worst generals in vietnam

Panama (1989) 2. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. Franz Conrad von Htzendorf of Austria couldnt decide which country he wanted to invade, so the German General Staff eventually took his armies away. History: Military History. After his defeat by the Texans at the Battle of San Jacinto, Santa Anna was captured. Hull was thoroughly outclassed. Although he outnumbered Magruders Army of the Peninsula 10-to-1, McClellan settled in for a monthlong siege. A monthly digest of the top articles read by FP subscribers. In fifteen thought-provoking essays, each written by a professional military historian, readers are introduced . Percival surrendered Malaya to Japanese forces in early 1942, defying Winston Churchills own instructions for prolonged resistance. Then, in an ill-advised comeback, he met his Waterloo. So unused to being challenged, the United States has become so filled with anxiety over China that sober responses are becoming nearly impossible. A very significant instance was his determination to arbitrarily hold down the estimate of enemy strength during a 1967 order of battle controversy. 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 initial assault resulted in very high casualties for the Russians and an almost complete breakdown of morale in the Russian forces. Two years later, he lost a leg fighting the French. Darius again was the first to flee the battle, abandoning all of his soldiers and his property to be taken by Alexander. 0. A dull, unfeeling, unimaginative, smug "Colonel Blimp" of the worst sort. 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. 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. In order, from most culpable down. 7. 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. Routed by U.S. forces under Winfield Scott, Santa Anna was again driven into exile. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent. Among them are, of course, Lyndon Johnson himself, Robert McNamara, and General Earle Wheeler. 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. Alexander, Napoleon, Rommel. 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. He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. Military. It would be nice if all American generals were great. To say that he failed in both regards is to dramatically understate the case. But he was overly cautious by nature. James K. Polk. By the way, here is the first review I have seen of Sorleys new biography of Westmoreland, which I read in galleys last summer, and enjoyed. The inept Luigi Cadorna of Italy fought a dozen battles on the Isonzo before his army completely collapsed at Caporetto. Grant left politics to the politicians and did what had to be done. For many soldiers, a major tipping point happened when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, news of which reaches the soldiers in Da 5 Bloods during one particularly stirring scene . Grachev played a key role in initiating and leading the First Chechen War. Haste risked casualties and defeats at the hands of a formidable opponent like Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. To counter these, Major General William R. Peers commenced Operation Greeley using elements of the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade. 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. At the height of the Cold War, he dealt decisively with neither. Find Paraguay on a map of South America. Yes, Westmoreland was the general who lost Vietnam. All the enemys losses were quickly made up. 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. He was called the inevitable general. A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. Over time Westmoreland asked for and received large numbers of U.S. troops, eventually totaling well over half a million. By Lewis Sorley Best Defense Saigon bureau chief. He was also supremely gifted at overestimating the size of his opponents armies to a degree that beggared belief. 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. Unfortunately the fates of the former Republic Vietnam (Sout. 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. After only an eight-day siege, he surrendered his entire armya third of all British forces in America. 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 . He was found guilty of 11 counts, and only the intervention by Pres. This did not, however, achieve the postulated outcome. Despite the Union outnumbering the Confederates, McClellan was unable to crush Robert E. Lee after failing to pursue him into Virginia. While Muammer Al-Gaddafi isn't into the funny business in his politician reign, he most certainly is one of a highly egotistical leader and a member who represents more of the "self" rather than all else. The last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, Darius was not quite as qualified to rule a mighty empire as his predecessors were. He gritted his teeth and wore down the Confederacy with incessant attacks until the South could take no more. The alternative was to split the United States asunder. 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. 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. Read More. 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. Cue the protests from other parts of the globe: A chorus of nations are accusing Washington of fostering unfair competition. 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. He was called the "inevitable general." A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. Applications for the Gettysburg College-Gilder Lehrman MA program are open and considered on a rolling basis. 10. They kept it as a war trophy, exhibiting the leg at county fairs. Your guide to the most important world stories of the day. 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. McClellan and Burnside in particular. The premise was that, if he could kill enough of the enemy, they would lose heart and cease their aggression against the South Vietnamese. 4. 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. Watchthe conversation onFP Live, the magazines forum for live journalism, orreada condensed transcript. His poor tactical decisions resulted in his army being routed by a smaller force of Redcoats and Loyalists at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780. He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. He need not be concerned, soothed Wheeler, because the weight of judgment was that the enemy cant match us on a buildup. That turned out to be one of the classic misjudgments of the war, comparable in magnitude and consequence to General MacArthurs assurances to President Truman that Chinese forces would not enter the Korean War. See the vast swaths of land to the north and south that arent Paraguay? Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. 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. At Yorktown, he allowed himself to be taken by surprise and outmaneuvered by Washington and the French fleet. 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. Grachev has also been linked to corruption among the higher ranks of the military, specifically the assassination of journalist Dmitry Kholodov. As the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, he faced a two-front war, an insurgency in the South and an invading army from the North. Darius never showed up for the first battle and defeat (Battle of Granicus) because he didnt see Alexander as much of a threat to his empire. Percival was off mistreating Irish Republican Army (IRA) leaders during the Anglo-Irish War before commanding British Malaya in World War II. Gen. Charles Cornwallis. Lpez was the son of Carlos Antonio Lpez, a dictator who had done much to modernize Paraguay in the mid-19th century. Russias war is receiving critical assistance from authoritarian regimes around the world. What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? 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. 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. 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. Gamelin was commander of the French forces in World War II and is largely responsible for the fall of France into German control during the Battle of France. After occupying Jerusalem and crucifying 2,000 Jewish rebels in Judaea, Varus went off to govern Germania and tame barbarian tribes. Once again, McClellan worked his organizational magic, restoring the morale of a shattered Union army. Darius family would be captured and even lost the Battle of Gaugamela, where so many factors were in his favor. 6. Wrote Kevin Buckley in a scathing review, From the beginning Westmoreland probably expected to write a memoir of victory similar to Crusade in Europeand the defeat in Vietnam has not deterred him from this.. If Gates had been in command, we might be paying for our groceries with shillings and pence. T he Civil War was America's bloodiest conflict. 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. 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. After early success in the Mexican War for Independence, the rest of his career didnt pan out the way he would have liked. Military greatness can most easily be defined by comparison. Most younger officers who worked around General Westmoreland, excepting only a very few among his many aides-de-camp or executive officers and the like, had no personal relationship with this difficult and distant man. Hulls nerve was shattered. 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. 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. Washington also suffered his share of defeats. 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. However, not even they managed to get themselves court-martialed and sentenced to death for ineptitude on the battlefield. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. I flew into Vietnam in June 1968 as a young . But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. This would be known as the Tet Offensive and would become a major turning point in the war. The Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial LectureThomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). In the end, Chiang sacrificed more than a million Chinese soldiers and well over ten million Chinese civilians in his bid to stay in power. He worked under Adolf Hitler's Third Reich as a leading general and gained fame from his battles in North Africa. up as tough on Beijing, even seeking to contain the rise of the worlds second-biggest economy. Delivered Wednesday. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. 13,091. 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. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. Is Weiss correct? The Texans only suffered 2 casualties, as opposed to hundreds of Mexican casualties. Ukraines economy and infrastructure have been dealt blows that will take decades to recover from. Again fighting outnumbered Texans, this time Santa Anna would lose the battle stunningly. Nor is being a bad battlefield commander, by itself, sufficient to make the cut. General Wheeler was often just flat wrong in what he told the President. In reality, it is a collection of ideas, images, and information that enough people have chosen to preserve and disseminate. Sure, they ganged up on the Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae. To that Hollings responded, "Westy, the American people don't care about the ten. Registration for summer courses begins March 18, 2023 and ends June 7, 2023. rs worth well over $400 billion. 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. But in a contemporaneous cable to General Earle Wheeler, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Westmoreland complained that the military professionalism of the Marines falls far short of the standards that should be demanded by our armed forces. 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. 5. How do you measure military leaders? The Summer 2023 term begins June 1, 2023 and ends August 24, 2023. Advancing in dispersed columns across the northern half of the peninsula was an invitation to be destroyed piecemeal. He graduated second in his class at West Point (well ahead of classmates Stonewall Jackson, George H. Gordon, and George Pickett). 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. Its prewar population was reduced by more than half, and perhaps 90 percent of Paraguays fighting-age men perished. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, Chinas Censors Are Afraid of What Chatbots Might Say, The U.S. They kept it as a war trophy, exhibiting the leg at. 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. General William Childs Westmoreland (1914- 2005) with President Johnson in South Vietnam #1. Hull, convinced that he was hopelessly outnumbered (he wasnt), surrendered Fort Detroit and its 2,000-man garrison without firing a shot. General William Westmoreland. Darius was a different sort of game-changer. 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. 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 Join FPs Ravi Agrawal for a frank discussion about the Biden administrations China policy and alternatives that it ought to consider. In a war that saw more than its share of unskilled politically appointed generals, Pillow was arguably the worst on either side. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Although he managed to escape the battle unharmed, Caepio was stripped of his Roman citizenship and exiled. Darius quickly lost everything and became nothing but a fugitive. Thus the progress Westmoreland claimed in racking up huge body counts did nothing to win the war. 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. He ran as a Democrat against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election. 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. 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. As for the British, they had lost the most valuable jewel of the Imperial crown. The Top Ten. The 20th century is the most violent century in history. Rommel is by far the greatest military general of the . Military Its quite exclusive: combat leaders who had the fate of their people in their hands and squandered it all. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. This infuriated the Marines, who viewed it as evidence that Westmoreland lacked confidence in them. Woefully inexperienced U.S. soldiers found themselves against Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps veterans. A common view holds that 138,708 Allied personnel surrendered or were killed by fewer than 30,000 Japanese. A former British officer, Gates rose to fame as Continental Army commander during the momentous American defeat of a British army at Saratoga in 1777. 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. While this century witnessed many great leaders, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi . While British cannons shelled the fort from the Canadian side of the river, Tecumseh marched his warriors through a forest clearing in an endless parade. The Legion numbers XVII, XVIII and XIX never again appeared in the Roman Armys order of battle due to the shame and ill luck they carried. Lyndon Johnson had no understanding of military affairs whatever, nor did Robert McNamara. The Americans lacked sufficient troops, supplies and air cover (when was the last time an American general had to fight a battle while being pounded by enemy bombers?). 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. He effectively pledged to become an agent for the U.S. but found that he had been deposed upon his return to Mexico. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. The unprecedented violence of battles such as Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, and Gettysburg shocked citizens and international observers alike. The pandemics outbreak brought rare reporting freedoms. 10 Redvers Buller But he also displayed remarkably bad judgment, as when he was commander in the Philippines in 1941. The War of the Triple Alliance devastated Paraguay. 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. The 1970s were scary times. A Brief History. He continued on to suffer defeats at Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz, almost letting the war slip away from the British. Would he be upset if he were alive to read this book today? Want to read more on this topic or region? By December 1864 Paraguay was at war with Brazil, and, when Argentina denied a request for the transit of a Paraguayan army across its territory, Lpez declared war on that country as well. 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. Where is Carthage you ask? These operations were designed to seek out enemy forces and engage them in decisive battle. Darius did not take the field against Alexander until a year and a half after Granicus, at the Battle of Issus. Simultaneously, he contacted Maximilian to offer the young emperor his services. McClellan truly disappointed president Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam where the North and South would fight the bloodiest battle of the war. Little Mac would prove himself to be a superb organizer who kept his army well supplied, efficiently run, and happy. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. As a military commander, Napoleon may have thebest batting averageof all time. And he was able to inflict massive casualties on the enemy. 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. Click + to receive email alerts when new stories are published on Many historians have said Bragg was one of the worst generals of the Civil War, having lost most of his battles. 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. One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture. But all that remains of his would-be empire today is a flaky French pastry. When it came to military command, Westmoreland was everybodys all-Americanuntil he met his Waterloo. Napoleon. His battlefield losses marked the end of the Persian Empire. 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. But for whatever reason, some American commanders have lost the battle for history. At this point, things somehow got worse for Hull. And once again, at the Battle of Antietam, McClellans terminal case of the slows (as Lincoln called it) prevented the exploitation of a possible war-ending vulnerability in Confederate defenses. 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. What is a bad general? 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. 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. Watchthe conversation onFP Live, the magazines forum for live journalism, orreada condensed transcript. How well that would have worked can be seen when Gates was sent to command American troops in the South. General Westmoreland had complete freedom of action in deciding how to prosecute the war within South Vietnam. All rights reserved. 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. Consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus was Caepios superior officer, but Caepio refused to obey Maximus or even put his forces into a shared camp with him. You may opt out at any time. And how might that be impacting the world? He bears a lot of responsibility for one the greatest reversals of military fortune ever experienced by a super power. A final humiliation came during Mexican-American War. Michael Peck is a contributing writer at Foreign Policy and a writer for War Is Boring. In 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire. They dramatically upped their game, pressing the U.S. worldwide. There appeared to be little serious planning for what would happen the day after Saddam was gone. How theyve practiced the art of war is immaterial, too. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln. The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week. 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. Thus there was little internal capacity for debating or evaluating his chosen course of action. By signing up, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to occasionally receive special offers from Foreign Policy. 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. His forces outnumbered Alexanders men by at least a 2 to 1 ratio, but Darius was still outflanked, defeated and forced to flee. Allied with Brock was the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who was head of the most formidable pan-Indian military force the continent had ever seen. Westmoreland was on a treadmill. Officially labelled a defector by the Pentagon, many suspected Nolan, an African American, changed sides after suffering a lifetime of racial discrimination. 15. In 1940, after increasing pressure from dictator Benito Mussolini and facing demotion, Graziani followed orders and invaded Egypt with his Tenth Army. Think about how history would have been different if Hannibal had a military plan to outlast Roman might. Who was the worst general in history? You worked for GEN Westmoreland when he was Army Chief of Staff. Brock, sensing an opportunity, advised an immediate march on Fort Detroit. 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.

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