I thought the idea was you crossed the bridge, then burnt it to stop your enemy following you.
Lexi Revellian, Perhaps it is hard only for Mr Russell.
On reflection, I think he knows nothing of warfare and has misunderstood the metaphor. He thinks you get two bridges, one to burn and one to cross.
I have the same problem myself with sporting metaphors.
You may cross one bridge – and then burn another one, to prevent a flanking maneuver by the enemy.
IMO Mr Russell wished to appear clever. He failed.
The hardest thing in life is to stick to the devil you know.
Or to know when to remain quiet?
Sometimes Lexi, but you can also burn your bridges so that your army knows it cannot retreat, and it’s mostly in this way that the phrase is now used in non military discourse (militarily “burn your boats” is probably more explicit).
Sounds poor strategy to me – terribly demoralizing for the troops, knowing that their leaders don’t trust them not to run away.
Sometimes yes, but when a Viking army invading England burnt its boats I suspect it was the Anglo-Saxons who were demoralized knowing that the invaders were here to stay.
Maybe: but we’re still here, and what happened to the Vikings?
Left us with lots of place names (especially in East Anglia), lots of additions to the language and lots of genes.
And nothing to do with burning boats but they have to take the blame for the Normans (both because the Normans were also Vikings and because Harald Hardrada made King Harold Godwinson fight a war on two fronts).
Cortes did that very thing to leave his troops no option for retreat. Win or die.
And here I always thought that the hardest thing to do in life was to know how to do something well and manage to somehow keep your big mouth shut while watching someone else do it terribly wrong …
Napoleon (Bonaparte, not Solo) said: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
As you know quotes tend to gravitate towards famous people (well mostly to men actually, but in these PC days we say people) and many quotes attributed to Bony – or any else famous – were never said by them. In this case Napoleon may have said something at the battle of Austerlitz that has transmogrified into this quote but, if so, it was originally in French and the equivalent of “give the enemy another 20 minutes to really screw things up before we interrupt them”.
As a military maxim “Never be too hasty to interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” would be better advice.
Let them go nice and deep into the killing ground.
Then you wake them up.
I thought the idea was you crossed the bridge, then burnt it to stop your enemy following you.
Lexi Revellian, Perhaps it is hard only for Mr Russell.
On reflection, I think he knows nothing of warfare and has misunderstood the metaphor. He thinks you get two bridges, one to burn and one to cross.
I have the same problem myself with sporting metaphors.
You may cross one bridge – and then burn another one, to prevent a flanking maneuver by the enemy.
IMO Mr Russell wished to appear clever. He failed.
The hardest thing in life is to stick to the devil you know.
Or to know when to remain quiet?
Sometimes Lexi, but you can also burn your bridges so that your army knows it cannot retreat, and it’s mostly in this way that the phrase is now used in non military discourse (militarily “burn your boats” is probably more explicit).
Sounds poor strategy to me – terribly demoralizing for the troops, knowing that their leaders don’t trust them not to run away.
Sometimes yes, but when a Viking army invading England burnt its boats I suspect it was the Anglo-Saxons who were demoralized knowing that the invaders were here to stay.
Maybe: but we’re still here, and what happened to the Vikings?
Left us with lots of place names (especially in East Anglia), lots of additions to the language and lots of genes.
And nothing to do with burning boats but they have to take the blame for the Normans (both because the Normans were also Vikings and because Harald Hardrada made King Harold Godwinson fight a war on two fronts).
Cortes did that very thing to leave his troops no option for retreat. Win or die.
http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2014/05/cortez-at-vera-cruz-and-caesars-burning.html
And here I always thought that the hardest thing to do in life was to know how to do something well and manage to somehow keep your big mouth shut while watching someone else do it terribly wrong …
Napoleon (Bonaparte, not Solo) said: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/napoleon_bonaparte_103585
Actually it sounds like something Han might say.
As you know quotes tend to gravitate towards famous people (well mostly to men actually, but in these PC days we say people) and many quotes attributed to Bony – or any else famous – were never said by them. In this case Napoleon may have said something at the battle of Austerlitz that has transmogrified into this quote but, if so, it was originally in French and the equivalent of “give the enemy another 20 minutes to really screw things up before we interrupt them”.
As a military maxim “Never be too hasty to interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” would be better advice.
Let them go nice and deep into the killing ground.
Then you wake them up.
Austerlitz 1805, Aspern-Essling 1809, Salamanca 1812