{"id":6362,"date":"2013-08-22T10:32:44","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T17:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6362"},"modified":"2013-08-22T10:32:55","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T17:32:55","slug":"victor-davis-hanson-on-the-savior-generals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-on-the-savior-generals\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Davis Hanson on the ‘Savior Generals"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Paul Schnee \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, former classics professor, scholar of ancient warfare, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and the author of some 20 books. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Tribune Media Group. Thus, it was particularly interesting to hear him talk about his new book, \u201cThe Savior Generals<\/a>,\u201d at the David Horowitz Freedom Center\u2019s Wednesday Morning Club luncheon held\u00a0at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills on August 12th.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The major theme of the book, he said, was how contrarian and unpopular\u00a0generals have often saved the day, defying the odds,\u00a0snatching victory from the jaws of defeat to win a campaign and sometimes an entire war. To illustrate this, Hanson spanned almost 2,600 years, choosing Themistocles, Belisarius, Sherman, Ridgway and Petraeus as examples. Hanson noted they all shared certain traits: They all enjoyed their reputations for bucking conventional wisdom; they were all highly literate; they all spoke well and they all led by example.<\/p>\n

When confronted with catastrophe, all of Hanson\u2019s examples had one question in mind: \u201cWhat is\u00a0the plan of attack?\u201d These great men also understood that in war the status of aggressors and defenders and of the victors and the vanquished\u00a0is not interchangeable. Hanson lamented that in the current political climate, this one simple fact seems to get overlooked. He expressed his dismay when shortly\u00a0after army psychiatrist\u00a0Major Nidal\u00a0Hassan, who was a Muslim, murdered 13 troops and injured 32 others at Fort Hood, the best that Army Chief of Staff\u00a0General Casey could say was that he hoped that the U.S. Army\u2019s\u00a0\u201ddiversity\u201d would not become a casualty of this massacre.<\/p>\n

None of\u00a0Hanson\u2019s generals led from\u00a0behind or\u00a0were what Byron called \u201cthose Pagod things of sabre-sway\/With fronts of brass and feet of clay.\u201d Nowhere in the \u201cArt of War\u201d by Sun Tzu, Caesar\u2019s \u201cCommentaries\u201d or the war manuals of von Clausewitz will one read that one should love one\u2019s enemy. What one will read is the categorical imperative that one should kill, crush and defeat one\u2019s enemy and keep on doing so until he has had enough of it. Themistocles, Belisarius, Sherman, Ridgway and Petraeus were all soldiers who forged their own path and who knew that without victory there would be no chance of\u00a0survival.<\/p>\n

For these men, however, fate has often been unkind.\u00a0Themistocles was subjected to trumped up charges of corruption; Belisarius had an unfaithful wife and an ungrateful emperor; Sherman was slandered as a terrorist because he had humiliated the enemy and often had many personal feuds; Ridgway was forced to resign as Chief of Staff by President Eisenhower with whom he had strong disagreements about the role of the U.S. Army; and Petraeus resigned as Director of the CIA due to an extra-marital affair.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, when President Reagan awarded General Ridgway the\u00a0Presidential Medal of Freedom<\/a>\u00a0on May 12, 1986 saying that \u201cHeroes come when they\u2019re needed; great men step forward when courage seems in short supply,\u201d he\u00a0could have been\u00a0talking just as much about Themistocles, Belisarius, Sherman and Petraeus\u00a0as he was about Ridgeway.<\/p>\n

Victor Davis Hanson spoke for 45 minutes without notes and it was clear that he took delight in his subjects. He displayed an encompassing range of historical knowledge and, with\u00a0his subjects in the\u00a0\u201dThe Savior Generals,\u201d confirmed that people of great courage and character can change the course of history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Paul Schnee \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, former classics professor, scholar of ancient warfare, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and the author of some 20 books. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and is a nationally syndicated columnist for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[297],"tags":[1028,1067,1030],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1EC","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6308,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/uncommon-knowledge-victor-davis-hanson\/","url_meta":{"origin":6362,"position":0},"title":"‘Uncommon Knowledge:’ Victor Davis Hanson","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Military historian Victor Davis Hanson discusses his latest book \"The Savior Generals\" with Peter Robinson. Hanson identifies the shared characteristics of generals throughout history who saved wars deemed \"lost.\" \"Uncommon Knowledge\" is produced by the Hoover Institution.","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews"","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6161,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/c-span-after-words-with-victor-davis-hanson\/","url_meta":{"origin":6362,"position":1},"title":"C-Span: After Words with Victor Davis Hanson","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"VDH talks about his new book,\u00a0The Savior Generals: How Five Commanders Saved Wars that Were Lost - From Ancient Greece to Iraq\u00a0with Kim Kagan, president and founder of the Institute for the Study of War","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews"","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/41xj0UH-0rL._SY320_.jpg?fit=211%2C320&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6061,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ready-for-battle\/","url_meta":{"origin":6362,"position":2},"title":"Ready for Battle","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Five generals who turned the tide. by Victorino Matus The Weekly Standard The military historian Victor Davis Hanson was in Washington, D.C., to promote his latest book,\u00a0The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost\u2014From Ancient Greece to Iraq. Considering what is transpiring overseas, the timing couldn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Literature","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5994,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/book-review-the-savior-generals-the-tough-who-got-going\/","url_meta":{"origin":6362,"position":3},"title":"Book Review: The Savior Generals – The Tough Who Got Going","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mark Moyar Wall Street Journal For a police chief, keeping the streets of Beverly Hills safe will probably never qualify as an act of great leadership, if only because the task itself lacks a certain degree of difficulty. The value of leadership is much clearer when circumstances are unfavorable\u2014especially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6032,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-hoplite-narrative-by-victor-davis-hanson\/","url_meta":{"origin":6362,"position":4},"title":"“The Hoplite Narrative,” by Victor Davis Hanson","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A chapter from\u00a0Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece Edited by Donald Kagan & Gregory F. Viggiano","rel":"","context":"In "Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Literature","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6480,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/populism-lives-at-nro\/","url_meta":{"origin":6362,"position":5},"title":"Populism Lives at NRO","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We depend on thousands of small contributors. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 National Review Online\u00a0imposes no litmus test on its contributors. 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