Worst General Of WW2

I'll search a bit later - think could be very interesting too, but not convinced so short

 

An excellent thread spartan!

I will choose Veroshilov as the worst Soviet leader with buddeny second.


For the Germans my vote goes out to Keitel. I actually happen to think that Von Leeb was a capable commander. His drive to Leningrad was exceptional (advancing 270 miles in the first 2 weeks). He only began to stumble upon reaching the infamous city along with its new defender, Zhukov. To be fair, all German generals had a difficult time facing this man.

 

Thanks Sloniksp

Where Von Leeb falls down is in his utter failure to understand the use of armour - but I agree with you he wasn't as bad as he is often made out to be

 

You guys have forgotten some British doosies....

Ord Wingate: His "Theory of Long Range Penetration" was utter nonsence. Resources allocated to this man were utterly wasted on distractive attacks by small groups that acchieved very little in the way of concrete results.Ignorant of the true use of airpower despite allocation of air advisors to manage his substantial air assets for a force of the size he commanded. Vain, arrogant, intolerant of others opinions, unwilling to listen to advice from anybody he outranked. His 'Lone Ranger" style of 'command' meant that he was usually the only one privy to what was actually going on in his head. This command style left his command with no-one to pick up the pieces should he be killed in action, which is precisely what happened.

Lord Louis Mountbatten: After losing every ship he was given command of, Mountbatten was kicked upstairs as "Chief of Combined Operations". His performance in this role was less than sterling, and he was quietly removed long before he could screw up the role for D-Day.

 

Keitel was a desk general. I don't think we got to see what he would have been like in actual combat command. Domination by Hitler saw to that. Jodl prevented him from putting a bullet through his own head at one stage

 

Walter Model, for all his supposed tenacity, managed to go precisely nowhere at Kursk, despite lavish resources and support. His idiotic handling of the brand new 'Elefant' assault guns, (which he tried to use as spearhead tanks), is a case in point for his 'failure to properly understand the use of armor'. Were it not for Bittrich, Arnhem would have been a failure if left to Model. Offensively, he stank, and defensively he was really only riding on the back of something the German Army could always do well, (conduct a fighting retreat). Overall, Model's performance was less than savory for someone with a reputation supposedly at the top of his game.

 

Disregarding the General led Japanese Bonzai attacks.

As I said before Mark Clark.

There are many reasons why I say Clark, but the main reason is no other general led so many troops to slaughter due to ego and poor Infantry tactics. His lack of Infantry skills killed these men and he had some of the best trained allied units in WW 2. I won't bother you all with the well known blunders, but don't forget about the Rangers in Cisterna. Pitiful errors.

 

General on the German side I would say Himmler or Goering. As far as I know, most German generals were actually good, but because of Hitler's stupidity they didn't have as much say in the matter. But of course Himmler and Goering were his political pals, which is why I rank them as the worst

 

France's Gamelin is right up there. He forbid in writing any questioning of current French doctrine. DeGaulle was passed over for General because he wrote a pamplet on mobile warfare. Gamelin stated pre-war that he expected the French air forces to last a mere days and to be largely, if not completely, irrelevant to the land campaign. His headquarters had no radios or telephones but instead relied on motorcycle messengers. Gamelin thought this sufficent to meet the expected pace of operations.
His support for Methodical Battle doctrine and total opposition to any change in it played a pivotal role in France's defeat. As the Germans broke through at the Meuse and started to drive across France Gamelin was asked by Churchill about reserves to be thrown in to stop the advance. Gamelin replied "There are no reserves. The war is lost." Now there is a C in C with the proper attitude to instill victory.....

 

What do you expect from the French?

 

IMO the Gaulle's book as armoured warfare blueprint is a mith, Vers l'armée de métier was a lot more about having a standing professional army versus conscription than about mecanized warfare. That full mecanization was afffordable only for a small army and the level of training required for "high tech" mecanized forces too high for pecetime conscripts to achieve are not the main issues of the book though theyare nentioned.
Of course conscription was a "sacred cow" for the French officer class and any theory that put it into discussion most unwelcome, it would mean reducing the Army's size an making a lot of them redundant.

But I agree that Gamelin was really bad, his resistance to new ideas played a big part in France's defeat. Some French Generals like De Lattre de Tassigny were quite good and well led French troops were nothing to sneer at.

 

Thats correct, he did a very good job with his 1. French Army at their long way from the Provence to the Alsac.

 

I'm not arguing the merits of DeGaulle's book but rather that Gamelin censured him for having written and published it without the permission of the French High Command (who wouldn't have given permission as it conflicted with their established doctrine). When a military has that sort of in-house antipathy towards opposed or new ideas they have a serious issue with their policies.

 

Sorry, I was just joking around

 

Hey Sturm, long time no see. The problem for the French is that their campaign lasted only 6 weeks so it is tough to judge how good they might have been in a protracted war. Gamelin was a flop to be sure, but we just don't know about the rest.

 

nice seeing you again belasar! I don't know much about the French so I'll leave this for you guys

 

Clark was a fool, first there is the Rapido river disaster and then he squandered the only chance of ending the war in Italy in 1944 by going for Rome instead of linking with up the British which could have encircled half the German army in Italy.

 

Did not know much before about Fredendall but must admit that competition goes hot with Clark for the US top position here...

-The American historian (and retired Army officer) Carlo D'Este has described Fredendall as "...one of the most inept senior officers to hold a high command during World War II."
-2nd Armored Division commander Ernest Harmon, in his after-action report for the Kasserine battles, called Fredendall "a son of a bitch" and later said he was both a moral and physical coward.

Germans:

Field Marshal Ernst Busch- the man who lost Army Group Center during operation Bagration

Being a die-hard nazi made him Field Marshal but that also made him lose the AGC...

 

Is the general to blame or was the Soviet assault just too much?