Haste risked casualties and defeats at the hands of a formidable opponent like Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. All related (37) Sort Recommended Doug Szabo Author has 972 answers and 137.7K answer views Nov 27 My vote goes to adm Otto Zumwalt. Concurrently with hi. The premise was that, if he could kill enough of the enemy, they would lose heart and cease their aggression against the South Vietnamese. The Soviets saw the American humiliation in Vietnam as a turning point. Download the new FP mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. The Romans marched right into the ambush that Arminius laid thus leading to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Join FPs Ravi Agrawal for a frank discussion about the Biden administrations China policy and alternatives that it ought to consider. To that Hollings responded, "Westy, the American people don't care about the ten. In 1941, Graziani resigned his commission after the British counterattacked and the Tenth Army was completely defeated during Operation Compass. Weekly update on whats driving U.S. national security policy. 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 . Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. The unprecedented violence of battles such as Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, and Gettysburg shocked citizens and international observers alike. 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. Sun Wu Sun Zi, or Sun Tzu, was a prominent military general during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) who is always regarded as one of the greatest military strategists in China and even the World. Yes, the landing at Inchon unhinged the initial North Korean offensive. The 1970s were scary times. Instead of sweeping around the French defenses in a massive flanking movement, the Germans were checked at the First Battle of the Marne. Villeneuve was then to return in secret and help establish naval dominance of the English Channel in preparation for a land invasion of Britain. 1 Erwin Rommel Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel, popularly known as the Desert Fox, was a German field marshal of World War II. Outstanding commanders such as George H. Thomas, Phil Sheridan, and William Tecumseh Sherman routinely bested their Confederate opponents. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Caepio may have been a terrible general, but he was apparently an exceptional thief. 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. Innumerable battlefield commanders have had disastrous days at the office. This piece originally appeared in The National Interest https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/6-worst-military-leaders-ever-167526. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent. 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 1970s were scary times. He overestimated the American peoples patience and tolerance of friendly losses. Lee demonstrated an immediate grasp of McClellans demeanor, and, during the Seven Days Battles (June 25July 1, 1862), Lee drove back the Union armies from Richmonds doorstep. Rommel is by far the greatest military general of the . A monthly digest of the top articles read by FP subscribers. But MacArthur's strategy certainly helped unleash 300,000 Chinese "volunteers" who inflicted significant casualties on United Nations forces. Registration for summer courses begins March 18, 2023 and ends June 7, 2023. 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. There is no Carthage. See the vast swaths of land to the north and south that arent Paraguay? Still, he choked in the big game. It doesnt matter if theyve won more often than theyve lost. Fort Bragg was named in 1918 during the Jim Crow era. bar is to mention Vietnam. There appeared to be little serious planning for what would happen the day after Saddam was gone. What will another year of war look like? The British gained control of the fort, dozens of cannons, the brig USS Adams (recommissioned the HMS Detroit), and virtually the entire Michigan Territory. As a military commander, Napoleon may have thebest batting averageof all time. While there were a host of bad generals serving on both sides during the American Civil Warmostly on the Union side unfortunatelythe one that usually gets the most credit for dragging out the war as long as he did is Union General George McClellan. He called for bombing China, as if liberating Korea was worth risking 550 million Chinese and possibly war with Russia as well. Jacob Zuma is a cherry on the top of the world's worst leader cake. Operational Culture General Training LREC SME Support Training Course Catalog Cognitive Dimension Training Additional Resources . Gods and Generals (2003) Loss $61 million These are actually Civil War reenactors and probably the only people who paid to see the movie. Although Nelson was killed in combat at Trafalgar, Villeneuve outlived him only by six months. Wrote Kevin Buckley in a scathing review, From the beginning Westmoreland probably expected to write a memoir of victory similar to Crusade in Europeand the defeat in Vietnam has not deterred him from this.. He decided to conduct of a war of attrition, using search and destroy tactics, in which the measure of merit was body count. Darius was a different sort of game-changer. 10. Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced his fateful decision to double the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam. Informed that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and were certain to attack the Philippines next, MacArthur failed to disperse his aircraftthe only force that could disrupt the Japanese offensive in the absence of the American fleetand to attack Japanese airfields before the enemy wiped out his air force. 2. Thus, on July 1, 1916, Haig ordered his men to go over the top at the First Battle of the Somme, and 20,000 of them had the audacity to die almost immediately (there were 60,000 total British casualties on the first day of the attack). Not only is Sorley a third-generation graduate of West Point a Vietnam veteran and a historian, but he worked for Westmoreland as well. If Gates had been in command, we might be paying for our groceries with shillings and pence. Russias war is receiving critical assistance from authoritarian regimes around the world. The enemy did not lose heart, did not cease aggression. Some 15,000 talents of gold (the so-called Gold of Tolosa) had vanished under his watch, never to be recovered. On the night of August 15, 1812, Tecumseh led his forces across the Detroit River, and Brock followed the next morning. Hull responded by ordering the evacuation of Fort Dearborn, and the garrison was promptly massacred by a Potawatomi war band upon leaving the fort. James K. Polk upon the outbreak of war between Mexico and the U.S. and offered to become an agent for the U.S. (again). While serving in Vietnam . James Madison spared him from execution. Delivered Wednesday & Sunday. 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. These American commanders have lost the battle for history. 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. 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. Westmoreland was on a treadmill. Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air. Keep up with the world without stopping yours. Is the Biden administrations China policy too hawkish? - 1 Best: 1996 Chicago Bulls. He effectively pledged to become an agent for the U.S. but found that he had been deposed upon his return to Mexico. On a visit to Vietnam Senator Hollings from Westmorelands home state of South Carolina was told by Westmoreland: Were killing these people, the enemy, at a ratio of 10 to 1. Said Hollings, Westy, the American people dont care about the ten. The 5 Worst Generals in U.S. History. Follow him on Twitter:@Mipeck1. Thus there was little internal capacity for debating or evaluating his chosen course of action. The self proclaimed Napoleon of the West didnt quite leave the same legacy as his idol. He graduated second in his class at West Point (well ahead of classmates Stonewall Jackson, George H. Gordon, and George Pickett). Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders, we are presenting this list of the worst. Sure, he was the greatest commander of the Second Punic War, a titanic contest between Carthage and Rome. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. But with that kind of advantage in troops and firepower, who wouldnt? Some would say that failure on the battlefield warrants censure. It would be nice if all American generals were great. Having amassed roughly twice as many losses in a single day as Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, had suffered during the entire Peninsular War, Haig saw no reason to change tactics. General William Childs Westmoreland (1914- 2005) with President Johnson in South Vietnam #1. Todays list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam, Want to read more on this topic or region? Thus, almost by default, Westmoreland was left to go his own way, year after bloody year. A curated selection of our very best long reads. HANOI, VIETNAMForty years ago, on April 30, 1975, Nguyen Dang Phat experienced the happiest day of his life . Ulysses S. Grant made his Civil War debut at the Battle of Belmont against Confederate Gen. Gideon Pillow. But the inducements encourage U.S. companies to invest only at homenot elsewhere. The man who appealed for Varus help was Arminius, a Romanized Germanic prince. 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 . Sure, he won big at the Alamo. The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week. He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. In the end, the Romans leveled Carthage and salted the earth. By December 1864 Paraguay was at war with Brazil, and, when Argentina denied a request for the transit of a Paraguayan army across its territory, Lpez declared war on that country as well. (You May Also Like: The Five Best Generals in U.S. History). Delivered Wednesday. The deplorable conduct of Charles Lee at the Battle of Monmouth has been immortalized by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Benedict Arnolds name is synonymous with traitorous behavior. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. The loss of Fort Donelson opened the door to Kentucky and Tennessee to Union forces and marked the beginning of the end of Confederate resistance in the west. This is, obviously, a problematic quality when ones title is general-in-chief of the entire Union army. 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. This proved possible only with enemy cooperation, since they could break contact and limit casualties as they wished by withdrawing into sanctuaries across the border. Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future. Its prewar population was reduced by more than half, and perhaps 90 percent of Paraguays fighting-age men perished. 88,594. Explore the benefits of your FP subscription. And what then? Men and material the Union could provide its armies. He was uninterested in other viewpoints on how the war might be prosecuted, dismissing the PROVN Study sponsored by Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson (which concluded that Westmorelands way of war was not working and could not work) and basic disagreements with Westmorelands organization and approach voiced by his brilliant classmate General Bruce Palmer Jr. 7. Where is Carthage you ask? Considering some militants as instruments of regional influence while fighting others has had disastrous consequences. Defining that is like defining a bad meal. Somalia (1992-1994) 2. There's an entire myriad of generals from the American Civil War that fought for the Union that were incredibly inept. Along with Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Montgomery is the most celebrated of British generals and had the ego to match, or even exceed, his reputation. rs worth well over $400 billion. Although Westmoreland denied it, he imposed a ceiling on the reported number of enemy by instructing his intelligence officers to adhere to a command position of not more than 300,000, even though newly acquired and more accurate data developed in his own headquarters then indicated a much higher figure. So unused to being challenged, the United States has become so filled with anxiety over China that sober responses are becoming nearly impossible. A common view holds that 138,708 Allied personnel surrendered or were killed by fewer than 30,000 Japanese. Woefully inexperienced U.S. soldiers found themselves against Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps veterans. To say that he failed in both regards is to dramatically understate the case. Westmoreland told him, "We're killing these people at a ratio of 10 to 1.". There are a number of contenders for the top places on such a roster. 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. General Westmorelands close associate, General William DePuy, later admitted the futility of the Westmoreland way of war.
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