Instead the enemy proved willing to absorb horrifying losses and keep fighting. These are the incompetents, the idiots, the bumblers who have represented armies or nations at war only to lead them to defeat or shame. bar is to mention Vietnam. In fact, he did a lot to ensure that Germany would find itself in another war that it couldnt win, but, since he died in 1937, he gets extra credit for being a bad World War II general from beyond the grave. He was killed in combat on March 1, 1870. He called for bombing China, as if liberating Korea was worth risking 550 million Chinese and possibly war with Russia as well. A dull, unfeeling, unimaginative, smug "Colonel Blimp" of the worst sort. Westmorelands first resort in claiming progress in the war was always body count, but in fact this was meaningless. So what is the standard of shame for induction? 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. 2. 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. Russias war is receiving critical assistance from authoritarian regimes around the world. - 4 Worst: 1990 Cleveland Cavaliers. On March 24, 1976, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1 st Viscount of Alamein, hero of World War II, died at home in England. The premise was that, if he could kill enough of the enemy, they would lose heart and cease their aggression against the South Vietnamese. Grant had encircled the fort. And he was able to inflict massive casualties on the enemy. 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. Villeneuve lost 20 ships, while Nelson lost none. General Westmorelands close associate, General William DePuy, later admitted the futility of the Westmoreland way of war. And, to further demonstrate progress in reducing enemy strength, Westmoreland arbitrarily and entirely on his own removed from the order of battle several categories of enemy forces that had long been carried there, including during the three years Westmoreland had already been in command of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. Assuming you believe the subtitle to be accurate, who were GEN Westmorelands biggest accomplices in the loss? 3. 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. There was no warmth, no apparent interest in his associates as people. 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On September 2, 1945, hours after the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender in World War II, communist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam, hoping. 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. The unprecedented violence of battles such as Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, and Gettysburg shocked citizens and international observers alike. This is, obviously, a problematic quality when ones title is general-in-chief of the entire Union army. Here are five of America's worst generals: Great generals have great talents, and usually egos and ambitions to match. But Gates could have doomed the American Revolution. As military professionals, we should think about more . To that Hollings responded, "Westy, the American people don't care about the ten. 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. In fifteen thought-provoking essays, each written by a professional military historian, readers are introduced . But in a contemporaneous cable to General Earle Wheeler, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Westmoreland complained that the military professionalism of the Marines falls far short of the standards that should be demanded by our armed forces. Pillow suffered slightly more casualties than Grant in the engagement, which possibly makes the Battle of Belmont the high point of Pillows military career. 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. Among the most detrimental and problematic policies are the incarceration of drug users in compulsory treatment centers, and the stigmatization and abuse of consumers by the police. This was heeded about as well as any piece of parental advice, anywhere ever. McClellan and Burnside in particular. 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. 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. Innumerable battlefield commanders have had disastrous days at the office. There is now little doubt that Putin failed in his initial goals: Kyiv is still Show morestanding, Ukrainians are determined to keep fighting, and the West has so far stayed resolute in its support of Ukraine. You may opt out at any time. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. 3. The 20th century is the most violent century in history. The Persians had a mixed record against the Greeks. He ran as a Democrat against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election. Stay updated on the topics you care about with email alerts. For many soldiers, a major tipping point happened when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, news of which reaches the soldiers in Da 5 Bloods during one particularly stirring scene . 6. Diem's family was one of the earliest to convert to Catholicism, a religion he took . Of course, that is what they did when Ludendorff pushed for the use of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping. The Battle of Khe Sanh (21 January - 9 July 1968) was conducted in the Khe Sanh area of northwestern Qung Tr Province, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), during the Vietnam War. The 1970s were scary times. The pandemics outbreak brought rare reporting freedoms. Its prewar population was reduced by more than half, and perhaps 90 percent of Paraguays fighting-age men perished. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. Its quite exclusive: combat leaders who had the fate of their people in their hands and squandered it all. There is no Carthage. On September 9, 1965, Navy Cmdr. Delivered Monday-Friday. Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend The idiot who, seeking self aggrandisement, led his army, Force D, to disaster at Kut in WW1. Unfortunately the fates of the former Republic Vietnam (Sout. He retreated to Malta but was captured when that island fell to the British. 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. Informed that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and were certain to attack the Philippines next, MacArthur failed to disperse his aircraftthe only force that could disrupt the Japanese offensive in the absence of the American fleetand to attack Japanese airfields before the enemy wiped out his air force. The Russian president got many things wrong about invading Ukrainebut not everything. History is not a fixed set of facts. How does an admiral make a list of the worst generals? The United States entered the war, forcing Ludendorff to accelerate his time line for a conclusive battle against the Allies on the Western Front. Tom Ricks, on his "Best Defense" blog has discussed the top 10 worst generals in U.S. history. Needs to Talk About the Risk of War With China, Putin Has Assembled an Axis of Autocrats Against Ukraine, The Conversation About Ukraine Is Cracking Apart. He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. Lpez was the son of Carlos Antonio Lpez, a dictator who had done much to modernize Paraguay in the mid-19th century. Darius family would be captured and even lost the Battle of Gaugamela, where so many factors were in his favor. 151. 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. In 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he theoretically had some influence there, at least to the extent he could shape the collective viewpoint, but even then LBJ and McNamara were famously impervious to advice from the Joint Chiefs. - 3 Best: 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. Hull withdrew after a series of harassing attacks by Tecumsehs highly mobile raiding parties. After gaining ground trying to cut an escape path for the Confederates during the February 1862 siege of Fort Donelson by Union forces led Brig. As for the British, they had lost the most valuable jewel of the Imperial crown. 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. Outstanding commanders such as George H. Thomas, Phil Sheridan, and William Tecumseh Sherman routinely bested their Confederate opponents. rs worth well over $400 billion. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Westmoreland told him, "We're killing these people at a ratio of 10 to 1.". Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security. Only FP subscribers can submit questions for FP Live interviews. There were available better concepts of how to prosecute the war. Yet backstabbing your commander-in-chief in the middle of a war is taking ambition a little too far. Click + to receive email alerts when new stories are published on Elmo Zumwalt was a U.S. admiral and commander of American naval forces in Vietnam. Lpez, possibly in a fit of madness, ordered the execution of hundreds of people, including some of his own family members. They care about the one. Westmoreland didnt get it. General Westmoreland had complete freedom of action in deciding how to prosecute the war within South Vietnam. But MacArthur's strategy certainly helped unleash 300,000 Chinese "volunteers" who inflicted significant casualties on United Nations forces. By the end of May 1862, Confederate commanding Gen. Joseph E. Johnston had withdrawn his forces to Richmond, and McClellan was close enough to the Confederate capital to hear its church bells ringing. History: Military History. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln. On a visit to Vietnam Senator Hollings from Westmorelands home state of South Carolina was told by Westmoreland: Were killing these people, the enemy, at a ratio of 10 to 1. Said Hollings, Westy, the American people dont care about the ten. Still, it is his world-changing defeat at Yorktown that merits memorializing. Hull, convinced that he was hopelessly outnumbered (he wasnt), surrendered Fort Detroit and its 2,000-man garrison without firing a shot. After the Germans attacked, Gamelin was eventually removed from his post, but by then it was too late. Antonio de Padua Mara Severino Lpez de Santa Anna. By Lewis Sorley Best Defense Saigon bureau chief. As the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles crippled Germany, Ludendorff effectively sabotaged the Weimar Republic by propagating the belief that he and his armies had been undefeated on the battlefield. 5. After an initial attack drove back Grants troops, Pillow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by retreating to the fort rather than breaking through Union lines to Nashville. Among them are, of course, Lyndon Johnson himself, Robert McNamara, and General Earle Wheeler. The suppression of drug consumption and trade is high on the Government of Vietnam's agenda. Maximus managed to form up his men but to no avail. Youre on the list! Yes, Westmoreland was the general who lost Vietnam. Finally, there was MacArthur's insubordination. Your guide to the most important world stories of the day. The heavily forested, swampy terrain made the Legions maneuvers impossible. Pillow escaped during the night, leaving Simon B. Buckner to surrender the fort and 15,000 Confederate troops. General Earle Wheeler was essentially a staff officer with virtually no troop leading experience, much less combat acumen. Varus himself, seeing all hope was lost, committed suicide. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. 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. The Romans lost an estimated 80,000 infantry and perhaps 40,000 auxiliaries and cavalry, numbers that dwarf the staggering totals at Cannae. Varus placed his legions in a position where their fighting strengths would be minimized and that of the Germanic Cherusci tribesman maximized. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. Hundreds of thousands died of disease. What myths or misperceptions surround Westmoreland that you would like to clear up, if any? The inept Luigi Cadorna of Italy fought a dozen battles on the Isonzo before his army completely collapsed at Caporetto. They dramatically upped their game, pressing the U.S. worldwide. He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. Having amassed roughly twice as many losses in a single day as Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, had suffered during the entire Peninsular War, Haig saw no reason to change tactics. Perhaps Mao would have intervened anyway. Military After only an eight-day siege, he surrendered his entire armya third of all British forces in America. His bad luck didnt end at San Jacinto. While this century witnessed many great leaders, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi . Fighter Aircraft of All Time). Allied with Brock was the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who was head of the most formidable pan-Indian military force the continent had ever seen. On the other hand, there was that bad day at the Battle of Salamis when most of the Persian fleet went to the bottom. 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. When he made public his disagreements with President Truman, Truman rightfully fired him. Villeneuve was then to return in secret and help establish naval dominance of the English Channel in preparation for a land invasion of Britain. What he did not divulge publicly was that the United States. 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. Westmoreland is often described as a Boy Scout, usually implying, it appears, that he was well-intentioned but nave. What will another year of war look like? But he also displayed remarkably bad judgment, as when he was commander in the Philippines in 1941. On the night of August 15, 1812, Tecumseh led his forces across the Detroit River, and Brock followed the next morning. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. These battlefield bumblers serve to provide that contrast. But the inducements encourage U.S. companies to invest only at homenot elsewhere. Haig had largely dismissed the effect of the machine gun on the battlefield, believing that previous Allied failures owed to something other than an impenetrable wall of lead traveling at ballistic velocity. What a Lovely War and then in the 1989 television comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth. Creighton Abrams was an U.S. Army General who commanded American military operations in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1972. 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. Many of the charges leveled against him have also been laid at the feet of . British Gen. Isaac Brock possessed a remarkable ability to anticipate his opponents moves and reactions, and it was not long before he had taken full measure of Hull. 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. But his crowning achievement was bad generalship in Korea. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. 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. You start by being the only thing that can frustrate Napoleon more than a Russian winter. 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. Officially labelled a defector by the Pentagon, many suspected Nolan, an African American, changed sides after suffering a lifetime of racial discrimination. Thus there was little internal capacity for debating or evaluating his chosen course of action. Caepio may have been a terrible general, but he was apparently an exceptional thief. Two of the more prominent of these mistakes, both with wide and sweeping results, were the June 22, 1941 invasion of the USSROperation Barbarossaand the December 11, 1941 unprovoked and unwarranted declaration of war on the United Statesagainst the advice of Hitler's Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. 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. It's not the first time that someone thought he was smarter than his boss. 5. Routed by U.S. forces under Winfield Scott, Santa Anna was again driven into exile. On the other side of the trenches in World War I was Erich Ludendorff, commanding the armies of Germany. Grachev once said that only an incompetent commander would order tanks into the streets of central Grozny, where they would be vulnerable. Yet near the end of the war he did exactly that. Delivered Wednesday. 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. Germanic tribes sacrificed Roman officers on altars to their gods. Thats the point. Yet, Hannibal nevertheless ranks as one of the worlds epic fails. Alexander, Napoleon, Rommel. After eight years at Foreign Policy, here are the ten most popular Best Defense posts. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. Hull responded by ordering the evacuation of Fort Dearborn, and the garrison was promptly massacred by a Potawatomi war band upon leaving the fort. All the enemys losses were quickly made up. And how might that be impacting the world? He was a teacher in the Chicago suburbs and Seoul, Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Who was the worst general in history? Alas, call it the laws of probability or just cosmic karma, but every nation produces bad generals as well as good onesand . Hannibal. 92. Under Westmorelands command, the Vietnam war began smoothly as the U.S. won every battle. But in 1968, when Westmoreland became Army Chief of Staff, Communist forces baited Westmoreland into committing nearly 40% of his strength to the military outpost at Khe Sanh, then attacked cities and towns throughout South Vietnam. There are a number of contenders for the top places on such a roster. By one estimate from Harvard University, more than 130,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or severely wounded, in addition to the deaths of more than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians. 15. Darius was a different sort of game-changer. Years later, when Marine Corps historians were at work on their history of the war, Westmoreland met with them. In stereotypically McClellan fashion, he was promptly checked by a vastly inferior force under John Bankhead Magruder. Grachev played a key role in initiating and leading the First Chechen War. The most important, and also the saddest, is that in Vietnam and thereafter Westmoreland was willing to shade or misremember or deny or invent the record when his perceived interests were at stake. At Yorktown, he allowed himself to be taken by surprise and outmaneuvered by Washington and the French fleet. General William Childs Westmoreland (1914- 2005) with President Johnson in South Vietnam #1. He gritted his teeth and wore down the Confederacy with incessant attacks until the South could take no more. Concurrently with hi. He would eventually be betrayed and killed by a friend. Loyalty to himself and himself alone would be something of a running theme in the narrative of Santa Annas life, and his rise to power in Mexico was characterized by near-constant vacillation and betrayal of his allies. 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. DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY/Contributor/Getty Images, Biden Proposal Puts Climate Agenda Above Americas Defense, Russias New START Breach Means U.S. Nuclear Weapons Modernization Is a Must. In a war that saw more than its share of unskilled politically appointed generals, Pillow was arguably the worst on either side. Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air. McClellan truly disappointed president Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam where the North and South would fight the bloodiest battle of the war. Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent. Luckily for the colonists, the Empire also had Cornwallis, a peer of the realm and truly pitiful commander. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, Chinas Censors Are Afraid of What Chatbots Might Say, The U.S. Not that Fredendall didn't have real issues that would have tried any commander. His was one of just two French ships of the line to escape the destruction of the French fleet there. 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. 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. 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. Top 10 Most Underrated Military Generals. These Vietnam War photos taken by U.S. Army photographers reveal a side of the conflict that few people have ever seen. He overestimated the American peoples patience and tolerance of friendly losses. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. 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. Their orientation, indeed the core of Scoutings values, is selflessness and service to others. After being taken prisoner (again) by the British, Villeneuve was released but committed suicide rather than face Napoleons wrath. While serving in Vietnam . What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? T he Civil War was America's bloodiest conflict. In 1941, Graziani resigned his commission after the British counterattacked and the Tenth Army was completely defeated during Operation Compass. Darius III. Percival surrendered Malaya to Japanese forces in early 1942, defying Winston Churchills own instructions for prolonged resistance. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail. These two instances are illustrative of many, many more, ranging from his actions or lack of action in combat situations to his determination to take over the war and win it with U.S. forces to his resultant failure to build up South Vietnamese forces to the validity of body count to the decision to close Khe Sanh to his actions when Lang Vei was overrun to denying predictions he had made of an early end to the war to claims of not being surprised at Tet 1968 to denying a post-Tet request for many additional U.S. forces.
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