Westmorelands devotion to advancing his own interests, even when necessary by misrepresentation, was fundamentally at odds with what Scouting is all about. Instead he simply sent more and more replacements to make up his losses. Gamelin made the mistake of viewing the Ardennes as impenetrable and chose to defend it with ten of his weakest, least well equipped and least well trained divisions. Maximus managed to form up his men but to no avail. Yes, Westmoreland was the general who lost Vietnam. standing, Ukrainians are determined to keep fighting, and the West has so far stayed resolute in its support of Ukraine. This would be known as the Tet Offensive and would become a major turning point in the war. If Gates had been in command, we might be paying for our groceries with shillings and pence. 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. After the war, the phrase lions led by donkeys came to be associated with the British army for what should be obvious reasons. 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. Alexander, Napoleon, Rommel. His battlefield losses marked the end of the Persian Empire. It would be nice if all American generals were great. Thats an automatic disqualification from Hall membership. Fort Bragg was named in 1918 during the Jim Crow era. Abraham Lincoln. Sure, he was the greatest commander of the Second Punic War, a titanic contest between Carthage and Rome. Click + to receive email alerts when new stories are published on. 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. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. But his persistence and inspiration kept the Continental Army in the field through the worst of times, which is why his face is on the one-dollar bill. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. And what then? They care about the one. Westmoreland didnt get it. The Russian president got many things wrong about invading Ukrainebut not everything. But with that kind of advantage in troops and firepower, who wouldnt? As military professionals, we should think about more . 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. Here are five of America's worst generals: Great generals have great talents, and usually egos and ambitions to match. The Top Ten. He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author. 2. Westmorelands first resort in claiming progress in the war was always body count, but in fact this was meaningless. 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. We ended up, he said, with no operational plan that had the slightest chance of ending the war favorably. Westmoreland could not or would not ever bring himself to acknowledge that reality. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. 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. Still, he choked in the big game. 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. He also issued orders to his troops in a personal code that no one else understood, such as this gem of command clarity: Move your command, i. e., the walking boys, pop guns, Baker's outfit and the outfit which is the reverse of Baker's outfit and the big fellows to M, which is due north of where you are now, as soon as possible. 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. Pillow escaped during the night, leaving Simon B. Buckner to surrender the fort and 15,000 Confederate troops. Cornwallis later did redeem himself militarily. It doesnt matter if theyve won more often than theyve lost. The British gained control of the fort, dozens of cannons, the brig USS Adams (recommissioned the HMS Detroit), and virtually the entire Michigan Territory. Download the new FP mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. On March 24, 1976, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1 st Viscount of Alamein, hero of World War II, died at home in England. 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. 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. After eight years at Foreign Policy, here are the ten most popular Best Defense posts. Seared into all who fought it and many who merely lived through it that conflict remains a bitter stew of second-guessing and recriminations. After months of inactivity, McClellan was finally spurred to action by Pres. Join FPs Ravi Agrawal for a frank discussion about the Biden administrations China policy and alternatives that it ought to consider. Creighton Abrams was an U.S. Army General who commanded American military operations in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1972. Lpez, possibly in a fit of madness, ordered the execution of hundreds of people, including some of his own family members. Nelsons victory at the Battle of Trafalgar was so complete that it established British supremacy on the high seas for more than a century. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. Santa Anna, a lifetime gambler, was known for his risk taking in battle, but also his brutality. But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. 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. 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. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest darkened Emperor Augustus remaining years and he was heard, upon occasion, to moan, Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!, Notable mention: George Custer, Joseph Hooker, Ambrose Burnside, Charles Cornwallis, John II of France, Top 10 Utterly Bizarre Things Banned In China, Top 10 Military Bases Linked To UFOs (That Aren't Area 51), 10 Bizarre Military Inventions That Almost Saw Deployment, 10 Futuristic Sci-Fi Military Technologies That, 10 Awesome French Military Victories You've Never Heard Of, 10 Oddities That Interrupted Military Battles, Top 10 Top-Level Domains That Caused Controversies, 10 Controversial Toys You Might Already Have in Your Home, Ten Absolutely Vicious Fights over Inherited Fortunes, 10 Female Film Pioneers Who Shaped the Movies, Ten True Tales from Americas Toughest Prison, 10 Times Members of Secretive Societies and Organizations Spilled the Beans, 10 Common Idioms with Unexpectedly Dark Origins, 10 North American Animals with Misplaced Reputations, 10 Japanese Weapons Invented Too Late To Win World War II, 10 Ways The History Of Thanksgiving Is Nothing Like You Imagined, 10 Great Buildings That Were Not Built Quite Well Enough. Like it or not, the U.S. military would become the governing authority. In the end, the Romans leveled Carthage and salted the earth. He was uninterested in other viewpoints on how the war might be prosecuted, dismissing the PROVN Study sponsored by Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson (which concluded that Westmorelands way of war was not working and could not work) and basic disagreements with Westmorelands organization and approach voiced by his brilliant classmate General Bruce Palmer Jr. 7. Alas, call it the laws of probability or just cosmic karma, but every nation produces bad generals as well as good onesand . 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. Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight. Is Weiss correct? Varus himself, seeing all hope was lost, committed suicide. What defines Santa Anna is his utter failure to subdue the Texican rebels and block American expansion. On the other side of the trenches in World War I was Erich Ludendorff, commanding the armies of Germany. There were available better concepts of how to prosecute the war. Grachev played a key role in initiating and leading the First Chechen War. 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. General William Childs Westmoreland (1914- 2005) with President Johnson in South Vietnam #1. But the argument is unbalanced. 5. 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. In other words, this book is a "how-not-to" guide to leadership. He was an artilleryman who missed out on the Armys great schools system, never attending the Command & General Staff College or the Army War College. 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. Then, in an ill-advised comeback, he met his Waterloo. Seldom included in. What a Lovely War and then in the 1989 television comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth. General Wheeler was often just flat wrong in what he told the President. 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. The Roman Empire has a long, proud tradition of producing some of the finest generals in human history- and just as many of the worst. And how might that be impacting the world? Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. He was called the "inevitable general." A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. The world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. Nor is being a bad battlefield commander, by itself, sufficient to make the cut. However, not even they managed to get themselves court-martialed and sentenced to death for ineptitude on the battlefield. Delivered Friday. All rights reserved. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. 151. Varus trust in Arminius was an obvious and terrible misjudgment. General Westmoreland had complete freedom of action in deciding how to prosecute the war within South Vietnam. He continued to view attrition as the most effective strategy for defeating Germany; the British lost some 420,000 men at the Somme. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam employs repressive policies that often contravene international human rights law. 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.

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