Worst General After 1900

Saint_007

Comte de Geneve said:
M. Whanztastic, Have you a vendetta against the defenders of l'Algerie Francaise. May M. Chacal pay you a visit. As far as French Colonial failures go, let me recommend Henri Navarre, the architect of Dien Bien Phu. A failure with great significance for many nations other than France.
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Oof, forgot about him.

"Hey, let's put our paras in an exposed, undefendable strip of jungle, supplied only by air, then let's never clear any potential enemy AAA or even take and hold the nearby heights to protect ourselves."

The Vietnamese then set up AAA, took the heights and started mortaring the base, and no amount of supplies could get through because the planes got turned away by heavy flak or they got blown off course. Oh, and the Vietnamese bombing wrecked the runway the planes could land in. One Pentagon research paper put a large amount of the blame for the (French) loss of Vietnam on his shoulders.
 

Bougnas

Saint_007 said:
Oof, forgot about him.

"Hey, let's put our paras in an exposed, undefendable strip of jungle, supplied only by air, then let's never clear any potential enemy AAA or even take and hold the nearby heights to protect ourselves."

The Vietnamese then set up AAA, took the heights and started mortaring the base, and no amount of supplies could get through because the planes got turned away by heavy flak or they got blown off course. Oh, and the Vietnamese bombing wrecked the runway the planes could land in. One Pentagon research paper put a large amount of the blame for the (French) loss of Vietnam on his shoulders.
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Did I add that he launched the operation as France was preparing for a meeting to negotiate an honourable end of the war? It doesn't seem that anyone seriously warned him about that tho.
 

Saint_007

Bougnas said:
Did I add that he launched the operation as France was preparing for a meeting to negotiate an honourable end of the war? It doesn't seem that anyone seriously warned him about that tho.
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Really now? So not only was he off on some mad act of bravado, trying to cow the Viet Minh by a wild attempt at a "resounding victory", he also effectively sabotaged his country's negotiations and their political ammunition by not only showing the French clearly aren't serious about negotiating, they're also utter military idiots?

Great going there, Leeroy Jenkins.
 
SealTheRealDeal

SealTheRealDeal

Bougnas said:
Did I add that he launched the operation as France was preparing for a meeting to negotiate an honourable end of the war? It doesn't seem that anyone seriously warned him about that tho.
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Wasn't that the whole point, get another big win during the talks to strengthen France's hand?

He was trying to recreate the Battle of Na San, but he misjudged:
-the terrain (Na San was comparably flat, allowing France to bear its air power, artillery, and vehicular strength to its fullest)
-the difficulty in supplying a much larger force exclusively by air
-the extent to which the Viet Minh had improved in the two years between the two battles (they had no artillery at Na San, and the attack had been fairly poorly coordinated)
 

Jan Olbracht

I'd nominate Karol "Walter" Świerczewski, once again:

Jan Olbracht said:
Karol Świerczewski "man, who doesn't bow to the bullets". Veteran of Polish-Bolshevik war (when he fought on Bolshevik side against Poland) and Spanish Civil War (he fought on Republican side obviously. In Spain he became friend of Ernest Hemingway-I wonder how it is possible that Hemingway befriended such scum?) He was general in Red Army during ww2. In 1943 he was delegated to Polish People's Army. Świerczewski was drunk idiot and criminal. As he was drunk everyday it should not be surprise, that he was giving orders usually while being under influence of alcohol. In November 1941 he lost whole division on Eastern Front near Vyazma (out of 10 000 men from his division only 5 (five, not five thousands, just FIVE) remained after battle!). Generally, he cared very little about lives of his soldiers-he was also commander of Polish troops during Battle of Bautzen in 1945, when Poles suffered massive loses.
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SealTheRealDeal

SealTheRealDeal

Saint_007 said:
Really now? So not only was he off on some mad act of bravado, trying to cow the Viet Minh by a wild attempt at a "resounding victory", he also effectively sabotaged his country's negotiations and their political ammunition by not only showing the French clearly aren't serious about negotiating, they're also utter military idiots?

Great going there, Leeroy Jenkins.
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I mean, combat operations normally don't stop for high level negotiations (especially defensive actions). You kinda need to meet and agree on a ceasefire before you actually implement one...

Additionally, his intent was exactly in line with the president's instructions to create conditions which enable an "honorable political solution".
 
ThatRomanFanatic

ThatRomanFanatic

Cadorna for me. I have a book on World War One and it went into a lot of detail about Cadorna’s operations.

If I ever create a WW1 timeline, I‘d have him fired in the most painful way imaginable.
 

Captain Seafort

Probably not the worst, but somewhere on the list, is Wesley Clark. When someone has to be told "Sir, I won't start World War Three for you", there's something badly wrong with them.
 
Aghasverov

Aghasverov

Jan Olbracht said:
I'd nominate Karol "Walter" Świerczewski, once again:
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1) Any Pole who sided with the Bolsheviks thinking "well, life under the Russian Czars sucked, but hey, maybe it won't be so bad under these Russian Bolsheviks" needs to be considered highly suspect right from the beginning, and earns an instant demerit for fighting against Pilsudski; 2) Hemingway making friends with a drunken idiot Bolshevik-supporting Pole doesn't surprise me in the least :)
 

Saint_007

Catsmate said:
Does he count as a "general"?
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Technically, he seems to have been an administrator more than a commander, governing the SS as though they were his own personal fief. But it turns out he had command of the Berlin front for a few days/weeks towards the end.

I'd also like to commend "Air Marshall" Herman Goering, the man who wasted his best on the Battle of Britain and then kept insisting on harebrained schemes to show off the Luftwaffe and ended up achieving very little.
 
marathag

marathag

TxAggie said:
In the case of a commander like Douglas Haig, I don't know how you can call him a butcher when basically every option he had available to him was a poor one.
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Except the one option he rarely took, call off a failed 'Big Push' attack once it was obvious you're killing men for no good reason
 
marathag

marathag

Saint_007 said:
Really now? So not only was he off on some mad act of bravado, trying to cow the Viet Minh by a wild attempt at a "resounding victory", he also effectively sabotaged his country's negotiations and their political ammunition by not only showing the French clearly aren't serious about negotiating, they're also utter military idiots?

Great going there, Leeroy Jenkins.
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Repeat of the New Orleans campaign, had to come in with victory after the sad show from Lake Champlain to influence the slow moving peace talks at Ghent, that had been ongoing since August.
Only the Burning of Washington DC was a success , two defeats listed above, and whatever you want to call the attack into Maine was supposed to do.
 

edgeworthy

Courtney Hodges should get a special mention just for the Hürtgenwald.
Being generous he spent 5 months throwing troops at the most heavily fortified, worst terrain in North-West Europe. With no clear objective or purpose. (The official reasons have all the air of being justifications made up after the fact).
Precipitously abandoning his headquarters during the Bulge doesn't really look good either, especially as the Germans never got anywhere near it.
(Liaison Officers sent out by Montgomery reported finding classified material and maps left just lying around in the empty HQ)
 
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