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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. Todays list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam, Want to read more on this topic or region? The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest darkened Emperor Augustus remaining years and he was heard, upon occasion, to moan, Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!, Notable mention: George Custer, Joseph Hooker, Ambrose Burnside, Charles Cornwallis, John II of France, Top 10 Utterly Bizarre Things Banned In China, Top 10 Military Bases Linked To UFOs (That Aren't Area 51), 10 Bizarre Military Inventions That Almost Saw Deployment, 10 Futuristic Sci-Fi Military Technologies That, 10 Awesome French Military Victories You've Never Heard Of, 10 Oddities That Interrupted Military Battles, Top 10 Top-Level Domains That Caused Controversies, 10 Controversial Toys You Might Already Have in Your Home, Ten Absolutely Vicious Fights over Inherited Fortunes, 10 Female Film Pioneers Who Shaped the Movies, Ten True Tales from Americas Toughest Prison, 10 Times Members of Secretive Societies and Organizations Spilled the Beans, 10 Common Idioms with Unexpectedly Dark Origins, 10 North American Animals with Misplaced Reputations, 10 Japanese Weapons Invented Too Late To Win World War II, 10 Ways The History Of Thanksgiving Is Nothing Like You Imagined, 10 Great Buildings That Were Not Built Quite Well Enough. Although he outnumbered Magruders Army of the Peninsula 10-to-1, McClellan settled in for a monthlong siege. This did not, however, achieve the postulated outcome. In All U.S. Military History, These Are the 5 Worst Generals Join FPs Ravi Agrawal for a frank discussion about the Biden administrations China policy and alternatives that it ought to consider. Outstanding commanders such as George H. Thomas, Phil Sheridan, and William Tecumseh Sherman routinely bested their Confederate opponents. Lincoln relieved McClellan but reinstated him after the devastating Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. There is no Carthage. Even a string of bad days does not guarantee entry. Black Vietnam Veterans on Injustices They Faced: Da 5 Bloods - Time Varus placed his legions in a position where their fighting strengths would be minimized and that of the Germanic Cherusci tribesman maximized. rs worth well over $400 billion. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam employs repressive policies that often contravene international human rights law. George McClellan is one of those generals who really looks great on paper. Gates thought otherwise, and fancied himself a better commander than George Washington. However, Ludendorff and German General Staff chief Helmuth von Moltke had altered the Schlieffen PlanGermanys overall battle plan for fighting a two-front warin a way that had weakened the attacking army on the Western Front. 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. 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. Diem's family was one of the earliest to convert to Catholicism, a religion he took . A curated selection of our very best long reads. 8. Explore the benefits included in your subscription. Watch the conversation or read the condensed transcript. His bad luck didnt end at San Jacinto. Was My Lai just one of many massacres in Vietnam War? Instead of sweeping around the French defenses in a massive flanking movement, the Germans were checked at the First Battle of the Marne. He was an artilleryman who missed out on the Armys great schools system, never attending the Command & General Staff College or the Army War College. Santa Anna liked to call himself the Napoleon of the West. And, like Napoleon, he squandered it all in one grand campaign. This was heeded about as well as any piece of parental advice, anywhere ever. Why our generals were more successful in World War II than in - YouTube McClellan was a proto-Douglas MacArthur who bad-mouthed his president and commander-in-chief. After making a laughingstock of himself by ordering his men to entrench on the wrong side of fortifications at Camargo, Pillow bungled his role at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, making himself the low point of a resounding American victory. Maximus managed to form up his men but to no avail. Top Ten Worst Military Commanders - The History Buff's Guide to World How the North Vietnamese remember the conflict 40 years after the fall of Saigon. In 1847, U.S. troops once again surprised Santa Anna and captured his prosthetic leg. There were available better concepts of how to prosecute the war. How theyve practiced the art of war is immaterial, too. 9. Keep up with the world without stopping yours. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. 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. Top 10 Utterly Useless Military Commanders - Listverse Yet, Hannibal nevertheless ranks as one of the worlds epic fails. Abraham Lincoln. 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. Westmorelands strategy throughout the war was to win through Attrition Warfare (pounding the enemy through greater numbers and resources) which military strategists including Sun Tzu caution against using. But he also displayed remarkably bad judgment, as when he was commander in the Philippines in 1941. Reviews - Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam The world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. Your guide to the most important world stories of the day. Had Lincoln retained McClellan in command of the Union armies, many former Americans might still be whistling "Dixie.". What defines Santa Anna is his utter failure to subdue the Texican rebels and block American expansion. Officially labelled a defector by the Pentagon, many suspected Nolan, an African American, changed sides after suffering a lifetime of racial discrimination. The Worst Military Leaders in History Hardcover - March 22, 2022 Watch the conversation or read the condensed transcript. 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. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. Today's list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam in history from Michigan State University in 1995. More ways to stay updated on global news: By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. All rights reserved. The inept Luigi Cadorna of Italy fought a dozen battles on the Isonzo before his army completely collapsed at Caporetto. By the end of the conflict, America had unleashed the equivalent of 640 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs on Vietnam. Some captured Romans were placed in wicker cages and burned alive, others were enslaved or ransomed. Critics say that Franks and senior officials, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, concocted an invasion plan that used too few troops. General William Westmoreland. 4. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. It's not the first time that someone thought he was smarter than his boss. It doesnt matter if theyve won more often than theyve lost. Marine Corps Casualties 1775-2016 - Marine Corps University Pillow escaped during the night, leaving Simon B. Buckner to surrender the fort and 15,000 Confederate troops. The worst military leaders since Napoleon | History 101 Military greatness can most easily be defined by comparison. The war soon ended in a Russian defeat, with hundreds of thousands of military and civilian casualties. The self proclaimed Napoleon of the West didnt quite leave the same legacy as his idol. Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, This Photo Of A 94-Year-Old Widow Receiving Her Husbands Remains Will Break Your Heart, From Messiah to Hitler, What You Can and Cannot Name Your Child. The 5 Worst Generals in U.S. History | RealClearHistory Muammar Al-Gaddafi. Delivered Monday-Saturday. Saul David reviews a surprising study of military failure and names his own five most infamous generals Saul David Thursday February 17 2022, 12.00am , The Times Caepio reportedly lived out the remainder of his life in luxury, however. Thus there was little internal capacity for debating or evaluating his chosen course of action. In other words, this book is a "how-not-to" guide to leadership. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. Scott claimed that Pillow was ''the only person I have ever known who was wholly indifferent in the choice between truth and falsehood. When talk of secession reached Pillows home state of Tennessee, he helped organize the state militia and was appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate army. McClellan truly disappointed president Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam where the North and South would fight the bloodiest battle of the war. This was the most fearsome army in the Vietnam War Not one to let his own failings stand in the way of personal glory, Pillow submitted fanciful accounts of his actions at the Battles of Contreras and Churubusco to various newspapers, incurring the wrath of overall American commander Winfield Scott. While Hull dithered, Brock captured Fort Michilimackinac, establishing British control of the Straits of Mackinac. 3. Its quite exclusive: combat leaders who had the fate of their people in their hands and squandered it all. In the opening month of World War I, Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg scored a crushing victory over the Russians at Tannenberg. 7. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. Percival was off mistreating Irish Republican Army (IRA) leaders during the Anglo-Irish War before commanding British Malaya in World War II. Grachev played a key role in initiating and leading the First Chechen War. Test yourself on the week of Feb. 25: Nigeria votes, Finland builds a border wall, and Israel escalates repression. 88,594. Alexander, Napoleon, Rommel. 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. But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. Not later than the autumn of 1966 the leaders of both services involved in fighting the ground war in VietnamArmy Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson and Marine Commandant General Wallace Greeneboth saw Westmorelands approach as fatally flawed and agreed on a viable alternative. Turncoats and Traitors - Seven Americans Who Defected to the Enemy in Finally, when it comes to bad generals, let us remember Truman's immortal words about firing MacArthur: I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President. up as tough on Beijing, even seeking to contain the rise of the worlds second-biggest economy. A more minor case, but one revealing of Westmorelands character, stemmed from his unwillingness to level with his senior Marine subordinate at the time of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Perhaps Mao would have intervened anyway. Contrarily, I would not so stigmatize another important player often criticized by others, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. The Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial LectureThomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Top 10 Worst Military Leaders in History - Toptenz.net Little Mac would prove himself to be a superb organizer who kept his army well supplied, efficiently run, and happy. The 1970s were scary times. His was one of just two French ships of the line to escape the destruction of the French fleet there. Santa Anna would lose Texas at the Battle of San Jacinto. History: Military History. The next major British offensive came at Passchendaele (July 31November 6, 1917), where Haig lost another 275,000 troops in a battle whose name became synonymous with pointless slaughter. Worst US General of all time? | O-T Lounge - TigerDroppings Westmoreland was on a treadmill. Despite the Union outnumbering the Confederates, McClellan was unable to crush Robert E. Lee after failing to pursue him into Virginia. Fort Bragg was named in 1918 during the Jim Crow era. During the darkest days of the rebellion, when Washington's army had been kicked out of New York and King George's star seemed ascendant, the "Conway cabal" of disgruntled officers and politicians unsuccessfully schemed to out Washington and appoint Gates. Like it or not, the U.S. military would become the governing authority. While this century witnessed many great leaders, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi . Some staff officers who briefed him one-on-one at deskside were dismayed when Westmoreland occupied himself by signing photographs of himself, one after another, during their presentations. Delivered Wednesday. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. He was called the inevitable general. A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. Instead of holding a natural defense line around Pyongyang, which would have given the United Nations control of most of the peninsula, the UN troops retreated all the way back into South Korea in a humiliating reverse for U.S. power after the crushing victory of World War II. The Persians had a mixed record against the Greeks. Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics 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. Scilit | Article - A Slow March from Social Evil to Harm Reduction What is the standard of shame for induction? The Vietnam War, as Seen by the Victors - The Atlantic Marcus Licinius Crassus was a self-aggrandizing opportunist who started a pointless war with the Parthians, and Publius Quinctilius Varus lost three legions at Teutoburg Forest, but Proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio manages to top them both with his actions at the Battle of Arausio. 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. After the war, the phrase lions led by donkeys came to be associated with the British army for what should be obvious reasons. 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. Many historians credit Benedict Arnold and others with being the real victors of Saratoga. 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. This strategy inevitably failed as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong maintained control over how the war was fought which was through guerilla warfare. 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. McClellan and Burnside in particular. But the award for the biggest Persian loser goes to Darius III. Vietnam Communist Party Nominates Vo Van Thuong as New President - Sources Many of these generals had their worst defeats when their countries were least prepared for conflict, such as the hapless Soviet generals who faced the German infiltration of Russia in 1941. But the rash advance into North Korea was a blunder of strategic proportions. What does that mean for trade and globalization? How does an admiral make a list of the worst generals? America, the Middle East and the rest of the world are still reaping the consequences of those omissions. Instead the enemy proved willing to absorb horrifying losses and keep fighting. According to formerly classified Army documents, an investigation disclosed that from at least March 1968 through October 1969, "Vietnamese [civilian] detainees were subjected to maltreatment" by. HANOI, VIETNAMForty years ago, on April 30, 1975, Nguyen Dang Phat experienced the happiest day of his life . . 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. Hull withdrew after a series of harassing attacks by Tecumsehs highly mobile raiding parties. Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, consult individual encyclopedia entries about the topics. If pressed to rank the miscreants, I would place Wheeler first, then LBJ, and then McNamara, with all entitled to recognition as important accomplices in dooming the endeavor. General Wheeler was often just flat wrong in what he told the President. Lyndon Johnson had no understanding of military affairs whatever, nor did Robert McNamara. Michael Ray oversees coverage of European history and military affairs for Britannica. Find Paraguay on a map of South America. Is the Biden administrations China policy too hawkish? 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. But then MacArthur thrived on controversy like bread thrives on yeast. Vice President, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute. 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. Tortured in notorious 'Hanoi Hilton,' 11 GIs were unbreakable 6. Worst. Military. Leaders. Ever. | The Heritage Foundation The War of the Triple Alliance devastated Paraguay. Its prewar population was reduced by more than half, and perhaps 90 percent of Paraguays fighting-age men perished. So long Fort Bragg, welcome Fort Liberty: The Pentagon's naming Some 15,000 talents of gold (the so-called Gold of Tolosa) had vanished under his watch, never to be recovered. Some would say that failure on the battlefield warrants censure. Who are the famous national heroes or generals in Vietnam? 5. 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. Luckily for the colonists, the Empire also had Cornwallis, a peer of the realm and truly pitiful commander. Darius did not take the field against Alexander until a year and a half after Granicus, at the Battle of Issus. Gamelin made the mistake of viewing the Ardennes as impenetrable and chose to defend it with ten of his weakest, least well equipped and least well trained divisions. With high hopes set upon his shoulders at the beginning of the American Civil war, quickly becoming General-in-Chief of the Union Army, McClellan would earn the distinction as a general of little action. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. Frederick C. Weyand was a U.S. Army General who was the last commander of American military operations in the Vietnam War from 1972 to 1973. Grant left politics to the politicians and did what had to be done. Lebanon (1982-1984) 240. Pillow suffered slightly more casualties than Grant in the engagement, which possibly makes the Battle of Belmont the high point of Pillows military career. Weekly update on whats driving U.S. national security policy. The 5 Worst Generals in U.S. History. Not only is Sorley a third-generation graduate of West Point a Vietnam veteran and a historian, but he worked for Westmoreland as well. Many historians have said Bragg was one of the worst generals of the Civil War, having lost most of his battles. Soon after declaring himself dictator of Mexico, rebels who opposed the Mexican dictatorship created three new republics, one of them being the Republic of Texas. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? While British cannons shelled the fort from the Canadian side of the river, Tecumseh marched his warriors through a forest clearing in an endless parade. French defeated at Dien Bien Phu - HISTORY Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced his fateful decision to double the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam. Delivered Thursday. When it came to military command, Westmoreland was everybodys all-Americanuntil he met his Waterloo. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Somalia (1992-1994) 2. Despite Lincoln's pleas for aggressive action, his Army of the Potomac moved hesitantly, its commander McClellan convinced himself that the Southern armies vastly outnumbered him when logic should have told him that it was the North that enjoyed an abundance of resources. FPsRavi Agrawalsat down with U.S. Trade RepresentativeKatherine Tai, the Biden administrations top official tasked with mapping out and implementing the White Houses trade policy. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. After his performance at Belmonta spectacular success by Pillow standardshe was tasked with the defense of Fort Donelson, a key strongpoint on the Mississippi River. Yet backstabbing your commander-in-chief in the middle of a war is taking ambition a little too far. Exactly. - 3 Best: 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. The stabbed in the back myth did much to propel the ascent of Adolf Hitler, and Ludendorff was a key participant in the Beer Hall Putsch. The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. This week marks exactly one year since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. When two able and progressive Nationalist generals, Pai Chunghsi and Li Tsung-jen, begged the generalissimo to adopt similar methods, Chiang rejected them outright. 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. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln. (You May Also Like: The Five Best Generals in U.S. History).