worst generals in vietnam

Darius never showed up for the first battle and defeat (Battle of Granicus) because he didnt see Alexander as much of a threat to his empire. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? McClellan was a superb organizer, a West Point-trained engineer who did much to build the Union army almost from scratch. Russias war is receiving critical assistance from authoritarian regimes around the world. Brock, sensing an opportunity, advised an immediate march on Fort Detroit. Fighter Aircraft of All Time, his army being routed by a smaller force of Redcoats and Loyalists at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780, 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, Listing MacArthur as one of America's worst generals will be controversial, 5 Israeli Weapons of War ISIS Should Fear, But MacArthur's strategy certainly helped unleash 300,000 Chinese "volunteers" who inflicted significant casualties on United Nations forces, But Franks, who commanded the invasion, made a bad situation worse, Critics say that Franks and senior officials, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, concocted an invasion plan that used too few troops. If Gates had been in command, we might be paying for our groceries with shillings and pence. His senior staff lacked diversity of experience and professional outlook, consisting mostly of people with backgrounds similar to his own, especially airborne. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. The enemy simply kept sending more and more replacements to make up his losses. Darius did not take the field against Alexander until a year and a half after Granicus, at the Battle of Issus. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. The alternative was to split the United States asunder. [1] (Photo: Warner Bros.) Roger Ebert called "Gods and Generals" a film "Trent Lott would enjoy," referring to the Senator's praise of segregationist Strom Thurmond. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. Two years later, he lost a leg fighting the French. There appeared to be little serious planning for what would happen the day after Saddam was gone. After making a laughingstock of himself by ordering his men to entrench on the wrong side of fortifications at Camargo, Pillow bungled his role at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, making himself the low point of a resounding American victory. A key plank in the Democratic platform that year was, appropriately, not fighting, and McClellan lost in a rout. Only FP subscribers can submit questions for FP Live interviews. Following on from our list of the greatest and most successful military commanders, we are presenting this list of the worst. Most younger officers who worked around General Westmoreland, excepting only a very few among his many aides-de-camp or executive officers and the like, had no personal relationship with this difficult and distant man. Routed by U.S. forces under Winfield Scott, Santa Anna was again driven into exile. 5. George McClellan is one of those generals who really looks great on paper. Critics say that Franks and senior officials, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, concocted an invasion plan that used too few troops. Delivered Thursday. Only recently have those in the defense and military complex begun to look at how we rate generals. Hull was taken prisoner by the British and was court-martialed upon his return to the United States. It was anotherhistory-changingevent, the birth of a truly exceptional nation. I flew into Vietnam in June 1968 as a young . Yes, eminently. But for whatever reason, some American commanders have lost the battle for history. Watch the conversation or read the condensed transcript. The loss of Fort Donelson opened the door to Kentucky and Tennessee to Union forces and marked the beginning of the end of Confederate resistance in the west. He was responsible for coming up with the idea of using force to restore constitutional order in Chechnya. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? He is the dumb ass who gave the order to exfoliate the jungles with agent orange. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Pillow pulled the troops back to the fort to resupply them. He was killed in combat on March 1, 1870. 3. 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. The self proclaimed Napoleon of the West didnt quite leave the same legacy as his idol. Feel free to mention any others you may know of in the comments. The Summer 2023 term begins June 1, 2023 and ends August 24, 2023. He deprived the South Vietnamese of modern weaponry, giving U.S. and other allied forces priority for issue of the new M-16 rifle and other advanced military wherewithal. 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. The heavily forested, swampy terrain made the Legions maneuvers impossible. Xi Jinpings signature foreign policy is a shadow of its former self.. And if they not only fail to deliver, but wind up sinking their own side in the process, and change history, they earn a spot in the Hall of Military Shame. Gods and Generals (2003) Loss $61 million These are actually Civil War reenactors and probably the only people who paid to see the movie. How well that would have worked can be seen when Gates was sent to command American troops in the South. While this century witnessed many great leaders, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi . Still, it is his world-changing defeat at Yorktown that merits memorializing. What he did not divulge publicly was that the United States. While serving in Vietnam . McClellan truly disappointed president Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam where the North and South would fight the bloodiest battle of the war. 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. Westmorelands general mistake: severely underestimating the Communists. Not that Fredendall didn't have real issues that would have tried any commander. What is a bad general? But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. Cue the protests from other parts of the globe: A chorus of nations are accusing Washington of fostering unfair competition. Had Lincoln retained McClellan in command of the Union armies, many former Americans might still be whistling "Dixie.". Alas, call it the laws of probability or just cosmic karma, but every nation produces bad generals as well as good onesand . A very influential visitor, Senator "Fritz" Hollings from Westmoreland's home state of South Carolina, had warned him about reliance on such ratios. 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. 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. By the end of May 1862, Confederate commanding Gen. Joseph E. Johnston had withdrawn his forces to Richmond, and McClellan was close enough to the Confederate capital to hear its church bells ringing. But he was overly cautious by nature. But Franks, who commanded the invasion, made a bad situation worse. He lacked the schooling and relevant experience to understand the war and devise a viable approach to prosecuting it. Here are five of America's worst generals: Great generals have great talents, and usually egos and ambitions to match. In order, from most culpable down. Thus the progress Westmoreland claimed in racking up huge body counts did nothing to win the war. Yes, Westmoreland was the general who lost Vietnam. The inept Luigi Cadorna of Italy fought a dozen battles on the Isonzo before his army completely collapsed at Caporetto. America, the Middle East and the rest of the world are still reaping the consequences of those omissions. At Yorktown, he allowed himself to be taken by surprise and outmaneuvered by Washington and the French fleet. Grachev played a key role in initiating and leading the First Chechen War. Sun Wu Sun Zi, or Sun Tzu, was a prominent military general during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) who is always regarded as one of the greatest military strategists in China and even the World. This did not, however, achieve the postulated outcome. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Pillow suffered slightly more casualties than Grant in the engagement, which possibly makes the Battle of Belmont the high point of Pillows military career. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. 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). What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? Implementing the attrition strategy, Westmoreland typically employed a series of large unit sweeps conducted in the deep jungle regions along South Vietnams western borders. Jessica Chen Weiss, formerly a senior advisor for policy planning at the State Department under the Biden administration, makes the case that the United States is becoming consumed by competition with China, a strategy that could lead to dangerous conflict. Approaching his 60th birthday and exhibiting a timidity that had no place in a general about to lead an invasion, Hull also had the misfortune of facing two of the most gifted commanders ever to operate in North America. Along with Communist China and other Communist movements in the region, who were fighting to reunite the Vietnams under the red banner, there were other belligerent, free countries in the region who had an interest in keeping South Vietnam away from the Commies. The Cimbri destroyed Caepios force and, emboldened by their success, marched on Maximuss camp. Eschewing a direct overland march to the Confederate capital of Richmond, McClellan orchestrated an impressive amphibious landing of more than 100,000 troops at Fort Monroe, at the southeast end of the peninsula between the James and York rivers. From Kaiser Wilhelm to Hitler and Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi, there is no end of national leaders who squandered their nations blood and treasure in futile conflicts.

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