Following my side-interest of history as a buff, I had the good fortune to read back-to-back two books. First by Nigel Cliff on "HOLY WAR: How Vasco Da Gama's Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-Old Clash of Civilizations." This was followed by "The Fortunes of War: Four Great Battles of World War II" by Andrew Rooney.
Nigel Cliff's book has some extensive collection of (Lisbon based) factual data. However many of his interpretations of facts are twisted to fit the title of his book - the whole thing was about "Holy War." I would expect such an approach by Goa-based authors and historians; who may look at Vasco Da Gama's and Alphonso Albuquerque's military actions as a Goa-centric operation. I would expect better from a London-based author. Nigel's goal (of linking all to religion) was to make his book interesting to casual arm-chair readers and naive historians who likely have never been in battle even for a day. Portuguese military actions (Da Gama's and Albuquerque's) were similar to landmark world conflicts involving and impacting entire regions and not limited to a single battle field. Both, Portuguese monarchs and their naval admirals viewed their task from an Indian Ocean perspective - extending from the entire east coast of Africa, to the full length of the Middle East to the whole west coast of India. This was not unlike the Americans' viewing their WW II encounter with Japan across the Pacific and the numerous small and large islands; Eisenhower planning D-Day (Operation Overlord) not merely as one battle in Normandy; or Hitler looking at his invasion of the East (which later became the Soviet Union) and Russian counter-action against Germany. Da Gama and Albuquerque had the ability of fighting from the safety of the ocean with much more powerful cannons (superiority in military technology). But in their wars, they had NO or LITTLE knowledge of the enemy, absolutely NO supply-lines for food, ammunition, replacement of men, fighting materiel and ships. In addition to the physical enemy on land or sea, the captain and his sailors had the adversity of the ocean and any changes in climate and wind. For all these reasons, time is not on the side of the ship's captain. While time well-served a land-based army who can reinforce and optimize its position. Naval warfare does not permit taking of prisoners of war who have to be fed, occupy the cramped space of sailors and quickly deplete limited medical resources, if there are any on the ship. Thus naval warfare like aerial warfare is instantaneous kill-or-be-killed. Good or bad lessons learned from one experience (or heard from others) are applied to the next situation. In short there is very little room for patience and no second chances. All parties used ingenuity, cunning, false pretenses to fairly or unfairly gain the advantage and upper-hand. Wars are and have always been about surviving, victory, moving forward, loot and territory. Yet the Portuguese (fighting from ships) did not have boots-on-the-ground; and their enemy (at the dozen or so ports) knew it. Only the naive and the uninformed think the Crusader Movement (or Bush-Blair war) was about religion. I would have thought the foreign authors with access to all that is written and analyzed would know that. Portuguese wars were not about religion. It was about making money and dominating the lucrative trade from the East; while eliminating existing players. The game-plan was mutual among the warring factions. Regards, GL
