Keep up with the world without stopping yours. Westmoreland is often described as a Boy Scout, usually implying, it appears, that he was well-intentioned but nave. Ultimately, he was denied his final showdown with the Allies by German political leaders who realized that the Americans could produce soldiers faster than Germany could produce bullets. Innumerable battlefield commanders have had disastrous days at the office. Horacio Gates of the American Revolution was pretty bad. The 1970s were scary times. 1968 takes the cake for me. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. 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. A former British officer, Gates rose to fame as Continental Army commander during the momentous American defeat of a British army at Saratoga in 1777. Is your subtitle The General Who Lost Vietnam fair? Despite reports of the build-up of German forces and even knowing the date of the Germans attack, Gamelin did nothing, stating that he would await events. 92. At Brownstown, south of Detroit, two dozen warriors under Tecumseh routed more than 200 American militiamen escorting a supply column intended for Detroit. Best Defense: He denied senior civilian officials accurate data on enemy strength and composition, during development of a 1967 Special National Intelligence Estimate imposing a ceiling on the number of enemy forces his intelligence officers could report or agree to and personally removing from the order of battle entire categories that had long been included, thus falsely portraying progress in reducing enemy strength. 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. Explore the benefits included in your subscription. The last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, Darius was not quite as qualified to rule a mighty empire as his predecessors were. Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. There is no Carthage. Tom Ricks, on his "Best Defense" blog has discussed the top 10 worst generals in U.S. history. It was a humiliating baptism of fire for the U.S. Army in Europe, and more important, caused British commanders to dismiss their Yank allies as amateur soldiers for the rest of the war. Although he managed to escape the battle unharmed, Caepio was stripped of his Roman citizenship and exiled. Mexican general Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna probably wished that everyone really did remember the Alamo, because: (1) he actually did win that battle (he outnumbered his opponents between 10- and 30-to-1); and (2) during the 13-day siege, he somehow resisted the urge to betray all his allegiances and change sides. In 1941, Graziani resigned his commission after the British counterattacked and the Tenth Army was completely defeated during Operation Compass. The Texans only suffered 2 casualties, as opposed to hundreds of Mexican casualties. Varus himself, seeing all hope was lost, committed suicide. They dramatically upped their game, pressing the U.S. worldwide. The enemy did not lose heart, did not cease aggression. His war of attrition, search and destroy tactics, and emphasis on body count did nothing to affect the war in the hamlets and villages of South Vietnam, where the enemys covert infrastructure was left free to continue using coercion and terror to dominate the rural populace. 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. Even a string of bad days does not guarantee entry. Approaching his 60th birthday and exhibiting a timidity that had no place in a general about to lead an invasion, Hull also had the misfortune of facing two of the most gifted commanders ever to operate in North America. While there are plenty of books that analyze the keys to success, The Worst Military Leaders in History offers lessons of failure to avoid. Rommel is by far the greatest military general of the . bar is to mention Vietnam. And what then? Perhaps Mao would have intervened anyway. But the award for the biggest Persian loser goes to Darius III. Darius was a different sort of game-changer. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. The Biden administration has passed landmark legislations such as theInflation Reduction Act(IRA) and theCHIPS and Science Act, which provide subsidies in clean energy and semiconductoShow morers worth well over $400 billion. Pierre de Villeneuve had his first brush with history when he bravely ran away at the Battle of the Nile. (You May Also Like: 5 Israeli Weapons of War ISIS Should Fear). Hannibal. When the War of 1812 began, Hull was commissioned a brigadier general and tasked with defending Michigan and invading Upper Canada. Fighter Aircraft of All Time). George Brinton McClellan, a self-proclaimed Young Napoleon, ran dreadful campaigns, but he doesnt make the grade because he was canned before he could lose the entire war. McClellan was a proto-Douglas MacArthur who bad-mouthed his president and commander-in-chief. But his crowning achievement was bad generalship in Korea. Villeneuve lost 20 ships, while Nelson lost none. The problem begins with the fact that nobody in the chain of command was really competent to critique Westmorelands performance. Caepio may have been a terrible general, but he was apparently an exceptional thief. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. We ended up, he said, with no operational plan that had the slightest chance of ending the war favorably. Westmoreland could not or would not ever bring himself to acknowledge that reality. Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders, we are presenting this list of the worst. What will another year of war look like? But Gates could have doomed the American Revolution. Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight. 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. Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson put one forth in the PROVN Study, a Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of Vietnam. That document held that Westmorelands approach was not working and could not work because it ignored the real war in South Vietnams hamlets and villages, where the covert enemy infrastructure was through coercion and terror dominating the rural populace. Where is Carthage you ask? He first demonstrated his ineptitude during the Mexican-American War, where he had received an appointment to the rank of major general from his friend Pres. The Germanic fighters demolished the three Roman legions. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, consult individual encyclopedia entries about the topics. But its not just the United States. Dispatched to India, he led campaigns to help subdue the subcontinent, replacing the crown jewel he had lost. After occupying Jerusalem and crucifying 2,000 Jewish rebels in Judaea, Varus went off to govern Germania and tame barbarian tribes. His battlefield losses marked the end of the Persian Empire. 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. 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. Varus was stationed with three of his legions, the 17th, 18th and 19th when news arrived of a revolt growing in the Rhine area. While there is much to criticize LBJ for in his conduct of the war, one cannot help having some sympathy for the dilemma posed by the often wildly conflicting advice he was getting from his senior aides and advisors, including those in uniform. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. What does that mean for trade and globalization? He effectively pledged to become an agent for the U.S. but found that he had been deposed upon his return to Mexico. Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) 24. Hull was taken prisoner by the British and was court-martialed upon his return to the United States. Listing MacArthur as one of America's worst generals will be controversial. These are the incompetents, the idiots, the bumblers who have represented armies or nations at war only to lead them to defeat or shame. Without question, many lives would be saved if their tactical professionalism were enhanced.. 10. But for whatever reason, some American commanders have lost the battle for history. Villeneuve was then to return in secret and help establish naval dominance of the English Channel in preparation for a land invasion of Britain. Grachev has also been linked to corruption among the higher ranks of the military, specifically the assassination of journalist Dmitry Kholodov. In the opening month of World War I, Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg scored a crushing victory over the Russians at Tannenberg. Even now, the easiest way to get into an argument at a V.F.W. Thus there was little internal capacity for debating or evaluating his chosen course of action. Its prewar population was reduced by more than half, and perhaps 90 percent of Paraguays fighting-age men perished. General Wheeler was often just flat wrong in what he told the President. 6. - 4 Worst: 1990 Cleveland Cavaliers. 3. Thus it was under Darius rule that the Persian Empire fell and was conquered. The Roman Empire has a long, proud tradition of producing some of the finest generals in human history- and just as many of the worst. After achieving moderate success in Libya and Ethiopia, the Butcher of Ethiopia became Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Royal Armys General Staff and of Italian North Africa at the start of World War II. As Lincoln well knew, the only way the Union could lose the war was if the North eventually grew tired and agreed to allow the South to secede. Seriously, who represents The British Empire; had the worlds greatest navy, enough cash to hire half the mercenaries of Europe, and the advantage of having a pretty pathetic-looking foe: a rag-tag army of ill-equipped rebels. General Harold K. Johnson was an authentic battlefield hero, and as noted above was fundamentally at odds with Westmorelands approach, but he was not in the chain of command. Along with Communist China and other Communist movements in the region, who were fighting to reunite the Vietnams under the red banner, there were other belligerent, free countries in the region who had an interest in keeping South Vietnam away from the Commies. By the way, here is the first review I have seen of Sorleys new biography of Westmoreland, which I read in galleys last summer, and enjoyed. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved, as Continental Army commander during the momentous American defeat of a British army at Saratoga in 1777, The Five Best U.S. Find Paraguay on a map of South America. After making a laughingstock of himself by ordering his men to entrench on the wrong side of fortifications at Camargo, Pillow bungled his role at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, making himself the low point of a resounding American victory. A more positive example is George Washington. NEW FOR SUBSCRIBERS: His forces outnumbered Alexanders men by at least a 2 to 1 ratio, but Darius was still outflanked, defeated and forced to flee. Xi Jinpings signature foreign policy is a shadow of its former self.. Known as Reverse Buller by his troops during the Second Boer War, the Englishman was first defeated at the Battle of Colenso and subsequently lost his position as overall commander. It doesnt matter if theyve won more often than theyve lost. But all that remains of his would-be empire today is a flaky French pastry. 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 called the "inevitable general." A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. A very significant instance was his determination to arbitrarily hold down the estimate of enemy strength during a 1967 order of battle controversy. By Lewis Sorley Best Defense Saigon bureau chief. Gamelin also chose not to disperse Frances vast number of superior tanks. When major U.S. ground force deployments were under consideration in July 1965, for example, LBJ worried that North Vietnam would respond by pouring in more men of its own. Ulysses S. Grant made his Civil War debut at the Battle of Belmont against Confederate Gen. Gideon Pillow. Only FP subscribers can submit questions for FP Live interviews. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. A more minor case, but one revealing of Westmorelands character, stemmed from his unwillingness to level with his senior Marine subordinate at the time of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Grant had encircled the fort. Instead the enemy proved willing to absorb horrifying losses and keep fighting. Youre on the list! Still, it is his world-changing defeat at Yorktown that merits memorializing. What is the standard of shame for induction? In his single-minded pursuit of that objective, Westmoreland (despite his repeated claims to the contrary) essentially ignored two other crucial aspects of the war, improvement of South Vietnams armed forces and pacification. 10 Redvers Buller Click + to receive email alerts when new stories are published on. Download the new FP mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. 7. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Fort Bragg was named in 1918 during the Jim Crow era. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? What a Lovely War and then in the 1989 television comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth. Thats the point. Pillow suffered slightly more casualties than Grant in the engagement, which possibly makes the Battle of Belmont the high point of Pillows military career. Michael Peck is a contributing writer at Foreign Policy and a writer for War Is Boring. As for the British, they had lost the most valuable jewel of the Imperial crown. Ulysses S. Grant, who replaced McClellan, understood this. Many of the charges leveled against him have also been laid at the feet of . 9 Noteworthy Bog Bodies (And What They Tell Us), 12 Novels Considered the Greatest Book Ever Written, Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution, https://www.britannica.com/list/9-worst-generals-in-history. The resulting Peninsular Campaign (AprilJuly 1862) was a marvel of planning but something of a farce in execution. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. James K. Polk. 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. FPs Ravi Agrawal spoke with two of the very best Russia experts:Angela Stent, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author ofPutins World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, and Michael Kofman, the research program director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses. Create an FP account to save articles to read later and in the FP mobile app. Santa Anna would lose Texas at the Battle of San Jacinto. Nelsons victory at the Battle of Trafalgar was so complete that it established British supremacy on the high seas for more than a century. McClellan was a superb organizer, a West Point-trained engineer who did much to build the Union army almost from scratch. Grant left politics to the politicians and did what had to be done. Had Lincoln retained McClellan in command of the Union armies, many former Americans might still be whistling "Dixie.". Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. 151. The next major British offensive came at Passchendaele (July 31November 6, 1917), where Haig lost another 275,000 troops in a battle whose name became synonymous with pointless slaughter. That may have been true in the east (the worst of the Union generals in that theater rates his own entry on this list), but in the west it was a much different affair. The pandemics outbreak brought rare reporting freedoms. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. - 3 Best: 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. For its part, Washington has made a series of policy choices over the last few years that can be summed Show moreup as tough on Beijing, even seeking to contain the rise of the worlds second-biggest economy. 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. Top 10 Most Underrated Military Generals. In reality, it is a collection of ideas, images, and information that enough people have chosen to preserve and disseminate. Elmo Zumwalt was a U.S. admiral and commander of American naval forces in Vietnam. 1. 336 pages | 16 halftones | 6 1/4 x 9 1/4. 4. Most younger officers who worked around General Westmoreland, excepting only a very few among his many aides-de-camp or executive officers and the like, had no personal relationship with this difficult and distant man. 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. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln. Darius family would be captured and even lost the Battle of Gaugamela, where so many factors were in his favor. McClellan and Burnside in particular. When the Germans shattered his troops and his reputation at Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in early 1943, Fredendall was only a major general and a corps commander. World War I provided a forum for any number of truly horrible commanders to assert themselves. 2. Others were experienced military men who should have known better than to take the risks they took - or not take the risks they should have. Only recently have those in the defense and military complex begun to look at how we rate generals. Yes, eminently. 1. Grachev publicly promised to swiftly crush the Chechen separatist forces in a couple of hours with a single airborne regiment. He led the disastrous storming of Grozny while drunk after celebrating his birthday on January 1st. After only 10 weeks into the Pacific War, Percival became responsible for the largest surrender of British-led forces in history. He was called the inevitable general. A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. 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. Concurrently with hi. Despite fresh salvos of Western sanctions, Tehran and Moscow are buddying up on defense ties. Haste risked casualties and defeats at the hands of a formidable opponent like Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. A Brief History. While Muammer Al-Gaddafi isn't into the funny business in his politician reign, he most certainly is one of a highly egotistical leader and a member who represents more of the "self" rather than all else. General and presidential candidate Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964) at his headquarters in Yokohama, Japan with US Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright (1883 - 1953) (right), and British Lieutenant-General A E Percival (1887 - 1966) (left) who were taken prisoner by the Japanese after the US retreat in the Bataan peninsula and released in 1945. Follow him on Twitter:@Mipeck1. 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. There are issues around killing and counting unarmed civilians (non-combatants) as enemy combatants, as well as inflating the number of actual enemy who were killed in action (KIA).For search and destroy operations, as the objective was not to . But there was something that not even the factories of New York and Chicago could produce, and that was time. Lpez, possibly in a fit of madness, ordered the execution of hundreds of people, including some of his own family members. rs worth well over $400 billion. And he was able to inflict massive casualties on the enemy. T he Civil War was America's bloodiest conflict. All rights reserved. Alas, as a historian, he passed on the opportunity to answer Battlelands questions about what Vietnam should teach us about Afghanistan, and who, if anyone, is todays Westmoreland, during our email chat earlier this week: Whats the most important thing you learned writing Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam? The Romans marched right into the ambush that Arminius laid thus leading to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. 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 . When two able and progressive Nationalist generals, Pai Chunghsi and Li Tsung-jen, begged the generalissimo to adopt similar methods, Chiang rejected them outright. Not later than the autumn of 1966 the leaders of both services involved in fighting the ground war in VietnamArmy Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson and Marine Commandant General. How does an admiral make a list of the worst generals? There were available better concepts of how to prosecute the war. Panama (1989) 2. The inept Luigi Cadorna of Italy fought a dozen battles on the Isonzo before his army completely collapsed at Caporetto. His invasion of Canada came to an abrupt halt when he failed to capture Fort Malden, a British position that was a laughably short distance from Hulls headquarters at Fort Detroit. He deprived the South Vietnamese of modern weaponry, giving U.S. and other allied forces priority for issue of the new M-16 rifle and other advanced military wherewithal. To say that he failed in both regards is to dramatically understate the case. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam employs repressive policies that often contravene international human rights law. Hundreds of thousands died of disease. Military greatness can most easily be defined by comparison. Others would say that it is not victory, but success in fulfilling a mission that counts. Delivered Friday. In order, from most culpable down. The world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. What is a bad general? And the number one reason why Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam: With his unavailing approach to conduct of the war he squandered four years of support by much of the American people, the Congress, and even the media. Stay updated on the topics you care about with email alerts. Westmorelands own book about himself gives some indication of how he would react to this more recent one. This was heeded about as well as any piece of parental advice, anywhere ever. Click + to receive email alerts when new stories are published on However, not even they managed to get themselves court-martialed and sentenced to death for ineptitude on the battlefield. The Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial LectureThomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Alexander went on to march halfway across Asia, creating an empire, albeit short-lived, that changed the history of three continentsnot bad for an ancient millennial. (You May Also Like: The Five Best U.S. How theyve practiced the art of war is immaterial, too.