The Russian Generals Samsonov and Rennenkamph each lost an army of about 300,000 men during the first month of WW1. Rommel WAS a military genius – a rather limited, niched one, with many flaws, but nevertheless a genius. Rommel and his troops were not accused of war crimes and the soldiers he captured wer… A LOT OF SOLDIERS WOULD LOVE TO HEAR THAT FROM YOU ESPECIALLY MARTYN AND ALL THE THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF OTHER ACTIVE AND RETIRED MILITARY MEN. Monty took over and changed things in very quick order. Crazy. (It was during this war his cork leg was captured by American forces and put on display.) But he couldn’t finish the war until 8 years later 1988. Our newest biography website and YouTube channel. Actually, the Germans lost the war because of HIM. (As for Germany’s WW2, I think not Manstein but von Rundstedt was their greatest military commander.). By William Welsh The Worst Civil War Generals on the Confederacy. Name Meta % Decks Price; Tymna the Weaver: 0.57%: 69 $5011 $302 Kraum, Ludevic's Opus: 0.53%: 65 $2540 $297 Thrasios, Triton Hero: 0.53%: 64 $5331 $320 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath: 0.51%: 62 A British aristocrat and relative of Queen Victoria, the Duke of Cambridge was commander-in-chief of the British army throughout much her reign, leaving the post in 1895. I just read up on Arthur Percival. Please get someone who has some military expertise and knowledge of events before 1800. Exactly. It’s an interesting list… but probably more concerned with causing controversy than a realistic top 10. Okay, he was a decent military governor in Japan after their surrender and kept the Russians out of Japan, but beyond that, there’s not much that can be said for him, either as a general or a person. He lost all of China to Mao Zedong, when he had US support and a much larger, more modern army. I was disappointed to see Douglas Haig on the list. While it is true that Hitler never commanded soldiers on the field, in the last three years of the war he increasingly took over day-to-day control of his armies, telling his generals where and when to attack and then refusing to allow them to retreat when defeat was inevitable. Fifthly, I’m NOT intimidated by threats and attempts to bully. The fact is that whatever you say against him Montgomery won more battles than any other Western Allied Commander, played a major role in three of the biggest Allied victories of the war – El Alamein, OVERLORD and the Ardennes Offensive – and won his battles at a tolerable casualties cost while maintaining 21st Army Group as a major force on the continent despite Britian’s dwindling manpower. 🙂. Perhaps his best idea was convincing the world he had WMD in an effort to discourage an invasion, thereby encouraging the very conquest he was trying to avoid. Indeed . As wars in Europe and America proved that modern technology was changing the face of battle, the Duke refused to accept that change. We’ll try not to do this in future. A politician rather than a soldier, Hajianestis used his yacht at Smyrna as a headquarters, so that he could command in comfort and visit local restaurants. Their strength is such that they can fight against an admiral of the Navy and survive, while some have clashed against the yonko themselves. Source: Geoffrey Regan (1991), The Guinness Book of Military Blunders. Well, all I can say is watch the movie entitled “Patton” starring George C. Scott as Patton (which he won the Academy Award for best actor) and Karl Malden as General Omar Bradley. He lost the element of surprise by sailing close to the coast, acted so slowly that the Germans had plenty of time to prepare, and at first refused to bombard his target because he wanted to take it in one piece. Adolf Hitler. The problem with Monty bashers like you is they generally just repeat the same old myths without actually knowing a thing about the battles he fought, beyond maybe Market Garden and Caen. The reason given is “he’s the British MacArthur”, meaning he was a egomanic and has been overrated. Another example, Adolf Hitler. I do have a great suggestion for a similar article. Not a bad officer, but an officer with bad timing. Helmuth Von Moltke was named as the younger German Military commander who was entirely responsible for the predecessor plan of First World War. He left France with a well drilled and highly efficient force of 422,000. But few disasters are worse than putting the wrong man in charge. Biographics – History, One Life at a Time. and then another fact followed, Rommel was not in command when the invasion happen because he is on his way to Berlin, so blaming him on the lost is a bit odd I think. Biographics – History, One Life at a Time. If Douglas MacArthur is on the list of worst military leaders, then explain to me how he was the most decorated soldier in all of history according to the Guinness Book Of Records ?? Ignore Waterloo for a moment and focus instead on his glorious invasion of Russia. There is much more to say in defence of Haig, and he has many academic defenders (John Terraine; Brian Bond) who have put the case much more concisely and fully than I have. It was only his quick sacking that prevented the French soldiers from turning on their own officers and the whole allied front from collapsing, handing victory to the Germans by default. The British advantage was only 2/1 or 3/2 at best and this too did not make victory inevitable. Conservative to the point of incompetence, the Duke disliked all forms of reform. Post-El Alamein – Montgomery’s advance after Rommel was unequalled in the War for its speed. You could make the case that Monty could have been more aggressive in attacking but this would ignore the fact that he actually had to conserve more manpower than the likes of Bradley, Patton and Hodges since the British were drawing from the last of their manpower and had to start breaking up divisions to provide replacements for battle loses near the end of 1943. As amusing as it all is to me… I feel honour-bound to stand up to (would-be) bullies like you Peter. That said he had placed between the two armies the largest minefield laid in the entire war, he had dug in his guns and some of his armour while leaving his most powerful armoured units free and mobile to respond to any attempted break through and had secure flanks thanks to the Qatarra Depression in the South and the Mediterranean to the North. [Top 15] MtG Best Commanders. Top 10 Utterly Useless Military Commanders KGB99 Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders , we are presenting this list of the worst. Ambushed by Germanic tribes in the forest, Varus and his men were cut off and completely surrounded. But it was his ill-fated and poorly planned “Nivelle Offensive” in the spring of 1917 that was his undoing. Well Chris, I can see that this is going to go on longer then the “HUNDREDS YEAR WAR” (1337-1453). Joke list! At other times he believed his legs were made of glass and would shatter if he got out of bed. Great Britain has a long, storied military history. This single assault cost 16,000 Japanese casualties and the numbers kept growing over the following months. But the allied invasion in Italy has proven that in such a case, Panzer are wiped by the Naval Artillery. (As one of the youngest Generals in the Union Army during the Civil War, his cavalry unit had the highest casualty rate of any in the Army). For every glorious victory and brilliant general, however, there’s an ignominious defeat and blundering fool. Iraq did have Weapons of Mass Destruction bought from the United States, during the Iran-Iraq conflict. Only his timely firing by Truman (probably Truman’s best decision as President) and General Ridgeway’s (his replacement) tactical sense saved Korea from becoming another Soviet satellite state. All he wanted was power and money! Let’s make into simpler terms shall we ?? He did not keep his men alert and ready for battle, and let many civilians travel with them. No-one was able to envisage a way out of trench warfare because of the problems of maintaing effective artillery support and communications with the rear once men had gone over the top. If your basing you information on movies then you don’t have a leg to stand on in an faux-acedemic/faux-historical debate. DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU COULD SPEND TIME IN LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS FOR THE (READ UP ON THAT PLACE AS THEY WOULD RUN ROUGHSHOD UPON YOU) DESERTION OF A TERM CALLED BEING AWOL ?? Uncle Joey Stal didn’t let his generals run the show.. he didn’t have any left during world war2. The operation at Leyte Gulf took up so much in terms of military assets that Doug may have single-handedly extended the war by months. I obviously left out many terrible commanders from the Greco-Persian wars. Whether Allied or Axis, this is a list of the worst World War II generals. Captain America. But of course he plotted to have Hitler assasinated which I guess is the reason for why he is on this list. But what about Korea, you ask? He had his moments of brilliance, to be sure, but by-and-large he was definitely not the right man for the job. Good list, but I think Rommel gets the shaft here as he was stuck under Hitler’s thumb during the Normandy landings. The Commander of British forces in France during the disastrous Battle of the Somme in 1916, Haig has the distinction of overseeing the greatest single day loss of British lives in history: on the morning of July 1, 1916, 60,000 troops—20% of the entire British fighting force engaged—was killed or wounded (including all but 68 men of the 801-man strong 1st Newfoundland Regiment) in an offensive that failed to gain a single one of its objectives. A French artillery officer who took command of the French Army in December of 1916, he immediately set about doing very little but sit by and watch his men and the Huns slaughter each other on an unimaginable scale. the creeping barrage) in his armies. These men had to be turned from raw recruits drawn from the civilian population into an effective fighting body. The principal criticism of Haig is that he wasted men’s lives in efforts that accomplished very little. Unfortunately, unlike his predecessors, Monty choose not to follow up on his victory by pushing the Germans out of Africa immediately, waiting until May of 1943 to finally accomplish what should have been done months earlier. Torchuring innocents and stealing oil of poor people is nothing to be admired. Totally incompetent It took Americans to develop a wasteland. I am pleased to see that Haig’s reputation is undergoing a restoration in popular circles as well as academic ones, and it is thus a great shame to see him included in an otherwise excellent list of the worst military commanders of all time. Truly it could be said that no American military commander ever had a better ally than the madman from Tikrit. Duce! Top 10 Worst Generals in British History. I would’ve thought then that blogs are not the place for you. Get some fresh air. Follow that with an antagonistic ego that made him frequently unable to work with the Australians defending New Guinea and the ill-advised decision to invade Peleliu (a Japanese stronghold of no immediate strategic value that cost 10,000 U.S. casualties and took two months to secure). Rommel was one of the best generals of the war his defeat was largely due to the fact that he lacked enough strength as the royal navy was attacking his supply lines.While Montgomery is overrated he was just an average general not a bad one. Of course it did… I saw it in that movie…. Duce! Perhaps more instructive, however, is to consider how his contemporaries, military and non-military, considered his leadership. This colorful character should never have donned the uniform of a Mexican General (or any uniform for that matter). Monty had good intentions; it’s just that he tended to be too timid when aggressiveness was called for, and too aggressive when caution would have been more advisable. Despite calls for him to be sacked, Nogi remained in charge until the port was captured. I would say taking over most of the world was pretty damn successful don’t you? Montgomery was unusally hands off for the operation. Go over to the Top Ten List website called LISTVERSE which I also frequent and get into their Theory Of Evolution argument that people are having over there as wee speak. 5), Robert Nivelle was for France. Any of his failures are dwarfed by the debacle of the Battle of the Bulge, where the US got caught with their pants down, or the idiotic sacrifice of troops in the Hurtgen Forest by Hodges and Bradley for no strategic gain. An exellent example of rubbish written by an ignorant person with a huge lack of knowledge. Or Metz, when he bragged that he would take it in 10 days but then it took him 10 weeks. 50 votes, 102 comments. These guys are pale in the light of your genius. Sun Tzu in his work, “The Art of War” outlines in chapter 1 the calculations a General must make. The movie Patton is not accurate. This list is missing two very important failures, Chiang Kai Shek, and Josef Stalin. He recieved a barontecy and a substantial pension (equivalent to many millions of £s). As a result, he relinquished ground … His bad supply situation was, thusly, his own fault. Selecting the top 10 American generals was easy in one way, tough in another. then that’ll be the end of it. First of all, Shek, as commander-in-chief of Nationalist China, lost more territory in a war than any other leader on this list, including Hitler. And… since ‘historic’ movies are either/or made by/made for Americans… Americans are always totally AWESOME and everyone else either: Trivia. “The Desert Fox” was probably the greatest military mind that Nazi Germany ever had. As such he was responsible for success and failure of the operation as a whole, not just the British sector. El Alamein – having been defeated completely at Alam el Halfa Rommel decided that he couldn’t dishonor his troops by falling back to a more easilly resuppliable position and so sat at the furthest extent of his supply line while the Royal Navy and RAF straggle those supply lines. Yep Italian know how and pomp! A REAL bottom 10 might have included Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus who led the Romans as Hannibal’s smashing victory at Cannae. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Pillow pulled the troops back to the fort to resupply them. You would have fun on that one !!!! While Custer was brave, he was also headstrong. Ulysses S. Grant. While Monty is credited—and rightfully so—for his victory at El Alamein, Egypt in October of 1942, it must be remembered he was fighting an exhausted and over-extended German Afrika Korps that lacked significant air support and was running on fumes. And even then… it was completely corrupt… and if you had money… 🙂 The dashing Custer may have made a fine 1940’s-era Western hero, but in real life he was the sort of military leader enlisted men desert for. Chinese names start with the family name. Did you know that, Chris, My friend ???? This is the only top 10 list i don’t like for the simple reason that none of these leaders were ‘Bad’ leaders. This may sound crazy, but I admire Saddam. Furthermore, once Haig was a principal architect (along with Ferndiand Foch) of the Hundred Days Offensive that essentially won the war. Top 12 Greatest Generals in Ancient Rome Last updated: August 12, 2019 by Saugat Adhikari One of the greatest empires in the history of human civilization, the ancient Roman Empire, was born from the Roman Republic which began in 509 BC. Que sont vous jusqu’a (That’s French for “What are you up to. Napoleon did a remarkable job. Not all of Gamelin’s modernizing efforts were effective. I seriously doubt Normandy was taken in half an hour…. Monty bashers don’t have a leg to stand on for the simple reason that they don’t apply the same standards when assessing other General’s performances. Do you have any intelligence or is your brain smaller than a pimple on a mosquito’s dink. Still, like I said, it’s a good list and I enjoyed it. You’re welcome.” 7. The discussion is “Top 10 Worst Military Leaders in History”. He wasn’t among the good men, since he fought on Germany’s side, but this didn’t influence his qualities as a general.A highly decorated officer, he won the esteem of both of his men and his enemies. Where is Napoleon ? But he never got over the shock and shame of those losses. How could he be oon of top 10 military leaders!! Impossible! My advice… seriously… chill. Hopefully you can manage that. Duce! Worthrthless article. Talk about gall. There ya go. Uhh, I thought Rommel did pretty good and does not deserve a place in this list. He failed his men. Rightfully criticized by his superiors for his timely blunder, he was given increasingly smaller and more isolated commands throughout the remainder of the war until being forcefully retired by the Japanese Navy in June of 1945, three months before the war ended. A new series where I go over what I believe are ten really bad commander options. Yeah, say I`m crazy. The Entente thus used this advantage to wage a war of attrition in which they consistently inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. Start with his incoherent strategy to defend all of the Philippines that ended in the disastrous surrender at Bataan in April of 1942 (the largest mass surrender of American troops in U.S. history). Kenrith, the Returned King. He had liquidated them all by then. He was a great tactical commander, but his success in Africa were some gamble. He showed more dignity than anyone I`ve ever seen. I loved the list, but I absolutely hated that he mentioned Hitler and said “see No.1”. To more substancial matters. BTW, there is a difference between being incompetent and being stupid. Over the course of an extended battle, a tenth of all the legions then serving Rome were lost. The man’s personal contempt for Lincoln was also unwise (he once refused to see the president when he visited his home in Washington, claiming he had gone to bed and could not be disturbed) while his political ambitions—he ran against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election—made him more of a publicity-hound than the type of quality commander the Union Army needed. In my defense, I do not maintain that Rommel was a bad General. Market Garden was an attmept to avoid the stalemate that was inevitable because of the Broad Front – it was not the thing that caused that stalemate. Hence the use of mustard gas on Kurds in the late 1980s. The British were left at a huge intellectual disadvantage. His flawed planning and conservative leadership let Germany take the initiative throughout the start of World War Two. Too many geniuses on the Greek side. You did neglect many ancient military blunderers but they were long ago and the victors wrote the history for the most part so the exact facts are disputed. LOL. No? McClellan wasn’t the worst general in the Union army—that title probably belongs to men like Joe Hooker or Ambrose Burnside—but he was the most cautious which, in war, can be as dangerous as being too bold. The only way for the 8th to get to the Panzer Army Afrika was to create avenues through the minefield and advance through them. Having Rommel or MacArthur was ridiculous. In fact, a pretty fair one. A complete list of the best MTG Commander decks updated to February 2021, ideal for cEDH deckbuilders. well, I only know a bit about WWII but as far as I know, Atlantic wall defense was a joint command between Rommel and if I`m not mistaken it`s Walter Model, both suggest for dynamic line of defense and of course it`s Hitler who messed everything by not allowing such strategy and forcefully order for static defense While adored as a martyr by millions of Americans for generations, Custer has not fared well with historians of late, who have come to see him as the publicity-seeking, Indian hating, ambitious huckster he really was, dulling his sterling reputation considerably. Hamish, I hear what you’re saying… but europe declared war on France… not the other way around. The consequences of his blunder surely can’t be topped. Totally absent YOU’RE A DISGRACE TO THE USA…….. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. But attempting to suggest the ten least important would likely be an exercise in futility, as well as somewhat disparaging of those patriotic men who had an actual, but minimal, impact on the war.