[HN Gopher] How Important Was the Battle of Lepanto?
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How Important Was the Battle of Lepanto?
Author : Vigier
Score : 50 points
Date : 2021-10-09 18:12 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
| dmurray wrote:
| Known now anachronistically to players of _Diplomacy_ as the
| eponym of any opening where Italy and Austria combine to mount an
| amphibious assault against Turkey.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Lepanto was important for the same reason that Hampton Roads,
| Tsushima, and Pearl Harbor are important. They're decisive
| turning points in naval _technology_ , where a battle
| demonstrates that the old ways of warfare are obsolete and new
| dominant tactics need to be adopted.
|
| For Lepanto, it was the vulnerability of galleys and shipboard
| infantry to gunfire, as cannonfire from the 6 Venetian galleases
| caused mass confusion as the galleys and their shipboard infantry
| approached each other; afterwards, the galley was obsoleted by
| galleons and ships of the line. Hampton Roads demonstrated the
| invulnerability of ironclads to traditional cannons, numbering
| the days of wooden sailing ships. Tsushima showed the importance
| of being able to engage at range, ushering in the era of the
| dreadnought battleship. Pearl Harbor (and Midway) showed how
| useless fleets of battleships are against air power.
|
| The article says as much, but for some reason focuses on the
| effects of the battle on politics rather than on technology.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| A real scale replica of the Spanish flagship galley can be seen
| in the Barcelona Maritime Museum.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _Third, Lepanto showed the Christian universe, mired in
| internal political squabbles, that diversity was not detrimental
| to its potential world leadership._ "
|
| I'm not sure about that. The Christian coalition (Venice, Spain,
| and the Roman Catholic Church (Note: this is during the
| Reformation)) had a history of backstabbing and repeatedly fell
| apart, including the year before when they might have been in a
| position to prevent the fall of Cyprus. In fact, as I understand
| it, the reason the battle of Lepanto occurred so late in the year
| was because the Coalition couldn't get their fleets together any
| earlier---which meant that even if they wanted to follow up, they
| could not until the next year.
|
| " _The economic damage of galley warfare had been considerable.
| Philip defaulted on his debts in 1575; the tax gradient in the
| Ottoman Empire rose. Lepanto revealed the first cracks in its
| system and signalled the start of a long, slow decline._ "
|
| Got a bit of a problem with that, too. The economic damage of
| galley warfare was a drop in the bucket (for Spain and the
| Ottoman Empire; the loss of Cyprus was another is a list of major
| costs to Venice). I can't really speak to the Ottomans, but Spain
| was pretty near broke to start with, even with the revenues from
| the New World; Philip II wasn't getting his cut of the revenues
| due to corruption and those very revenues had caused hideous
| inflation.
|
| On the other hand, the Battle of Lepanto, along with the defeat
| of the Spanish Armada by the English, did kind of put an
| exclamation point on the end of the power of galleys and the
| beginning of the age of sail.
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| Every now and then an empire with a powerful land army decides to
| really try to build a navy.
|
| At some point they start pushing back against the existing
| commercial world order, which leads to conflict with the dominant
| naval/air power, who plays the role of protecting trade.
|
| Then they lose.
| ardit33 wrote:
| Yeah... nice thesis, just it is not right.
|
| The Romans won against Carthage, even though they had no navy
| (apart some Liburnian ships copied from the Illyrians), and had
| to build it by scratch.
|
| They actually won with no true experience.
|
| Carthage was a mercantile navy power, while Rome was a land
| power at the time. The exact scenario repeated in the battle of
| Lepanto, but this time the navy power won. (the Ottomans being
| the land super power of the time, and Venice a mercantile navy
| power).
| haihaibye wrote:
| I really dislike the academic language used in the article
|
| > _A pervasive ontology of sameness, rooted in notions of
| essential humanity and nascent sensitivity to cultural relativism
| soon developed. The Ottoman enemy and its Christian opponents
| became, over time, integrated parts of a discernible, albeit
| internally contentious unity, revealed by that great equaliser,
| war._
|
| Why do people have to write like this?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| academics in soft-sciences sometimes use opaque wording to
| create a shield from low-brow or emotional opposition to the
| statements.. I think that after watching a trained academic
| give a talk on the theory behind a particular museum
| installation.. Since it is highly subjective what to focus on
| in something like a museum show that is publicized, it seemed
| to me that the academic was signalling to an "in crowd" of
| other trained academics, while giving the straight-arm to those
| who were not
|
| > A pervasive ontology of sameness, rooted in notions of
| essential humanity and nascent sensitivity to cultural
| relativism soon developed
|
| what I read in that is, the destruction was so obvious, that
| the participants on both sides had to retreat to some feelings
| of humanity, and found similarity that way
| gerdesj wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that "pervasive ontology of sameness" should
| elicit a response of "bingo"!
|
| Your quotes are from one individual - Kiril Petkov. He starts
| off fine in my opinion but his final paragraph looks like he
| might have hit the sherry too early.
|
| I think he is saying: "It's six of one and half a dozen of the
| other".
| jgwil2 wrote:
| For a good read on Lepanto and context, I recommend _Empires of
| the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the
| Contest for the Center of the World_ :
| https://smile.amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Battle-Lepanto-Contest/...
| nl wrote:
| All Roger Crowley's books[1] are great. I really enjoyed
| "Constantinople: The Last Siege".
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Crowley
| dragontamer wrote:
| I dunno much about the Middle Ages.
|
| But I'd argue that the most important Naval Battle for the 20th
| century was Battle of Tsushima. Yes, even more important than
| Battle of Midway. Midway was more climactic for sure, but
| "important" is a bit different.
|
| 1. The Battle of Tsushima proved that Japan was a world-power and
| no longer a backwards country of sword wielders. Sinking the
| Russian fleet (who was considered one of the great Naval powers
| of the world) was a big deal, and put Japan on the world stage.
|
| 2. The overwhelming victory became Japanese Naval doctrine: the
| Japanese "learned" that if you sink the enemy's fleet, the enemy
| will surrender. This doctrine, Kantai Kessen, led to the Japanese
| strategy of WW2 (aka: Sink the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.
| Because American carriers luckily escaped the Pearl Harbor
| attack, the Japanese would pursue Midway to continue to try to
| decisively sink the remainder of the fleet, again). Indeed, the
| young "Yamamoto" (original name: Isoroku Takano) lost two fingers
| in the Battle of Tsushima.
|
| 3. The world watched the battle, and learned that bigger-guns
| were better. The Battle of Tsushima led to the development of
| Dreadnaught Battleships, which had fewer but bigger guns with
| longer range (much like the Battleship Mikasa, one of the most
| pivotal ships in the battle). All battleships built after
| Tsushima had this singular battle in mind as inspiration. This
| single battle inspired Germany's Bismark, USA's Iowa, and the
| Japanese Yamato.
|
| 4. The Battle of Tsushima was the last time ships lined up and
| attacked each other with their guns in a blaze of glory.
|
| 5. The Battle of Tsushima basically ended the Russo-Japanese war.
| As pivotal as Midway was for WW2, there would be a long, drawn-
| out conflict for years, regardless of who won Midway. If Japan
| hypothetically won the Midway Naval battle, it'd still be a
| grueling mission to actually take Midway from the garrisoned
| American forces. And, as we know from reality, even though USA
| won Midway decisively, it was a grueling "island hopping" mission
| (including Iwo Jima), followed by the Atomic Bomb, before the USA
| would win.
|
| -------------
|
| Arguably, WW2 battles would demonstrate that battleships were
| obsolete and that the Carrier reigns supreme. The Battle of the
| Coral Sea, more so than Midway, demonstrated the new realities of
| Naval battle: Carriers attacking each other "beyond the horizon",
| far outside of the range of any gun and only accessible through
| fleets of aircraft.
|
| But unlike Tsushima, this fact was already known and recognized
| by the major navies. Strategically, the Battle of the Coral Sea
| and even Midway were conducted where both sides recognized the
| importance of carriers in the Naval mission.
|
| ----------
|
| As we enter the modern age: there are no such naval battles any
| more. There is a bunch of theorycraft with how missile
| destroyers, nuclear subs, and carriers would interact with each
| other, but none of which has been tested (and ideally, none of
| this equipment is ever truly tested).
| jcranmer wrote:
| > 2. The overwhelming victory became Japanese Naval doctrine:
| the Japanese "learned" that if you sink the enemy's fleet, the
| enemy will surrender. This doctrine, Kantai Kessen, led to the
| Japanese strategy of WW2
|
| Yeah, so the doctrine is known by another name: Mahanian
| doctrine, because it featured very heavily in Alfred Mahan's
| _The Influence of Sea Power upon History_ , which predates
| Tsushima by 15 years. The general thesis of Mahan, at least
| insofar as it covers naval strategy, is that the general aim of
| the navy should be to seek a decisive battle to destroy the
| enemy's fleet and clear the seas of their ships, rather than a
| more Jeune Ecole approach of avoiding decisive battle and
| instead focusing on commerce raiding.
|
| It's true that the Japanese did fetishize the decisive battle
| doctrine to the point that it overshadowed over elements of
| Mahan's strategy (like, what you do _after_ decisively beating
| the enemy 's navy). And it's also true that the Battle of
| Tsushima was instrumental in forming Japanese naval doctrine
| for WW2.
|
| > (aka: Sink the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Because
| American carriers luckily escaped the Pearl Harbor attack, the
| Japanese would pursue Midway to continue to try to decisively
| sink the remainder of the fleet, again).
|
| Now let's also point something out. The attack on Pearl Harbor
| _was not_ Kantai Kessen. Its explicit strategic goal was to
| prevent the US from meaningfully responding to Japanese
| advances for the next 6-9 months, and as it turns out, the
| Battle of Midway was almost exactly 6 months after Pearl
| Harbor, and Guadalcanal starts almost exactly 9 months after
| Pearl Harbor. It was not intended to be the supreme destruction
| of the enemy 's fleet that Kantai Kessen was--it was at best a
| weakening of the enemy that would improve Japan's odds of the
| final Kantai Kessen, not the main event.
|
| The attack on Midway _was intended_ to be Kantai Kessen, but
| the _actual battle_ was not. The Japanese goal was to occupy
| Midway, which it thought would enrage the US enough to come out
| with its full navy (following Mahanian doctrine, like Japan
| was) to contest it, at which point the Japanese navy would be
| victorious and crush the navy. American foreknowledge of the
| strike allowed US carriers to surprise and sink several
| carriers to the utter horror of the Japanese, but it was still
| not seen as the decisive battle effort.
|
| The closest the Japanese got in WW2 to their actual Kantai
| Kessen plan was the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was launched in
| a hope of actually forcing the decisive battle they craved,
| although from a position of pretty clear weakness. The actual
| battle went quite badly for the Japanese, with the Japanese
| withdrawing from the engagement at the Battle off Samar
| (suffering arguably greater losses) where the Americans were
| hopelessly outnumbered.
|
| Talking about the Pacific theater in WW2 is hampered by the
| fact that, in retrospect, the importance and influence of
| aircraft carriers is undeniable. However, most naval officers
| at the time still believed in the supremacy of battleships, and
| the carrier engagements would have often been seen as sideshow
| engagements to the main course of the battleship engagement yet
| to come.
|
| > 3. The world watched the battle, and learned that bigger-guns
| were better.
|
| I'd use 'confirmed' rather than 'learned' here. The general
| thinking even before the Battle of Tsushima among the British
| Navy was to move to a more uniform gun caliber, and this was
| partially driven by the need for simplified logistics that
| would come about with such an effort. Even without the Battle
| of Tsushima, HMS Dreadnought would probably have had the same
| loadout that it had in our timeline, so I'm not sure that it's
| entirely fair to attribute dreadnoughts to Tsushima.
|
| > 4. The Battle of Tsushima was the last time ships lined up
| and attacked each other with their guns in a blaze of glory.
|
| This is just plain false. Both the Battle of Jutland and the
| Battle of Surigao Strait feature textbook battleship lines
| engaging on each other in a crossing-the-T maneuver. The Second
| Naval Battle of Guadalcanal involved battleships engaging each
| other. There were a few pitched battles in the Mediterranean in
| WW2, whose names escape me, one of which even involved an
| _aircraft carrier_ trying to fight in the line of battle. There
| 's even more engagements involving just one or two battleships
| that you might struggle to count as "ships lined up and
| attacked each other," so I'll omit those, but Wikipedia has a
| list here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_naval_battles_between_...
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I believe that the Japanese also intended the Battle of the
| Philippine Sea to be Kantai Kessen.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _4. The Battle of Tsushima was the last time ships lined up
| and attacked each other with their guns in a blaze of glory._ "
|
| Technically, I believe that honor belongs to the Battle of
| Surigao Strait in 1944. (Darn you, Halsey!)
| dragontamer wrote:
| Oh, when I say "line up", I literally mean, "line up".
|
| Here's the Russian view of the battle: https://upload.wikimed
| ia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Tsushima...
|
| Here's the Japanese view of the battle: https://upload.wikime
| dia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Battle_o...
|
| And later: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7
| 4/Battle_o...
|
| It seems insane, but for hundreds of years, "lining up" all
| your ships into neat little columns and firing all together
| was one of the main strategies. It was largely assumed that
| enemies would also try to do this, so you end up with big
| ships just broad-siding each other up-and-down the "line of
| battle".
|
| I have to imagine that radio-communications obsoleted the
| practice. But pre-radio, it probably made more sense to send
| signals to each other up-and-down the line and coordinate the
| fleet. Tsushima was one of those awkward transition points
| from semaphore flags into radio communications.
| gerdesj wrote:
| There are several takaways from that battle and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima#Contributin...
| emphasises several.
|
| The Dreadnaughts eventually clashed at Jutland and whilst there
| were horrendous losses, it was inconclusive.
|
| Winnie's comment is pretty apt:
|
| > Churchill ... described British Admiral John Jellicoe as "the
| only man who on either side could lose the war in an
| afternoon."
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