AMERICAN CIVIL WAR AND THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR

This research paper compares and contrasts military (and some related political) aspects of the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Both of these mid-to-late 19th century wars involved the mobilization, organization and deployment on a continental scale of mass conscription armies armed with powerful standardized weapons of the early industrial era. Both wars caused carnage and casualties among the participants on an theretofore unprecedented scale, especially the American Civil War which lasted more than four years while the active combat phase of the Franco-Prussian War ended after only five months. Even though the Confederacy's manpower base and other material resources paled by comparison with those of the more industrialized North, it pursued an initially effective military strategy and enjoyed tactical advantages which largely stemmed from its fighting from interior lines and its superb military leadership, especially that of General Robert Lee. In the end, however, the Union armies were able to use their material and logistical superiority to wear down the South and win a war of attrition and movement, punctuated by some serious errors of Southern military judgment and the eventual emergence of able Union political and military leaders, notably President Abraham Lincoln and Generals such as Ulysses Grant and William Sherman. In contrast, the Germans largely prevailed over the French n

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Mobilization and Organization. The initial successes of the South were due in part to its superior ability to mobilize its forces. The Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, had been a decorated officer during the Mexican War and later Secretary of War in the 1850s. McPherson said that experience "helped speed up Southern mobilization in 1861" (317). In contrast he characterized the initial Union mobilization as having a "headlong, helter-skelter, seat-of the-pants" character (324). Eventually, the North's superior resource base produced a war economy which "geared up for war production [and made] the Union army the best fed, most lavishly supplied army that had ever existed" (324). Over time, as the Union blockade and Western victories eroded the South's logistical base, it was less and less able to meet the demands of its troops. When Lee's army marched north into Maryland in the summer of 1863 on its way to the Battle of Gettysburg, many of its soldiers went barefoot. Under the able leadership of Army Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke, "mass mobilization was the basis of Moltke's success" (McNeil 253). The German railroads, controlled by the State, and operating on precise timetables laid out in advance by the Army General
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Approximate Word count = 3440
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

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