Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight. T he Civil War was America's bloodiest conflict. Not one to let his own failings stand in the way of personal glory, Pillow submitted fanciful accounts of his actions at the Battles of Contreras and Churubusco to various newspapers, incurring the wrath of overall American commander Winfield Scott. Santa Anna was found wearing a privates uniform, hiding in a marsh. Despite fresh salvos of Western sanctions, Tehran and Moscow are buddying up on defense ties. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. He still had his defenders, but they were in the last trench, barely holding on. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. The Summer 2023 term begins June 1, 2023 and ends August 24, 2023. 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. The enemy simply kept sending more and more replacements to make up his losses. 7 Of The Worst Military Leaders In History, That You Didn't Know About Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. Some staff officers who briefed him one-on-one at deskside were dismayed when Westmoreland occupied himself by signing photographs of himself, one after another, during their presentations. These are the incompetents, the idiots, the bumblers who have represented armies or nations at war only to lead them to defeat or shame. The Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial LectureThomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). This is, obviously, a problematic quality when ones title is general-in-chief of the entire Union army. Join FPs Ravi Agrawal for a frank discussion about the Biden administrations China policy and alternatives that it ought to consider. Delivered Monday-Friday. James Madison spared him from execution. 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. 5. After the Germans attacked, Gamelin was eventually removed from his post, but by then it was too late. 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. These two instances are illustrative of many, many more, ranging from his actions or lack of action in combat situations to his determination to take over the war and win it with U.S. forces to his resultant failure to build up South Vietnamese forces to the validity of body count to the decision to close Khe Sanh to his actions when Lang Vei was overrun to denying predictions he had made of an early end to the war to claims of not being surprised at Tet 1968 to denying a post-Tet request for many additional U.S. forces. The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of | History News Network It would be nice if all American generals were great. 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. 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. 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. The world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. He ran as a Democrat against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election. What will another year of war look like? Top 10 Traitors In US History - Listverse 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. When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. In the summer of 1967, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) initiated a series of attacks in western Kontum Province. Again fighting outnumbered Texans, this time Santa Anna would lose the battle stunningly. A common view holds that 138,708 Allied personnel surrendered or were killed by fewer than 30,000 Japanese. Nelsons victory at the Battle of Trafalgar was so complete that it established British supremacy on the high seas for more than a century. Varus was stationed with three of his legions, the 17th, 18th and 19th when news arrived of a revolt growing in the Rhine area. He bears a lot of responsibility for one the greatest reversals of military fortune ever experienced by a super power. Ulysses S. Grant made his Civil War debut at the Battle of Belmont against Confederate Gen. Gideon Pillow. 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 Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama. Elmo Zumwalt was a U.S. admiral and commander of American naval forces in Vietnam. Over time Westmoreland asked for and received large numbers of U.S. troops, eventually totaling well over half a million. As for the British, they had lost the most valuable jewel of the Imperial crown. 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. More ways to stay updated on global news: By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. Who was the worst general in history? Hundreds of thousands died of disease. You worked for GEN Westmoreland when he was Army Chief of Staff. Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend The idiot who, seeking self aggrandisement, led his army, Force D, to disaster at Kut in WW1. The Western Front was a much bigger stage upon which to fail, however, and British commander Douglas Haig made the most of the opportunity. James K. Polk. Think about how history would have been different if Hannibal had a military plan to outlast Roman might. 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. Contrarily, I would not so stigmatize another important player often criticized by others, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. But he also displayed remarkably bad judgment, as when he was commander in the Philippines in 1941. The Worst Civil War Generals on the Confederacy Confederate Maj. Gen. Gideon Pillow. His was one of just two French ships of the line to escape the destruction of the French fleet there. Horacio Gates of the American Revolution was pretty bad. What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? Darius family would be captured and even lost the Battle of Gaugamela, where so many factors were in his favor. The Vietnam War, as Seen by the Victors - The Atlantic Quintus Servilius Caepio takes the cake amongst the worst Roman generals ever to take command of a legion though. He graduated second in his class at West Point (well ahead of classmates Stonewall Jackson, George H. Gordon, and George Pickett). 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. While Maximus was conducting negotiations with the Cimbri, a Germanic tribe that had invaded the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, Caepio rashly attacked the Cimbri army on October 6, 105 BCE. Military. What defines Santa Anna is his utter failure to subdue the Texican rebels and block American expansion. Francisco Solano Lpez managed to stumble into a war with pretty much all of that. Lewis Sorleys new book, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, is being published today by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 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. The problem begins with the fact that nobody in the chain of command was really competent to critique Westmorelands performance. Corruption is the Worst Enemy of the Vietnamese Army In order, from most culpable down. At the height of the Cold War, he dealt decisively with neither. Whatever its military wisdom or lack thereof, it was a decision that should not have been made by generals under the American political system. 2. However, Ludendorff and German General Staff chief Helmuth von Moltke had altered the Schlieffen PlanGermanys overall battle plan for fighting a two-front warin a way that had weakened the attacking army on the Western Front. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig: World War I's Worst General - HistoryNet He was called the "inevitable general." A West Point graduate, he served in World War II and Korea. 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. In a war that saw more than its share of unskilled politically appointed generals, Pillow was arguably the worst on either side. Who were the most feared soldiers in Vietnam? - 2023 Top Ten Worst Military Commanders - The History Buff's Guide to World As a result, American military power and prestige took a dramatic downturn. Instead of sweeping around the French defenses in a massive flanking movement, the Germans were checked at the First Battle of the Marne. Black Vietnam Veterans on Injustices They Faced: Da 5 Bloods - Time 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. Defining that is like defining a bad meal. Its prewar population was reduced by more than half, and perhaps 90 percent of Paraguays fighting-age men perished. A very influential visitor, Senator "Fritz" Hollings from Westmoreland's home state of South Carolina, had warned him about reliance on such ratios. 5. General William Westmoreland. The initial assault resulted in very high casualties for the Russians and an almost complete breakdown of morale in the Russian forces. 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. Gen. Charles Cornwallis. HANOI, VIETNAMForty years ago, on April 30, 1975, Nguyen Dang Phat experienced the happiest day of his life . Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. Of course they raised this issue, leading Westmoreland to declare vehemently that establishing MACV Forward had not a damned thing to do with my confidence in General Cushman or the Marines, not a damned thing. That again was not only false but, given the existing paper trail, reckless as well. 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. In the end, the Romans leveled Carthage and salted the earth. As a military commander, Napoleon may have thebest batting averageof all time. But the inducements encourage U.S. companies to invest only at homenot elsewhere. Despite the Union outnumbering the Confederates, McClellan was unable to crush Robert E. Lee after failing to pursue him into Virginia. George Custer at the Little Big Horn and Lord Chelmsford at the Battle of Isandlwana leap to mind. Westmorelands general mistake: severely underestimating the Communists. Santa Anna liked to call himself the Napoleon of the West. And, like Napoleon, he squandered it all in one grand campaign. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Lpez was the son of Carlos Antonio Lpez, a dictator who had done much to modernize Paraguay in the mid-19th century. On a visit to Vietnam Senator Hollings from Westmorelands home state of South Carolina was told by Westmoreland: Were killing these people, the enemy, at a ratio of 10 to 1. Said Hollings, Westy, the American people dont care about the ten. Marine Corps Casualties 1775-2016 - Marine Corps University 3. The 1970s were scary times. He was killed in combat on March 1, 1870. Percival was off mistreating Irish Republican Army (IRA) leaders during the Anglo-Irish War before commanding British Malaya in World War II. Top 10 Greatest Generals of Chinese History | ChinaWhisper Leaders of the Vietnam War - Wikipedia What does that mean for trade and globalization? What myths or misperceptions surround Westmoreland that you would like to clear up, if any? Santa Anna would lose Texas at the Battle of San Jacinto. Best Defense: While serving in Vietnam . The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. But the inducements encourage U.S. companies to invest only at homenot elsewhere. Ulysses S. Grant, who replaced McClellan, understood this. 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 . How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? Lebanon (1982-1984) 240. With a few relatively minor changes, thats just about where they stayed for the next four years. Join FPs Ravi Agrawal for a frank discussion about the Biden administrations China policy and alternatives that it ought to consider. 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. 9. Haig was cruelly mocked, first in the satirical musical Oh! Hull withdrew after a series of harassing attacks by Tecumsehs highly mobile raiding parties. Listing MacArthur as one of America's worst generals will be controversial. . 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. In reality, it is a collection of ideas, images, and information that enough people have chosen to preserve and disseminate. His senior staff lacked diversity of experience and professional outlook, consisting mostly of people with backgrounds similar to his own, especially airborne. 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. Westmorelands devotion to advancing his own interests, even when necessary by misrepresentation, was fundamentally at odds with what Scouting is all about. Pierre de Villeneuve had his first brush with history when he bravely ran away at the Battle of the Nile. 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. Two years later, he lost a leg fighting the French. The Top Ten. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln. 13,091. He effectively pledged to become an agent for the U.S. but found that he had been deposed upon his return to Mexico. In considering who should receive such a dubious honor, Ive consciously excluded bad leaders. Caepio was born into a noble family and became consul in 106 BC. Some 15,000 talents of gold (the so-called Gold of Tolosa) had vanished under his watch, never to be recovered. Grenada (1983) 3. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Vietnam War - Encyclopedia Britannica | Britannica Examining the Leaders of North and South Vietnam - dummies 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). Diem's family was one of the earliest to convert to Catholicism, a religion he took . 1 Erwin Rommel Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel, popularly known as the Desert Fox, was a German field marshal of World War II. After eight years at Foreign Policy, here are the ten most popular Best Defense posts. 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. Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air. Sure, they ganged up on the Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae. One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture. 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. While this century witnessed many great leaders, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi . 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. The rise of American-made chatbots has kicked off a flurry of Chinese activity. After being taken prisoner (again) by the British, Villeneuve was released but committed suicide rather than face Napoleons wrath. How does an admiral make a list of the worst generals? What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? That may have been true in the east (the worst of the Union generals in that theater rates his own entry on this list), but in the west it was a much different affair. In 1847, U.S. troops once again surprised Santa Anna and captured his prosthetic leg. Finally, there was MacArthur's insubordination. Todays list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam. 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. Sure, he won big at the Alamo. Tortured in notorious 'Hanoi Hilton,' 11 GIs were unbreakable On March 24, 1976, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1 st Viscount of Alamein, hero of World War II, died at home in England. The War of the Triple Alliance devastated Paraguay. With the Little Corporal running everything, Europe might have become a very different place. 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. Like it or not, the U.S. military would become the governing authority. The Texans only suffered 2 casualties, as opposed to hundreds of Mexican casualties. Ludendorff is one of historys greatest examples of a general who can win battles but still loses the war. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln and the Union expected great things. 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 . Scilit | Article - A Slow March from Social Evil to Harm Reduction 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. 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. 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. 6. Instead he simply sent more and more replacements to make up his losses. Villeneuve lost 20 ships, while Nelson lost none. Civil War Casualties | American Battlefield Trust When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. 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. - 1 Best: 1996 Chicago Bulls. Top 10 Utterly Useless Military Commanders - Listverse Yes, the landing at Inchon unhinged the initial North Korean offensive. This did not, however, achieve the postulated outcome. 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. Exactly. Operational Culture General Training LREC SME Support Training Course Catalog Cognitive Dimension Training Additional Resources . Top Ten Reasons Field Marshal Montgomery is Not so Great 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. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, Chinas Censors Are Afraid of What Chatbots Might Say, The U.S. Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders, we are presenting this list of the worst. The Russian president got many things wrong about invading Ukrainebut not everything. Nor is being a bad battlefield commander, by itself, sufficient to make the cut. His war of attrition, search and destroy tactics, and emphasis on body count did nothing to affect the war in the hamlets and villages of South Vietnam, where the enemys covert infrastructure was left free to continue using coercion and terror to dominate the rural populace. They dramatically upped their game, pressing the U.S. worldwide. 1. What was your impression of the man when you were working for him? You may opt out at any time. In stereotypically McClellan fashion, he was promptly checked by a vastly inferior force under John Bankhead Magruder. But Franks, who commanded the invasion, made a bad situation worse. Thus, almost by default, Westmoreland was left to go his own way, year after bloody year. 10. Is the Biden administrations China policy too hawkish? 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. In the famous Battle of the Alamo, Santa Anna struggled to defeat about 250 Texans with 2,400 Mexicans and subsequently lost nearly 600 men. 1. But the worst of all was McClellan, the so-called "Young Napoleon" from whom Lincoln. But for whatever reason, some American commanders have lost the battle for history. Registration for summer courses begins March 18, 2023 and ends June 7, 2023. The Germanic fighters demolished the three Roman legions. All the enemys losses were quickly made up. Who was the worst US general during the Vietnam War? He was certainly nave, but the Boy Scouts need to be defended here. 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. Vietnam Communist Party Nominates Vo Van Thuong as New President - Sources For one thing, we wouldnt haveSpartacuson Netflix. He underestimated the enemys staying power, maintaining that if he could inflict enough casualties the communists would lose heart and cease their aggression against South Vietnam. To say that he failed in both regards is to dramatically understate the case. Not only is Sorley a third-generation graduate of West Point a Vietnam veteran and a historian, but he worked for Westmoreland as well. Once again, McClellan worked his organizational magic, restoring the morale of a shattered Union army. Ukraines economy and infrastructure have been dealt blows that will take decades to recover from. Santa Anna, a lifetime gambler, was known for his risk taking in battle, but also his brutality. 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. Yes, Westmoreland was the general who lost Vietnam. He was found guilty of 11 counts, and only the intervention by Pres. 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. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, by Lewis Sorley, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. . Michael Ray oversees coverage of European history and military affairs for Britannica. The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week. The British blockaded the port at Cdiz with a numerically inferior force, and Villeneuve, upon learning that he was to be relieved of command, rashly struck out at Nelsons fleet.