Worst general of the 20th century

If we're going to include Stalin, Hitler certainly qualifies! He took personal command of German armies several times.

Paulus's big mistake was calling for orders-given the history of the war to that point he MUST have known Hitler would tell him to "hold or die". He should have withdrawn and offered a fait accompli. Of course he might have been shot anyway...
Paulus has the training where Hilter didn't. Thats why I went Paulus. Pailis knew full well whhat would happen to his army if he stayed. Hitleer was a fucking nobody when it came to commanding division or largers size units. Stalin did has some training in running a corp size or larger unit in the war between Poland and the Soviets in the early 20s.(Forger the name of that war) That why I went with Stalin.
 
Yes Patton ran out of supplies, usually after other commanders failed to get them to his army or he was cut off for things like Marketgarden. Yet he still got results in war. Remember the Battle of the Bulge? Patton was the only commander expecting it and his army was the first that could turn and counterattack.

First I'll say I in no way regard Patton as a bad general.

But there are two things I'd mention here.

One of the reasons Market Garden failed was that the whole of British 2nd Army was supposed to advance, not just XXX Corps. The other 2nd army formations couldn't advance because Patton, against orders (although with the tactic 'blind eye' support of Bradley) had continued his advance, both stretching the front and using scarce supplies. We can debate how advisable Patton's continued advance was, but it was against orders and one result was the failure of Market Garden.

Second, on who predicted the Battle of the Bulge: Patton thought that the Germans had created a significant force and planned a “strong spoiling attack” through the Ardennes, but none of the Allied commanders, including Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery, and Patton believed that the Germans would attempt a large scale counter-offensive.

Montgomery correctly predicted that the lack of unity of command in directing the entire mass of the Allied ground forces would lead to a situation similar to the Battle of the Bulge. Of course, he wanted the position, but he also offered to serve under Bradley.

As the Ardennes crisis developed, Montgomery assumed command of the American First and Ninth Armies (which, until then, were under Bradley's command). This operational change in command was approved by Eisenhower, as the northern armies had lost all communications with Bradley, who was based in Luxembourg.
On the same day as Hitler's withdrawal order, 7 January, Montgomery held a press conference at Zonhoven in which he said he had, "headed off ... seen off ... and ... written off" the Germans. "The battle has been the most interesting, I think possible one of the most tricky ... I have ever handled." Montgomery said he had "employed the whole available power of the British group of armies ... you thus have the picture of British troops fighting on both sides of the Americans who have suffered a hard blow.

British XXX Corps and Monty ride to the rescue again!

Well, no one (including Montgomery who said "I should never have held that press conference") thinks that that press conference was anything other than a disaster, but Montgomery did take command of two of the three Armies in Bradley’s 12th Army Group and four of the five Allied armies that fought in The Battle of the Bulge. Montgomery’s command was also the primary objective of the German plan, which aimed to capture Antwerp, cutting 21st Army Group off from its supplies and destroying it and he did succeed in stopping that from happening. So although his statements were extremely ill advised they were technically correct.

This article gives an interesting view of Montgomery's role in the Battle of the Bulge.
 
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Paulus has the training where Hilter didn't. Thats why I went Paulus. Pailis knew full well whhat would happen to his army if he stayed. Hitleer was a fucking nobody when it came to commanding division or largers size units. Stalin did has some training in running a corp size or larger unit in the war between Poland and the Soviets in the early 20s.(Forger the name of that war) That why I went with Stalin.

Paulus performance wasn't that bad. Before Stalingrad was cut-off he could not order an retreat as he would have been relieved immediately.
Afterwards he had at one time the opportunity to try an breakout. But that would have required to leave all heavy equipment and the wounded behind and advance 30 kilometers accros enemy controled territory. Success was by no means assured and a failure might have put the entire Southern front in danger.
The siege of Stalingrad on the other hand costed the Soviets a large amount of men (ten times as many as the Germans) and valuable time.
If it hadn't been for the long defense of Stalingrad the Soviet follow on offense afterwards might have been succesful (instead of one of their biggest defeats).

The bad smell that surrounds Paulus steems from his opportunist behavoir, switching from very loyal to Hitler to working with the Soviets in captivity.


Has Saddam been mentioned yet?
 
Dishonorable mention - Jalinsky who commanded the Russian northern army group during the assault on East Prussia in 1914. This jackass, sent his men forward without shoes, and mobile field kitchens, because he refused to wait for mobilization to complete. He also recklessly ordered Samsonov forward, even after his flanks where completely in the air, even after he was already partially encircled. A reckless, foolish tool of a commander

It was these (admittedly badly organised and executed) rapid attacks on East Prussia that spooked the Germans enough to force them to redeploy valuable divisions from the Schlieffen Plan hook into France. While bad for the Russians these attacks definitely helped out (or even saved) the Western Allies. Haven't read through the other seven pages so sorry if this has been bought up..
 
It was these (admittedly badly organised and executed) rapid attacks on East Prussia that spooked the Germans enough to force them to redeploy valuable divisions from the Schlieffen Plan hook into France. While bad for the Russians these attacks definitely helped out (or even saved) the Western Allies. Haven't read through the other seven pages so sorry if this has been bought up..


It was,

my response was that you win your own war first, THEN you worry about helping your allies. Jalinksy was defeated before the 2 corps even came to the 8th army anyway... he was just patently reckless... a competent Russian commander like Brusilov could have waited the extra ten days so the men had boots (they are advancing on foot after all) and food and then used the massive Russian numerical advantage to steamroll the Germans and drive on Berlin
 
It was,

my response was that you win your own war first, THEN you worry about helping your allies


I was the first to mention this.

Although I aggree that the Russian attack was organized and executed poorly I do not aggree with the statement above.

The Russians could not win their own war first. They were not fighting their own war. If France had fallen Russia had been doomed. That was the hole reason for the alliance between republican, liberal, mansonic France and monarchist, oppressive, "true believer" Russia: None of them had a chance alone.

Sometimes you have to do something that is stupid from your point of view for the benefit of the team.
It doesn't matter that he was defeated before the two corps arrived (nobody says he was a good battlefield commander) important is that they could not participate in the battle at the Marne.

... And I doubt that the Russians could have steamrolled to Berlin. They had only two armies (against one German), the fortresses of Königsberg, Danzig, Posen and Thorn and two major rivers on their wa,y would have had to advance on foot and, most important: the Germans had the advantage of interior line (and their very good rail system) they could have scrambled an army together to stop the Russians at hte Oder.
Best Case for Russia: German army destroyed, East Prussia taken.

This borders on the Montgomery vs. Patton controversy that has raged acros this board for countless times:
Bold, risk-taking commanders (Patton, Churchill, Blücher, ...) do, by the very nature of risks, sometimes screw up big.

Careful, elaborate planners (Mc Cellan, Montogomery, Schwarzenberg) do often miss the critical moment.

Really good generals (Napoleon, Moltke, Mannstein, Lee, ...) can ballance both.
 
Mark Clark-bag o sh*te....
Patton self aggrandising s.o.b.
Macarthur- ditto plus lots more besides incl meglomaniacal tendencies
Adolf
Stalin

oh and Elphinstone (1st Afghan War)
 
I was the first to mention this.

Although I aggree that the Russian attack was organized and executed poorly I do not aggree with the statement above.

The Russians could not win their own war first. They were not fighting their own war. If France had fallen Russia had been doomed. That was the hole reason for the alliance between republican, liberal, mansonic France and monarchist, oppressive, "true believer" Russia: None of them had a chance alone.

Sometimes you have to do something that is stupid from your point of view for the benefit of the team.
It doesn't matter that he was defeated before the two corps arrived (nobody says he was a good battlefield commander) important is that they could not participate in the battle at the Marne.

... And I doubt that the Russians could have steamrolled to Berlin. They had only two armies (against one German), the fortresses of Königsberg, Danzig, Posen and Thorn and two major rivers on their wa,y would have had to advance on foot and, most important: the Germans had the advantage of interior line (and their very good rail system) they could have scrambled an army together to stop the Russians at hte Oder.
Best Case for Russia: German army destroyed, East Prussia taken.

This borders on the Montgomery vs. Patton controversy that has raged acros this board for countless times:
Bold, risk-taking commanders (Patton, Churchill, Blücher, ...) do, by the very nature of risks, sometimes screw up big.

Careful, elaborate planners (Mc Cellan, Montogomery, Schwarzenberg) do often miss the critical moment.

Really good generals (Napoleon, Moltke, Mannstein, Lee, ...) can ballance both.


It wasn't executed poorly, it was executed with insanity, how can you send men to the front in bare feet (advancing through woodlands no less) with no food. How can you order a full field army to advance when their commander detects a massive presence on both flanks (which are in the air) how can you order a full field army to advance when they are already partially encircled and their supply lines are totally in jeopardy

the german 8th army only had 130k men... the russian northern army group outnumbered them (assuming they actually finished mobilization) by more than 2.5 to 1 so even if the extra corps appear the russians would still have massive numerical superiority and their troops wouldn't be ripe pickings due to suffering from massive exhaustion and crippled feat

given how reckless francois and some of the other associated knuckleheads in the 8th army where, a competent commander on waiting for full mobilization could have burst right through
 
Surprised you didn't mention Haig. I don't know what was more stupid, the fact he told them to walk to the Germans or the fact he did this bullshit for four years.

In reality, Haig wasn't really that bad or old-school. For one, he was an avid supporter of tanks, once they were deployed on the battlefield and showed surprisingly good results.

But contributing to the botching of the Somme and Paschendale campaign to such a great degree really was and is inexcusable. I can understand his infamy because of it, but he wasn't the worst British commander by far.
 
In reality, Haig wasn't really that bad or old-school. For one, he was an avid supporter of tanks, once they were deployed on the battlefield and showed surprisingly good results.

But contributing to the botching of the Somme and Paschendale campaign to such a great degree really was and is inexcusable. I can understand his infamy because of it, but he wasn't the worst British commander by far.

Niel Ritchie was worse than Haig, a lot worse
 
My own top three (US only):

Very worst: Douglas MacArthur. In addition to his other failings, I don't think anyone has yet mentioned here his distrust and abuse of allied troops (ANZAC) under his command during the S. Pacific campaign. I'm also surprised to see him get credit for Inchon; it would have been the height of stupidity NOT to throw an amphibious assault into the enemy rear given the four years the US had spent honing its amphibious doctrine and equipment just a few years beforehand. "Hey, I wonder what we have this Marine Corps thingy for. And all those ships with the funny hull codes. What's with them?"

2nd worst: Lloyd Fredendall. I don't think anyone really debates the fact that he was a bad general. Wasting precious engineers to build yourself a massive bunker out of artillery range of the front lines and ignoring your unit commanders while fiddling with their troops... I wouldn't have blamed anyone in his chain of command if he'd been shot instead of 'transferred.'

3rd worst: Lesley McNair. The individual replacement system, tank destroyers, the M4 vs. M26 choice... OK, I don't have anything against him as a battlefield general, but he made the battles of WWII a lot bloodier for the US Army than they needed to be.

Dishonorable mention: Marcus Licinius Crassus. Fine, he's very much pre-1900. He still belongs on ANY list of the worst generals ever.
 
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