You may opt out at any time. But the inducements encourage U.S. companies to invest only at homenot elsewhere. 8. Although he outnumbered Magruders Army of the Peninsula 10-to-1, McClellan settled in for a monthlong siege. The Worst Military Leaders in History is meant to be thought-provoking, and it surely is that." ARMY Magazine "Few subjects get military historians and history buffs talking like a debate over the best military leaders in history. After months of inactivity, McClellan was finally spurred to action by Pres. 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. British Gen. Isaac Brock possessed a remarkable ability to anticipate his opponents moves and reactions, and it was not long before he had taken full measure of Hull. The Vietnam War body count controversy centers on the counting of enemy dead by the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author. The most important, and also the saddest, is that in Vietnam and thereafter Westmoreland was willing to shade or misremember or deny or invent the record when his perceived interests were at stake. Francisco Solano Lpez managed to stumble into a war with pretty much all of that. 15. Todays list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam. 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. 151. Germanic tribes sacrificed Roman officers on altars to their gods. 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). But Franks, who commanded the invasion, made a bad situation worse. But he was overly cautious by nature. He was responsible for coming up with the idea of using force to restore constitutional order in Chechnya. Among them are, of course, Lyndon Johnson himself, Robert McNamara, and General Earle Wheeler. Haig had largely dismissed the effect of the machine gun on the battlefield, believing that previous Allied failures owed to something other than an impenetrable wall of lead traveling at ballistic velocity. Ukraines economy and infrastructure have been dealt blows that will take decades to recover from. He was indeed a capable warrior, as shown by the South Pacific campaign and the Inchon landing in Korea. Listing MacArthur as one of America's worst generals will be controversial. Somalia (1992-1994) 2. He was soon released, however, and, as more capable French admirals either died or somehow incurred Napoleons disfavor, a path to the top echelons of command was opened for Villeneuve. The resulting Peninsular Campaign (AprilJuly 1862) was a marvel of planning but something of a farce in execution. While Hull dithered, Brock captured Fort Michilimackinac, establishing British control of the Straits of Mackinac. In fifteen thought-provoking essays, each written by a professional military historian, readers are introduced . He effectively pledged to become an agent for the U.S. but found that he had been deposed upon his return to Mexico. 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. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, This Photo Of A 94-Year-Old Widow Receiving Her Husbands Remains Will Break Your Heart, From Messiah to Hitler, What You Can and Cannot Name Your Child. Gods and Generals (2003) Loss $61 million These are actually Civil War reenactors and probably the only people who paid to see the movie. The self proclaimed Napoleon of the West didnt quite leave the same legacy as his idol. Although he eventually disavowed Hitler, by that point Ludendorff had become so deeply involved with mysticism that few took him seriously. Westmorelands devotion to advancing his own interests, even when necessary by misrepresentation, was fundamentally at odds with what Scouting is all about. Men and material the Union could provide its armies. Military. Darius quickly lost everything and became nothing but a fugitive. Of course, that is what they did when Ludendorff pushed for the use of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping. Defining that is like defining a bad meal. His battlefield losses marked the end of the Persian Empire. But all that remains of his would-be empire today is a flaky French pastry. Answer (1 of 4): The former Cham general/leader Che Bong Nga was killed in the battle against the enemy Dai Viet (old Vietnam) but Che Bong Nga was LUCKY to be mentioned by the enemy Dai Viet historians to allow people to remember him. He was an artilleryman who missed out on the Army's great schools system, never attending the Command & General Staff College or the Army War College. General William Westmoreland. 3. The Romans marched right into the ambush that Arminius laid thus leading to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. 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. 92. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Who was the worst US general during the Vietnam War? But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln. 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. At Yorktown, he allowed himself to be taken by surprise and outmaneuvered by Washington and the French fleet. 7. Officially labelled a defector by the Pentagon, many suspected Nolan, an African American, changed sides after suffering a lifetime of racial discrimination. Fighter Aircraft of All Time). Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders, we are presenting this list of the worst. Hundreds of thousands died of disease. 3. The 20th century is the most violent century in history. Darius was a different sort of game-changer. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Publication of the PROVN Study, whose precepts were later implemented with great success by Westmorelands successor, illustrated a matter of fundamental importance. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. By the end of the conflict, America had unleashed the equivalent of 640 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs on Vietnam. Darius did not take the field against Alexander until a year and a half after Granicus, at the Battle of Issus. A Texan with the U.S. Army's 1 st Infantry Division, Nolan reportedly slipped away from his basecamp in Tay Ninh Province on Nov. 22, 1967 and turned himself over to the Viet Cong. See the vast swaths of land to the north and south that arent Paraguay? 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. A curated selection of our very best long reads. He was killed in combat on March 1, 1870. Sure, he was the greatest commander of the Second Punic War, a titanic contest between Carthage and Rome. But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. Delivered Thursday. The result of his manic commitment to the war of attrition was that Westmoreland squandered four years of his troops bravery and support by the public, the Congress, and even much of the news media for American involvement in the war. 88,594. Lyndon Johnson had no understanding of military affairs whatever, nor did Robert McNamara. With a few relatively minor changes, thats just about where they stayed for the next four years. He spoke up in Honolulu, during an important U.S. planning conference in February 1966, observing that we can beat up North Vietnamese regiments in the high plateau for the next twenty years and it will not end the war. Westmorelands later dismissive comment was that Ambassador Lodge does not have a deep feel of military tactics and strategy.. In a war that saw more than its share of unskilled politically appointed generals, Pillow was arguably the worst on either side. Armchair historians often generalize that during the American Civil War, while the Union held a clear advantage in material, the Confederacy could field superior commanders. Loyalty to himself and himself alone would be something of a running theme in the narrative of Santa Annas life, and his rise to power in Mexico was characterized by near-constant vacillation and betrayal of his allies. Is your subtitle The General Who Lost Vietnam fair? Without question, many lives would be saved if their tactical professionalism were enhanced.. 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. When the French deposed Benito Jurez and installed Maximilian as emperor of Mexico, Santa Anna, now 70, reached out to the U.S. for support in deposing the emperor. Cue the protests from other parts of the globe: A chorus of nations are accusing Washington of fostering unfair competition. A common view holds that 138,708 Allied personnel surrendered or were killed by fewer than 30,000 Japanese. 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. 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. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. By signing up, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to occasionally receive special offers from Foreign Policy. Their orientation, indeed the core of Scoutings values, is selflessness and service to others. Caepio may have been a terrible general, but he was apparently an exceptional thief. 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. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, consult individual encyclopedia entries about the topics. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. McClellan truly disappointed president Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam where the North and South would fight the bloodiest battle of the war. Villeneuve lost 20 ships, while Nelson lost none. T he Civil War was America's bloodiest conflict. In 1941, Graziani resigned his commission after the British counterattacked and the Tenth Army was completely defeated during Operation Compass. Hull had served with distinction in the Revolutionary War and was appointed governor of the Michigan Territory in 1805. The alternative was to split the United States asunder. The Western Front was a much bigger stage upon which to fail, however, and British commander Douglas Haig made the most of the opportunity. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. At Brownstown, south of Detroit, two dozen warriors under Tecumseh routed more than 200 American militiamen escorting a supply column intended for Detroit. General Westmorelands close associate, General William DePuy, later admitted the futility of the Westmoreland way of war. Elmo Zumwalt was a U.S. admiral and commander of American naval forces in Vietnam. Westmorelands first resort in claiming progress in the war was always body count, but in fact this was meaningless. 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. Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend The idiot who, seeking self aggrandisement, led his army, Force D, to disaster at Kut in WW1. Santa Anna would lose Texas at the Battle of San Jacinto. If pressed to rank the miscreants, I would place Wheeler first, then LBJ, and then McNamara, with all entitled to recognition as important accomplices in dooming the endeavor. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, Chinas Censors Are Afraid of What Chatbots Might Say, The U.S. What does that mean for trade and globalization? 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. Vice President, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. He overestimated the American peoples patience and tolerance of friendly losses. Scott claimed that Pillow was ''the only person I have ever known who was wholly indifferent in the choice between truth and falsehood. When talk of secession reached Pillows home state of Tennessee, he helped organize the state militia and was appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate army. 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 world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. According to formerly classified Army documents, an investigation disclosed that from at least March 1968 through October 1969, "Vietnamese [civilian] detainees were subjected to maltreatment" by. General Earle Wheeler was essentially a staff officer with virtually no troop leading experience, much less combat acumen. This might have ended okay for Germany, provided they didnt do something like provoke a previously neutral country with Allied sympathies and an effectively bottomless war chest. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. On September 9, 1965, Navy Cmdr. He earned a B.A. Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced his fateful decision to double the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam. Implementing the attrition strategy, Westmoreland typically employed a series of large unit sweeps conducted in the deep jungle regions along South Vietnams western borders. Its quite exclusive: combat leaders who had the fate of their people in their hands and squandered it all. Watchthe conversation onFP Live, the magazines forum for live journalism, orreada condensed transcript. General Westmoreland had complete freedom of action in deciding how to prosecute the war within South Vietnam. Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future. Some staff officers who briefed him one-on-one at deskside were dismayed when Westmoreland occupied himself by signing photographs of himself, one after another, during their presentations. 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. Delivered Friday. Hull was thoroughly outclassed. 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. The 1970s were scary times. One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture. 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. Saul David reviews a surprising study of military failure and names his own five most infamous generals Saul David Thursday February 17 2022, 12.00am , The Times Even now, the easiest way to get into an argument at a V.F.W. 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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. (You May Also Like: The Five Best U.S. Soon after declaring himself dictator of Mexico, rebels who opposed the Mexican dictatorship created three new republics, one of them being the Republic of Texas. 1. When it came to military command, Westmoreland was everybody's all-Americanuntil he met his Waterloo. 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. In other words, this book is a "how-not-to" guide to leadership. After early success in the Mexican War for Independence, the rest of his career didnt pan out the way he would have liked. 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. 1968 takes the cake for me. Is the Biden administrations China policy too hawkish? Weekly update on whats driving U.S. national security policy. Evening roundup with our editors favorite stories of the day. (Photo: Warner Bros.) Roger Ebert called "Gods and Generals" a film "Trent Lott would enjoy," referring to the Senator's praise of segregationist Strom Thurmond. A very influential visitor, Senator "Fritz" Hollings from Westmoreland's home state of South Carolina, had warned him about reliance on such ratios. 13,091. Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama. On September 2, 1945, hours after the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender in World War II, communist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam, hoping. Assuming you believe the subtitle to be accurate, who were GEN Westmorelands biggest accomplices in the loss? Hull responded by ordering the evacuation of Fort Dearborn, and the garrison was promptly massacred by a Potawatomi war band upon leaving the fort. Grachev has also been linked to corruption among the higher ranks of the military, specifically the assassination of journalist Dmitry Kholodov. With the Little Corporal running everything, Europe might have become a very different place. 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. A U.S. ship conveyed him to Mexico, and upon his arrivalto the surprise of virtually no onehe executed a volte-face and took charge of the Mexican troops. 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. 10. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. Not that Fredendall didn't have real issues that would have tried any commander. He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) 24. In considering who should receive such a dubious honor, Ive consciously excluded bad leaders. Sorley skillfully uses Westmoreland's own words to show time and again his duplicity at worst and his lack of touch with reality at best. This entire list could be populated with Roman commanders, but one manages to rise above the rest with an ineptitude that defies logic. 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. 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. Click + to receive email alerts when new stories are published on. James K. Polk. 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 .
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