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Hubris by Alistair Horne
Hubris by Alistair Horne
ALISTAIR HORNE
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PROLOGUE
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explored in depth. Over the years I have written, in one form or other,
about most of the battles in this book, from Verdun to Dien Bien Phu,
to Pearl Harbor, and Korea 1950. But I have never before studied the
Japanese side of things in depth. It has been instructive. My argument
is that this is where it all began, with Admiral Togos far-off victory
over the Russians at Tsushima in 1905. In their invasion of Manchuria
in 1931, Japans warlords showed the way to aggression two years before
Hitler came to power. A great deal subsequently flowed from this, in
terms of the huge imbalance it caused in world affairs. And, of course,
it was in the Pacific area, within a few miles of Tsushima, that the
sword of Damocles descended on Japan with such catastrophic force
in 1945. If one can read the tea leaves correctly, the Pacific theatre may
well be the arena for future disputes between the major world players.
Characters in history often carry within them hooks and eyes which
can provide a certain linkage. For instance, Japanese Commander
Yamamoto, who as a lieutenant after the Battle of Tsushima went to
comfort the humiliated Russian Admiral in his hospital bed, would
be the leader appointed to inflict a copycat defeat on the American
fleet a generation later at Pearl Harbor. At the Battle of Midway in
1942, Yamamoto would be roundly chastised for his hubris in attacking Pearl Harbor six months previously. Midway clearly marked a
peripeteia in Japans imperial pretensions, a harbinger of the doom that
would overtake them three years later. With parallel congruence, one
of the US leaders most responsible for Yamamotos eventual defeat,
General Douglas MacArthur, would live to see a hitherto triumphant
career plunged into disgrace following one act of hubris in the ensuing
Korean War.
As one who would mete out the punishment prescribed by hubris,
Zhukov, on the Mongolian battlefield of Nomonhan in 1939, would
emerge as one of the Soviet leaders responsible for beating back
Hitlers armies on the outskirts of Moscow in December 1941. Zhukov,
appropriately, would then go on, through the triumph of Stalingrad, to
inflict the ultimate destruction of the Fhrers evil dreams in the ruins
of Berlin.
Thus, all of the conflicts I have chosen have links with each other,
as do many of the players. One of the most depressing facts about
military history is how very little the great warlords ever learn from
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the mistakes, indeed calamities, of their predecessors. A thread running all the way through my selection is a kind of racist distortion
whereby one power would persist in writing off its foe because of the
colour of their skin or the slant of their eyes, or the supposed backwardness of their culture. Thus we may note the Russians contempt for
the little yellow men; and, in reverse, the Japanese tendency to relegate
the Chinese to the rank of Untermenschen, much as Hitler regarded
the barbarian Slavic hordes during Operation Barbarossa. Before and
even after 7 December 1941, American indoctrination was persuading
pilots that the Japs couldnt fly because of their poor eyesight. It was
a racial legend that would pursue the US into the Korean War, with
the denigration of the dumb gooks, and on into Vietnam. That sturdy
notion of occidental superiority would influence the French defenders
of Dien Bien Phu and even beyond: the heroic Para survivors of the
final colonial debacle in South-East Asia would carry the fatal mystique on into the Algeria War.
One of the incidental questions prompted by this study is: why dont
successful generals know when to stop? A good general should know,
unlike those of the Western Front constantly battering away at an illusory target regardless of the human cost. How different world history
might have been if MacArthur had had the good sense to stop on
the 38th Parallel. The answer of course is that it is hubris itself which
blinds generals. But we students of history should not succumb to our
own arrogance in supposing that hubris is easy to avoid. It arises out
of success. In the aftermath of triumph, anything seems possible. And
that, as this book tries to show, is when so many calamitous decisions
are taken. If a leader is successful, why hold him back? This book tries
to provide an answer.
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