The tragic loss of HMS Monmouth and HMS Good Hope at Coronel need not have happened in the way that it did. Admiral Cradock should NEVER have accepted battle with Spee on initial contact. He (Cradock) knew that his crews had not had adequate time to train, to conduct a proper shake-down cruise, and most important big gun practice and drill. The German crews were well trained, well versed, and twice had won accolades for their big gun accuracy in contests with other German warships, prior to WW1. Veteran crews with months of hard training under their belt. The British crews of Monmouth and Good Hope were mainly reservist and were marched into the ships, just weeks earlier, and had not had the time necessary to drill. The two British armored cruisers had been sitting in retirement, soon to be scrapped. The start of WW1 change the fate of these elderly big cruisers. At Coronel the British were not prepped to meet the Germans with much hope of success. Cradock had the pre-dreadnought Canopus on its way to meet him with her big 12-inch rifles to support. He should have fell back on Canopus and utilized her presence to his advantage. He might have saved both of his armored cruisers with the battleships guns. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, but damn, he should not have accepted battle at that time, at that position, and without the battleship!
david abney ": The ghost of Admiral Byng shot on the quarter deck of his own flagship at Greenwich for cowardice in the face of the enemy after refusing battle against a superior French force during The Seven Years War and the loss of Minorca certainly influenced the attitude of Royal Navy commander Ever after! As Voltaire observed at the time “dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres"
have fallen* back He accepted battle to save the Otranto which could only attain 16 knots and would not have reached the succor of the guns of Canopus in time.
Main movie only 37mins! Ma can I get my farthing back? Once again Winston Churchill has another debacle. If Winston planned it you were fucked. Generals would avoid him trying anything in WW2 but sadly he dreamt up Dieppe, yes it was a learning curve for D-Day, but that wasnt its mission. Another slaughter & disaster. In WW1 his biggest was Gallipoli. Didnt know about the Falklands escapade. Second fleet he sent down done the job but the first was suicide. He might as well have sent HMS Victory as well they were so antiquated. Trouble with Winston was he was a glory hunter. He was a great war leader but keep him away from them maps!
It all shows the terrible waste of war. Wooden boats that cost untold sums in gold, were replaced by iron clads, that were replaced by steel ships, then submarines and so on and so on. Each generation unable to cope with the new technologies of the next generation and suffering the consequences. Then, you put aging men near the end of their own lives in charge of these endeavors, all too eager to spend young lives on their own glory.
From 1960s series by BBC The Great War. Primary narrator is Ralph Richardson. Excellent series with hours of footage you have never seen. Many vets of that war were still alive and there are many interviews.
The Dutch are the worst example of colonization. They were all too happy to trade horses and guns to African tribes for captured men, women and children of defeated tribes. They treated the native populations of the Dutch East Indies horribly. So horribly that they greeted the notoriously brutal Japanese as liberators. The French were probably the best example of how to colonize and the English were somewhere between improving lives and utterly devastating populations.
@@Generalfund Dutch are not Germans who's. Mayor Colonies where in Africa and never liberated by the Japanese. They were liberated by brits and south African apartheid freaks
