worst generals in vietnam

McClellan and Burnside in particular. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. The initial assault resulted in very high casualties for the Russians and an almost complete breakdown of morale in the Russian forces. Ukraines economy and infrastructure have been dealt blows that will take decades to recover from. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. He couldnt. Defining that is like defining a bad meal. Starting with the battle of Long Island, he lost way more fights than he wonyet he managed to win the war. 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). When it came to military command, Westmoreland was everybody's all-Americanuntil he met his Waterloo. These American commanders have lost the battle for history. Here's What You Need To Remember:The Soviets saw the American humiliation in Vietnam as a turning point. - 2 Worst: 2007 Washington Wizards. What will another year of war look like? After months of inactivity, McClellan was finally spurred to action by Pres. 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. Have your boss report to the French gentleman whose name begins with J at a place which begins with D which is five grid squares to the left of M. The Kasserine disaster had repercussions. 1. Westmoreland told him, "We're killing these people at a ratio of 10 to 1.". Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent. What was your impression of the man when you were working for him? Watchthe conversation onFP Live, the magazines forum for live journalism, orreada condensed transcript. His forces outnumbered Alexanders men by at least a 2 to 1 ratio, but Darius was still outflanked, defeated and forced to flee. 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 . Maximus managed to form up his men but to no avail. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Here is a list of the 10 most famous Chinese generals in history. Lyndon Johnson had no understanding of military affairs whatever, nor did Robert McNamara. Many have described his activities as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history." 3 Nidal Malik Hasan Nidal Malik Hasan was a U.S. Army Major, and the sole suspect in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base, only weeks before he would have deployed to Afghanistan. He gritted his teeth and wore down the Confederacy with incessant attacks until the South could take no more. 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 would eventually be betrayed and killed by a friend. Nor is being a bad battlefield commander, by itself, sufficient to make the cut. Delivered Monday-Saturday. Read More. It's not the first time that someone thought he was smarter than his boss. 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. If there was a saving grace for America, it was that he wasn't commanding an army. Ultimately, he was denied his final showdown with the Allies by German political leaders who realized that the Americans could produce soldiers faster than Germany could produce bullets. 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 William Westmoreland. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Marcus Licinius Crassus was a self-aggrandizing opportunist who started a pointless war with the Parthians, and Publius Quinctilius Varus lost three legions at Teutoburg Forest, but Proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio manages to top them both with his actions at the Battle of Arausio. The inept Luigi Cadorna of Italy fought a dozen battles on the Isonzo before his army completely collapsed at Caporetto. Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced his fateful decision to double the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam. History: Military History. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. Santa Anna, a lifetime gambler, was known for his risk taking in battle, but also his brutality. It would be nice if all American generals were great. Thuong, 52, is the youngest member of the party's Politburo, the country's top decision-making body, and is widely regarded as being close to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam's most . Overseas during World War II he had limited line duty (16 months of battalion command, then 13 months in staff positions) and of 14 months of command during the Korean War and its immediate aftermath he spent eight months in reserve in Japan and only six months in Korea, and that during the mostly static final months of the war. Darius did not take the field against Alexander until a year and a half after Granicus, at the Battle of Issus. McClellan truly disappointed president Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam where the North and South would fight the bloodiest battle of the war. 4. Westmoreland is often described as a Boy Scout, usually implying, it appears, that he was well-intentioned but nave. Cornwallis later did redeem himself militarily. And if they not only fail to deliver, but wind up sinking their own side in the process, and change history, they earn a spot in the Hall of Military Shame. Grachev played a key role in initiating and leading the First Chechen War. Yet Fredendall's solution was to order an Army engineer company to build a giant bunker a hundred miles from the front lines. The Soviets saw the American humiliation in Vietnam as a turning point. 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. The last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, Darius was not quite as qualified to rule a mighty empire as his predecessors were. It was anotherhistory-changingevent, the birth of a truly exceptional nation. Of course, that is what they did when Ludendorff pushed for the use of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping. The heavily forested, swampy terrain made the Legions maneuvers impossible. 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. standing, Ukrainians are determined to keep fighting, and the West has so far stayed resolute in its support of Ukraine. This is, obviously, a problematic quality when ones title is general-in-chief of the entire Union army. 3. Casey was an Army insidera four-star general and the son of the highest-ranking American casualty of the Vietnam War, a division commander who was killed in a July 1970 helicopter crash. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. As the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles crippled Germany, Ludendorff effectively sabotaged the Weimar Republic by propagating the belief that he and his armies had been undefeated on the battlefield. Thus, almost by default, Westmoreland was left to go his own way, year after bloody year. Jacob Zuma is a cherry on the top of the world's worst leader cake. Think about how history would have been different if Hannibal had a military plan to outlast Roman might. General Westmorelands close associate, General William DePuy, later admitted the futility of the Westmoreland way of war. After being taken prisoner (again) by the British, Villeneuve was released but committed suicide rather than face Napoleons wrath. The man who appealed for Varus help was Arminius, a Romanized Germanic prince. Two of the more prominent of these mistakes, both with wide and sweeping results, were the June 22, 1941 invasion of the USSROperation Barbarossaand the December 11, 1941 unprovoked and unwarranted declaration of war on the United Statesagainst the advice of Hitler's Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Its quite exclusive: combat leaders who had the fate of their people in their hands and squandered it all. Many of these generals had their worst defeats when their countries were least prepared for conflict, such as the hapless Soviet generals who faced the German infiltration of Russia in 1941. 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 Wallace Greeneboth saw Westmorelands approach as fatally flawed and agreed on a viable alternative. At this point, things somehow got worse for Hull. To counter these, Major General William R. Peers commenced Operation Greeley using elements of the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade. 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. Gates thought otherwise, and fancied himself a better commander than George Washington. See the vast swaths of land to the north and south that arent Paraguay? General Wheeler was often just flat wrong in what he told the President. When two able and progressive Nationalist generals, Pai Chunghsi and Li Tsung-jen, begged the generalissimo to adopt similar methods, Chiang rejected them outright. After his performance at Belmonta spectacular success by Pillow standardshe was tasked with the defense of Fort Donelson, a key strongpoint on the Mississippi River. 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. (You May Also Like: 5 Israeli Weapons of War ISIS Should Fear). Luckily for the colonists, the Empire also had Cornwallis, a peer of the realm and truly pitiful commander. 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. These are the incompetents, the idiots, the bumblers who have represented armies or nations at war only to lead them to defeat or shame. 2. Military greatness can most easily be defined by comparison. He continued to view attrition as the most effective strategy for defeating Germany; the British lost some 420,000 men at the Somme. Some 15,000 talents of gold (the so-called Gold of Tolosa) had vanished under his watch, never to be recovered. 336 pages | 16 halftones | 6 1/4 x 9 1/4. Over time Westmoreland asked for and received large numbers of U.S. troops, eventually totaling well over half a million. It would be nice if all American generals were great. The 1970s were scary times. At the height of the Cold War, he dealt decisively with neither. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. 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). Implementing the attrition strategy, Westmoreland typically employed a series of large unit sweeps conducted in the deep jungle regions along South Vietnams western borders. Brock, sensing an opportunity, advised an immediate march on Fort Detroit. Caepio was born into a noble family and became consul in 106 BC. When it came to military command, Westmoreland was everybodys all-Americanuntil he met his Waterloo. 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. 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 only an eight-day siege, he surrendered his entire armya third of all British forces in America. Michael Ray oversees coverage of European history and military affairs for Britannica. 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. Hull withdrew after a series of harassing attacks by Tecumsehs highly mobile raiding parties. Years later, when Marine Corps historians were at work on their history of the war, Westmoreland met with them. On the other hand, there was that bad day at the Battle of Salamis when most of the Persian fleet went to the bottom. 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. Santa Anna was found wearing a privates uniform, hiding in a marsh. There is no Carthage. Alas, call it the laws of probability or just cosmic karma, but every nation produces bad generals as well as good onesand America is no exception. Lpez was the son of Carlos Antonio Lpez, a dictator who had done much to modernize Paraguay in the mid-19th century. Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future. - 4 Worst: 1990 Cleveland Cavaliers. 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. After eight years at Foreign Policy, here are the ten most popular Best Defense posts. Even a string of bad days does not guarantee entry. But its not just the United States. According to a Time magazine reporter who wrote about the Dak Son massacre, Viet Cong guerrillas shouted "Sons of Americans!" as they launched their assault on the village. Today's list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam By the way, here is the first review I have seen of Sorley's new biography of Westmoreland, which I read in galleys. Michael Peck is a contributing writer at Foreign Policy and a writer for War Is Boring. Others were experienced military men who should have known better than to take the risks they took - or not take the risks they should have. Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air. He called for bombing China, as if liberating Korea was worth risking 550 million Chinese and possibly war with Russia as well. By Lewis Sorley Best Defense Saigon bureau chief. Download the new FP mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. Want to read more on this topic or region? After the Germans attacked, Gamelin was eventually removed from his post, but by then it was too late. Watch the conversation or read the condensed transcript. Russias war is receiving critical assistance from authoritarian regimes around the world. He thought he could take over the war from the South Vietnamese, bring it to a successful conclusion, and then hand their country back to them and go home in triumph. A curated selection of our very best long reads. 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. Hull had served with distinction in the Revolutionary War and was appointed governor of the Michigan Territory in 1805. 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. What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? These are the incompetents, the idiots, the bumblers who have represented armies or nations at war only to lead them to defeat or shame. Pierre de Villeneuve had his first brush with history when he bravely ran away at the Battle of the Nile. For one thing, we wouldnt haveSpartacuson Netflix. Their orientation, indeed the core of Scoutings values, is selflessness and service to others. 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. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. 92. As a military commander, Napoleon may have thebest batting averageof all time. Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend The idiot who, seeking self aggrandisement, led his army, Force D, to disaster at Kut in WW1. Heres the inaugural class: 6. Grenada (1983) 3. From Kaiser Wilhelm to Hitler and Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi, there is no end of national leaders who squandered their nations blood and treasure in futile conflicts. The 1970s were scary times. FPs Ravi Agrawal spoke with two of the very best Russia experts:Angela Stent, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author ofPutins World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, and Michael Kofman, the research program director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses. Gamelin also chose not to disperse Frances vast number of superior tanks. - 3 Best: 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? Rommel is by far the greatest military general of the . Routed by U.S. forces under Winfield Scott, Santa Anna was again driven into exile. His senior staff lacked diversity of experience and professional outlook, consisting mostly of people with backgrounds similar to his own, especially airborne. Haste risked casualties and defeats at the hands of a formidable opponent like Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. Lincoln relieved McClellan but reinstated him after the devastating Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run. A very significant instance was his determination to arbitrarily hold down the estimate of enemy strength during a 1967 order of battle controversy. Even now, the easiest way to get into an argument at a V.F.W. In 1847, U.S. troops once again surprised Santa Anna and captured his prosthetic leg. This strategy inevitably failed as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong maintained control over how the war was fought which was through guerilla warfare. Instead of holding a natural defense line around Pyongyang, which would have given the United Nations control of most of the peninsula, the UN troops retreated all the way back into South Korea in a humiliating reverse for U.S. power after the crushing victory of World War II. In the summer of 1967, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) initiated a series of attacks in western Kontum Province. rs worth well over $400 billion. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. Where is Carthage you ask? When he made public his disagreements with President Truman, Truman rightfully fired him. Thus the progress Westmoreland claimed in racking up huge body counts did nothing to win the war. Download the FP mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. Whatever its military wisdom or lack thereof, it was a decision that should not have been made by generals under the American political system. Yet backstabbing your commander-in-chief in the middle of a war is taking ambition a little too far. So what is the standard of shame for induction? Delivered Thursday. Follow him on Twitter:@Mipeck1. The problem begins with the fact that nobody in the chain of command was really competent to critique Westmorelands performance. In 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire. After the war, the phrase lions led by donkeys came to be associated with the British army for what should be obvious reasons. Instead of sweeping around the French defenses in a massive flanking movement, the Germans were checked at the First Battle of the Marne. Despite Lincoln's pleas for aggressive action, his Army of the Potomac moved hesitantly, its commander McClellan convinced himself that the Southern armies vastly outnumbered him when logic should have told him that it was the North that enjoyed an abundance of resources. Ulysses S. Grant made his Civil War debut at the Battle of Belmont against Confederate Gen. Gideon Pillow. George Brinton McClellan, a self-proclaimed Young Napoleon, ran dreadful campaigns, but he doesnt make the grade because he was canned before he could lose the entire war. Some captured Romans were placed in wicker cages and burned alive, others were enslaved or ransomed. After occupying Jerusalem and crucifying 2,000 Jewish rebels in Judaea, Varus went off to govern Germania and tame barbarian tribes. Westmoreland was on a treadmill. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. Thats the point. He overestimated the American peoples patience and tolerance of friendly losses. You start by being the only thing that can frustrate Napoleon more than a Russian winter. Hannibal. 1968 takes the cake for me. They kept it as a war trophy, exhibiting the leg at county fairs. In a war that saw more than its share of unskilled politically appointed generals, Pillow was arguably the worst on either side. Ludendorff is one of historys greatest examples of a general who can win battles but still loses the war. In the end, the Romans leveled Carthage and salted the earth. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. Varus placed his legions in a position where their fighting strengths would be minimized and that of the Germanic Cherusci tribesman maximized. 1. The Cimbri destroyed Caepios force and, emboldened by their success, marched on Maximuss camp. Argentina, Brazil, and the Brazilian puppet government in Uruguay formed an alliance, and on May 1, 1865, they declared war on Paraguay. 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. 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. He was called the inevitable general. A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. Critics say that Franks and senior officials, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, concocted an invasion plan that used too few troops. He decided to conduct of a war of attrition, using search and destroy tactics, in which the measure of merit was body count. And the number one reason why Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam: With his unavailing approach to conduct of the war he squandered four years of support by much of the American people, the Congress, and even the media. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. To that Hollings responded, "Westy, the American people don't care about the ten. 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. As a result, American military power and prestige took a dramatic downturn. Johnston was wounded on the first day of the Battle of Seven Pines, six miles east of Richmond, and he was replaced by Robert E. Lee. But he was overly cautious by nature. Grant left politics to the politicians and did what had to be done. 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. By the end of May 1862, Confederate commanding Gen. Joseph E. Johnston had withdrawn his forces to Richmond, and McClellan was close enough to the Confederate capital to hear its church bells ringing. 88,594. He was indeed a capable warrior, as shown by the South Pacific campaign and the Inchon landing in Korea. This would be known as the Tet Offensive and would become a major turning point in the war. And, to further demonstrate progress in reducing enemy strength, Westmoreland arbitrarily and entirely on his own removed from the order of battle several categories of enemy forces that had long been carried there, including during the three years Westmoreland had already been in command of U.S. forces in Vietnam. The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. Two years later, he lost a leg fighting the French. FPs Ravi Agrawal spoke with two of the very best Russia experts:Angela Stent, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author ofPutins World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, and Michael Kofman, the research program director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses. Exactly. Contrarily, I would not so stigmatize another important player often criticized by others, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. There was no warmth, no apparent interest in his associates as people. The next major British offensive came at Passchendaele (July 31November 6, 1917), where Haig lost another 275,000 troops in a battle whose name became synonymous with pointless slaughter. War is an extension of politics, and if commanders dont help secure the desired political ends, they get a failing grade. Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight. Muammar Al-Gaddafi. Lpez, possibly in a fit of madness, ordered the execution of hundreds of people, including some of his own family members. The enemy simply kept sending more and more replacements to make up his losses. But the inducements encourage U.S. companies to invest only at homenot elsewhere. At the Battle of Gaugamela, he helped make Alexander great by losing half his army to the Macedonian upstart. Many of the charges leveled against him have also been laid at the feet of . In order, from most culpable down. 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. He was a teacher in the Chicago suburbs and Seoul, Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. 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. Yes, the landing at Inchon unhinged the initial North Korean offensive. 4. Ukraines economy and infrastructure have been dealt blows that will take decades to recover from. Darius again was the first to flee the battle, abandoning all of his soldiers and his property to be taken by Alexander. George Custer at the Little Big Horn and Lord Chelmsford at the Battle of Isandlwana leap to mind. While this century witnessed many great leaders, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi . But Franks, who commanded the invasion, made a bad situation worse. Despite fresh salvos of Western sanctions, Tehran and Moscow are buddying up on defense ties. The Texans only suffered 2 casualties, as opposed to hundreds of Mexican casualties. And he was able to inflict massive casualties on the enemy. The Second Battle of the Somme was the first of a series of successful German offensives, but Ludendorff had failed to integrate these tactical victories into a broader strategic plan. The Romans lost an estimated 80,000 infantry and perhaps 40,000 auxiliaries and cavalry, numbers that dwarf the staggering totals at Cannae. Fort Bragg was named in 1918 during the Jim Crow era. 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. The stabbed in the back myth did much to propel the ascent of Adolf Hitler, and Ludendorff was a key participant in the Beer Hall Putsch.

I Dream Of Jeannie Bottle Replica, Sohl Furniture Website, Catherine Macgregor Engie Bio, Danielle Harris Eyebrow, Stephanie Joshi Height, Weight, Articles W