Best World War I Commander

Best World War I Commander

  • Philippe Pétain - Battle of Verdun

    Votes: 3 2.1%
  • Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg - Battle of Tannenberg

    Votes: 14 9.8%
  • John J. Pershing - Meuse-Argonne Offensive

    Votes: 16 11.2%
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Gallipoli Campaign

    Votes: 8 5.6%
  • Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck - Battle of Tanga

    Votes: 36 25.2%
  • Aleksei Brusilov - Brusilov Offensive

    Votes: 15 10.5%
  • Douglas Haig- Hundred Days Offensive

    Votes: 18 12.6%
  • Others

    Votes: 33 23.1%

  • Total voters
    143

NothingNow

Banned
Lettow Vorbeck wasn't an army commander - his main force barely got above a weak brigade.

Don't understand why he is even on the list.

He operated completely independently from outside command, and commanded what was more or less a complete division, plus bearers and irregulars through much of the war, dropping down to a small, but heavily equipped brigade in 1918, against what were on average, two or three divisions of infantry, with outside support.

That's more than enough to qualify someone for a list of superlatives.
 
What about Vladimir Vazov of Bulgaria? His decision to build up the defenses in the Macedonian Front enabled the Bulgarian Army to defeat multiple Allied offensives in that front.
 
Brusilov, hesitantly. Given that Russia was the country closest to the abyss, pulling that kind of thing off that late in the game takes genuine brilliance.

Petain, Ludendorff, Ataturk were all competent but hardly "best"; Haig gets something of a bad rap but certainly wasn't "best"; Lettow-Vorbeck rocks but isn't really directly comparable. Pershing and Hindenburg were nonentities famous because of nationalism, nothing else.

Arthur Currie and John Monash. The two best allied commanders of that war, both leading the two scariest forces in the war, the Canadian Corps and the ANZAC.

I love you. :D And Currie and Monash were both very good - although not really the same kind of front commander as the others, Lettow-Vorbeck excepted.

I know I'm a bit biased being American but Pershing 100%. It was the Argonne Forest that won the war for the allies.

The battle of what now? The one from the massive unified-command campaign where the German army crumbled away like it had been fighting for four years under blockade and the home front was now coming apart at the seams? What did that dude from Mexico have to do with that? :p

(More seriously: if you want to make the case that America's entry into the war doomed Germany, forcing Michael as a desperation move and then the collapse of the whole German army afterwards, that's not an untenable position; but in that case you're arguing that America's contribution was "meat! look at the meat! SO MUCH MEAT", and nothing at all to do with Pershing's competence or lack thereof.)
 
Plumer, because his plannings were much better than most of his contemporaries did do. One of his tactics has for me nice sounding in german: „Beißen und Halten" - in english: "Bite and Hold". And last but not least, I have already chosen one of his middle names as my username.
 

gaijin

Banned
Why am I not surprised that its mainly generals from Anglosaxon countries and a few.Germans??
 
Why am I not surprised that its mainly generals from Anglosaxon countries and a few.Germans??

Well, in part because Germany lost despite a lot of early advantages, which limits the degree to which you can declare their commanders "best".
 
Why am I not surprised that its mainly generals from Anglosaxon countries and a few.Germans??

It's half German and Anglo-Saxon. Which, given that they formed half the countries fighting in the war, isn't entirely unfair. Though I think some more Frenchmen and Russians wouldn't go amiss. Nothingnow above mentioned Kamio Mitsuomi, but apart from Tsingtao, I can't think of any other major Japanese land battles in WWI.
 
Always Arthur Currie. He gave more thought to casualties than most at the time did. He did not treat the men he had cavalierly, he used them as the valuable resource they were.
 
Brusilov, hesitantly. Given that Russia was the country closest to the abyss, pulling that kind of thing off that late in the game takes genuine brilliance.
Agreed. Makes me wanting to write a "Imperial Russian Revival" TL centered on him. But I know too little of Russia to start with.
 

NothingNow

Banned
It's half German and Anglo-Saxon. Which, given that they formed half the countries fighting in the war, isn't entirely unfair. Though I think some more Frenchmen and Russians wouldn't go amiss. Nothingnow above mentioned Kamio Mitsuomi, but apart from Tsingtao, I can't think of any other major Japanese land battles in WWI.

It was the only real land battle fought by the Japanese in WW1. The rest were small skirmishes. (in fact, it's the only major campaign the japanese conducted independently during the war, as they mostly provided logistical support for the Royal Navy, and convoy escorts.)
It was also a decent performance, but not particularly impressive for anyone save the IJA. Brusilov would be in a much better position for a superlative.
 
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