The sentence is slightly awkward--it would read better if it included "contest of systems, rather than the singular "system."
In addition to Contrex's explanation, i would add some observations of the original use of the term "margin of victory," which was military.
Julius Caesar surrounded Vercingetorix, a "King" of the Arverni tribe of Gauls in what we now call France, on a long ridge upon which sat the village of Alesia, in 52 BCE. Ceasar had, more or less, pacified Transalpine Gaul (meaning Gaul "across the Alps) by 53 BCE, but the Romans were always badly outnumbered by the Gallic tribes, whose metallurgy and weaponry was as good as or superior to that of the Romans. Other Gallic tribes rose against the Romans, and many newly arrived Roman settlers were slaughtered. Vercingetorix lead an uprising of Gallic "peasants" among the Arverni, whose leaders opposed a revolt against the Romans. He defeated the leaders of his own tribe, and subsequently defeated Caesar when he, Caesar, returned from Cisalpine Gaul (meaning Gaul "below the Alps," roughly what is today northern Italy) where he had been recruiting new troops.
But the one advantage the Romans had over the Gauls, who actually had better arms and armor, was in organization and engineering skill, and the discipline of the troops. Even though defeated in battle by Vercingetorix, Caesar continued to pursue him, correctly identifying him as the key personality in the revolt. At Alesia, even though Caesar actually had fewer troops than Vercingetorix, he built sieges lines around the ridge on which Alesia sat, and "sat down" to starve the Gauls out. As was usual with "barbarian" tribes, the Gauls not only had their troops, but a great many women and children with them. When things got desperate, the Gauls drove their women and children from the camp, so that they would not have to feed them. Such a tactic might have been effective with other "barbarian" tribes, but Caesar refused to allow the women and children through his lines, and those who attempted to cross the Roman siege lines were slaughtered. Now Vercingetorix was in an even more desparate situation, with supplies running short, with a great many women and children surviving who had to be fed, and now resentment from his men whose women and children had been slaughtered by the Romans.
Help seemed to be on the way, as massive forces of the other Gallic tribes assembled, and marched on Caesar's position. Caesar had already taken the possibility into account, though, and his lines faced outward as well as inward. When the Gallic tribesmen attempted to assault the lines which protected the Roman camps, they suffered a horrible slaughter. This is when the discipline of the Roman troops began to be clearly shown. Of course, by then, the Romans had no escape, so they had to stand and fight. But veteran officers and troops had understood the situation when they were required to build siege lines facing outward as well as inward, and they had accepted the situation, and continued to display confidence in Caesar.
The tribesmen who had been defeated in the attempt to attack the Romans from outside the lines, and who had suffered very lopsided casualties (modern historians believe they suffered casualties 20 times as great as the Romans, and perhaps even higher), now lost interest in the fight. In those days before the use of gunpowder and artillery, an army forced to retreat, as the Gauls were when their attempt to break into the Roman camp failed, risked a horrible slaughter. They had suffered that slaughter when they broke and ran, as disciplined Roman troops cut down any of the fleeing men who couldn't get out of the way in time--that was why Gallic casualties were so high--in his Commentaries Caesar reported that only the exhaustion of his troops prevented a greater slaughter.
The "relief army" of the Gauls soon broke up--it was now October, and they slipped away to return to their homes. They had no further interest in fighting the Romans, and they longed to return home and prepare for the coming winter. Vercingetorix, with his army facing starvation, and with morale at rock bottom, surrendered the day after the failed attack from outside on the Roman camps.
In simple terms, Caesar's margin of victory was not high--in fact, although Roman casualties were less than Gallic casualties, the relatively small Roman army had suffered a far greater proportion of loss than the Gauls. The Roman legions (six) present, only amounted to about 30,000 men, including attached cavalry, and even with auxiliary troops ("non-Roman" troops from loyal tribes), did not exceed 60,000. But within Alesia, Vercingetorix initially disposed of 80,000 men, not including the local population and the women and children who followed his army (which is the reason he could not hold out in a siege), and although ancient accounts usually exaggerate numbers to make the victors look good, even modern historians accept a figure of more than 200,000 tribesmen in the relief army which attacked Caesar's camps. The actual force which assaulted Caesar's camp from the relief army was probably 60,000, equal to or greater than the entire force that Caesar had at his disposal. When one adds the troops of Vercingetorix who attempted to attack outward from Alesia, the Romans were badly outnumbered.
Proportionally, Caesar's losses were much higher than the Gauls. But for whatever the local margin of victory may alleged to have been, Caesar's margin of victory for the campaign was complete. The Gauls surrendered to Rome, and Gaul was divided into provinces administered by the Romans. There were no further uprisings for three centuries, and the attempt that was made in the late third century was a rebellion by thoroughly "Romanized" people, who were attempting to set up an empire of their own in imitation of the Roman empire.
More than simply the pacification of Gaul resulted from the victory at Alesia. Caesar, who had relied politically on his popularity with the class of Plebs, or the common people, rose enormously in the estimation of the Roman people. The aristocratic faction of the order of Patres (meaning "Fathers," and referring to the senatorial class) who wished to put Caesar out of business were very unpopular, and became even more unpopular when they failed to give Caesar the recognition which the people and the legionaries thought was his due. When they tried to arrest him and failed, and then ordered him not to return to Rome (an order he ignored, crossing the River Rubicon in defiance of the Senate, and commenting alia iacta est--"the die is cast"), a civil war broke out, and a war in which he was victorious, with the support of the people, and of most Roman troops, even among those who fought, ostensibly, for the Senate.
So, for whatever one may allege about the initial margin of victory of the Roman army at Alesia, when they suffered terrible casualties, and only just barely managed to hold onto their position--the real margin of victory for the Romans was complete, because Gaul was thoroughly subjugated, and the real margin of victory for Caesar was complete, because it launched his political career to the point that he reached the pinnacle of political power after the Civil War when he made himself the Dictator of Rome.
Modern historians continue to dispute the actual numbers of legionaries and Gallic tribesmen involved. But these matters are less important than that Caesar's margin of victory was complete.
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In July of 1861, the Federal and Confederate armies, both armies of Americans, faced one another south of the Federal capital at Washington. The Federal army, marching south, and commanded by Irvin McDowell, numbered about 35,000. Initially, the Confederate army was much smaller, as few as 20,000. The commander of the southern troops, Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard, was in a panic, and certain that he could not defend his position, near the Manassas railway station on the railroad which ran through northern Virginia to Washington. Beauregard's men were put in defensive positions behind a small but deep stream known as Bull Run. To the west, a veteran of the Mexican-American War, Robert Patterson, threatened Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley with 18,000 troops. He was opposed by Joseph Johnston, with about 10,000 troops.
Johnston used his time well, and managed to stop Patterson from advancing, and then took most of his troops to the east, and using the Manassas Gap railroad, he moved over the mountains to reinforce Beauregard. Patterson proved so incompetent, and so little inclined to advance, that in contempt, Johnston decided to bring his entire army, leaving only a small cavalry screen.
McDowell's attempts to get around Beauregard's flank had failed, because, in fact, the Confederate troops he first met were simply advanced guards, sent out to get a good look at the "Yankees," and to delay their march. They succeeded in both missions. When Johnston arrived on July 20, 1861, however, Beauregard was already near panic. Even with the reinforcements he had received, he was outnumbered, although it was not as bad as he thought (his entire career in the American Civil War was largely a failure, because he magnified his difficulties, and ignored or failed to see his opportunities). Although Johnston outranked Beauregard, observing "military courtesy," he deferred to the man on the scene, and left the disposition of the troops and the command of the army to Beauregard. Temporarily enthusiastic because of the reinforcements, Beauregard decided to exploit McDowell's apparent reluctance to march to the east (McDowell had originally planned to march by his left, and get around the Confederate right flank, cutting him off from Richmond, the Confederate capital--but he exaggerated the number of Confederate troops on that flank, who were largely just a cavalry screen, and changed his plan). He drew up an elaborate plan, probably impossible to carry out with inexperienced troops, to attack on his right, and turn the left flank of the Federal army.
Meanwhile, McDowell had come to the same conclusion. Part of the reason that Beauregard became overconfident after previously being convinced that disaster loomed was that McDowell had attacked him at Blackburn's Ford, on the lower reaches of Bull Run, but had called off the attack because he considered it too well defended. Beauregard decided, therefore to attack across Blackburn's Ford, having convinced himself that McDowell was a coward (although no great general, McDowell was in no wise a coward). At the same time, McDowell convinced himself that if he marched by his right, and attacked the Confederate left, he could roll up the enemy's line, and clear the bridges over Bull Run, higher up the stream from Blackburn's Ford, and then pour his army across to crush the defense.
Of the two plans, McDowell's was actually more realistic, and had a greater prospect of success. The upper reaches of Bull Run were much shallower, and could easily be forded--and Beauregard had neglected to post strong forces on the roads on his left flank. The Yankees got up earlier in the morning, and were on the move by 3:00 a.m. Beauregard convinced himself that McDowell was preparing to retreat (a case of believing what he desperately wanted to believe), and with a complete lack of logic, decided that he didn't need to press his attack to quickly, and could let the troops continue to rest. If he had moved at the same time, both armies would have moved by their right, to attack their opponents left, and who knows what crazy kind of battle would have resulted.
But the Yankees got moving more quickly, and by dawn they had crossed at a ford on Bull Run, and the bridge of an uncompleted railroad. They were across in large numbers, and facing nothing more than a battalion guard who had been belatedly sent out when Johnston convinced Beauregard that it was not a good idea to assume complete stupidity on the part of one's opponent. The southerners fought well, in fact fought, savagely, but at the most, there were never more than a couple of regiments amounting to somewhat more than 1000 men facing three divisions of McDowell's army, representing about 40% of his army, and numbering about 14,000 men. Slowly but steadily, the Yankees began to push the Rebels back, and when the news reached Beauregard, he reverted to his standard condition in battle, sheer panic.
Johnston steadied him, and helped him to forward his men to the danger point. One brigade of Virginia troops was lead by a graduate of the United States Military Academy and a veteran of the Mexican War, who was also something of a martinet--Thomas Jackson. Jackson had not failed to get his men up and in the road by 3:30 a.m., so when word came to march to the east, and prepare to cross Blackburn's Ford to attack the Yankees, he was the first to move. When, a few hours later, word came to march to the west, to bolster the failing Confederate line, Jackson did not question the orders of his superiors--he turned his men around, and marched to the west. He soon arrived at the Henry House Hill, which overlooked the road from the Stone Bridge, which was the key to McDowell's plan to route the Confederate army. Having been ordered to place his men there, and to hold the position, that is exactly what Jackson did, and he subsequently ignored pleas by other brigade commanders to come to their aid as the Yankees pummeled them in superior numbers. One of those brigade commanders, Barnard Bee, is said to have attempted to rally his men by pointing to the Henry House Hill, and saying: "There stands Jackson, like a stone wall." Both Thomas Jackson, and his brigade of Virginia troops, were known ever after as Stonewall Jackson and the Stonewall Brigade.
Beauregard's first clue that things were not going well was when Federal Artillery fire hit the house in which he was eating breakfast at about 5:00 a.m. Moving quickly to his preferred panic mode, he started to send brigades to his left to stave off the Yankee attack (now swollen to 20,000 men or more, more than half of McDowell's Army), but made no effort to coordinate their marches. The brigade commanders found themselves standing in line with their flanks uncovered, or advancing without support with their flanks "in the air." The situation rapidly deteriorated. Beauregard had thought to attempt his attack despite being pre-empted, but the result of bad staff work and contradictory orders was that four brigades stood to the south of Bull Run, where the banks were steep and the stream was deep, and looked across the water at the thin line of Yankees who stood looking back at them. And the Confederate left continued to disintegrate.
At some point, Johnston apparently decided to take matters into his own hands (we can't know for sure, because Beauregard wrote the report of the battle, and Johnston diplomatically remained silent--Beauregard's panic attacks, however, are well attested by other eyewitnesses). Some of Johnston's troops were still arriving, and literally jumping off the trains at Manassas Junction, forming lines and marching to the sound of the guns. Johnston put them in line on the left flank of Jackson's line, which still steadily held a key position overlooking the Stone Bridge, and steadily resisting the panic of the Confederate regiments which had been crushed and were streaming back in a frightened mob.
By now, the Yankees had been attacking and marching for twelve hours. There is some dispute as to what Bee meant when he said "There stands Jackson like a stone wall," and one of Johnston's staff officers claimed that Bee was bitter and angry because Jackson would not leave his position and come to his aid. Bee died of wounds sustained in the battle, so the truth of the matter will never be known. Whatever the truth of that, when the exhausted Federal troops reached the road leading to the Stone Bridge, their objective for the day, they were facing relatively fresh troops (they had been lying on their arms behind the brow of Henry House Hill for three hours, out of the Yankee line of fire). Nasty little fire fights erupted around the gun positions of Federal artillery which had been advanced beyond the infantry line (stupid, stupid, stupid!), and when Jackson's 33rd Virginia Battalion advanced, the Yankees did not fire on them, because they were still wearing blue, pre-war uniforms, and were mistaken for friendly troops. Jackson now decided to unleash his line, as he saw the Federal infantry line disintegrating from success as surely as a line will disintegrate with victory. The Yankees outnumbered the Confederates by at least two-to-one, but they never committed more than two or three very worn-out regiments to an assault on Jackson's solid, disciplined line of five regiments. At one point, Jackson told his men to withhold their fire until the Yankees were within 50 yards, then to fire a volley and attack with the bayonet, and to ". . . yell like furies." It worked. The Yankee line completely collapsed, and they began to run. Federal officers managed to keep some discipline as they retreated back over Bull Run, which at this northern end could be waded, but men were already beginning to throw their guns away, and all order was disappearing in the regiments thrown back by Jackson's men. Several regiments attempted to make a stand, but by now, three of the four brigades which had not yet been in the fight, and troops who were arriving by the railroad joined Jackson in the counterattack which ended all Federal hopes for the day.
When a wagon overturned on a bridge in the Federal rear, retreat turned into route, and panicked Federal troops threw weapons away and ran. The President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis--a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and a veteran of the Mexican War where he served with distinction--arrived by train as the sun was going down. James Longstreet, commanding the only brigade which had not been engaged, begged to be allowed to cross Blackburn's Ford and pursue the retreating enemy--which made superficially good military sense. Davis, whose interference in the war would cost the South much, however, showed better military sense, and vetoed the proposal, pointing out that there were no troops to support Longstreet if he got into trouble.
And he would have gotten into trouble. Almost all popular historians of the war ignore or are ignorant of Louis Blenker. Louise Blenker was a German-American officer, who had served as a military officer in the 1848 socialist uprisings in the Europe. He had actually once defeated a Prussian army, although eventual defeat of the rebels forced him to flee Germany, which is how he ended up in the United States. As McDowell's army melted into a frightened mob, Blenker put his brigade in line on the road to Centerville, and refused to budge, even when ordered to retreat. The Yankees who were running away failed to panic Blenker's troops, and they flowed around his line like water around a rock. Hundreds of civilians, men and women, had driven out from Washington in their carriages with picnic baskets to "watch the fun," and Blenker refused to open his lines for them, even when United States Senators railed and shouted at him. If Longstreet had attempted to advance, his chances would not have been as good as he had thought they would be.
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So, the Confederates had won. Or so it seemed. What was their margin of victory? In simple numbers, the Yankees had suffered a few dozen more men killed than the Rebels, and a few hundred more wounded--in fact, their casualties were rather light for the attacker, who ordinarily suffers far more than the defender. Because of the panic and the route, somewhat more than a thousand Yankees were captured or went missing, while about a dozen Southerners were missing. So, superficially, the margin of victory, although slim, was with the Southern army.
But the eventual result was not at all a victory. Johnston, the higher ranking officer, now took over the army around Centerville. Plans attack Washingon were mooted and discarded, and the army went into camp, where low morale and camp diseases took their toll (except, perhaps, for Jackson's "Stonewall Brigade," where good discipline reduced the threat of disease, and in which desertions were almost unknown). Johnston set up an elaborate and vast camp, including bakeries and slaughter houses. But he gradually grew more and more depressed. The Confederate army was in no position to attack Washington, and troops continued to pour into Washington, as they had done before, during and after McDowell's march and battle. By autumn, more than 200,000 troops were within the defenses of Washington, and the new commander, George McClellan, was completing plans to transfer 130,000 of them to southern Virginia with the aid of the United States Navy, leaving behind a defensive force in strong lines, and which was almost as large as the entire Confederate army encamped around Centerville. Early in 1862, as McClellan was preparing to land on the Virginia Peninsula and advance on Richmond, McDowell advanced from Washington with a superior force. Johnston was obliged to retreat, but did so with such precipitous haste that he left behind the "public property," which included the bakeries and slaughter houses, including more than a million tons of flour and beef, and thousands of head of live cattle and swine. He did manage to get the military supplies out, but the Confederate armies never again issued fresh bread or beef to their troops.
This is no place to review the career of Joseph Johnston. However, his pessimism (justified), combined with the only instance of panic he ever showed when McDowell advanced in 1862 (not justified), meant that whatever small margin of victory could be claimed for the first Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run as it is usually referred to in the North, was illusory. In fact, the aftermath of the battle was that Confederate impotence, and the need to spread small forces over a large area, meant that there had effectively been no margin of victory at all.
The Confederates had won the first big victory, and had begun the long, agonizing march to losing the war.
I wrote it myself, and i would be interested to know from whence you thought one would be able to "paste" a response so specific to the question of what margin of victory can mean.
As for whether or not it would "help our friend," certainly i assume that those who post here are reasonably intelligent, unless and until i have what i consider irrefutable evidence to the contrary. This member shows a certain degree of sophistication in the use of English which suggests to me that he will be able to understand what i have written. Whether or not it interests him only he will know.
About a year ago, we had a large influx of students from CUMT--the China University of Mining and Technology. In the course of answering their questions about English, i and others became casually friendly with many of them, and discussed a wide range of subjects. I have discussed with Chinese students a variety of subjects--philosophy, the essay form in literature, poetry, the educational funding system in the United States, architecture in Japan, John Stuart Mill, the penal system in colonial Australia, the difference between standard and automatic transmissions in automobiles, contemporary clothing styles in the west--and the biggy, what the differences are between breakfast as it is served in China and as it is served in western countries (apparently, that was an essay which many of them were assigned--it occasioned quite a lot of good-natured hilarity).
At all events, even if this member has no interest in what i wrote, i enjoyed writing it, and it is just marginally possible that someone else will enjoy reading it.