Restall at Otumba

First, a guest post. "Posted by: Tom Servo at September 22, 2019 11:32 AM" as they say.

302 I read the linked article about Cortez, and his final victory over the Aztec armies on the plain at Otumba, where Cortez and an army of probably less than 1,000 men defeated an Aztec Army of 200,000 by charging directly for the Aztec Leader. I wonder if Cortez had read of Alexander and Gaugamela, or if he just had the same insight under similar circumstances. Alexander was outnumbered 400,000 to 50,000, but he and his personal cavalry led a charge straight at Darius in the center. When Darius panicked and fled the battlefield, the rest of the Persian army collapsed into confusion and was routed. Similarly, once Cortez took out the Aztec leader, the Aztec army lost all command and control and scattered.

A brief look 'round the 'Web and, yes, there was such a battle. And then I looked into Matthew Restall and, all he's got is this: Cortés's stoicism and heroism are further emphasized in Painting #6's depiction of the Battle of Otumba. There he rallied the survivors of the nocturnal escape from Tenochtitlan for a heroic last stand. In this painting, Cortés is in the foreground ...

What I'm reading here is Restall sneering his way around an episode starring Cortés that goes against Restall's portrait of Cortés so far. Up to now Restall has painted the Ultimate Beta Male, just going where the tides take him; and at this point those tides'd taken him right out of Mexico City into Otompan and were about to whelm him. But here, the commanders hit upon the winning tactic. If anyone had claimed that some commander other than Cortés was leading the charge, they would have said so, and Restall would have reported it.

[NOTE 7/7/2020: some say that decapitating the Aztec force did not rout the survivors; these rule this outcome a "draw". I take the new evidence seriously, but I reject the verdict. By allowing the Spanish and their allies' leaders to escape, the Aztecs failed to achieve their aim. In plain English: the Aztecs lost.]

I'd held two strikes against Restall already, where he'd been politically correct. He miscounted the sacrificial dead in Mexican sites; he downplayed the savagery of Mesoamericans where they merrily joined into the Conquistadors' rapine. Otumba is Restall's third strike.