"Who are the 10 worst commanders in history?" Topic

Who are your 10 worst commanders in history?

Here are some articles listing some. I personally don't agree with some of their choices.

Subject: 9 Worst Generals in History | Britannica

link

Subject: 6. Worst. Military. Leaders. Ever. | The Heritage Foundation

link

But what guarantees you as one of the worst?

Examples:
Did your incompetence destroy a kingdom or empire, like Darius III or Guy of Lusignan?

Did you get your army nearly destroyed by technological inferior opponents (weaponry as a whole inferior), like Arthur St. Clair or Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford?

Did your defeat in one battle single handedly determine the fate of a war, like perhaps the Battle of Tsushima?

Just some examples and thoughts that might be included in the decision.

Just one of mine: Darius III

So who are your worst 10, with a snippet of why?

Oh, the worst commander I ever knew was a 2nd Lieutenant in an artillery battalion in Germany. Bone ignorant and always in the way. They finally made him "assistant sub-community supervisor" or some such to get him out of the way of troops. That's how it usually works

Which is why I don't do these discussions, or read such articles. Except for a few hereditary monarchs, you're about to get a long list of officers who were far better than most of their peers--remember that even in the "up or out" Army, O-5 is a successful career--but who weren't up to the demands of some new situation or genius opponent. And we, with far more information and none of the responsibility, will mock them.

It's pretty much Christmas. If we can't show wisdom, let's opt for charity.

There are lots and lots – and, with all due respect, Carafino is waaaaaay off the mark with some of his conclusions – I agree though about Santa Anna and Darius III as well as Lopez (let's go to war with countries that outnumber us 4 to 1 and see how it goes)

I also think Ludendorff also got a bad rap – now, he was no doubt a terrible politician, but that's another story

I agree as to Darius III, managing to lose an empire that by all rights should have crushed the Macedonian upstart

Also McClellan is a fair pick – great organizer, just don't let him onto any battlefields

If one lists Gideon Pillow, how about John Bell Hood – who marched the Army of the Tennessee into near annihilation?

Or Samsonov and Rennenkampf, who managed to get almost the entire Russian 2nd Army wiped out?

For the Romans I would list Publius Quinctilius Varus – mostly because his defeat and the loss of the three legions in the Teutoburg Forest essentially stopped Roman expansion into Germany which arguably left them with a very tough to defend northern frontier

Frederick, as I said, those are not my lists in the articles. Just some examples. The only one I listed as mine was Darius 3rd. Managed to have the premiere empire of his time and lost it all.

I'm just interested in others choices and why.

Thanks

Although I'm not arguing with adding John Bell Hood to the list, he certainly wasn't dealing with an incompetent or inferior enemy. I wonder if he would have performed better in that role had it been earlier in the war.

Who was that Italian general in the Great War who hurled his men against dug in Austrian troops in the Alps? I can't be bothered to look his name up, because that would give him too much honor.
Didn't he also use decimation?

As for Darius III, he did fine against everyone except Alexander.

Cornwallis? Seriously? That guy who named him is a typical internet clickbait nut.

Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf – As much responsible for staring WW1 as any one individual. Absolutely incapable of understanding what his military could or could not accomplish. Inept in virtually all aspects of strategy and tactics. He got his empire dissolved and probably never understood his failings. Right up there with DariusIII. My choice for #1 awful.

Cadorna is certainly awful as well. Seemingly unable to understand terrain and the effect on his troops and his shooting his own men should have gotten him stood against a wall. He's bad but I suspect merely one of many gormless cretins wasting men.

I would have included Lieutenant General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca, commander of Italian troops in Albania in 1940. When offered more troops for the planned Italian invasion of Greece, he turned them down because the larger army would need a full general to command the invasion and he would become number two. The invasion went badly; his troops were thrown out of Greece, and he lost a significant part of Albania and was replaced after just two weeks.

Grelber

Yes, Hotzendorf would be up there for me.

Cornwallis? Seriously? That guy who named him is a typical internet clickbait nut.

His reasoning regarding Hannibal either misses or ignores the fact that Carthage was destroyed 56 years after the Battle of Zama and nearly forty years after Hannibal died. And his comments about Napoleon are deeply ignorant, and I say that as someone who loathes Napoleon.

As for the author of the Britannica article, It's hard to take him seriously when he lists Haig and McClellan. Again, I hate George B. McClellan, but the man's biggest disasters involved not crushing the enemy. If any can tell me about a McClellan defeat that nearly destroyed the Army of the Potomac or jeopardized the Republic, I'm all ears.

The assessment of Haig is similarly cartoonish and ill-informed, and reads like it was written by someone who watched part of a bad Youtube video about WWI.

At least he's right about Caepio.

At a lower level, Pulleine and his deployment at Isandlwhana

Yamamoto is highly overrated.

You're being hard on Darius. NOBODY withstood Alexander.

Ramses II: Bad general, great PR guy.

I agree with RP. The worst generals are probably people we'll never know existed.

When we get newbies in a Sword and the Flame game, we always make him the CinC. He's the second son of a rich Lord, and his mother is a Lady. That explains everything. Seniority? Skill? Merit? Wash your mouth out, Sir!

There's a great deal of difference between a good battlefield commander and a good strategist (or a bad one in either). Lots of "greats" in history were only great at the one, and not at the other.

For that reason I can't answer the question, as the area of "command" is ill-defined.

The good commander wins his battle while preserving his men, as much as is possible.

The good strategist succeeds in his goals and wins the war, regardless of what happens in any single battle.

If he can do both, he deserves the appellation "great." If he can do only one, he is suspect. If he can do neither, "worst" applies.

Parz,

That's fine. But would it pertain to determining the greatest too? 🤔

I only posted this for fun and interest. Not a "gotcha" post. Just interested in who people thought were the worst, just as we asked for the best.

Again I only posted those two links as examples on the web of what some thought were the worst. Not my list at all. 😉

My only contribution was Darius III. Unfortunately for him, he also faced the man who I view as the greatest of all time, Alexander. Life can be a fickle bit#h. 😉

The Italian general at Adowa.

Hicks Pasha in the Sudan

When it comes to these types of discussions (including best), I think there needs to be two categories:
1) Heads of state
2) Everyone else

There is also a lot of luck involved. If an audacious plan
succeeds, genius. Those who threw bad dice, eternal chump-hood.

I'll nominate Generalleutnant Josef "Beppo" Schmid, who Antony Beevor described as "the most disastrous intelligence officer the Wehrmacht ever produced". As head of the Luftwaffe's intelligence branch from 1938 to late 1942, he managed to be either completely wrong or entirely unaware of nearly everything regarding the RAF. He bookended his career by being in command of Operation Bodenplatte, which traded a brief tactical success for the destruction of the Luftwaffe as an effective combat force.

Oh, enfant, "Worst Intelligence Analyst" is a whole different poll--and I am forbidden by law from making certain nominations. Same objection applies, of course, and more intensely so. Not only will you never have heard of the worst, in many cases it would still be illegal to say what they did.

Anyway the competition is fierce. I think both Israel and Russia have recent contenders.

You know, somewhere in the Blitzkrieg Era, Stalin had a number of his analysts shot for incompetence for their analysis of the panzer division. Not treason, wrecking or espionage, you understand: just flat incompetence. Not often I agree with Uncle Joe, but in this case I think it should be done more often.

Pour encourager les autres?

Cornwallis? He was the best General the British had in North America. Admittedly a low bar but still…

Here's my list. I know a few of these are controversial. Not in any particular order.

Douglas MacArthur
George McCellan
Benjamin Lincoln
Dougals Haig
Maurice Gamelin
Maxime Weygand
André Corap
Philippe Pétain
Publius Quinctilius Varus
Marcus Licinius Crassus
Xerxes'
Darius III
Ambrose Burnside
John Pope
Braxton Bragg
Arthur Percival
Emmanuel de Grouchy
Michel Ney
John Pemberton
Holland McTyeire "Howlin' Mad" Smith
John Burgoyne
Santa Anna

Or perhaps in this case to DIScourage them, OFM. If the penalty for egregious incompetence in high-level analysis were understood to be a blindfold and a cigarette, some persons might be a little less interested in clawing and backstabbing their way to the top of an agency, hogging all the briefings and telling the decision-maker what they think he wants to hear.

I'd pay decent money to hear a high-level analyst explain to a President or a Four-star the difference between a secret and a mystery.

(For those not in the know: if the President asks the Director of DIA tomorrow "how many tanks does Putin have? What sort of condition are they in?" That's a secret. There are real answers, and DIA could and should know them. If the President asks "how long will the Russian Army keep fighting?" that's a mystery. How bad will the weather be? Conditions at the front? Will anything happen to inspire or discourage the soldiers? An analyst can take a guess, but there's no image or coded message which will give anyone the one true answer. Lots of times, the questions the decision-makers really need the answers to are mysteries.)

OC interesting, thanks

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Custer.

Custer was a very brave Brevet General during the ACW. After the war he was reduced to Lt. Colonel. He was sometimes called "General" out of respect but he wasn't a General.

Another thing about Cornwallis, after the AWI despite Yorktown, Cornwallis's career did not end in disgrace; instead, he shifted into high office in the British Empire. He served as Governor-General of India (twice) and later as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, roles in which he pursued administrative reform and grappled with complex political crises, including war and rebellion.

Remembered as a diligent, often reform-minded imperial administrator as well as a battlefield commander, Cornwallis remains a major figure in 18th-century British military and imperial history—associated in America with defeat, but in Britain with long public service at the highest levels.

There are several statues of him in Britain. The best known one is at St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's Churchyard.

Emperor Alexander I of Russia. Technically, he didn't lose *his* empire, but Emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire squints hard at him from his reduced throne as Francis I of the Austrian Empire.

Peter the Hermit, leading the People's Crusade on an adventure of plunder across Christendom until they all got slaughtered by the Turks.