Best/Worst generals of WW1

Yes crossed my wires, I had my figures wrong I was thinkin of thr Russians.

In June 1812, Napoleon began the invasion with his Grande Armée of 610,000 men, the largest army ever assembled at that point in history. He crossed the river Neman heading towards Moscow. The initially 240,000-strong Russian army sought to avoid open battle, and turned to attrition warfare: scorched earth policy, burning crops and villages before retreating so that the enemy could not use them. The Russians also harassed the French flanks with attacks from small battalions of Russian troops and local Cossacks. The Russian army suffered defeats on the approaches to Moscow in the battles of Smolensk (4-6 August) and in the Battle of Borodino (26 August 1812), but was not decisively destroyed, and the French suffered almost as may casualties as the Russians did. By the end of August, Napoleon had lost two-thirds of his army but kept marching on towards Moscow. On 1 September, Marshal Kutuzov, in command of the Russian Army since early August, ordered to abandon the city.

 

The army that Napoléon took to Russia was stronger on papere than in reality.
In theory, it's 600.000 men looked awesome, but one has to remember that not even 2/3 of these were french.
It consisted of soldiers from all of Europe that was occupied by the french.
From these, particulary the prussian and austrian contingents were very hostile to the french and only waited for an opportunity to join the russians.
(As happened at the mill of Tauroggen, where prussian general Yorck von Wartenburg joined the russians as soon as these were nearing the prussian border.)

 

To get back on topic, I would pick Nivelle as worst French general, with Byng as the worst British one.

 

Why Byng?

 

I totally agree on Nivelle.
Unfortunately he had a talent to convince politicians.

 

Ataturk was by far the best.

The reason is he not only won his battles but he did it with the lowest casualty list of any of the generals.

The next best was Joffre.

Ataturk-He defeated the allied attack on Turkey, and saved the turkish garrison of Palestine from being slaughtered.

Joffre because with Gamelins help he led the french at the Battle of the Marne, it is said that without him that battle would not have been fought.

The reason I don't have people like Foch or Peitan as best is because their tactics caused many useless casualties, and they wouldn't stop the fighting during the last days of WW1 which was a disgrace. Thousands died to enter towns they could have literally walked into the next day.

Von Hindenburg was pretty good to but I don't think he was as good as Joffre or Ataturk, so I have him as third.

The rest in my opinion can not be considered good because they sacrificed their own men on the last day for a little bit of glory entering towns they could have gone into peacefully, and if I were Hindenburg I would have tried to persuade the German government to sack Ludendorf.

Actually in all fairness I don't know wether or not Peitan was among the people throwing soldiers against machine guns on the last day but I what he did in the next World War was not the actions of a good soldier or politician.

 

The sources I've read indicate that, although he was apparently Haig's favorite, he did nothing meriting such preference while in command of Fifth Army.

 

Worst - Gough just shading it from Haig. Best, for the British - Plumer, French - Foch, Germans - Ludendorf

 

I agree, the Luddendorf offensive was very successful at first. The German general mastered in a few months what Haig and Foch etc. had not managed for three years.

But then again Haig did move the world's most powerful army out of two countries.

 

The allied advance of 1918 actualy ended before a single allied soldier had set foot on German soil. The German line on November 11th 1918 was still on French and Belgiun territory but shorter than a year earlier and the German army had a larger reserve than at the beggining of their offensive, added to this the alied offensive would have had to have ended within the month due to supply problems. Though it is hard to see, by late summer 1918 how the war could have ended with anything other than German defeat, the German army had not been decisively beaten in the field and resistance appears to have collapsed from within, The allied naval blockade being a crucial factor.

 

Maybe you should speak to the Canadians about Byng's boys. I know the Canadians I have spoken to like him.

At Vimy he devised a plan by which modern warfare is still conducted, took Vimy from the Germans.

Lord Byng was well-known to Canadians before his appointment as Governor General. In 1916, during the First World War, he took command of the Canadian Army Corps on the western front. He gained his greatest glory with the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge in April 1917, an historic military victory for Canada that inspired nationalism at home. During his travels across the country throughout his term of office, he was enthusiastically greeted by the men he had led.

 

You all should read about the events of the last week when all of the generals knew the war was over.

What Luddendorf, Foch, amd Plumer did was the actions of a terrible soldier, and an awful personality.

Ludendorf wanted to go on to the bitter end, he wanted to pit machine guns against tanks, he wanted to put the demoralized german army against the armies of Italy France Britain, and the newly added american army.

He knew a german victory was no longer possible, but he wanted Germany to go on to the bitter end, he didn't care how awful that would be to the average german, he didn't care that while he was safely in HQ his soldiers would have all died had that happened, he didn't care that germany would have been occupied, he didn't care about the tens of thousands of extra french. british, italian and american casualties deaths that would have happened. To him killing men on the otherside was to gain glory, and more men that did nothing to him would die for extra years of war to happen.

As I said if I were Hindenburg I would have made a formal request to the government to remove him from the army.

Ataturk had great victories without his army being butchered down to a single man, and one thing that marks him above the rest is when the Empire lost he accepted it. it was over to him, his new goal when an Ottomon Victory was impossible was saving as many of his soldiers as possible.

 

I never knew that. I suppose I was only judging him on the primary success of his offensive. Knowing now what he decided to do in the closing days of the war I suppose I now like him less.

 

But it doesn't really make him much different from any other general; it is not strange that if he feels his troops are unbeaten (which the trops themselves often strongly felt) they can fight on and hold off the enemy. The fact that tens of thousands will die in the process obviously mattered little to just about any general during WW1, seeing as how that war largely went. How is waging war the WW1 way suddenly Ludendorff's fault?

 

I shall recheck my sources; I may have the wrong general in mind, as I have not studied the subject in quite some time.

 

maybe this is why only two people anwsered my "worst generals in ww1" forum , nah .. it's ok, better to discuss the best "and" worst , good topic.

 

Delted message.

 

Allenby and Foch get my vote for best of WW1.

 

Best general:
feldmarshall Svetozar Boroević von Bojna (K.u.K.)
For K.u.K. ( Austro-Hungarian empire) i think that the best general was field marshall Svetozar Boroevič von Bojna ( native Serb from Lika - Vojna (Bojna) krajina - now part of Croatia). He manged to push forward the idea for defence of Soča river (Isonzo) after Italian war declaration ( southern part of Soška front). Original plan was to establish defensive line far in the rear ( on Sava river). He had much inferior forces ( at the beggining few infantry regiments), but still managed to hold the line against entire Italian army ( gen. Cadorna). His part of the front was under the highest pressure ( 11 Italian offensives). During 12.th offensive when Italians were pushed back to river Piava he was in command of southern part of the front (Trst (Trieste) area). In that offensive Italians had numerical superiority over combined K.u.K. and German forces.
He also managed to improve morale of his army ( which was overall bad at the time) by using mainly Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian, Dalmatian etc. regiments that had most to lose if Italians won the war ( as we did after the war). This was achived by publicising Italian claims for Slovene ( Veneto, Istria), Croatian ( Istria, Dalmatia and the islands) and Austrian ( south Tyrol) national territories. He did not risked his man in pointless couter attacks as his army was too small as it was, He was also known to speak with his men in their launguge. He was quite popular with his man.
His achivments are not widely known, but he is still considered as one of the great generals of WW1 by us.

Worst general:
generale Luiggi Cadorna (Italy).
For the entire time he had wast numerical superiority in Artilery, men, MG's etc. At the beggining he did not attack immediatly and thes gave some time to the K.u.K. army to bring few reinforcments to the area. Even so was stopped by few infantry ( mainly reserve infantry regiments) almost at the border.
Tactics of his units ( that fought bravely - by the way) was outdated and he did nothing to improve it and he had appaling losses becouse of that. Morale of his units consequently fell to the rock bottom. He started 11 offensives but got almost nowhere. His only decision that was well thought out was abandoning positions on Soča and Tagliamento ( defence of here was impossible as K.u.K.&German advanced too fast) river after brektrough in 12.th offensive and establishing strong defence postions on Piava river ( he was sacked for it).

 

I've always tought that the Austro-Hungarian army of 1914-1918 was a rather interesting subject.
Sadly I find it very difficult to find information about it.

Does anyone know some good book(s) on the subject??