It is probably not a coincidence that corruption in the military appears to have escalated since 2006, when the number of military generals started to jump sharply. Elmo Zumwalt was a U.S. admiral and commander of American naval forces in Vietnam. General Westmoreland had complete freedom of action in deciding how to prosecute the war within South Vietnam.
So long Fort Bragg, welcome Fort Liberty: The Pentagon's naming In 1975, when the Vietnam War ended, the Vietnamese army had only 36 generals, but by 2018, peace-time Vietnam had 415 military officers holding general ranks. With high hopes set upon his shoulders at the beginning of the American Civil war, quickly becoming General-in-Chief of the Union Army, McClellan would earn the distinction as a general of little action. 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. His battlefield losses marked the end of the Persian Empire. If there was a saving grace for America, it was that he wasn't commanding an army. 3. 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. 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. Lpez, possibly in a fit of madness, ordered the execution of hundreds of people, including some of his own family members. Germanic tribes sacrificed Roman officers on altars to their gods.
Who was the worst US general during the Vietnam War? - Quora 92. 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.
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. Youre on the list! Follow him on Twitter:@Mipeck1. Hulls nerve was shattered. The self proclaimed Napoleon of the West didnt quite leave the same legacy as his idol. 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. Franz Conrad von Htzendorf of Austria couldnt decide which country he wanted to invade, so the German General Staff eventually took his armies away. He was indeed a capable warrior, as shown by the South Pacific campaign and the Inchon landing in Korea.
The Vietnam War, as Seen by the Victors - The Atlantic Not that Fredendall didn't have real issues that would have tried any commander. These are the incompetents, the idiots, the bumblers who have represented armies or nations at war only to lead them to defeat or shame. Haste risked casualties and defeats at the hands of a formidable opponent like Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. - 2 Worst: 2007 Washington Wizards. James Bond Stockdale was flying his A-4 Skyhawk on a mission over North Vietnam, just days after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, when his plane took fire and hurtled d This piece originally appeared in The National Interest https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/6-worst-military-leaders-ever-167526. Then, in an ill-advised comeback, he met his Waterloo. On September 9, 1965, Navy Cmdr. Grachev once said that only an incompetent commander would order tanks into the streets of central Grozny, where they would be vulnerable. Yet near the end of the war he did exactly that. 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). He was certainly nave, but the Boy Scouts need to be defended here. Westmorelands first resort in claiming progress in the war was always body count, but in fact this was meaningless. Antonio de Padua Mara Severino Lpez de Santa Anna. It doesnt matter if theyve won more often than theyve lost. Even a string of bad days does not guarantee entry. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? 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. Applications for the Gettysburg College-Gilder Lehrman MA program are open and considered on a rolling basis. Heres the inaugural class: 6. Many historians credit Benedict Arnold and others with being the real victors of Saratoga. But its not just the United States. Disobeying orders, he sailed for Cdiz instead of the Channel, allowing Nelsons fleet time to return and effectively scuttling Napoleons plans for a cross-Channel invasion. Todays list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam. He graduated second in his class at West Point (well ahead of classmates Stonewall Jackson, George H. Gordon, and George Pickett). 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. Sure, he was the greatest commander of the Second Punic War, a titanic contest between Carthage and Rome. 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. This was true in matters both great and small. By one estimate from Harvard University, more than 130,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or severely wounded, in addition to the deaths of more than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians. 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. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail. McClellan and Burnside in particular. 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. Advancing to the North Korean border with China also was a red flag for Mao-Tse Tung, who feared that American troops on his border were a prelude to U.S. invasion. But all that remains of his would-be empire today is a flaky French pastry. His bad luck didnt end at San Jacinto. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. 15. And how might that be impacting the world? The Worst Civil War Generals on the Confederacy Confederate Maj. Gen. Gideon Pillow. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals.
MilitaryHistoryOnline.com Only recently have those in the defense and military complex begun to look at how we rate generals. War is an extension of politics, and if commanders dont help secure the desired political ends, they get a failing grade. 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. Nearly as many men died in captivity during the Civil War as were killed in the whole of the Vietnam War. Publication of the PROVN Study, whose precepts were later implemented with great success by Westmorelands successor, illustrated a matter of fundamental importance.
Top 10 Most Underrated Military Generals - TheTopTens 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. 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. However, not even they managed to get themselves court-martialed and sentenced to death for ineptitude on the battlefield. Lincoln relieved McClellan but reinstated him after the devastating Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Considering some militants as instruments of regional influence while fighting others has had disastrous consequences. This would be known as the Tet Offensive and would become a major turning point in the war. 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. 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. Simultaneously, he contacted Maximilian to offer the young emperor his services. Test yourself on the week of Feb. 25: Nigeria votes, Finland builds a border wall, and Israel escalates repression. Watch the conversation or read the condensed transcript. When two able and progressive Nationalist generals, Pai Chunghsi and Li Tsung-jen, begged the generalissimo to adopt similar methods, Chiang rejected them outright. Eschewing a direct overland march to the Confederate capital of Richmond, McClellan orchestrated an impressive amphibious landing of more than 100,000 troops at Fort Monroe, at the southeast end of the peninsula between the James and York rivers. 1. Darius family would be captured and even lost the Battle of Gaugamela, where so many factors were in his favor. Westmorelands own book about himself gives some indication of how he would react to this more recent one. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. At this point, things somehow got worse for Hull.
French defeated at Dien Bien Phu - HISTORY 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. Many of the charges leveled against him have also been laid at the feet of . Delivered Monday-Friday. Creighton Abrams was an U.S. Army General who commanded American military operations in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1972. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been.
Leaders of the Vietnam War - Wikipedia With the Little Corporal running everything, Europe might have become a very different place. But he also displayed remarkably bad judgment, as when he was commander in the Philippines in 1941. 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. Is your subtitle The General Who Lost Vietnam fair? The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week. But there was something that not even the factories of New York and Chicago could produce, and that was time. 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. 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. 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. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. (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. What he did not divulge publicly was that the United States. Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders, we are presenting this list of the worst. Delivered Friday. - 1 Best: 1996 Chicago Bulls. The Western Front was a much bigger stage upon which to fail, however, and British commander Douglas Haig made the most of the opportunity. General Westmorelands close associate, General William DePuy, later admitted the futility of the Westmoreland way of war. Two years later, he lost a leg fighting the French. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, Chinas Censors Are Afraid of What Chatbots Might Say, The U.S. Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. Click + to receive email alerts when new stories are published on. What a Lovely War and then in the 1989 television comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth. Over time Westmoreland asked for and received large numbers of U.S. troops, eventually totaling well over half a million. 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. Weekly update on whats driving U.S. national security policy. Relations between the United States and China seem to be getting frostier by the day. Hull was thoroughly outclassed. HANOI, VIETNAMForty years ago, on April 30, 1975, Nguyen Dang Phat experienced the happiest day of his life . 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. The world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. On March 24, 1976, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1 st Viscount of Alamein, hero of World War II, died at home in England. But the award for the biggest Persian loser goes to Darius III. Pierre de Villeneuve had his first brush with history when he bravely ran away at the Battle of the Nile. They dramatically upped their game, pressing the U.S. worldwide. . 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. In the end, the Romans leveled Carthage and salted the earth. If it couldn't or wouldn't govern the country, who would? This week marks exactly one year since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. Concurrently with hi. Perhaps Mao would have intervened anyway. To that Hollings responded, "Westy, the American people don't care about the ten. Grant had encircled the fort. By the way, here is the first review I have seen of Sorley's new biography of Westmoreland, which I read in galleys last summer, and enjoyed. George Custer at the Little Big Horn and Lord Chelmsford at the Battle of Isandlwana leap to mind. 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. He gritted his teeth and wore down the Confederacy with incessant attacks until the South could take no more. Men and material the Union could provide its armies. 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. There are a number of contenders for the top places on such a roster. [1] 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. Like it or not, the U.S. military would become the governing authority.
Top 10 Utterly Useless Military Commanders - Listverse Frederick C. Weyand was a U.S. Army General who was the last commander of American military operations in the Vietnam War from 1972 to 1973. Caepio reportedly lived out the remainder of his life in luxury, however. Darius was a different sort of game-changer.
Why our generals were more successful in World War II than in - YouTube 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. Some historians are a little more sympathetic towards Percivals legacy nowadays arguing that Percival had been dealt an unusually bad hand. The heavily forested, swampy terrain made the Legions maneuvers impossible. There were available better concepts of how to prosecute the war. That dubious distinction falls to William Hull, the only general officer in American history to be ordered before a firing squad for cowardice and dereliction of duty. But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. There was no warmth, no apparent interest in his associates as people. In the autumn of 1804 he was placed in charge of the French fleet at Toulon and tasked with drawing the British fleet under Horatio Nelson to the Caribbean. The enemy did not lose heart, did not cease aggression. To say that he failed in both regards is to dramatically understate the case. He served as a National Socialist member of the German parliament before authoring a book about how humanity exists in a state of perpetual war and why that is a good thing. Having several decades of duplicity to draw on at this point, everyone had a pretty good idea of how any such deal would turn out, and the aging general was rebuffed by both parties. 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. 9. Instead the enemy proved willing to absorb horrifying losses and keep fighting. The Battle of Khe Sanh (21 January - 9 July 1968) was conducted in the Khe Sanh area of northwestern Qung Tr Province, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), during the Vietnam War. 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. Thus, almost by default, Westmoreland was left to go his own way, year after bloody year. Westmorelands general mistake: severely underestimating the Communists. Unfortunately the fates of the former Republic Vietnam (Sout. Michael Peck is a contributing writer at Foreign Policy and a writer for War Is Boring. Operational Culture General Training LREC SME Support Training Course Catalog Cognitive Dimension Training Additional Resources . The Cimbri destroyed Caepios force and, emboldened by their success, marched on Maximuss camp. Darius again was the first to flee the battle, abandoning all of his soldiers and his property to be taken by Alexander. Pillow escaped during the night, leaving Simon B. Buckner to surrender the fort and 15,000 Confederate troops.
The General Who Lost Vietnam | TIME.com 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. Read More. After gaining ground trying to cut an escape path for the Confederates during the February 1862 siege of Fort Donelson by Union forces led Brig. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air.
As a result, American military power and prestige took a dramatic downturn. McClellan was a proto-Douglas MacArthur who bad-mouthed his president and commander-in-chief. Of course, that is what they did when Ludendorff pushed for the use of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping. McClellan was a superb organizer, a West Point-trained engineer who did much to build the Union army almost from scratch. But he was overly cautious by nature. Xi Jinpings signature foreign policy is a shadow of its former self.. Starting with the battle of Long Island, he lost way more fights than he wonyet he managed to win the war. Historian Lewis Sorley author of 1999s well-regarded A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of Americans Last Years in Vietnam now zeroes in on General William Westmoreland. The Soviets saw the American humiliation in Vietnam as a turning point. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he theoretically had some influence there, at least to the extent he could shape the collective viewpoint, but even then LBJ and McNamara were famously impervious to advice from the Joint Chiefs. The suppression of drug consumption and trade is high on the Government of Vietnam's agenda.
Scilit | Article - A Slow March from Social Evil to Harm Reduction Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight.
Who Were the Worst Generals in History? Still, he choked in the big game. James K. Polk. Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. 336 pages | 16 halftones | 6 1/4 x 9 1/4. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. 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. He couldnt. A very influential visitor, Senator "Fritz" Hollings from Westmoreland's home state of South Carolina, had warned him about reliance on such ratios. He ran as a Democrat against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election. Who was the worst general in history? There is now little doubt that Putin failed in his initial goals: Kyiv is still Show morestanding, Ukrainians are determined to keep fighting, and the West has so far stayed resolute in its support of Ukraine. The United States entered the war, forcing Ludendorff to accelerate his time line for a conclusive battle against the Allies on the Western Front. Hull was taken prisoner by the British and was court-martialed upon his return to the United States. The enemy simply kept sending more and more replacements to make up his losses. The Germanic fighters demolished the three Roman legions. Yes, Westmoreland was the general who lost Vietnam. At Brownstown, south of Detroit, two dozen warriors under Tecumseh routed more than 200 American militiamen escorting a supply column intended for Detroit. 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. Some 15,000 talents of gold (the so-called Gold of Tolosa) had vanished under his watch, never to be recovered. In the opening month of World War I, Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg scored a crushing victory over the Russians at Tannenberg. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. During the darkest days of the rebellion, when Washington's army had been kicked out of New York and King George's star seemed ascendant, the "Conway cabal" of disgruntled officers and politicians unsuccessfully schemed to out Washington and appoint Gates.
Examining the Leaders of North and South Vietnam - dummies He bears a lot of responsibility for one the greatest reversals of military fortune ever experienced by a super power. Here is a list of the 10 most famous Chinese generals in history. The curation of this content is at the discretion of the author, and not necessarily reflective of the views of Encyclopaedia Britannica or its editorial staff.
Corruption is the Worst Enemy of the Vietnamese Army In considering who should receive such a dubious honor, Ive consciously excluded bad leaders. In 1847, U.S. troops once again surprised Santa Anna and captured his prosthetic leg.
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.