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Alas, call it the laws of probability or just cosmic karma, but every nation produces bad generals as well as good onesand America is no exception. Sure, they ganged up on the Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae. Darius never showed up for the first battle and defeat (Battle of Granicus) because he didnt see Alexander as much of a threat to his empire. The Top Ten. Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend The idiot who, seeking self aggrandisement, led his army, Force D, to disaster at Kut in WW1. What will another year of war look like? But he was overly cautious by nature. What myths or misperceptions surround Westmoreland that you would like to clear up, if any? Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future. Contrarily, I would not so stigmatize another important player often criticized by others, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author. The Texans only suffered 2 casualties, as opposed to hundreds of Mexican casualties. When it came to military command, Westmoreland was everybodys all-Americanuntil he met his Waterloo. He retreated to Malta but was captured when that island fell to the British. The rise of American-made chatbots has kicked off a flurry of Chinese activity. Top Ten Worst Military Commanders - The History Buff's Guide to World In considering who should receive such a dubious honor, Ive consciously excluded bad leaders. Percival was off mistreating Irish Republican Army (IRA) leaders during the Anglo-Irish War before commanding British Malaya in World War II. But with that kind of advantage in troops and firepower, who wouldnt? General Westmorelands close associate, General William DePuy, later admitted the futility of the Westmoreland way of war. Pillow faced a court-martial for stealing a Mexican cannon and attempting to spirit it home in his personal baggage, but Polk intervened to clear Pillows record. FPs Ravi Agrawal spoke with two of the very best Russia experts:Angela Stent, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author ofPutins World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, and Michael Kofman, the research program director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses. He was found guilty of 11 counts, and only the intervention by Pres. Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders, we are presenting this list of the worst. Of course, that is what they did when Ludendorff pushed for the use of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping. Sun Wu Sun Zi, or Sun Tzu, was a prominent military general during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) who is always regarded as one of the greatest military strategists in China and even the World. Instead he simply sent more and more replacements to make up his losses. And if they not only fail to deliver, but wind up sinking their own side in the process, and change history, they earn a spot in the Hall of Military Shame. McClellan was a superb organizer, a West Point-trained engineer who did much to build the Union army almost from scratch. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. These Are the Five Worst Generals of All Time Creighton Abrams was an U.S. Army General who commanded American military operations in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1972. It would be nice if all American generals were great. 1. When two able and progressive Nationalist generals, Pai Chunghsi and Li Tsung-jen, begged the generalissimo to adopt similar methods, Chiang rejected them outright. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam employs repressive policies that often contravene international human rights law. It would be nice if all American generals were great. Thuong, 52, is the youngest member of the party's Politburo, the country's top decision-making body, and is widely regarded as being close to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam's most . In 1941, Graziani resigned his commission after the British counterattacked and the Tenth Army was completely defeated during Operation Compass. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. After the war, the phrase lions led by donkeys came to be associated with the British army for what should be obvious reasons. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. A dull, unfeeling, unimaginative, smug "Colonel Blimp" of the worst sort. At the Battle of Gaugamela, he helped make Alexander great by losing half his army to the Macedonian upstart. His battlefield losses marked the end of the Persian Empire. After being taken prisoner (again) by the British, Villeneuve was released but committed suicide rather than face Napoleons wrath. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved, as Continental Army commander during the momentous American defeat of a British army at Saratoga in 1777, The Five Best U.S. Despite reports of the build-up of German forces and even knowing the date of the Germans attack, Gamelin did nothing, stating that he would await events. Not good, Hannibal. The Second Battle of the Somme was the first of a series of successful German offensives, but Ludendorff had failed to integrate these tactical victories into a broader strategic plan. He was uninterested in other viewpoints on how the war might be prosecuted, dismissing the PROVN Study sponsored by Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson (which concluded that Westmorelands way of war was not working and could not work) and basic disagreements with Westmorelands organization and approach voiced by his brilliant classmate General Bruce Palmer Jr. 7. General Failure - The Atlantic After occupying Jerusalem and crucifying 2,000 Jewish rebels in Judaea, Varus went off to govern Germania and tame barbarian tribes. Of course they raised this issue, leading Westmoreland to declare vehemently that establishing MACV Forward had not a damned thing to do with my confidence in General Cushman or the Marines, not a damned thing. That again was not only false but, given the existing paper trail, reckless as well. Hundreds of thousands died of disease. 1. He need not be concerned, soothed Wheeler, because the weight of judgment was that the enemy cant match us on a buildup. That turned out to be one of the classic misjudgments of the war, comparable in magnitude and consequence to General MacArthurs assurances to President Truman that Chinese forces would not enter the Korean War. This was heeded about as well as any piece of parental advice, anywhere ever. Gamelin was commander of the French forces in World War II and is largely responsible for the fall of France into German control during the Battle of France. Thus there was little internal capacity for debating or evaluating his chosen course of action. General Westmoreland had complete freedom of action in deciding how to prosecute the war within South Vietnam. 7. Cue the protests from other parts of the globe: A chorus of nations are accusing Washington of fostering unfair competition. Top Ten Reasons Field Marshal Montgomery is Not so Great With a few relatively minor changes, thats just about where they stayed for the next four years. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? 9 Worst Generals in History | Britannica Sure, he was the greatest commander of the Second Punic War, a titanic contest between Carthage and Rome. That dubious distinction falls to William Hull, the only general officer in American history to be ordered before a firing squad for cowardice and dereliction of duty. Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) 24. In a war that saw more than its share of unskilled politically appointed generals, Pillow was arguably the worst on either side. Follow him on Twitter:@Mipeck1. Download the new FP mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. But its not just the United States. Somalia (1992-1994) 2. Delivered Thursday. Some would say that failure on the battlefield warrants censure. The last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, Darius was not quite as qualified to rule a mighty empire as his predecessors were. 44 Declassified Vietnam War Photos The Public Wasn't Meant To See The Worst Military Leaders in History - University Of Chicago Press Quintus Servilius Caepio takes the cake amongst the worst Roman generals ever to take command of a legion though. Franz Conrad von Htzendorf of Austria couldnt decide which country he wanted to invade, so the German General Staff eventually took his armies away. But he also displayed remarkably bad judgment, as when he was commander in the Philippines in 1941. The Americans lacked sufficient troops, supplies and air cover (when was the last time an American general had to fight a battle while being pounded by enemy bombers?). The premise was that, if he could kill enough of the enemy, they would lose heart and cease their aggression against the South Vietnamese. These are the incompetents, the idiots, the bumblers who have represented armies or nations at war only to lead them to defeat or shame. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. Vietnam War body count controversy - Wikipedia Born in 1901 in Quang Binh Province (part of North Vietnam), Diem was the son of a well-educated mandarin (Vietnamese civil servant who took part in running the country) who served as the Minister of Rites and Grand Chamberlain to Emperor Thanh-Thai (1889-1907). They dramatically upped their game, pressing the U.S. worldwide. Alexander went on to march halfway across Asia, creating an empire, albeit short-lived, that changed the history of three continentsnot bad for an ancient millennial. My generation would likely vote for the year exactly one-half century ago as the absolutely worst year in our lifetimes. In order, from most culpable down. Top 10 Worst Military Leaders in History - Toptenz.net The South Vietnamese thus went for years equipped with castoff WWII-vintage U.S. equipment while outgunned by the communists, who were armed with the AK-47 assault rifle and other top of the line equipment. 15. What does that mean for trade and globalization? Nor is being a bad battlefield commander, by itself, sufficient to make the cut. In the opening month of World War I, Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg scored a crushing victory over the Russians at Tannenberg. His senior staff lacked diversity of experience and professional outlook, consisting mostly of people with backgrounds similar to his own, especially airborne. Military historian Russell Weigley rendered a succinct judgment on LBJ: No capable war President would have allowed an officer of such limited capacities as General William C. Westmoreland to head Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, for so long.. Abraham Lincoln. Delivered Monday-Saturday. The Biden administration has passed landmark legislations such as theInflation Reduction Act(IRA) and theCHIPS and Science Act, which provide subsidies in clean energy and semiconductoShow morers worth well over $400 billion. The General Who Lost Vietnam | TIME.com James Bond Stockdale was flying his A-4 Skyhawk on a mission over North Vietnam, just days after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, when his plane took fire and hurtled d Luckily for the colonists, the Empire also had Cornwallis, a peer of the realm and truly pitiful commander. Warfare: Who was the worst General/military commander in history One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture. The curation of this content is at the discretion of the author, and not necessarily reflective of the views of Encyclopaedia Britannica or its editorial staff. His was one of just two French ships of the line to escape the destruction of the French fleet there. Thats the point. By the way, here is the first review I have seen of Sorleys new biography of Westmoreland, which I read in galleys last summer, and enjoyed. Stay updated on the topics you care about with email alerts. But Gates could have doomed the American Revolution. A Texan with the U.S. Army's 1 st Infantry Division, Nolan reportedly slipped away from his basecamp in Tay Ninh Province on Nov. 22, 1967 and turned himself over to the Viet Cong. Here is a list of the 10 most famous Chinese generals in history. If Gates had been in command, we might be paying for our groceries with shillings and pence. He underestimated the enemys staying power, maintaining that if he could inflict enough casualties the communists would lose heart and cease their aggression against South Vietnam. Yet backstabbing your commander-in-chief in the middle of a war is taking ambition a little too far. See the vast swaths of land to the north and south that arent Paraguay? The Romans marched right into the ambush that Arminius laid thus leading to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This piece originally appeared in The National Interest https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/6-worst-military-leaders-ever-167526. It is probably not a coincidence that corruption in the military appears to have escalated since 2006, when the number of military generals started to jump sharply. While serving in Vietnam . What is a bad general? Gen. Charles Cornwallis. Who were the most feared soldiers in Vietnam? - 2023 Nelsons victory at the Battle of Trafalgar was so complete that it established British supremacy on the high seas for more than a century. Johnston was wounded on the first day of the Battle of Seven Pines, six miles east of Richmond, and he was replaced by Robert E. Lee. At Brownstown, south of Detroit, two dozen warriors under Tecumseh routed more than 200 American militiamen escorting a supply column intended for Detroit. Todays list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam, Want to read more on this topic or region? T he Civil War was America's bloodiest conflict. Hull was thoroughly outclassed. Lpez, possibly in a fit of madness, ordered the execution of hundreds of people, including some of his own family members. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. And once again, at the Battle of Antietam, McClellans terminal case of the slows (as Lincoln called it) prevented the exploitation of a possible war-ending vulnerability in Confederate defenses. The early days of the 2003 Iraq War were bound to be a graveyard for military and political reputations, given the misperceptions and misjudgments behind America's ill-fated adventure in regime change and nation-building. Youre on the list! He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. Villeneuve was then to return in secret and help establish naval dominance of the English Channel in preparation for a land invasion of Britain. Examining the Leaders of North and South Vietnam - dummies While there were a host of bad generals serving on both sides during the American Civil Warmostly on the Union side unfortunatelythe one that usually gets the most credit for dragging out the war as long as he did is Union General George McClellan. He was an artilleryman who missed out on the Army's great schools system, never attending the Command & General Staff College or the Army War College. Hannibal. Darius quickly lost everything and became nothing but a fugitive. Seared into all who fought it and many who merely lived through it that conflict remains a bitter stew of second-guessing and recriminations. In 1975, when the Vietnam War ended, the Vietnamese army had only 36 generals, but by 2018, peace-time Vietnam had 415 military officers holding general ranks. As Lincoln well knew, the only way the Union could lose the war was if the North eventually grew tired and agreed to allow the South to secede. But his persistence and inspiration kept the Continental Army in the field through the worst of times, which is why his face is on the one-dollar bill. Outstanding commanders such as George H. Thomas, Phil Sheridan, and William Tecumseh Sherman routinely bested their Confederate opponents. All related (37) Sort Recommended Doug Szabo Author has 972 answers and 137.7K answer views Nov 27 My vote goes to adm Otto Zumwalt.