be sent off. And Clintahn will certainly demand it as soon as the men who returned after losing the Charisian captives to Seamount are all well enough to travel. Either Thirsk gets the Royal Council and the King to refuse the demand (in which case they will effectively break with the Go4), or he will feel his loyalty to them take a back seat to his loyalty to his subordinates and he attempts a coup. Either scenario could end with Dohlar becoming neutral at the least, freeing the navy and Hanth to take a crack at that MHGA supply line.

I agree with the point that a shake-up is coming in Dohlar. Whether it's a coup staged by individuals like Thirsk from outside the government or perhaps an internal shakeup by someone by Duke Fern who grows tired of seeing Dohlar's interests sacrificed to Clyntahn's whim, something is in the offing.

Reinforcing your point is Thirsk's awareness that without doing something to change the equation, his own lifespan is limited unless something happens. He may well take matters into his own hands.

I wonder if Ahlverez has some of his veterans available to add to Thirsk's seamen to help pull off a coup... The question in my own mind is how Thirsk and Ahlverez could put together the force needed for a coup and bring the thing together without the inquisition interfering. I think that point is underscored by what happened to Khaphar's attempt to get Thirsk's family out.

Dunno what happens...

Don

n7axw wrote:I agree with the point that a shake-up is coming in Dohlar. Whether it's a coup staged by individuals like Thirsk from outside the government or perhaps an internal shakeup by someone by Duke Fern who grows tired of seeing Dohlar's interests sacrificed to Clyntahn's whim, something is in the offing.

That either/or could easily be overemphasized. Any coup nominally on the political side will need military support, and in Gorath, personnel-wise, "military" strongly includes naval. And any apparently military coup will need political support to avert a civil war, although if the political support is Rahnahld's nod, that'd be about enough.

It'd also be extremely helpful to have the support of some significant players on the religious side. The Bishop Executor and Intendant of Dohlar are hopeless that way - they're the problem - but Bishop Maik is a likely key supporter, and Ahlvarez' Intendent may at least offer limited resistance. So they'd have to hope for approval from the next tier down in Church leadership outside the Inquisition, and that secular forces would refuse to support enraged inquisitors trying to arrest and Punish everyone involved.

Resisting Clyntahn and rejecting the jihad may be so much more popular in Dohlar than anyone can tell. The worst problem is less divisiveness than no one being able to count on anyone else feeling as little love for the Temple's management and policies as they do. Maik and Thirsk are effectively a conspiracy of two.

Reinforcing your point is Thirsk's awareness that without doing something to change the equation, his own lifespan is limited unless something happens. He may well take matters into his own hands.

I wonder if Ahlverez has some of his veterans available to add to Thirsk's seamen to help pull off a coup... The question in my own mind is how Thirsk and Ahlverez could put together the force needed for a coup and bring the thing together without the inquisition interfering. I think that point is underscored by what happened to Khaphar's attempt to get Thirsk's family out.

Dunno what happens...

Don

They may need - and get - some more help from seijins, both in securing key Church personnel in a hurry, and (more importantly) being able to communicate securely to make plans. If any other key figures in Dohlaran political life (broadly speaking) have been speaking with one another frankly, SNARC's are likely to have caught it, letting the seijins link up those conspiracies of two. They can also let the would-be revolutionaries know who is definitely going to be a problem and who can be counted on as no more than a bystander.

We need to be really careful with these "there's a river" schemes. Look at a map of North America, and it's obviously plain sailing from the Atlantic to Chicago or Duluth, right? Well, in fact it is, but only thanks to some really impressive engineering - on 3 separate sections of the route. Something that you do _not_ see on a map at the scale we have for the Sabana River, where, even if the name 'Niagara Falls' were sufficient hint [and it's not automatic], you don't see it anyway.

_If_ the map is showing the course of the Bedard Canal correctly - instead of it just being an artifact of the drawing tool Himself was using - there's something very peculiar going on between the point on the Sabana where the canal could first run into it and where it actually does join. In fact, the canal actually _crosses_ the river once. At a guess, not even Shan Wei thought making the lower river navigable was practical until someplace well below the canal junction. Certainly too far down for an expedition from the coast to interfere with the canal head, and my hunch is that the river isn't navigable, period, outside the section joining the 2 canals, until you get to within about 100 miles of the coast.

Sargon wrote:

Montrose Toast wrote:More like WWI on the east front.

Most do not realize how that front went...

Couple odd thoughts. RFC made quite a point of spelling out how dependent the entire MHGA was on the Holy Langhorn Canal for supplies. There is a river that goes from the Northeastern end of the Gulf of Dolar to (and past) the junction point where the Bedard Canal ends and the Langhorn begins. If the navy of Charis did not have to worry about the last remaining enemy fleet-in-being, they could send City-Class Ironclads at the least steaming up that river. And if Earl Hanth didn't have something else to be doing, he would have an army to accompany the ships that could sit on that canal junction and fortify like hell, especially if he could move during the winter.

Which leads back to Thirsk. I agree he's no turn-coat; I can't see him defecting to Charis. But I think he not only CAN be brought to stage a coup (in conjunction, probably, with Alvarez), he will feel compelled to do so. He was -- barely -- willing to let the new Charisian prisoners be sent off to Zion, but there is no way he will allow his own men to be sent off. And Clintahn will certainly demand it as soon as the men who returned after losing the Charisian captives to Seamount are all well enough to travel. Either Thirsk gets the Royal Council and the King to refuse the demand (in which case they will effectively break with the Go4), or he will feel his loyalty to them take a back seat to his loyalty to his subordinates and he attempts a coup. Either scenario could end with Dohlar becoming neutral at the least, freeing the navy and Hanth to take a crack at that MHGA supply line.