Rate Mark Clark, Harold Alexander, Claude Auchinleck, Oliver Leese + Archie Wavell:

How do these generals measure up?

  • World War II was mostly attrition anyhow, what difference does it make?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The Mediterranean theater was meaningless regardless

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    34
The Mediterranean theater of WWII saw several generals who served predominantly just in this theater. Guys like Montgomery, Eisenhower, Patton, Juin, and Truscott all left the theater to the broader Western Front. This one is to rate the generals who did not. But what about the Allied generals who never left?

In my opinion rating these guys works as follows:

1) Archibald Wavell. Operation Compass was the only time in WWII that a Western army showed the flair for armored warfare that marked both sides on the Eastern Front, and he also managed to win an unbroken string of Allied victories in Syria, Iraq, and North Africa up to Greece. He did, however, fall like a house of cards once Rommel launched his first major attack.

2) Harold Alexander was the man that did the most to win the Tunisian Campaign, which was perhaps the greatest single Allied victory of the war on the democratic side, and the only one with prisoner hauls to rival those of Bagration and Jhassy-Kishinev and Stalingrad. On the other hand he single-handedly ensured that Sicily would be a prolonged bloodbath and a strategic German masterpiece, and his handling of Italy was worse than Haig in WWI by far, on par with Luigi Cadorna.

3) Auchinleck has to his credit stopping Rommel's offensive cold at First El Alamein. But then again this is the guy who was responsible for one of the worst British clusterfucks of the entire war and inadvertently began the process leading into the nightmare that was the Italian campaign. Like Wavell he also was working on a Dolchstosslegende to excuse his failures.

4) Then there's Clark and Leese. Clark was the guy who was most like a stereotypical Soviet general on the Allied side: perfectly happy to waste lives for useless goals, prone to unimaginative frontal slugging, ensuring both Salerno and Anzio were flops, while at Monte Cassino his handling of the entire battle was atrocious, as was his tendency to blame his men for his failures ala Auchinleck and Wavell. Leese was a wooden Monty knockoff who lacked Montgomery's abilities to at least perceive that some of the time the whole recreating WWI battles thing needed to be changed and to make the use of firepower effective.

So I'd rate them thus with Wavell at the top, for all his flaws, in achieving the greatest victories of any of them over the widest areas, and both Clark and Leese decidedly at the bottom for belonging to the Blackadder version of WWI more than the real-life version of WWII.

Your thoughts?
 
Archie is definitely the top dog here. His downfall was more a consequence of factors outside his control, duch as total inadequacy of British effort to stop Rommel, Greek diversion, fact that he was made responsible for entire area between India and Cyrenaica and Med to Abyssinia.

Alexander comes second. Before we criticize him for Italy, fact is Italy is bad country for combat. He did what he could with forces at hand.

Auchinleck? General? Really? Since when?

Clark showed exactly what sort of thing should NOT be done once you invade enemy coast. He inadvertently provided valuable lesson for D Day. For that he deserves to be mentioned.

I admit I am not familiar with Oliver to comment on him.

I'd judge Claude the worst of the bunch. Just can't think of single redeeming quality.
 
Ageed, considering what he had to do and the resources he had to do it, he was a miracle worker. His downfall was the whole Greek debacle, which forced him to divert troops from closing down the Libyan front.
 
To fight up through Italy swiftly would have required the shipping for leapfrog amphibious landings. The Allies simply didn't have the shipping. You couldn't do this and Overlord at the same time. Also the Italian campaign kept losing divisions to prepare for Normandy. When the shipping became available temporarily, the invasion of southern France was much more important for logistical reasons.

As to the bloodbath in Sicily, the Germans were just very good defensive fighters; every Western Allied fight against them was a bloodbath after Tunisia.

So I would not underrate Alexander. Ike wanted him instead of Montgomery for Overlord.
 
I will avoid an anti Mark Clark rant. It's just too easy.

Wavell was a civilized man and was termed by someone (can't remember who) as 'Being destined for greatness in any field except the military'. Wavell had skill but his victories were against Italians and Vichy French. Still he was the only British general to have victories in the first 2 years of the war.

Auchinleck had superiority of men and armour and only just managed to win Operation Crusader. He was poor at appointing subordinates and didn't sack Ritchie in Feb '42 when advised to do so. This cost him at Gazala. It was tragic for Auchinleck to be sacked after holding the Axis at First Alamein but the truth was that he had only himself to blame for being in that position and he had lost the confidence of his men. Later his wife ran away with a RAF Air Marshall so a loser in public and private.

Leese became 8th Army commander when the Allies were already winning and had overwhelming material superiority. He showed little good or bad points but when he was posted to Burma he mishandled things badly with Slim and almost faced a mutiny from the army there. He was then relieved.

Alexander was overrated and never had any big ideas of his own. He was like Eisenhower in that respect. More of a good diplomat than a strategist. Churchill saw him as one of the planners for Alamein which he wasn't really. Alexander was good with politicians and looked the part. He did put his foot down when Mark Clark (sigh) wanted to abandon Salerno after the Germans shot at him. However, he failed to deal with him at Anzio or the drive on Rome and his handling of the Italian campaign was average.
 
Wavell was a great organizer with a relatively good grasp of strategy. Where he fell down was in politics. He wasn't prepared to argue with his political masters when he felt the wrong path was being taken.

Alex was the John le Mesurier of the Allied high command. Highly charming and affable, brave and unshakable, inspirational but not the take charge kind of guy, more likely to make an unspirited argument then give in that defend his point of view vehemently.

The Auk was a great soldier but he was not a great general. He didn't foster a coordinated approach between the infantry, armour, artillery or airforce of his command, he did not use the intelligence gathered to any effect, his plans were complicated, his orders confusing and his ability to pick talented subordinates non-existant.

Leese was a product of Monty's teachings but followed them rigidly in all situations and did not understand when the approach had to be changed due to circumstances of campaigns or even due to the area he was campaigning in.

Clark was self-obsessed and glory hunting. Unimaginative and prepared to sacrifice sound military judgement to grandstand. He was a good organizer, a good trainer, but that's about all the potive attributes he possessed as a General.


I'd rate Wavell top by a long way.
 
Wavell also had victories that actually deserved the name, which is more than can be said for some of these chuckleheads. Especially Clark.
 
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