In 1940, after increasing pressure from dictator Benito Mussolini and facing demotion, Graziani followed orders and invaded Egypt with his Tenth Army. Hannibal. How does an admiral make a list of the worst generals? 10. Is Weiss correct? While serving in Vietnam . Yet Fredendall's solution was to order an Army engineer company to build a giant bunker a hundred miles from the front lines. Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future. In the summer of 1967, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) initiated a series of attacks in western Kontum Province. How do you measure military leaders? In 1847, U.S. troops once again surprised Santa Anna and captured his prosthetic leg. Where is Carthage you ask? A very significant instance was his determination to arbitrarily hold down the estimate of enemy strength during a 1967 order of battle controversy. There were available better concepts of how to prosecute the war. This infuriated the Marines, who viewed it as evidence that Westmoreland lacked confidence in them. When two able and progressive Nationalist generals, Pai Chunghsi and Li Tsung-jen, begged the generalissimo to adopt similar methods, Chiang rejected them outright. But then MacArthur thrived on controversy like bread thrives on yeast. In 1847, U.S. troops once again surprised Santa Anna and captured his prosthetic leg. Had Lincoln retained McClellan in command of the Union armies, many former Americans might still be whistling "Dixie.". James K. Polk. Westmorelands general mistake: severely underestimating the Communists. These operations were designed to seek out enemy forces and engage them in decisive battle. Eschewing a direct overland march to the Confederate capital of Richmond, McClellan orchestrated an impressive amphibious landing of more than 100,000 troops at Fort Monroe, at the southeast end of the peninsula between the James and York rivers. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? T he Civil War was America's bloodiest conflict. 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. Disobeying orders, he sailed for Cdiz instead of the Channel, allowing Nelsons fleet time to return and effectively scuttling Napoleons plans for a cross-Channel invasion. From Kaiser Wilhelm to Hitler and Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi, there is no end of national leaders who squandered their nations blood and treasure in futile conflicts. (The leg did get a state funeral). 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. These American commanders have lost the battle for history. Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend The idiot who, seeking self aggrandisement, led his army, Force D, to disaster at Kut in WW1. Grachev has also been linked to corruption among the higher ranks of the military, specifically the assassination of journalist Dmitry Kholodov. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. As military professionals, we should think about more . But he was overly cautious by nature. Cue the protests from other parts of the globe: A chorus of nations are accusing Washington of fostering unfair competition. In the end, Chiang sacrificed more than a million Chinese soldiers and well over ten million Chinese civilians in his bid to stay in power. His forces outnumbered Alexanders men by at least a 2 to 1 ratio, but Darius was still outflanked, defeated and forced to flee. Weekly update on whats driving U.S. national security policy. For its part, Washington has made a series of policy choices over the last few years that can be summed Show moreup as tough on Beijing, even seeking to contain the rise of the worlds second-biggest economy. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam employs repressive policies that often contravene international human rights law. It wouldn't take a large force to slice through the ramshackle Iraqi army and topple Saddam Hussein, but securing a country the size of Iraq required a larger force. Listing MacArthur as one of America's worst generals will be controversial. Grant left politics to the politicians and did what had to be done. 2. There are a number of contenders for the top places on such a roster. A more positive example is George Washington. Think about how history would have been different if Hannibal had a military plan to outlast Roman might. (You May Also Like: The Five Best U.S. Test yourself on the week of Feb. 25: Nigeria votes, Finland builds a border wall, and Israel escalates repression. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. Lewis Sorleys new book, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, is being published today by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. But the rash advance into North Korea was a blunder of strategic proportions. His poor tactical decisions resulted in his army being routed by a smaller force of Redcoats and Loyalists at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780. 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. Read More. 15. You start by being the only thing that can frustrate Napoleon more than a Russian winter. After the Germans attacked, Gamelin was eventually removed from his post, but by then it was too late. But with that kind of advantage in troops and firepower, who wouldnt? Top 10 Most Underrated Military Generals. But Gates could have doomed the American Revolution. George Custer at the Little Big Horn and Lord Chelmsford at the Battle of Isandlwana leap to mind. General and presidential candidate Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964) at his headquarters in Yokohama, Japan with US Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright (1883 - 1953) (right), and British Lieutenant-General A E Percival (1887 - 1966) (left) who were taken prisoner by the Japanese after the US retreat in the Bataan peninsula and released in 1945. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. After eight years at Foreign Policy, here are the ten most popular Best Defense posts. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, consult individual encyclopedia entries about the topics. Military. 10. The British blockaded the port at Cdiz with a numerically inferior force, and Villeneuve, upon learning that he was to be relieved of command, rashly struck out at Nelsons fleet. Haste risked casualties and defeats at the hands of a formidable opponent like Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. Santa Anna liked to call himself the Napoleon of the West. And, like Napoleon, he squandered it all in one grand campaign. Pillow suffered slightly more casualties than Grant in the engagement, which possibly makes the Battle of Belmont the high point of Pillows military career. 3. Fighter Aircraft of All Time). 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. The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week. Officially labelled a defector by the Pentagon, many suspected Nolan, an African American, changed sides after suffering a lifetime of racial discrimination. What was your impression of the man when you were working for him? 9 Noteworthy Bog Bodies (And What They Tell Us), 12 Novels Considered the Greatest Book Ever Written, Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution, https://www.britannica.com/list/9-worst-generals-in-history. Others were experienced military men who should have known better than to take the risks they took - or not take the risks they should have. Michael Peck is a contributing writer at Foreign Policy and a writer for War Is Boring. Explore the benefits of your FP subscription. Thats an automatic disqualification from Hall membership. Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) 24. General William Westmoreland. 1. Sure, they ganged up on the Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae. The man who appealed for Varus help was Arminius, a Romanized Germanic prince. Panama (1989) 2. Fort Bragg was named in 1918 during the Jim Crow era. Registration for summer courses begins March 18, 2023 and ends June 7, 2023. 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. McClellan was removed from command immediately after. HANOI, VIETNAMForty years ago, on April 30, 1975, Nguyen Dang Phat experienced the happiest day of his life . Caepio was born into a noble family and became consul in 106 BC. Years later, when Marine Corps historians were at work on their history of the war, Westmoreland met with them. Although he outnumbered Magruders Army of the Peninsula 10-to-1, McClellan settled in for a monthlong siege. Germanic tribes sacrificed Roman officers on altars to their gods. Grant had encircled the fort. Seared into all who fought it and many who merely lived through it that conflict remains a bitter stew of second-guessing and recriminations. Concurrently with hi. Westmoreland established a headquarters known as MACV Forward in the northern provinces of South Vietnam and put his deputy, General Creighton Abrams, in charge, placing him over the Marines and also the Army forces in that region. James Jay Carafano is a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges. 0. The last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, Darius was not quite as qualified to rule a mighty empire as his predecessors were. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. Alexander, Napoleon, Rommel. Thus the progress Westmoreland claimed in racking up huge body counts did nothing to win the war. Starting with the battle of Long Island, he lost way more fights than he wonyet he managed to win the war. The inept Luigi Cadorna of Italy fought a dozen battles on the Isonzo before his army completely collapsed at Caporetto. Keep up with the world without stopping yours. 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. Still, he choked in the big game. See the vast swaths of land to the north and south that arent Paraguay? While there is much to criticize LBJ for in his conduct of the war, one cannot help having some sympathy for the dilemma posed by the often wildly conflicting advice he was getting from his senior aides and advisors, including those in uniform. Advancing to the North Korean border with China also was a red flag for Mao-Tse Tung, who feared that American troops on his border were a prelude to U.S. invasion. Rommel is by far the greatest military general of the . As the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, he faced a two-front war, an insurgency in the South and an invading army from the North. Tom Ricks, on his "Best Defense" blog has discussed the top 10 worst generals in U.S. history. Westmorelands devotion to advancing his own interests, even when necessary by misrepresentation, was fundamentally at odds with what Scouting is all about. Although Westmoreland denied it, he imposed a ceiling on the reported number of enemy by instructing his intelligence officers to adhere to a command position of not more than 300,000, even though newly acquired and more accurate data developed in his own headquarters then indicated a much higher figure. 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. He thought he could take over the war from the South Vietnamese, bring it to a successful conclusion, and then hand their country back to them and go home in triumph. Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight. 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. Instead he simply sent more and more replacements to make up his losses. Lpez was the son of Carlos Antonio Lpez, a dictator who had done much to modernize Paraguay in the mid-19th century. By the way, here is the first review I have seen of Sorley's new biography of Westmoreland, which I read in galleys last summer, and enjoyed. Darius family would be captured and even lost the Battle of Gaugamela, where so many factors were in his favor. The British gained control of the fort, dozens of cannons, the brig USS Adams (recommissioned the HMS Detroit), and virtually the entire Michigan Territory. Only recently have those in the defense and military complex begun to look at how we rate generals. Not only is Sorley a third-generation graduate of West Point a Vietnam veteran and a historian, but he worked for Westmoreland as well. General Harold K. Johnson was an authentic battlefield hero, and as noted above was fundamentally at odds with Westmorelands approach, but he was not in the chain of command. It would be nice if all American generals were great. He served as a National Socialist member of the German parliament before authoring a book about how humanity exists in a state of perpetual war and why that is a good thing. It doesnt matter if theyve won more often than theyve lost. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. They kept it as a war trophy, exhibiting the leg at county fairs. The Summer 2023 term begins June 1, 2023 and ends August 24, 2023. Watchthe conversation onFP Live, the magazines forum for live journalism, orreada condensed transcript. The Worst Military Leaders in History is meant to be thought-provoking, and it surely is that." ARMY Magazine "Few subjects get military historians and history buffs talking like a debate over the best military leaders in history. This strategy inevitably failed as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong maintained control over how the war was fought which was through guerilla warfare. Not that Fredendall didn't have real issues that would have tried any commander. He was soon released, however, and, as more capable French admirals either died or somehow incurred Napoleons disfavor, a path to the top echelons of command was opened for Villeneuve. The 20th century is the most violent century in history. After only an eight-day siege, he surrendered his entire armya third of all British forces in America. The self proclaimed Napoleon of the West didnt quite leave the same legacy as his idol. Vietnam War. Although Nelson was killed in combat at Trafalgar, Villeneuve outlived him only by six months. After achieving moderate success in Libya and Ethiopia, the Butcher of Ethiopia became Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Royal Armys General Staff and of Italian North Africa at the start of World War II. Of course, that is what they did when Ludendorff pushed for the use of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping. Francisco Solano Lpez managed to stumble into a war with pretty much all of that. This would be known as the Tet Offensive and would become a major turning point in the war. And the number one reason why Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam: With his unavailing approach to conduct of the war he squandered four years of support by much of the American people, the Congress, and even the media. Once again, McClellan worked his organizational magic, restoring the morale of a shattered Union army. I flew into Vietnam in June 1968 as a young . 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. For one thing, we wouldnt haveSpartacuson Netflix. Darius III. But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. Who was the worst general in history? Somalia (1992-1994) 2. Overseas during World War II he had limited line duty (16 months of battalion command, then 13 months in staff positions) and of 14 months of command during the Korean War and its immediate aftermath he spent eight months in reserve in Japan and only six months in Korea, and that during the mostly static final months of the war. Hull withdrew after a series of harassing attacks by Tecumsehs highly mobile raiding parties. When it came to military command, Westmoreland was everybodys all-Americanuntil he met his Waterloo. Considering some militants as instruments of regional influence while fighting others has had disastrous consequences. Want to read more on this topic or region? Having several decades of duplicity to draw on at this point, everyone had a pretty good idea of how any such deal would turn out, and the aging general was rebuffed by both parties. While Muammer Al-Gaddafi isn't into the funny business in his politician reign, he most certainly is one of a highly egotistical leader and a member who represents more of the "self" rather than all else. After months of inactivity, McClellan was finally spurred to action by Pres. 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. After being taken prisoner (again) by the British, Villeneuve was released but committed suicide rather than face Napoleons wrath. The enemy did not lose heart, did not cease aggression. Follow him on Twitter:@Mipeck1. He was indeed a capable warrior, as shown by the South Pacific campaign and the Inchon landing in Korea. Many historians have said Bragg was one of the worst generals of the Civil War, having lost most of his battles. He first demonstrated his ineptitude during the Mexican-American War, where he had received an appointment to the rank of major general from his friend Pres. These battlefield bumblers serve to provide that contrast. Whatever its military wisdom or lack thereof, it was a decision that should not have been made by generals under the American political system. George McClellan is one of those generals who really looks great on paper. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. Alas, call it the laws of probability or just cosmic karma, but every nation produces bad generals as well as good onesand . A monthly digest of the top articles read by FP subscribers. Indeed they are brave and proud, but their standards, tactics, and lack of command supervision throughout their ranks requires improvement in the national interest. And, he added, I would be less than frank if I did not say that I feel somewhat insecure with the situation in Quang Tri province, in view of my knowledge of their shortcomings.
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