Worst General Of WW2

The recent thread about the best General of the Eastern Front made me think how hard it is to define what is meant by best, and what ups and downs of any General's career can really be considered to define them on a 'who's the best' scale.

What I think might be an interesting point of discussion, (and one I don't seem to be able to find by searching, although I stand to be corrected) is who does everyone consider to be the worst Generals of WW2.

For my part, the most useless German General of the whole war would have to be Himmler, although to be fair he wasn't really a military man and shouldn't have been given the job in the first place. After him probably Von Leeb's performance in AG North perhaps comes second, although he wasn't a totally useless general, just in the wrong job/wrong place. Keitel could also be considered.

Although the Italians had Bastico, Saviola and Cavallero as utterly ineffectual Generals, Graziani was the one who probably did them the most harm.

The French were definitely not well served by Weygand or Gamelin, but they both were doctrinally correct, just to a hopeless doctrine. some of their failures might have possibly been politically motivated, which makes them pretty bad in my book.

The British had few 'complete' disaster Generals - Ritchie is perhaps the best 'worst' choice, although after his North African catastrophe he was still employed in Normandy and did averagely well enough. Percival's Singapore dithering could be another.

The Soviets could probably cite Voroshilov, although some of his excuses for the Finnish debacle could be considered viable, he did manage to do nothing apart from losing excessive quantities of men and equipment to achieve zilch. Dmitry Pavlov may also be a candidate, but to be fair he was in an impossible situation, and later pardoned (albeit too late for him). Budyonny could also be a possibility.

The US has probably Fredendall or Brereton to choose from, but there are others.

The Japanese are less well known but Isamu Cho might be a good choice - his decisions during the invasion of Okinawa were probably the worst possible command choice, but as with the French, he was tied to a doctrine, a bad situation and also fettered by Bushido.

What I'm looking for are choices and reasons for them - with ideally a single final candidate.

My own choice (so far) is Fredendall - largely because he was obviously either a totally deranged prima donna or completely nuts, and he did nothing good military at all.

I await your humble opinions

 

just found a previous -

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/25598-worst-general-ww2.html

- from a few years ago, but if noone objects it still seems interesting enough to revisit so long as people stick to Generals, not national leaders and give reasons for their choices - doesn't have to be a fist fight - just another way to get to know some of the less vaunted leaders of ww2?

 

I dont mind but I dont have any "pull" over the matter ;-))

Two choices off the bat are:

Russian--Gen Budenny.
German--Goring.

 

This has been hashed before but it's fun, so here's my very opinionated contribution .

Italan Generals were pretty bad, Your ground rules rule out my pet pevee Badoglio, possibly the man who caused more harm to Italy in the XX century, Mussolini included and that's saying a lot. But by WW2 he was more a politician than a general.
I'm in doubt between Graziani and Visconti Prasca, he replaced gen. Geloso when the latter told his political bosses than an attack on Greece with just five partly incomplete divisions was folly and quietly "went along with the bosses" to the subsequent disaster. He actually got 8 divisions by the time of the attack but his terrible leadership, or to be more precise lack of it, didn't change the end result.

I put Weigand a notch above Gamelin, he was handled a seriously compromised situation that would have required a Petain at his best, and a command structure that could implement orders with less than a 24 hours minimum delay, to redress.

For the soviets my vote goes to Budyonny/Budenny his lack of understanding of mecanized warfare makes Gamelin look like a Guderian.

For the US side I'm not an expert but Macarthur gets my vote, his defence of the Philippines looks every bit as incompetent as Percival's of Malaya, possibly worse. In both instances the Japanese conducted shoestring high risk offensive operations and got away with it despite rough parity if not inferiority in numbers an equipment. His subsequent actions do little to redeem that.

For the Commonwealth Ritchie gets the prize, he had numeric superiority, veteran troops, and better logistics support but still managed to loose badly. While he Germans did have limited air superiority it would not have been enough if not if not for his horrible tacticls. Percival gets the excuse his troops were mostly not trained for jungle warfare and didn't get the time to adjust.

 

I agree with your list TOS! But i would at Mark " the Showman" Clark for his stupidity and his false ambitious at Monte Cassino which costs the senseless death of 1000´s of good men. Commonwealth has Wavell and Auchinleck too! And add our famous Keitel "Lakeitel" to the list. He and the other "Yes-sayers" made enormous mistakes.

 

France :Gamelin, who invaded Saarland and did not push his advantage while the Wehrmacht was in Poland.

Germany: Hitler of course (even though he wasn't a genreral he acted as one sicne he told his other generals to shut up. Had he let his genrals do their job Stalingrad would not have had the same issue

Uk : Lord Gort for retreating from Belgium without consulting his allies .

Russia: Budyonny for being a 19th century soldier.

 

Good list TOS - just found another possible Italian candidate while looking into Prasca, who I didn't know - his brief successor Ubaldo Soddu appears to have been at least as bad or possibly slightly worse. In both of their favour is the fact that they were obvious enough about their incompetence that they were quickly relieved, unlike some others, especially among the British and Americans

 

Fredendall is pretty high up on the American list. John P. Lucas (the first commander at Anzio) is also on my list.

 

Gort retreated because he had an Enigma intercept which told him precisely what the Germans were up to.

He couldn't tell the French that he knew what the Germans were doing.

Clarke was Ultra cleared too and knew precisely the disposition of the Germans. What he did is tantamount to treason.

Doolittle should have been busted to private for jeopardising his Ultra clearance and flying on missions and risking capture.

 

That's why I put him and Gamelin in the same batch . I don't blame any of them, they were overwhelmed and not many Generals would have done any better, but I was asked an opinion so I gave mine.

 

I do think Gamelin deserves some censure, but I think Weygand did as good a job as he could with what he had to work with. Certainly better then Gamelin. No excuse for Clark, promoted above his abilities.

 

I don't blame Doolittle at all for his boldness (even though loosing him would have been a blow for the Airforce). Other Airforce Generals also took risks and flew missions with their men. At least they had guts. I actually admire men who were ready to share the fate of any of their soldiers. Another example that comes to mind is Fafl General valin (Colonel in 1944) who flew misions above the Falaise gap and sneaked in bombers as a gunner because he wanted to shoot Germans otherwise than on paper.

 

Good point Skipper - although there are many Generals who had successes and were admired, there are still some of them who did utterly stupid things, personally, which only luck made into 'personality quirks' and not reckless or idiotic endangerment. While almost any commander is better served, and usually better respected by being as close to the 'front' as he safely can, there is a line.

Marshal Valin was another one I didn't know of - and although his service seems to be generally well remembered, you have a point. I don't think however he deserves to be in the 'worst General' list. Maybe we need a new thread for most eccentric or idiotic or personally reckless Generals. A well known case in point might be Patton and his attack on the two hospitalized soldiers in Sicily -doesn't make him a 'Bad' General, but definitely counted against him even at the time.

 

Well said and im not a Mark Clark fan.

 

Actually I find Clark a poor choice for 'worst' - the Monte Cassino tragedy was directed by his superiors against his own specific advice and recommendations, and although the action of taking Rome was a little idiotic militarily, the political/propaganda/morale effects in Italy, Germany and the Allied capitals and forces are often overlooked. Perhaps we should more criticise 'why wasn't Rome supposed to be liberated when it could' rather than Clark's actions. The fact that even Churchill, who generally hated any military man over the rank of Major thought Clark one of the best of WW2, and that his service in Korea was although as eventually ineffectual as all the others there, still makes him a much better general in my view than he is often given credit for. Admittedly it does seem that Clark went out of his way to P people off, but he seems to have mostly done his troops and his missions more justice than many.

 

Nigel, the bad situation at Monte Cassino was made by his superiors, but he did his part to make it worst while he had the idea and the affectations to be the one who knocked it out. To his bad luck his triumph ended in the shadow of D-Day and was immediately forgotten!

 

Hi Uli,

Ok fair enough he didn't protest as much as he could have, and went along with the Cassino operation as soon as he had direct orders from above so his A was covered, which doesn't make him a great man or a particularly good general, but I still feel, especially considering that it was only one incident, that Clark doesn't deserve to be right down the bottom of the list. Not that Cassino wasn't an unnecessary cluster.., but Clark definitely wasn't the man who should lose the most points for the operation - that honour should go to Alexander, who also probably acted on orders from higher up.

Clark was obviously an extremely talented staff officer from early on, the fact that he got a little too involved in the front-line details after taking over in Italy shouldn't damn him too much as it happened to many others with worse consequences. The fact that he was obviously keen to 'be remembered' at the expense of common sense does him no credit, but there aren't that many senior Generals who aren't guilty of that at least to some extent - it's often the nature of the beast

 

You´re a fair player and i have to agree with some of your points! All the Generals are guilty in one or the other way. Maybe that Clark is in bad remembrance as a showmen because of his way to pruduce his self in all the medias at this time to advance?!

 

Enigma already operational in may 1940?????
IMHO,Gort was retreating,because his first mission was to save the BEF.

 

About Gamelin in the Saarland :this is very debatable(the WM was also strong in the West)