Worst generals

How about Hermann Goering? :bang: :bang:

 

From what I have read, in the begining Hitler did let his generals fight the war they wanted to; the front line commanders had much more freedom of command decisions, after Stalingrad is when the micromanagment took hold.

Cheers!

 

Göring, as well as Himmler, should never have been given command of a field force as they were completely incompetent at that. They were appointed, however, because they were some of the 'lucky' few who were still trusted by hitler. He was willing to give them far more responsibility than they could possibly handle.

 

Himmler, I know, actively sought a field command.

 

And he got it, too. He commanded Army Group Weichsel during the early months of 1945, and this army group's front collapsed completely. It only regained order and momentum when Heinrici took over in March.

 

Definitely not good for a modern combat force, especially a large one, to be commanded by a turkey farmer.

 

actually it was a chicken farmer I think...

In defense of Hitler (never thought i'd say that!), he may have made huge mistakes, (such as "The Halt order", Kursk and Stalingrad) but equally the German Army would never have conquered Poland (at least as quickly) France (which had a similar sized army to Germany) or Yugoslavia without his adoption of new tactics and forcing his Gernerals to use Blitzkrieg.
If you are going to blame Germanys failures on him its only fair to credit the dictator with their success, you can't have it both ways.

What about Stalin? Operation Uranus ring a bell for anyone? And what about his order to retreating Russian troops ordering them to return to Kharkov where over 650,000 were captured?

In my opinion Monty is right up there.

 

De Gaulle

Here's Canada fighting for the freedom of France and he comes to Quebec, where very few French Canadians actually fought until the draft lwas imposed in late 1944, a declares that Quebec should seperate from the rest of Canada.
Now you know one of the reasons why the rest of Cnada and the majority of Canadians have little love for Quebec and what De Gaulle did.

Cheers!

 

I am not getting into discussion over ethnic struggles here. That is way too tense a situation; you'll always insult someone.

 

Yep. Because with the ones involved in those disputes, their cause is holy and just; to disagree with them is unthinkable.

 

He was really a chicken farmer. One of his oddities was that he considered the 'true heroes' of the German nation to be countryside people, or farmers. Only these hard-working young go-getters could really be heroes, he thought... As I said: Hitler found himself a nice bunch of psychos.

 

Well, ther's a simple explanation for that, Roel. As we say here in America, "Misery loves company".

 

Yeah, there's a Dutch expression for that too. It translates "an accident never comes alone".

 

Sounds about right.

 

Bad leadership

The worst was Admiral isoroku Yamamoto who even when he knew what would be the resulting consequences planned and launched the Pearl Harbour attacks thereby condemming Japan to Hideous defeat and destruction, He had travelled through the US and knew the production capacity that was lying idle but could be set into production upon command

 

I think you can't blame him for executing orders in the best way he could. The real fool in the Japanese camp was Tojo, and Hirohito in a way for not controlling him.

 

In 1941, Japan was in a dilemma.
The US had given them an ultimatum, wether they retreat their troops from all territories conquered since 1937 or there will be an raw materials embargo against them.
As Japan is adicted to oil imports, this would have meant a catastroph for them.
So they had two options, to capitulate without figthing, or try to conquer the territories with raw materials.

 

The origianl Japanese plan was to attack Pearl Harbor and cripple the U.S. fleet, giving them sole control in the Pacific. Then they would sue for peace, saying they would stop taking more land. But, they were so sucessful at Pearl, they believed they could continue and beat the U.S.

 

but what I can understan even Admiral Izoroku Yamamoto was squeptical about going to war with the US, he lived some time in here and saw the industry potential, also he remarked that declaring war to US will be like awekening a sleppy gigant

 

He may have been but then most German generals were sceptical about attacking the Soviet Union for the same reason. Generals and Admirals follow orders too... This has no influence on their capacities nor does it speak for them.