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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Jun 5, 2021 6:32:07 GMT
What say the multitudes that post here? One proviso, has to be a bad general with a bad body of work. George Custer shouldn't be nominated because he had one bad afternoon in southern Montana in 1876. Napoleon had bad days, Lee had bad days, Zhukov had bad days.
My candidate
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón. Santa Anna, hisself. He did win one battle, the Alamo. A battle he never should have fought. Then he camped his army in a friggin swamp at San Jacinto and wondered why he was captured. He pretty much lost Texas single handedly for Mexico. Then, for some unfathomable reason, Mexico brought him back for he Mexican-American War. Despite all of Europe (including the Duke of Wellington) putting their money on Mexico, he lost every battle and lost Mexico. He even lost his wooden leg at Cerro Gordo. Impressive!
Honorable mention, Major General Alexander M. McCook in the US Civil War. He led a corps in three battles, Perryville, Stone's River and Chickamauga. And, in each battle, his corps was run off the field, McCook with it. One of his subordinates, John Beatty, called his "a chucklehead"
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Jun 5, 2021 9:26:11 GMT
Lloyd Fredendall Braxton Bragg Quintus Servilius Caepio Francisco Solano López Douglas Haig George McClellan
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Jun 5, 2021 18:41:55 GMT
Lloyd Fredendall Braxton Bragg Quintus Servilius Caepio Francisco Solano López Douglas Haig George McClellan Fredenhall fought one battle, Kasserine. He was a doofus. John Lucas also. He sat at Anzio when there was no Germans to prevent him from taking the Gothic Line in reverse.
Bragg could fight a battle, he just couldn't finish. And his Kentucky Invasion prolonged the Western Theater War for a year. Buell's army would have taken Chattanooga in the fall of 1862 instead of 1863, making the invasion of Georgia in 1863
Haig is so polarizing
McClellan is the most confusing (for lack of a better team). He did build The Army of the Potomac. He did take the Army to the gates of Richmond and, if Lincoln hadn't withheld reinforcements, he probably would have taken it in the summer of '62. But his overestimation of the Rebel forces defy logic. He had to know how difficult it was to keep his army on 100,000+ supplied. How could Joe Johnston feed an army of 200,000. And his conduct in the Second Manassas campaign was treason. He said "John Pope got himself into this mess, let John Pope get himself out of it.". The odd thing, they asked Robert Lee who was the best general he faced and he said "McClellan, by all odds".
Could add Maurice Gamelin. He sat in his Ivory Tower at Vincennes and did nothing while the Germans ripped his lines to shreds. I'm not sure if anyone could have reacted effectively. Not with few armored divisions and the Luftwaffe ruling the skies.
And Redvers Buller. He let the Boers run roughshod over him. Spion Kop and Colenso are almost comic in their ineptness.
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Post by SuperDevilDoctor on Aug 14, 2021 1:26:49 GMT
Rodolfo Graziani... Incompetent and brutal.
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Post by politicidal on Aug 14, 2021 14:11:59 GMT
Gideon Pillow.
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Post by bravomailer on Aug 15, 2021 15:55:19 GMT
The commander of the Afghan National Army.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Aug 30, 2021 1:07:45 GMT
Pillow beat feet before the Rebels surrendered at Fort Donelson. Grant said if Pillow has been captured, he would have let him go because he did more for the Union cause by commanding Confederate troops
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Aug 30, 2021 1:12:51 GMT
Rodolfo Graziani... Incompetent and brutal. Nice hat
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Post by truecristian on Oct 9, 2021 2:17:33 GMT
Rommel lost battle al Aleiman quintilius varus lost cannea
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 9, 2021 8:45:50 GMT
Conrad von Hotzendorf
For decades after WW1 he was actually considered to be a military genius, but since the 1960s it has been reveled that he was actually a vain, incompetent and useless general who did not know what he was doing. But there are still people who mistakenly thinks he was a good general.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Oct 9, 2021 19:20:00 GMT
Lee and all the Confederate generals who signed on. If our American military could not uphold the original oath they swore to a God those men dared not disbelieve in, then fuck their military prowess. Such men are no good to me. And Custer was a rotten general. To kill two birds...
Braxton Bragg was a rotten battlefield general. Perryville was a clusterfuck. Anyone could have done better. He came within an eyelash of routing Rosecrans at Stone's River on the first day. On the 2nd, he butchered a whole division charging a line with 42 artillery pieces lined hub to hub. Won a great victory at Chickamauga but refused to follow up. And at Chattanooga, he go run off positions that a baseball team could have held. But, his invasion of Kentucky prolonged the war for a year.
George Custer, in the Civil War, was the best battlefield cavalry commander of the war. Leading horse soldiers on a battlefield, he was superior to Forrest, Stuart, Morgan all of them. He never lost a battle until he got to the banks of the Greasy Grass. I think he was a victim of his own successes. And his battle plan for the Little Big Horn might have worked if he and Reno could have attacked at the same time. I still think, at the end, he knew he was fucked but attacked to save Reno and Benteen's men.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Oct 10, 2021 8:52:03 GMT
To kill two birds...
Braxton Bragg was a rotten battlefield general. Perryville was a clusterfuck. Anyone could have done better. He came within an eyelash of routing Rosecrans at Stone's River on the first day. On the 2nd, he butchered a whole division charging a line with 42 artillery pieces lined hub to hub. Won a great victory at Chickamauga but refused to follow up. And at Chattanooga, he go run off positions that a baseball team could have held. But, his invasion of Kentucky prolonged the war for a year.
George Custer, in the Civil War, was the best battlefield cavalry commander of the war. Leading horse soldiers on a battlefield, he was superior to Forrest, Stuart, Morgan all of them. He never lost a battle until he got to the banks of the Greasy Grass. I think he was a victim of his own successes. And his battle plan for the Little Big Horn might have worked if he and Reno could have attacked at the same time. I still think, at the end, he knew he was fucked but attacked to save Reno and Benteen's men.
You probably know more about it than me, but I thought Custer mostly lead with his guts rather than tactics. He was headstrong, arrogant, insubordinate. The overall plan for the campaign that led to the Little Bighorn was idiotic. The three columns were hundreds of miles apart and one column under George Crook was beaten at Rosebud Creek long before Custer got near the Indians. The overall commander, Alfred Terry, should never have given the impetuous Custer an independent command. And the 7th Cavalry should have had artillery and Gatling Guns. But Custer was a fool for not listening to his scouts and dividing his forces in the face of such numbers. And he was up against some of the best horseback fighters in history. Led by able leaders, Crazy Horse and Gall. At the Little Big Horn, yeah he lead with guts and not brains. But you can't judge his career on the Little Big Horn any more than you can judge Napoleon solely by Waterloo
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Oct 10, 2021 16:44:08 GMT
He was headstrong, arrogant, insubordinate. The overall plan for the campaign that led to the Little Bighorn was idiotic. The three columns were hundreds of miles apart and one column under George Crook was beaten at Rosebud Creek long before Custer got near the Indians. The overall commander, Alfred Terry, should never have given the impetuous Custer an independent command. And the 7th Cavalry should have had artillery and Gatling Guns. But Custer was a fool for not listening to his scouts and dividing his forces in the face of such numbers. And he was up against some of the best horseback fighters in history. Led by able leaders, Crazy Horse and Gall. At the Little Big Horn, yeah he lead with guts and not brains. But you can't judge his career on the Little Big Horn any more than you can judge Napoleon solely by Waterloo If you add in the ethical component needed for "greatest," both Custer and Napoleon are candidates for "worst." I find nothing to admire in just being good on the battlefield when the general is killing innocent people over bad policy. Of course, Custer had no choice (tho could have resigned), he was following orders, but Napoleon? He stole from people. Killed them for their land. And sometimes just having a larger, better equipped, competent army staff is tall it takes and the general gets all the credit. What army, in all of history, hasn't done those things? Bonaparte, a lot of times, gets painted as a pre-Hitler. While he wasn't Saint Nappy, he wasn't a Hitler. The Code Napoleon is still the law of France. Most of his was were forced on him, especially by Britain, who was all aghast over the beheading of Louis XVI and forgetting Cromwell. Or Russia, fighting the regicide and forgetting Peter III, Ivan VI and Mad Tsar Paul.
"competent army staff is tall it takes and the general gets all the credit." - Very True. You look at the three great conquerors, Alexander, Genghiz and Bonaparte. They all had excellent subordinates. Alexander had Ptolemy, Seleucius, Antigonus, Cassander. Genghis Khan had Subutai and Jebe. Napoleon had Murat, Lannes, Davout, Soult.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Oct 10, 2021 17:09:49 GMT
What army, in all of history, hasn't done those things? Bonaparte, a lot of times, gets painted as a pre-Hitler. While he wasn't Saint Nappy, he wasn't a Hitler. The Code Napoleon is still the law of France. Most of his was were forced on him, especially by Britain, who was all aghast over the beheading of Louis XVI and forgetting Cromwell. Or Russia, fighting the regicide and forgetting Peter III, Ivan VI and Mad Tsar Paul.
"competent army staff is tall it takes and the general gets all the credit." - Very True. You look at the three great conquerors, Alexander, Genghiz and Bonaparte. They all had excellent subordinates. Alexander had Ptolemy, Seleucius, Antigonus, Cassander. Genghis Khan had Subutai and Jebe. Napoleon had Murat, Lannes, Davout, Soult.
Fuck me. Napoleon was the greatest general there ever was. One of my favorite Bugs shorts. Bugs as Josephine, "Yoo hoo, Nappy". And Nappy always getting poked by the bayonet. The title card was kind of odd. Bonaparte waiting for the French fleet to come and carry him across the Channel? Bugs, can you say "Trafalgar"? I knew you could.
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Post by SuperDevilDoctor on Feb 2, 2022 4:15:29 GMT
We have a new winner... Ludwig August Ritter von Benedek (1804-1881) Feldzugmeister, Imperial Austrian Army His jawdroppingly incompetent command of the Austrian Empire's main army at the Battle of Koniggratz (3 July 1866) not only cost Austria the war, but its "great power" status in Europe -- forever. On the eve of the battle, Benedek held a war council with his subordinate corps and cavalry division commanders. They departed absolutely gobsmacked, confused about why the hours-long conference never touched on troop dispositions, possible scenarios/contingencies for action, location of the enemy, latest intelligence, etc. Benedek was primarily concerned with issues of military dress and ceremony, stressing the importance of close combat in the coming fight (despite the superiority of the Prussians' breech-loading "needle" rifles). The army's logistics were a complete disaster, with baggage trains scattered willy-nilly and some troops left unfed for days. Benedek never deployed the field telegraph cable assigned to his army, because he simply didn't like the new technology. (In his view, a proper military message should be conveyed by a smart-looking hussar on horseback... The Prussians had no such hang-ups.) Observers were shocked by the general state of torpor and idleness at Benedek's HQ; his sycophantic staff officers were descibed as lazy, tardy and frivolous. He placed the Austrian army in a cul-de-sac, between rivers (with the Elbe at the army's back), leaving key heights above the battlefield unmanned (upon which the Prussians placed observers and artillery). The initially larger Austrian army was crushed and routed by the numerically inferior Prussian forces under Moltke the Elder. The war ended 19 days later. Benedek was subsequently court-martialed -- during which he shamefully tried to place the blame for his own errors on lower-ranking subordinates -- but was able to wriggle out of it through royal connections. (Emperor Franz Joseph had the court martial stopped.) Benedek was ordered by the emperor to never speak publicly about the battle. Afterwards he retired to his estate in disgrace, living another 15 years.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Feb 2, 2022 13:54:54 GMT
Been thinking about this for a list of the 10 worst generals of all time. And you could almost fill the list with WWI commanders. Hotzendorf, Nivelle, Hamilton, Samsonov, Rennenkampf (hell, nearly any Russian general not named Brusilov), Prittwitz, Cadorna, Moltke, Potiorek. Why were general in the Great War so bad? Truly great commanders were few and far between. Foch was more of a leader, an Eisenhower type who kept the coalition together. Petain maybe. Ludendorff at times. The only ones that I would consider truly great were Brusliov and Mackensen. Every war has incompetent generals. WWII is dominated by epic general but there's still Gamelin, Huntzinger, Fredenall, Lucas, Budenny.
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