At that time Omar Bradley was an observer sent by the Army Chief of Staff to observe and report back. Bradleys report was far more scathing than, and in near surgical detail about Frdendal it's just that Patton was far more quotable than Bradley. (FWIW Bradley got a divisional command , that he did not ask for, out of that report)
@@toekneekerching9543 Patton saw lots of actually shell shocked soldiers he didn't react this way to. He was an experienced combat soldier from Mexico and WWI. He just had good reason to think the only two he slapped and their doctors were dogging it. Also the reporters who blew the story up were Communist stooges who were serving Party interests by trying to discredit successful American generals. Consider them as predecessors of today's media. Eisenhower's dismissal of Patton is yet another indication that while he was a competent middle manager and military staff guy he was not anywhere near being a great military leader. He held his position by being servile to General Marshall and Roosevelt, along with British interests most of the time. He never got near combat in his entire career, unlike Patton whose early career was in battle and who, along with MacArthur, exposed himself to enemy fire more than almost any other top Allied general. In that he behaved like a German or Soviet general. By the way, if Zhukov or another Soviet general suspected someone of faking it they would have shot them after a drumhead courtmartial. A German genetal might not have shot them but would have been far sterner than Patton was. I suppose a Japanese general simply would have beheaded them.
It's like my grandfather. In WW2 he downed 4 Heinkel bombers and 11 Messerschmitt fighters. He was by far the worst Luftwaffe mechanic that ever existed...
My mother was a WAAF cook in RAF Bomber Command. There was a rumour that she was awarded the Iron Cross for incapacitating more airmen than the Luftwaffe.
Around 1939 a British army Lt Colonel was dispatched to Singapore to assess its susceptibility to invasion by land. This officer correctly anticipated where the Japanese would land and which routes they would use in their advance. He recommended an increase in air support, tanks and artillery to meet the invading army long before it reached Singapore, which would be difficult to defend due to terrain and availability of combat troops. ukgov, including Churchill, preferred not to consider this a serious proposition and did nothing. In 1941, promoted and in command at Singapore, the same officer knew the shortcomings of his troops and the likely outcome. He requested aircraft and tanks, none came. He was hung out to dry by Churchill who bears at least some responsibility for the debacle (and sending warships PoW and Repulse to their destruction). It could be argued Wavell wasn’t aware that the imperial Japanese army had become brutalised by their own side between the wars and thought surrendering the best option.
Mussolini was not a "knock off" version of Hitler. Mussolini pretty much invented modern fascism and came to power about 11 years before Hitler. Hitler, at first, looked up to and admired Mussolini. It was definitely a case of the student surpassing the master.
Ah, Eastern philosophy has it that if a student surpass his teacher, he is destined for greatness. Too bad that painter with the weird moustache had a terrible teacher
Hitler had many differences with Italian fascism. He never took Mussolini seriously. They had more disagreements than anything else. Up until the war started, italy was opposed to Germany and worked with the UK.
" ' Fascist ' is just the name of our party. We are actually Corporatists. - Benito Mussolini Keep that in mind when the news mentions " corporate " Republicans or " corporate " Democrats.
So he's like Hydrox and Hitler is Oreos It's just that Hydrox sucks ass compared to Oreos Hydrox is basically the original and Oreos are the knock offs
There is a Romanian general named Ioan Sion who took out a T-34 tank with a bunch of grenades. He was the only Romanian general who died in battle during WW2.
@@josuetsang5042 I didn't realize Romanian was actually code for United States, I always thought they were completely different countries, with two different armies. That'd be pretty embarrassing if you somehow mixed them up.
I also love how he told a soldier he caught taking a nap, "Well, get back down there, son; you're the only sumbitch in this entire headquarters who knows what he's doing..."
Unfortunately, Fredendall not only escaped all punishment, he was promoted after being relieved of command. Given that he was not only incompetent but also a coward, he should've been court-martialed.
Honestly you could make an entire video about Italiab generals. As Rommel said about the Italian soldiers: "Gentlemen you have fought like lions and have been led by donkeys"
One exception: General Messe - the one Italian general that the was so good that the germans allowed him to lead german forces. Was with his corps also on the russian front.
@@ulrichbehnke9656 His title is actually Marshal Messe. And what defines the obscene crew that Mussolini had managed to select to lead the Italian armed forces is that he was sent to Tunisia when the place was about to fall, because high command wanted him out of the way. He was too good for their liking.
Given that Rommel abandoned the Italian infantry at El Alamein and left them to hold the line with no means of motorised retreat, I'm not sure he gets to comment on their leadership.
Mussolini replaced all the professional officers with fascist symptisers ,and that's the reasons for the many donkey officers that Rommel so well described
When General Clark went to Rome to collect his glory rather than give chase to the retreating Germans he gave up the initiative and the Italian campaign became a stalled stalemate for the rest of the war. That is incompetence if not dereliction.
Clark did indeed do a very stupid attack. This only compounded other crass stupidities 1 He was told not to do this by Alexander his immediate superior who gave a very British order that Clark ignored as it was not written down in military style. 2 He tried to arrest an officer of the New Zealand army. Said officer was going to Rome to arrange POW release, as ordered by his government. 3 Clark could not understand that he could not give an order to any New Zealand army members. As stated by their government orders. 4 Clark ignored the sound advice by the victors of Anzio. Which was exactly the same as Alexander had requested. Clark could not be considered competent, Intelligent, or sensible by any standard.
There was actually a congressional inquest into Mark Clark’s order to have the 36th infantry division make a frontal attack against a strong German position.
Notice the persistent themes with these incompetents: Arrogance, lack of imagination and a bizarre focus on trivial matters while ignoring the big picture/signs. A truly lethal combination. That IJA general claiming to have won is shocking, his army starved and the Allied troops wiped out what was left. Probably deluded himself to that as he withdrew ahead of his struggling troops.
You see this more often in management. Arrogance. Refusal to admit mistakes. Changing orders betraying lack of purpose. Refusal to take the consultation of underlings.
Keep in mind, this is still a major issue in current militaries. I would say it's even more prevalent now among officers than it was then. There just hasn't been a large scale war for modern field officers to waste tens of thousands of enlisted lives on.
To be fair, self confidence and the vision to make their own mind are key characteristics for a successful general too. They can be often be mistaken for arrogance. As a former enlisted, NCO, and officer, I saw many more operations succeed than fail. The failures were evenly spread throughout the ranks. From Soldiers not mastering basic tasks, to NCO's and Officers' lacking familiarity with basic tactics.
Fredendall's forte was as an instructor, not a field officer. He was a great example of how an organization tends to promote people past their point of competency (aka the "Peter principle")
In Mitaguchi's defense, the Japanese doctrine of "living off the land and captured supplies" had worked early in the war. They tried the tactic in Guadalcanal (battle of Edson's (Bloody) Ridge) as well as Imphal. Both places with disastrous results, but only because they ran into stronger opposition than they anticipated (just barely).
@@FD_Stalker Not likely, by living off the land you have in a war means that you live off captured territory and is incredibly useful when gathering intelligence. An example of this is when France tried to invade Germany and they managed to advance somewhere near the Siegfried line.
@@mrgamerguy9104 No that's a mistranslation from Japanese to English, I believe his original word is literally "We Japanese are grass eating animals since ancient time, you are surrounded by forest, how dare you report lacking of foods? Wtf is going on?" and that meme had been abused since internet era. Also the less popular but still funny word "All soldiers fired 3 rounds toward sky and our enemy will surrender"
@@FD_Stalker I never heard of the "grass eating animals" joke about Japan, but it sounds like a joke made in WW2 as the Allies refered to the Germans as "Jerries" or "Krauts" but most of the time it was just war propaganda to keep our men in good shape.
@@mrgamerguy9104 No its a reply he made when Kōtoku Satō reported lacking of food, causing 31 division lieutenant general Kōtoku Satō to lead remaining soldiers retreat. Later Mutaguchi wanted Kōtoku Satō to cut stomach but Kōtoku wanted this fool court-martial, and also Kōtoku himself because all the blame he suffered
3:13 was Mussolini really the knockoff version of Hitler? I mean wasn't he the original fascist? He was in power years before Hitler. Hitler was more like the new and improved version of Mussolini.
Italian Fascism and German National-Socialism really differ ideologically but Mussolini was Hitler's idol. The Front really said something which is a product of Allied propaganda as in general Italy was considered "Germany's soft underbelly" as the Italian industry and military could not even compete with the German ones but the Allies didn't hesitate to cooperate with Mussolini in an eventual German invasion of Austria during the interwar period until the Italian invasion of Abbysinia.
I stumbled over this line as well. I even listened again, if I got it right. But I then I thought over again and came to the conclusion that it must have been meant in the way, that Mussolini was a knock-off of Hitler in terms of starting a war and trying to conquer land. There it was Hitler, who came first and had success. Italy on the other hand... they were late and never were really successfull.
As an Italian it's really difficult to decide who was the worst general during WW2 as many of the generals where really bad. I'd consider in the group also Graziani who "invaded" Egipt in 1940 with an army of "non soldiers" and with "no tanks" and was defeated from the Brits who fought with a ratio of 1/5 in terms of manpower. Another one was Gariboldi who led the italian 8th army in Russia with a wrong strategy, accepting to.put the mountain corp in the plain without At guns. Marco
Now now, Graziani had to follow orders from the dumbest leader in the world: Mussolini. I remember having read that Mussolini's telegram to Graziani read: " Attack the British in front of you STOP". And that is it. Graziani, without a clear military objective or a secure logistics line to the mainland, had no choice but to comply. He had secured considerable wins in the beginning, however armored units require spare parts and fuel... which Mussolini and the rest of the high command did not account for that consumption, hence starting what the English called "Sitskreig". That bought the British time to reinforce, get more experienced units and counterattack. I remember an Italian movie about soldiers fighting in the desert, extremely low on supplies. When a supply truck actually drives by it had nothing but shoe shine and Mussolini's White Horse which was supposed to be paraded at Cairo for the victory and wasn't to be. The soldiers had a choice between eating the damned horse or letting the convoy pass... they chose the latter. I can't for the life of me remember the title of that movie.
@@DeltaPi314 RE: ". . . hence starting what the English called "Sitskreig"." No. The English called it "The Phoney War." The French called it "la drôle de guerre." The Germans called it "der Sitzkrieg."
@@pietroriva9383 that's the movie. It was pretty good edit: whenever I play Italy in Hearts Of Iron IV and invade Egypt i call the that war theatre " _Operation Shoeshine_ " or " _Operation Horse_ " because if that movie
Well, Weygand was, for sure, not doing a great job when replacing Gamelin, but he took the job at the worst time ever. Gamelin was far worse than Weygand in his job and prepare the fall of France, while Weygand could only see the whole front crumbling. So, you may consider a swap between Weygand and Gamelin in your worst general panel.
Arthur Percival was a monster towards the people of West Cork during the Irish War of Independence. Allegedly when people got wind of his surrendering to the Japanese and another blunder in North Africa they cheered and laughed
@@countofdownableHe was good at being a general for the greatest colonial empire of history and getting his ass kicked by a smaller nation just next door
the ira of west cork that murdered unionists and home rule supporters to steal their property? Yeah, I'm sure the bigots didn't deserve a bit of fight back from the RIC and army, as they tried to restore law and order.
How about Mark Clark. After months of firece fighting the allies had finally unhinged the Monte Casino position. Clark was ordered to link up with the British and try to stop and defeat as much of the retreating German army as possible. Clark however wanted the glory of entering Rome as liberator. This gave the Germans the time and space to disengage, move north to yet another defensive line. His days of glory were shortlived A couple of days later D Day happened
Fredendall was sent back home. Because of the way Eisenhower managed the change of command the reasons were buried and he was promoted lieutenant general.
Incompetent American General: Re-assigned to someplace where they can't do damage, freeing up a possible more competent officer to move to the field. Incompetent Russian General: Denounced, executed, and dumped in a landfill.
Based Soviet. I wish we could handle incompetent, negligent, and corrupt leaders in the US military this way. We have too many of these terrible leaders in recent times
Stalin shot a Soviet generals in The Great Purge in the '30s because they were good at their jobs and he viewed them as threat to his power. Kurschev only survived that time because the of the chaos after a defecting NKVD general pushed his name off the death list.
Fredendall was a good example of "who you know." After he was relieved, he was promoted. He devoted himself to building a bunker system far behind the lines.
"Promotion by the Dilbert principle" I remember reading the bunker thing, and how surprised any other leader that saw it was, about what the hell he was doing there.
My Grandfather had a nephew that was given a battlefield commission by Fredendall for being a good carpenter. The nephew drove a M4 and got bored during the delay after landing in North Africa. That was due to all the trucks and Jeeps being partially assembled and packed into crates for transport. The Army set up assembly lines on the wharves to put them together and he got busy with several others tankers building basic furniture out of the crates. They made tables, benches, chairs, desks and shelving that were put to use. Some high ranking officers noticed those so sought out their makers. They told Fredendall about them and that they were highly skilled tradesmen that built homes before joining the Army so would be handy to keep around to repair buildings that would house their headquarters. Fredendall agreed so gave him a battlefield commission to make him a lieutenant so he could head a platoon of craftsmen. I don't know if they worked on his bunker system. His tank did get blown to pieces during it's first engagement so was thankful for his new assignment of doing some repairs and building a lot of crates for officers that packed them with loot for shipment back to the States free of charge.
"Italy's knock off version of Hitler"... Mussolini was Hitler's biggest inspiration before the war and actually took power a decade before Hitler. You gotta know what you're saying before you say it
Before the war the relationship between Mussolini and hitler was that between a ruthless politician and his psycho student. IE Mussolini advised Hitler "the men with whom you take power are not the same men with whom you govern" (he promoted to prestigious but harmless positions his own). The result was the "Night of the Long Knives".
Mark Clark was one of them, he held the Canadian army in place so the Americans could enter Rome first which was a major strategic blunder which allowed the germans to escape and regroup north of Rome where they had to be driven out yet again......
Clark knew that his forces couldn't block the escape of the Germans so took Rome instead since it was a transportation hub being abandoned by German forces.
Interresting that Weygand is on your list. In France it is often considered that it is his predecessor Gamelin who was terrible, and that by the time Gamelin was sacked and replaced by Weygand it was already too late for him to recover the situation. Different points of view, learning everyday.
I'm guessing his part in calling to surrender and then, helping to sack/catch Jews awarded him this place... but on a pure tactical and strategical failure basis, yes, Gamelin is solidly first...
@@kolerick I would put Huntzinger first on the list! For having retreated way too fast from Sédan...after having failed during the Phoney war to have enough pillboxes built to protect the area.
@@kolerick I'm still extremely surprised that a channel centered on WW2 claims that Weygand was in favor of "total capitulation". Are they aware France signed an armistice that was far from "total capitulation".
@@lahire4943 let's be honest: given as even in France the real history of ww2 isn't faithfully told (in lieu of telling everything "bad" France did at the time and everything "good" the resistance did), it isn't strange that accurate history of what really happened at each step, isn't known in other countries... there were a lot of f-up, especialy at the top, bad decisions and illusions, but not everything is that white or black... and not many may share my oppinion, but the mother of all f-up was not reacting immediatly when Germany took the Sudettes... appeasement politic doesn't work with a populist governement... a fact we even witnessed in recent (read current) history.
To be fair to both Percival and Weygand both were in lousy situations from the start (not that they did much to improve them) that even more competent commanders would have been hard-pressed to salvage. For Percival, the British invested an enormous amount of money in the defenses of Singapore practicaly all of it in fixed artillery positions that could only fire out to the ocean, the British stripped him of practically all air support for the more important European and African theaters and few of his ground forces were experienced in jungle warfare. As far as Weygand is concerned, his chances for success were severely compromised by France's internal political squabbles, societal scars left by WWI and his predecessor, Gamelin, who was convinced that WWII would be fought like WWI and didn't take the lessons learned from Poland's quick defeat to heart and applied outdated military strategies and did so incompetently (whether this was due to age, senility or whatever is debatable). At the declaration of war, Gamelin's headquarters was unable to directly communicate with his field command lacking phones or radios, despite the common misconception that Germany had more tanks than the Allies the Allies actually had more but Gamelin diluted their strength by spreading most of them out as infantry support (like in WWI) and when his strategy failed he blamed treason among his field commanders and sacked many of them rather than blaming his strategy.
Singapore's Fort Canning guns does fire out to the Malayan mainland though, you'll still have to shoot at ships steaming through the narrow Straits of Johor for example. They were still useless however since the RN only supplied the Fort with AP and SAP shells, which were ineffective for ground support usage.
@@brittakriep2938 French and german share a comon ancestor the Franks under Charlemagne French and germans had shared the same ruler ... And yes he kicked more asses than Richard the Lionheart and Ragnar Lodbrok combined
@@jeremypintsize7606 : Those part of frankish tribe, which moved to current France gave France its german name Frankreich, and my, Brittas boyfriends, tribe the Alemannen gave Germany the french name Allemagne.
My favorite incompetent general in WWII is Alexei Vinogradov who commanded the Soviet 44th Rifle Division in the Battle of Raate Road during the Winter War. His division was destroyed by the Finnish Army and he was executed by orders that STAVKA gave.
A "dishonorable" mention for worst US General officer might also go to MG John P Lucas, who commanded the US VI Corps at the Anzio landing in January 1944. As Churchill quipped, "I thought we were landing a wildcat behind the Jerry lines in Italy, but instead we got a beached whale...". Lucas' hesitancy to send a combat force to seize Rome, some 40 miles distant, but instead "consolidate" the beach head, was considered as allowing FM "Smiling Albert" Kesselring, who lacked reserves to deal with the beachead, as there was but a single infantry regiment in the vicinity on January 22nd, time to bring reinforcements from Germany itself and ferried over from Yugoslavia. By the time Lucas felt his command could break out, eight German divisions were in the line against him, and it was the attacks around Monte Cassino that finally won out in May 1944 that relieved the VI Corps before Rome was itself captured on June 4, 1944.
Lucas was ordered to create a beachhead to take pressure away from the Monte Cassino area and allow Clark to regain the initiative. The objectives given to him were not to go seize Rome. Yes he could've pushed further but he felt he was fulfilling his objective. The fact that Monte Cassino took an additional 4 months to capture was not his fault. Also it should be worth pointing out that the theater commanders did not want to do the Anzio landing. It was only at Churchill's insistence that the operation was undertaken.
@@coleparker And anyway, Lucas only had an under-strength Corp at first (Right? Just Two Divisions?) and didn't want to go too far and be too thin on the ground. I also heard that Patton wanted the Anzio 'gig', but because Clark didn't want to be 'overshadowed', he gave the job to Lucas (true/False? I don't know)
I think you're being very unfair to Weygand. He was a very good general, the inventor of the elastic defense tactic that was used by the allies and the USSR to stop the blitzkrieg. By the time he replaced Gamelin, who was the true worst general we had, it was already over for France, as half of the French army, including their most experienced soldiers, were stuck in the Dunkirk pocket. He cancelled the counter attack order because the British were running away and attacking would mean leaving their lines open to being attacked from behind and encircled, on top of just not having the manpower.
@@cpj93070 I don't understand what makes you make. The British army did not send a lot of soldiers to begin with, and ran away at the first sign of defeat. What in my original tilted you?
Before watching the video: If Grigory Kulik from the USSR isn't here i'm gonna be surprised. There can be a whole lot of bad generals, but you have to be on a league of your own to single-handedly extend the entirety of WW2 by a couple of months just because you're that incompetent both in and out of combat. Others would be Budyonny (Voroshilov could be a honorable mention, but he didn't cost the USSR 1.500.000 lives in two battles), himmler himself, and about of half of all italians generals in ww2
I don't think Budyonny was a good general, but I don't think he was the worst either. His defeats in 1941 were partially due to Stalins orders of no withdrawals and Stavkas tendancies to withhold permissions for tactical retreats until it was too late, and he wasn't the only commander involved with Kiev and Uman so there is some blame to be apportioned out. He conducted a defence of the caucusus during Fall Blau reasonably for a time. A poor record, but there are worse.
That's bullshit. Clark was known for visiting his troops when in action out in the field. That attempted river crossing was just one of several operations during the war that didn't work out for US forces.
For the USA, you could also include GEN Douglas MacArthur as both one of the worst and best of US Generals. He had advanced notice of the Japanese attack on the Philippines and didn't use his time to his advantage, lost his air force on the ground and ended up surrendering the largest US army in history.
Yes but this advance warning he had, did he get it before Pearl Harbour was attacked, if he did then wouldn't his hands have been tied as the US wasn't at war?
My father use to say, "the only thing a marine is afraid of is an army general in charge". He had the bad luck of being under MacArthur's command in WWII and Korea.
Could you do a video on General O'Connor, please. One of the most overlooked British generals after Slim. I mean after rolling across Africa, he got captured. Then escaped and walked across Italy, then took part in D-day and actioned the break out, once Montgomery finally let him do his job
You are wrong. There was no British break out until AFTER the Germans were dealt with. The break out did not happen until after the Falaise Pocket. Nothing to do with Montgomery hamstringing O' Conner and everything to do with the Germans defending stubbornly. Eight panzer divisions and three Tiger battalions were defending around Caen. NOBODY would have broken out against that lot, regardless of tactics. It wasn't until these panzer divisions were whittled down by mid August that any break out could happen.
I’d like to see the most overated generals. Especially after reading about Montgomery in Netherlands. Costed the Allies (Canadians in particular lives) thousands of additional lives for quite literally nothing, and then tried to blame it on Eisenhower (he was jealous because he believed he should have been Supreme Commander instead of Eisenhower) before Eisenhower put Montgomery in his place.
Montgomery was a lucky bastard. He wasn't even the first choice to take over 8th Army. That general was killed in a plane crash. Every battle he master minded, against an enemy with supplies and reinforcements was shit. Caen. Operation Goodwood. Market Garden. The Falaise Pocket, where he and our boot licker Bradley let their hatred for each other allow thousands of defeated Germans escape from the Allied breakthrough. Bradley was the "GI General"? LMAO.
@@GuapoJhimi A quote from Montgomery's own words: "Waving my sword I ran forward in front of my platoon, but unfortunately I had only gone six paces when I tripped over my scabbard, the sword fell from my hand (I hadn't wound that sword strap round my wrist in the approved fashion!) and I fell flat on my face on very hard ground. By the time I had picked myself up and rushed after my men I found that most of them had been killed." Talk about being a "lucky bastard". I found this quote because somebody told me that the first thing he did when the war broke out was having his sword polished ...
@@GuapoJhimi Not just that, the thing he's most well known for was the North Africa campaign. The 2nd Battle of El Alamein broke out while Rommel was home in Germany and the German forces got battered day 1. And yet Montgomery STILL nearly lost when a sick Rommel returned mid day the second day of the battle and took command of tactics back, so much so, Montgomery's second in command was said to have been practically begging him to retreat because they started losing so many men and the Germans had suddenly started battering their supply line. They only won because Montgomery was stubborn and willing to throw away as many lives as he needed because the belief was they wouldn't be able to make a stand anywhere else closer to Cairo, despite it being known the Germans had nothing left to fuel their panzers due to the Italian oil tanker that was sank headed to resupply them
Can you imagine having to work closely with someone as bad as Fredendall only to see him replaced by someone like Patton? Talk about a complete 180. "We move Bravo Company out as bait, then use the armor and artillery stationed behind these rock formations to cut off the bastard's advance. Once they break ranks and retreat our fighters will harrass them as they- Why are you crying, Colonel?" "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's just...I can't remember the last time I was given a competent order and it's so beautiful, sir"
@N Fels do you have a source on the harbor thing? I know Patton was an extremely belligerent and racist. But I disagree that he didn’t comprehend logistics. If anything, he was painfully aware of his logistical situation as many of his advances were bogged down and left without gasoline because supplies were diverted to other unsuccessful operations.
@@ralphalvarez5465 You're misunderstanding the problem here. N Fels isn't hyping Montgomery up to be an amazing commander. They're acknowledging that Montgomery, as the highest ranked British officer serving under Eisenhower, was someone who couldn't be openly trashed. The Western Allies were fighting a war that could only be won so long as the two main combatants, the US and the UK, remained as friendly and cohesive as possible. (If you want to learn more about what a lack of cohesion looks like, wikipedia the Battle of Brisbane and the consequences it had on morale). Eisenhower was keenly aware of the consequences of letting Patton continue to run his mouth; it would look like the US was taking over the show and was perfectly willing to ignore what British commanders suggested, which would have been disastrous for the war effort. N Fels is criticizing Patton for clearly not understanding the consequences of his actions there, not running defense for Montgomery specifically.
@N Fels Market Garden was a disaster. I like your double talk and revision of history. Tell the veterans of the 1st Airborne what a brilliant idea it was. In fact, talk to the veterans of the the 82nd and 101st Airborne about this brilliant disaster. That's right, most of them are dead. You probably are some arm chair quarterback who never even served in a combat arms unit. How dare you even utter the name of PATTON and attempt to slander his good name! Next thing you'll be saying is what a brilliant military tactician, General Percival was!
Insane can be forgivable and overlooked, incompetence that leads to a horrible defeat cannot. In some cases it might be better to be insane than incompetent.
@@schizoidboy I'd argue insanity is actually a needed element for victory, though most just call it bravery in that context; even then incompetence trumps all
@@billwilson3609 - Yeah but he still screwed it up. He could have cut off the German retreat but went for Rome. The Germans escaped to fight another day.
@@adk46er5203 Alexander gave Clark the order to cut off the retreating Germans. Clark planned the Italian Campaign and knew that region well so doubted that his tired forces, that were low on men and material, would make much headway doing that. Clark didn't receive written orders from Alexander to cut off the Germans so rested his troops while working up alternative plans of action. The British and American's main goal was to capture Rome so Clark saw no real need to expend men and material on attempting to to block the retreating Germans where Alexander ordered since the Germans could simply take roads to the east to bypass his forces. Clark did have Truscott to make a feint towards Valmontone which tied up the German defenders for three days before realizing Clark's main force was head towards Rome. Clarks initial intelligence reports indicated that the route to Rome was lightly defended and German reinforcements heading south were being delayed by Allied bombing so didn't expect to run into those when his forces approached Rome. Clark was friends with Alexander's Chief of Staff so told him about his planned operation just before it started so he could pass that on to Alexander. Alexander thought Clark's plan made sense and was delighted when his forces entered Rome.
General Pavlov became a victim of Stalin's incompetence in war preparations. And this is a story for a thick book. In my opinion, the worst Italian general was Rudolf Graziani. He was the commander-in-chief of more than 200,000 armies in Libya. In 1940 he attacked British forces in Egypt numbering about 66,000 men. He suffered a heavy defeat and his troops were pushed deep into Libya.
Montgomery also wasn't the brightest, although he thought he was. In the European scene he made mistake after mistake. Like starting Market Garden instead of focussing on Antwerp. Because of this it took 6 months before the Allies had a proper harbour.
Montgomery was the best and most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2. He won more battles and took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other Western Allied ground commander in WW2. Had Montgomery remained as C-in-C of all allied ground forces the war would have been over sooner. Unfortunately, Eisenhower took his job and dragged the war on longer with his broad front disaster, which got nowhere in the Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine and Alsace in autumn 1944 and then suffered an actual retreat in the Ardennes.
Before the war, Percival tried to have defensive positions built in Northern Malaya, but thanks to pre-war policy and bureaucracy, the work never got started. The use of Japanese tanks is well known, while the British had none. The reason for this was the fact that Malaya was far down the priority list, and being kept pushed further, and further back in the line. In 1941, there were plans to reinforce Malaya-command with 200 tanks, but then operation Barbarossa began on 22 June, and those tanks were re-diverted to be shipped to Russia instead. At the time, the British were hard pressed on several fronts. At the home islands, in the Mediterranean, North Africa, the North-Atlantic and the Arctic. So when the Japanese landed, the British already had their hands full.
@@charlie8344 Yes, he did. But because Malaya command had such low priority they didn't have the training or the equipment to fight back. Yet, the British and Empire troops did the best they could under the circumstances. But then again, these men faced an enemy that had been hardened by years of combat in China, and had been taught from early on that they were racially superior, to both Asians and Europeans. And combine that, with the attitude of "death before surrender", then you've got a formidable opponent.
Arthur Percival and the two commanders preceding him all called for tanks to be used in defending the Malaya Peninsula, since 1939. Sadly all their pleas had fallen to deaf ears. Churchill was a great war leader but he had many strategic blind spots.
@@iangarrett741 I agree. It's easy to interpret our heroes or someone we worship as infallible, but the truth is that we have forgotten that they are humans, just like us. And humans make mistakes.
The thing that justified Fredendall’s existence is that the U.S. Army knew enough to use the strengths of its commanders. Fredendall couldn’t lead troops in battle, granted, but he could train people. After he was “sacked” he was ordered back to the states, made CO of a training base in North Carolina and promoted.
Of course they promoted him. Nothing the Pentagon loves more than a good incompetent who knows which ass to kiss. Our current crew including Generals Austin (Secretary of Defense), Milley and McKenzie (CENTCOM and commander in Afghanistan) are perfect examples. God save us if we have to fight China or Russia. Or even a neighborhood 3rd World street gang armed with bolt action rifles.
@@brianmccarthy5557 he wasn’t fully incompetent as op said he just wasn’t a competent field commander, if he was good at training troops I see no reason not to have him do that instead of blunder about the front, and if giving him the promo shuts him up so be it, that’s just my two cents though
@@juwebles4352 Fredendall excelled in training and organization. His doctrine gave America the finest trained and equipped army in the war. He had his whims, as they all did and do to this day. Remember, the first 18 months of the war was a crucial shake down of the US military. I took a few bloody noses to get the right people into the right place. I don't recall Patton every saying anything damning about Fredendall in his memoires. Perhaps so, and I missed it. But Bradley and a few others certainly did. And Patton wrongly gets quoted for it.
I vote General Lucas who totally f’ed up the battle of Anzio by not moving his forces inland quickly. His dithering allowed the Germans to react, create defensive positions and bombard the hell out of the troops dug in costing thousands of American lives.
Mark clark was the worst american general! he used the 10th mountain div as cannon fodder in senseless attacks at the end of the war, he was more concerned with good photo opps than military matters, pathetic
Mark Clark held back a perfect surprise attack at Anzio instead of letting his troops fan out and route the surprised Germans. He wanted to re-enact the landing the next day for photographers so he could get his picture in the paper as he knew once D-Day started he would be ignored.
I vote for Mark Clark, who blundered at Anzio and then let the Germans escape to fight again, as he drove to Rome instead of linking up with Alexander to trap the Germans. All of his blunders caused the extended fighting in Italy, and the loss of many lives needlessly. He and his subordinate Gen. Lucas were massively incompetent.
I would suggest that Lucas was not as bad as suggested. He was given a difficult task of trying to land a fighting force which was supposed to raid the back lines but was only given enough men to secure a beachhead and not go on the offensive. To have risked his landing site supply lines would have been reckless.
@@johnsouto5221 Not being Caesar is not the same as being terrible. Mark may be sub par but not terrible. You got to give credit to the Germans. It was a tough situation.
For the British, I agree with Percivall but for close second place one could argue Montegomery who made the terrible operation Market Garden a thing, Didn't listen to intel and refused to admit his mistakes til the day he died. He even boasted over his militairy skills...
Making the common mistake made by those who have not a clue what they are talking about. Montgomery did not plan Market Garden that plan was executed by Brereton (American) There were a great many mistakes made in these two operations most were overcome to some degree. One was not and could not be rectified and damned the whole (poorly planned anyway) operation. That of Gen Gavin not to attack the Bridge when it was all but undefended. By the time he got round to sending his men to attack it the thing was so heavily defended it delayed XXX Corps who had arrived in the time allotted by the planners to get across a bridge which should have been in allied hands. They had 8 miles to go and the operation could have cut many months off the war, prevented the German army in Holland from being supplied and prevented them from escaping also. Montgomery was a pretty nasty individual (it has been suggested he was on the autism spectrum which would explain a lot about his personality) and difficult to get along with but he knew how to wage war. His biggest mistake was arguably not sending a force to cut off and then enter Antwerp thus giving the Allies a large port closer to where the logistics were creaking. Montgomery was a very successful leader forget his personality problems look at his results.
On Percival, I'd qualify his 'dedication to training', since one of the biggest criticisms of him was that his command IGNORED training. Also, Percival didn't surrender against orders. He was eventually given the option to surrender if he thought continued fighting was pointless. He did almost nothing right in Malaya/Singapore, but he wasn't a coward.
I feel like that was mostly due to being on the back foot the whole way. I also doubt he had good intel on the enemy and the area. I would argue that he made logical choices that just ended up being wrong. Least he didnt blunder due to want of glory
@@intoHeck1964 Reading about the campaign in Malaya/Singapore, he made most of the decisions before the attack that caused his forces to be on the back foot. -He actively prevented cooperation with the native leaders. -He encouraged London into thinking everything was under control. -He interfered with the ability of intel to gather information. -He championed the insane RAF air plan. -He encouraged the lack of cooperation between Army, Navy and Air Force. -He ignored training. -With no special doctrine for fighting in Malaya...he actively discouraged and ignored the few officers taking it seriously. -The mishandling of Matador was partially his fault. -That British forces were frozen waiting to launch Matador was his fault. -During the campaign he constantly interfered with command at the front...usually by either making decisions that made no sense, ordering his commanders to do things that were impossible, or delaying making decisions until the Japanese made the decisions for him. -He undermined the Australian defense plans and caused them to frail. -In the defense of Singapore, he wouldn't build defenses for fear of looking weak to the native population. -Ignored intel and placed most of his forces in the wrong place. -Ignored common sense and defended strongly around the entire island, still fearing the Japanese would do the dumb thing at assault the Singapore fortress defenses amphibiously. Ultimately, his biggest sin was he showed zero leadership, and acted in a way that instead of being defeated by Japan the British were humiliated by them. Its instructive to compare Malaya with the Philippines. MacArthur, with fewer troops, less equipment, in a worse geographical position...and even more on the back foot than Percival, was at least able to put up a creditable defense, and make the Japanese pay for their victory. Not so Percival. Percival even lost his honor by lying after the war about what happened.
Concerning the french: whatever flaws Weygand had, his predecessor Gamelin was far worse (imho). Refused to use radio and relied on messengers. Weygand made the one mistake of delaying Gamelins offensive for two days, which destroyed the last chance to save french situation, but it was Gamelin who had created the mess in the first place (and wether Gamelin offensive would have succeeded if started on time is not certain). After that defeat Weygand adopted the Hedgehog defence which was the right strategy but too late, by now France lacked the numbers. Weygand wasn't incompetent, but he screwed up at the wrong time.
The French were the largest and most powerful Army in Western Europe at the start of the war. But French Generals were hidebound traditionalists. The French high-command made a lot of mistakes in WWI but managed to defeat Germany in what was largely a static war of attrition. WWII was a different war, altogether. The best generals in any WWII Allied Army were the ones that learned to be flexible and aggressive in employing the new technology available and responding to Germany's dynamic blitzkrieg tactics. But no French general did that until the Americans gave a division to Leclerc.
@@GhostRanger5060 a lot of the military's incompetence was also caused by france ´s political instability, a lot of position were given because of political ideology, not competence
@@GhostRanger5060 As a Frenchman, it is true that our 1939 generals were not able to adapt to a movement war. But to their discharge, that was the idea of our grand battleplan too. Actually, we could attack Germany by 1936, not anymore by 1939. We were facing a more industrialized and a twice-more populated country - colonies excluded. So we had to start another war of attrition, well-protected behind the Meuse river and the Maginot Line. The plan was good. The execution failed miserably as we all know. In the end, I think Gamelin was much more responsible of the defeat than Weygand. Gamelin did not allocated enough divisions to defend the Ardennes and, above all, he did not trust aerial reports detailing gigantic german columns in the forest.
When Weygrand took over there wasn't forces available with which to throw back the Germans any longer. They had been wasted in Gamelins push into Belgium. While Weygrand may not have been a splendid General, Gamelin was many times worse.
@@GhostRanger5060 The French by no means where as defensively focussed as is often told, but by 1940 they were not ready for any offensive. that was planned for 1941 and their doctrines actually quite close to what the British and Americans excelled in later - ie overwhelming firepower and closely (cautiously) coordinated advance. Where the French army mainly failed in 1940 was in its communications - way too slow for Blitzkrieg. But any army would have been by 1940.
3:15 Mussolini was Italy's "knockoff version of Hitler". Given that he was in power 10 years before Hitler, I don't think that is a fair description at all. In fact, it is just indulgent verbiage.
Given that Italy and Germany were very much confronting each-other over Austria in 1934-35 and that there were many authoritarian nationalist governments in Europe at the time, it is misleading to over-simplify things. If a couple of things had resolved differently, the whole situation could have gone in a different direction.
"Soldiers are not good on the battlefield without training hard beforehand. Whether it’s a soldier, a civilian wanting to run a marathon, or a CEO running a company, being successful at what you do requires focus, effort, and learning" --Lt. Gen. George S. Patton
His memoirs? according to my memoirs I am a military genius.................................... Hint. Its not by your memoirs but rather by your actions ye shall be judged.
@@mrh9635 excellent observation. And they should have been. Although they held out for a lot longer if I recall. But Perceval was a disaster. He was more focussed on feeling sorry for himself and kept a self pitying defeatist attitude from the day he took command onwards. Very much like Gamelin and Weygand during the Battle of France. He outnumbered the Japanese and could easily have mounted a very stiff defence for months. Look at the Sikh last stand at Saragarhi. At the end of the day it comes down to character and fighting spirit. He had neither.
@@fiachramaccana280 In a war where Britain gave higher priority to supplying it's Soviet ally than to it's own Asian colonies, there was never going to be a favourable outcome.
@@DiviAugusti Yep, when you halt an allied advance just to run off to Rome for a photo shoot letting the Germans slip away you earn the title for an incompetent idiot!
actually paulus fought very well and hold his foothold in stalingrad much more than expected.his failure was for not getting supplies and also that winter.telling paulus was a worst german general is like telling rommel is bad general because of his failure in north africa
Lucien Truscott recognized immediately that diverting forces to Rome meant at least another year of war in Europe. Between the torpedoes Admiral King refused to recognize as extremely flawed for 2 years, and Mark Clark's insubordinate sideshow to Rome the war was extended. This is not to mention MacArthur's early displays of incompetence. In the Pacific we had Lindberg extending the range of the P-38 by 200 miles by upping manifold pressures on their engines and the Pappy Gunn insistence on making B-25s and anything else Kenny had that flew into low level strafing monsters meant victory in the Battle of the Bismark sea as well as slaughter of Japanese as they attempted to reach Port Morsby overland. I am very glad that the Japanese did not get the atom bomb before the US did. I am very glad that Hitler did not get the atom bomb before the US did. Now the US faces the hypersonic threat. Faster and further in weaponry wins.
Meh Hitler just listened to his Generals Mussolini didn’t. Hitler also maked almost every error possible when faced with actual decisions. D-day was successful thanks to him. Mussolini was just a complete idiot and a coward. And I would say that D’Annunzio rather than Mussolini can be seen as the creator ( indirectly) of Fascism and Militaristic Japan. Mussolini knew this ww1 hero could just spill a word to have everyone on his side. That’s why he kept the VATE under house arrest ( not officially but he was basically pressured to stay out politics. ) D’Annunzio was what linked Mussolini Italy Japan And Nationalism All together and he was the one to talk about the Superhuman theory. But nobody has as idea racism and anti-semitism in Italy. The Germans did after the monarchists divulged the voice of the Jewish Backstab as ESCUSE to their defeat. Mussolini sent gays and jews to several islands. The medics invented fake stuff to not get them persecuted. And the Army and paramilitary didn’t even try to actually capture the Jews. They rather shot some Train runner as Figural Punishment. But it is safe to say that more Non-Jews Italians died for any motivation during the war than Jew Italians for persecution. The Germans ironically fucked up the only thing Italy and Germany had that could have won them the war : Fermi and Einstein the two most important individuals for the Bomb. If the monarchists didn’t say the wrong stuff today maybe New York and London wouldn’t be as much populated and The Soviets wouldn’t even have come near to German core territory. But this isn’t our history thankfully or maybe unluckily depending on what would have happened after ww2 won by non racist-Germany and Competent Italy
Hitler was a military idiot. He was very good at consolidating political power. But he believed his own fantasy. To be any good at strategy and tactics you have to be able to see the situation accurately. Hitler couldn’t do that.
MacArthur is a weird one, as he had both moments of incompetence and moments of brilliance. The Battle of Inchon during the Korean war is an example of brilliance, even against the advice of other generals.
I think he's a long way from being the worst. Yes, his complacency after Pearl Harbor was as incompetent as it gets, but his retreat and defense of Bataan was pretty well executed. He's a General who did extraordinary things, then would turn around and do something incredibly stupid. Overall he was a good General, just no where near as good as other Pacific commanders like General Vandergrift, Admiral Nimitz , or Admiral Spruance.
Percival's use of the word "sticky" reminds me of a misunderstanding that led to heavy losses of British troops in the Korean War when the American commander underestimated the dire situation they were in.
Weygand signed the "Letters of Transit" that everybody was trying to get in Casablanca eventually Huphrey Bogart got them and he killed Conrad Veldt Claude Rains went along with it, and Victor Lazlo escaped with Ingrid Bergman and everything ended well. So Weygand did at elast one good thing
I agree totally with this list, but think a (Dis)Honourable Mention should be given to General Freyberg, the New Zealander who lost Crete and could have handed the Germans a nasty defeat had he: a) Listened to the intelligence that was 100% accurate regarding time and location of parachute drops; and b) Made the airfields unusable so they could not have been occupied to resupply / reinforce the Fallschirmjäger, who were otherwise stranded.
You're severely misrepresenting Freybergs' actions here. He was given Enigma intel for his own edification, but was simultaneously forbidden from acting on it in any way. Reading Enigma was a massive advantage for the Allies, and preventing the Germans from realising that it was compromised was a far higher strategic priority than almost everything, certainly much higher than a very minor, secondary theatre like Crete. You're correct, them Allies could have set up a perfect ambush at Crete and utterly destroyed the Fliegerkorps, but the Germans would then have known for certain that Enigma was broken, and could have fairly easily made changes to make it uncrackable for probably the rest of the war. There is room to criticise the overall handling of the battle by Freyberg and his subordinates, but it should also be recalled that a lot of the Allied forces on Crete were recently evacuated from Greece, and were short on weapons and probably not in the best shape overall, as they were still reorganising, whereas the FJs were a crack unit with air superiority. I'd also point out that wrecking the airfields was an absolute no-no, as that would have given away the Enigma secret too; there's no way that the Allies would have done such a thing without detailed foreknowledge of the impending invasion, and once the invasion started, they pretty quickly lost the ability to do so
Adding to the comment above, orders were given to not destroy airfields, because it was supposed to transfer planes there. Although given the situation in Mediterranean it would be not soon.
Freyberg was actually one of the better Commonwealth divisional commanders. However let's not forget he was the one who requested the bombing of Monte Cassino.
I think TIK did a long video on operation crusader and Freyberg and his New Zealanders fought hard. There was a South African commander who was much worse in that battle. Refused orders and didn't reinforce the new Zealanders when they were desperate.
At best Freyberg was an idiot who was capable of commanding a brigade at most. Most of those who knew him regarded him as a physically imposing but dull witted man. He just looked like a general. Very similar to Redvers Buller from the late Victorian era.
Percival's inclusion here is manifestly unfair. He wasn't a great commander, but he wasn't monstrously inept. He knew the problems with Malaya Command - the indifferent quality of the troops, the lack of funds, the complete lack of adequate naval and air support - and he tried to remedy them. He just did not have the necessary force of personality or the energy to do it. 1. While his troops DID outnumber the Japanese, most of the troops at his disposal were second-line formations filled out with raw recruits. Many of the Indian troops under his command, for example, were teenage recruits led by wartime-commissioned officers drawn from Britain, who didn't speak any Hindi. He had no tanks, and his troops lacked anti-tank weaponry. Some of the much-vaunted Australians sent as reinforcements had only been in uniform for two weeks. Percival could, and should, have tried to train his soldiers more thoroughly, but he was hampered by the lack of space provided by the civilian authorities and the need to disperse his forces to protect RAF installations. 2. Percival was hamstrung by a bad pre-war strategy, the Singapore Strategy. Under this scheme, the bulk of the defence of Malaya was supposed to be the responsibility of the RAF and the Royal Navy. The RAF had sited its bases in Malaya without consulting the Army. Because the outbreak of war in Europe meant that the RAF could not spare the aircraft necessary to occupy these bases, Percival now found himself with a lot of empty, poorly sited RAF bases that were of no use, yet still had to be defended to prevent them from falling into Japanese hands. It is clear, with hindsight, that Percival should have pushed for a more aggressive strategy, pushing up into Thailand to seize likely landing sites. But Percival didn't have the authority to take this decision on his own. That authority lay with Air Marshal Brooke-Popham, who was himself hamstrung by the intransigence of the Foreign Office. 3. Percival was only the GOC of Land Forces, and had no authority over wider policy decisions, such as the requisition of civilian labour to construct defences. Malaya remained under civilian authority until the surrender, and was run according to peacetime norms/ There was no blackout instituted, no mobilisation of society, and no attempt to tighten up administration. The civil authorities argued that this was necessary to avoid the danger of disrupting colonial control, but, this meant that Percival found himself having to detail troops to perform tasks - such as the building of defences - that should have been given to civilian labour formations. Percival could, and should, have done more to construct defences behind which the Commonwealth troops could have recuperated and retrained, but this would have gone against the advice of his own chief engineer, General Simpson, who was of the opinion that fixed defences would be bad for civilian morale. While this sounds laughable, remember that this is a colonial society, where any admittance of difficulty in front of the natives as incredibly risky. 4. Percival himself was, arguably, a good man in the wrong position. He had led a brigade in 1918 and had been highly decorated for inspirational small-unit leadership, but since then his entire inter-war career had been spent as an expert in counter-insurgency, strategic analysis and staff work. He hadn't led a combat formation since 1918, had never led anything larger than a brigade, and had no familiarity with the Indian Army or its officers. Worse yet, he had been appointed to the position of GOC over the head of a man - Lieutenant-General Lewis "Piggy" Heath - who was both senior to him on the army list, and had led an Indian Army division against the Italians with great success. His Australian subordinate, General Bennett, was a raging narcissist who undermined him at every opportunity. Percival wasn't a brilliant commander, but he doesn't deserve to be put alongside men like Kulik or Graziani. Salvaging Malaya command would have required someone like Montgomery - an experienced man possessed of bulletproof self-confidence and furious energy, who would ruthlessly prune the command and administration, plan cautiously, and would inject confidence wherever he went. But Montgomery wasn't yet of the necessary rank, and Percival was the only man available who had been to Malaya. He was also a protégé of Field Marshal Dill, who wanted to give Percival a command.
@@pweter351 He did! His army was on its' last legs when he surrendered. Percival went into captivity alongside his men, it was Gordon Bennett who fled back to Oz.
Maybe people would be more sanguine about his performance if he let his men dig in? The whole “bad for morale “ thing is pure fuckery and makes you souls like a massive bell end.
@@MrLorenzovanmatterho the Australians wanted to fight or try and escape he forbade it and forced them to surrender only to wither in the Japanese camps
@@pweter351 No, he ordered the surrender so there was no more fighting, partly to spare the civilian population a Rape of Nanking situation (what did happen was bad enough). Do try to give me any evidence he forbade escapes?
singaporean here. about general percival, i don't think it's fair to call him incompetent. the malayan environment was very, very unsuitable for tanks, which he thought was sufficient to deter a ground based invasion. not to mention, strategically, malaya had little value. the port in singapore was what was important. so he had spent what few resources he had on fortifying singapore against a naval assault (which was the far more likely strategy). it was actually quite an impressive fortification, just that the japanese bypassed it, like how germany bypassed the maginot line. the japanese using bicycles was just a pretty novel thing to do that he didn't consider. that, and their decision to go THROUGH the entire malayan peninsula just to fuck singapore up the ass was also a big "nani" moment.
That would be half the Russian General Staff, atleast one British guy (yes, Churchill) and quite a lot of German, Austrian and French Generals........ I am not even halfway and I can't stop laughing at the idiocracy.
@@indianajones4321 just checked Wikipedia.............. How...did...he...become...General...again?... Even I as a volunteer Firefighter knows damn well securing a town and trenches is way too costly. 1/4 millions for little to no gains. And Defense....oh god...
But once the german invasion had begun, Pavlov’s western front in it’s forward position didn’t stand much of a chance when Guderian’s second Panzer Group hastily moved around his southern flank. Initially he thought he faced only a single armored division from that direction. But as soon as he saw what was really happening, it was all too late.
And the Soviet Air Force was practically destroyed in the first three days of Barbarossa. The army was told “no surrender no retreat” and were also effectively blind as the Air Force was completely decimated. The Germans basically stormed through European Russia and only the weather and complete luck stopped the Wehrmacht. Pavlov was basically one of hundreds of Soviet officers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time with no hope of stemming the German offensive, let alone putting up a passable defence. Remember too that Stalin practically purged the Soviet officer cadres before the invasion of many of their best officers. The only ones left were yes men and junior officers that were rapidly promoted.
From Spike Milligan’s memoirs: Churchill: have you seen the bill for Singapore? Those japa-bloody-nese, why did they come round the back? Alan-Brooke: they’re tradesmen sir.
Which General do I think was the worst? Hard to beat the French one. Cowardly, incompetent, and actually did betray his country and work with the enemy. The others were bad but he combined all the worst traits of the others with actually working with the Nazis.
Bernard Montgomery should have made the list for the disastrous Operation Market Garden. He planned it and he owned it. Eisenhower was skeptical of the whole Operation but let him go ahead with it anyway.
Skipper Clinton, I think that is a different category, because the plan fell apart because of bad intelligence, and German Panzer divisions coincidentally resting there. As the attack was so far behind enemy lines it was not possible to bring the necessary suport needed to neutralise the threat. So I think that is more bad luck than bad generalship.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- "Market Garden was a risky plan of British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. It was executed by 41.628 English, American and Polish airborne troops and three divisions on the ground. The operation consisted of two parts." Use Google, it's really simple!
@@skipperclinton1087 From chapter 6 of the United States Army in WWII Europe - the Siegfried Line Campaign Quote" *On the Allied side, the planning and command for the airborne phase of MARKET-GARDEN became the responsibility of the First Allied Airborne Army. The army commander, Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton* So there you have it, another monty myth thats often thrown around is DEBUNKED. Montgomery had ZERO control over the command of 1st Allied Airborne, no ability to appoint or dismiss subordinates, nor any control of objective targets or the timing, location & sequence of drops. 21st Army Group was to assume control of the Airborne Corps only AFTER they linked up, at which point it was far too late to rectify any of the appallingly bad planning decisions that Brereton & Browning had made.
Soviet-Polish General Karol Swierczewski was infamously incompetent in every battle he found himself. Part of the reason was his alcoholism, which lead to offensives that needlessly cost the lives of the men under his command. However in Communist Era Poland, he was portrayed in propaganda as a "soldier of victory" and there was a forced hero worship of him. Semyon Budyonny was also pretty incompetent, sabotaging Soviet efforts to create a tank corps, because he was convinced that tanks would never replace horses.
Calling General D. Pavlov "the worst Soviet general" is a joke and it's based on completely false accounts from Zhukov's memoirs. Zhukov lied about the purpose and results of wargames conducted by the Soviet General Staff around New Year of 1941. In fact, both Zhukov and Pavlov were promoted AFTER those games with Zhukov becoming Chief of General Staff, and Pavlov receiving a rank of Army General. Say what you want about Stalin but he didn't have a habit of promoting people who have failed to meet his expectations. FYI, in 1939 Pavlov was the Chief of the Directorate of Tank and Armoured Car Troops of the Red Army so he's basically a guy responsible for military oversight of developement of T-34, KV-1/2 an T-40 tanks in the late 1930s. So why he was sacked in 1941? Because Stalin needed a scapegoat, someone to blame for spectacular defeats of Soviet Western Front in the opening stages of German invasion and Pavlov had a misfortune of being the highest ranking military field commander in that area.
Worst American should either have jointly gone to Lucas and Clarke for the Anzio campaign or MacArthur. I'd give it to MacArthur. Worst French should not have been Weygand. He was 73 and called out of retirement only a few months earlier. He should never have been appointed. That decision is as crazy as if the US had recalled Pershing. Gamelin had the whole of the phoney war to prepare and learn from Poland's experience and dropped the ball.
Montgomery was the most successful and savvy Western Allied ground commander of WW2. Nobody even comes close. He took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other. Defeated Rommel every time they met, got the allies out of Africa and into France. Then had to help bail the Americans out in the Bulge. Patton's Lorraine disaster was far worse than Market Garden. As was Hodges Hurtgen Forest blunder. Both presided over by Bradley.
they're both niether as good as their PR nor as bad as the revisionism. i dont understand what you mean by WW1 commander' none of them thought like ww1 commanders. Montgomery was a mobilearmour commander; even the concept of that was impossibe to imagine for a ww1 commander
The worst of all generals was clearly French general Gamelin, the predecessor of Weygand. He had a fair plan of fighting the Germans in Belgium, France being protected by the Maginot Line. But when Germans extended the war to Netherland, he took his last mobile reserve from the center to the far north of the front. French stopped the Germans in Belgium, but when the true thrust occurred in the Ardennes, there was no reserve to counter-attack. He also mismanaged the whole business, denying to give explicit orders because he was CinC and delegated the Belgium-Eastern France front to another general; but nonetheless sending direct orders to any unit, worsening the chaos. Giving the difference of speed between the Allies, who calculated on 20 to 40 km a day by infantry, when Germans performed 60 to 100 km a day by tanks and trucks, the result was hopeless. The last straw was Weygand decision to postpone the attack of encircled Allies armies in Belgium between German panzer spearhead and much slower German infantry. But just coming from Syria Weygand needed to take contact with the multiple army generals to understand the moving situation, and with the political men to know what could be achieved.
The Japanese in India bit. Had the British Commonwealth forces not beat them with a very well executed defence the Japanese supply issue would have been irrelevant. The Japanese had banked on a quick victory (like in the past) but the Commonwealth, getting their measure by now, said no.
Fredendal was utterly inept and ignorant though he was rivalled by John lucas at anzio.....of all of the featured generals, percival was truly the victim of circumstance over ineptitude....the Italian general was the very definition of hubris.
Percival didn’t have much going for him strategically, but his tactical ineptitude was all of his own making! The commander of his engineer battalion was begging for permission to build fortifications on the northern side of Singapore (on the approaches to the causeway and on the island itself) yet Percival was more concerned with a morale which was at rock bottom anyway! Still, he must have had something incriminating against his superiors to escape cashiering at war's end.
Lucas was the main reason for the debocal at Anzio!!! Mark Clark was a great general and guy who used Japanese Americans in Italy to a great advantage!!!
@@ronaldhux7226 Clark told Lucas not to stick his neck out at Anzio before US forces landed since the Navy and Army were still having problems coordinating the unloading of men, material and supplies during beach invasions. Lucas had orders to move inland if possible yet decided he better get his stores of supplies organized before launching any operation so they wouldn't end up running out of fuel, ammo and rations because those were scattered about the beach with other goods that were brought in by the same boat. The GI's found themselves searching thru the crates for tents, ammo and rations before they could move forward to set up defensive positions.
@@ronaldhux7226 General Patton, on his way to England after being relieved, paid a visit to Lucas. He told him to watch his back with Clark, and expect to be relieved because Lucas was in a 'no win' situation. Post war analysis of Lucas' actions showed he did the right thing by building up his supplies. The entire reason for the Anzio landing was to relieve pressure at Monte Cassino and the Rapido River. Clark was to link up with Lucas in a few weeks, which turned into a few months. Lucas only had sea borne supplies, and they were cut in half when many of the ships and LSTs sailed for England for D-Day preparations.
I really appreciate the spirited discussion about this subject! Plenty of additional information is presented and various opinions are offered. The Front made it possible that a good discourse among people from all over the world engages. Well done gentlemen and brothers in arms (I guess not many sisters in arms are among us here...)
By 'going for glory' as in taking the city of Rome , US General Mark Clark allowed the German army to escape north and regroup. This in effect caused the deaths of many allied soldiers and protracted the eventual end of the war by many months!
General Mark Clark: didn't move quickly when he should have (Salerno), attacked when and where he shouldn't have and re-inforced a defeat (Gari River) and ignored direct orders to pursue and destroy the German 10th Army so he could capture Rome as a PR stunt. Result? Medals and promotion.
@@oneofspades Except that he clearly went against orders to instead, capture Rome for glory when could have caught the German 10th army that was withdrawing which lead to the uneeded extension of conflicts in Northern Italy. Of course this doesn't discredit the fact that all of us are lucky to not live through such horrors and are able to so call have the "support of youtube to battle plan"
And not a single German general. That is when you know things were bad. The enemy is falling giant yet it still fights with courage and determination while falling.
I'm waiting for a part 2 where you present us the worst German general, also, if you think of a French general, my guess would be Gamelin (who didn't think tanks could cross the Ardennes)
the least competent German general, hands down, was Heinrich Himmler. He was so bad that the German general staff (whom Hitler greatly distrusted at the time) had no problem convincing Hitler that his loyal(?) political ally was a lousy military man
I think Gamelin is far worse than Weygand and this presentation of Weygand is exaggerated! If Weygand lost time to launch the operation, it was mainly because he had no correct vision of the situation. Following the manifest incompetence of Gamelin, the French government called Weygand who was at this moment in Syria since the beginning of the war. Weygand lost three days in meeting in different headquarters to try to understand the situation and to coordinate the different allies because there was no clear organisation of the allied forces in this area between the Frenchs, the Britishs and the Belgians. And another point, the general Gaston Billotte, commanding the French army group in the area died in a road accident. One week after his son, the futur general Pierre Billotte, did his famous charge of Stonne where his B-1bis tank destroyed 13 German tanks and two antitank canons in few minutes. Gamelin is for me far worst : - Even if he had fought brilliantly during the Great War, since he became a pure headquarter officer. He rarely left his headquarter in Vincennes, rarely discussed with frontline generals and have no affinity with tanks, aircrafts or mobile warfare as had Weygand who was aide-de-camp of Foch and military advisor during the Polish-Soviet war. - He didn't organise well the command and some units could depend of several chains of command. - He refused to think that tanks could cross the Ardennes... and refused to take in account the reconnaissance flights that detected these moves and the renseignements of the Belgian army about these points! And after the defeat, Weygand was favorable to Pétain but was clearly and openly hostile to the collaboration with Germany above the war reparations indicated in the armistice of 1940. From July 1940 to November 1942, few days before operation Torch, he was in charge of North Africa and he hided weapons and soldiers, passing them for civil agents or police force, in preparation of the revenge. That explains why Germans arrested him when they invaded the South Zone late novembre 1942.
The worst Polish-Soviet general was Karol Wacław Świerczewski. He actually fought against Poland in the Polish-Soviet War, but during World War Two was installed as the commander of one of two Polish armies fighting on the Soviet side.
"italy's knock off version of Hitler" ... Italy founded fascism, that Hitler copy pasted into Germany. If anyone's a 'knock off' its Hitler not Mussolini.
Pavlov was a victime of Stalin's orders. He was use a scapegoat for Zukhov and Stalin. With impossiable orders he was without chance to succed. Not many remember he was responsiable for technical modernisation of Soviet tanks forces after Spanish Civil War. He is a father of concept that bring T-34. All relations about wargane came from Zukhov, who is caught lying in many other relations. Zukhov never was a good source.
Percival might not be great, but I think bad luck was more a factor. If he had some heavy (or even medium) armor (which he didn’t) he would have better chances. If he waited a week more, the Japanese force could’ve collapsed being so undersupplied. Spreading his forces too thinly was on him though, but he also face an enemy much more inventive and experienced.
It has been suggested that, when the British arrived with a white flag to talk about surrender, the Japanese assumed Percival was going to invite them to throw in the towel. Cue counterfactual frenzy!
I have to say British focus in Europe (dire situation for them in late 1940 untill 1941) and abandon Asia which is the same reason when mostly SEA was in Japanese control so Australia government call US for help more than UK.
The generally inept tactics in Malaya were mostly caused by lack of knowledge of the real conditions. Percival had been in Malaya in 1936-8, and should have been aware that finger roads had been bulldozed into what had previously been jungle, a good deal of which had been replaced with rubber plantations. His maps didn't show this, but he suspected a Japanese assault from Thailand, and he had eight months as commander in theatre to reconnoitre, which apparently he neglected to do, assuming that the jungle was impassible. Probably the Japanese would have infiltrated through even trackless jungle to outflank his fixed roadblock positions, but they didn't need to, and his troops were rapidly forced from position after position. Meanwhile, in Singapore, he did precisely nothing to strengthen the defences, improve the water supply, or send non-useful civilians south. When the Japanese arrived at the Straits of Johore, anything he or anyone could have done would have been pointless, anyway. The lack of water would have forced surrender within a few weeks. Immediately on arrival, a dynamic general would have put engineers and civilian labour to work to create cisterns and rainwater channels. He would have updated his maps, which were forty years old. He would have trained his men - Percival did do that - in the actual conditions. Above all, he would have seen to the defences of Singapore island. Percival made no attempt at all, although he must have been aware that a Japanese advance through Malaya would come to that. His lack of even the faintest attempt to prepare Singapore for defence and siege is reminiscent of a rabbit hypnotised by a snake. IMHO, he should have faced court-martial for neglect of duty, been cashiered and dishonourably discharged, after the war - which he spent in comparative luxury in Japanese hands, not like his men, who suffered Changi and the Death Railway. Instead, he was allowed to keep his rank and pension, and retire to write his memoirs, eventually to die in bed full of years, a fate denied to most of those who had the misfortune to find themselves under his command. Bad luck? I think not.
@@puffin51 everything you said absolutely use gigantic of resources even in Malaya which have geographic disadvantage that have long coast (ton of port) and have gigantic mountain in center of country with 50000 men can not hold Malaya anyway because they will burn supply so fast due logistics issues another one Churchill had to think they'll use Siam as second china to buy time for them which Siam surrender in few days so anyway for reinforcement is impossible and they can only defense and lose , the last thing in British government mind is they want to protect Singapore only even Percival can counterattack via Thailand but British government can not that reason was when Siam government try to contact British government via viceroy of India and they didn't respond anything to support Siam. PS. When he assignment in Singapore he have mixed feeling about this word "In going to Malaya I realised that there was the double danger either of being left in an inactive command for some years if war did not break out in the East or, if it did, of finding myself involved in a pretty sticky business with the inadequate forces which are usually to be found in the distant parts of our Empire in the early stages of a war." And one thing Japan win over British is bicycle (it's real and not joking)
I had a few terrible NCO’s in my line team. They basically stopped doing any work once they got their stripes and complained about everyone they personally hated all of the time. When they actually had to do some work, they complained about it a lot.
It was certainly a larger and strategically important defeat, but it was fought well overall. The defense delayed the Japanese long enough that the Japanese commander was relieved as a failure.
@@rochrich1223 Wainwright was left holding the bag on Corregidor while MacArthur left for Australia. Wainwright had very little food, medical supplies or ammunition remaining when he surrendered. He had little way of knowing about the atrocities his men would be subjected to on the Bataan Death March.
Rough duty indeed. I hear that as the Army advanced toward liberating his POW camp, he worried about how he would be received. After all, he felt like a defeated General. Would he be blamed? Of course, the men who liberated him apologized to him for taking so long. Somehow that story touches me.
In captain Basil Liddell Hart's " A history of the Second World War", he mentions that British high command was extremely concerned with the inadequate preparations in Singapore. They believed that Churchill had become obsessed with the conflict in the north African desert to the detriment of Singapore.Events were to prove them right.
Liddell Hart was extraordinarily biased. The North African Theater was also far more important than Singapore. It's not like the British had unlimited resources.
![The Most Brutal/Incompetent Generals from Each Major Fighting WW1 Country [Pt. 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OBQ8lFrXvzM/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Most Brutal/Incompetent Generals from Each Major Fighting WW1 Country [Pt. 1]](/img/tr.png)
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Dude you sound biased towards the allies
Nearly lost a testicle watching that ad
What about worst Admirals of WW2 ?
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@@michaelripperger5674 didn't know men were doing that,too much time on their hands
I love the part about the Russian general where he was so bad that Stalin thought he was working for the enemy. 😂
Stalin: "Is he working... With the enemy?"
NKVD: "No... He is incriminally incompetent."
Stalin: "Blyat?"
I thought Pavlof was shot for ordering a retreat against Stalin's orders.
reminds me of my first league match
kda was 0/7/0
I was temporarily banned for intentional feeding
Then again, with Stalin, if a general did too good a job, he would be "purged".
@@Ciborium With Stalin? If stopped clapping before the others at his speech you are to be purged. Ref Archipelago Gulag
Patton saying he didn’t know how Fredendall justified his own existence had to be the hardest slap Patton ever gave lol.
I think the slapping he gave his own shell shocked soldiers might have been worse.
At that time Omar Bradley was an observer sent by the Army Chief of Staff to observe and report back. Bradleys report was far more scathing than, and in near surgical detail about Frdendal it's just that Patton was far more quotable than Bradley. (FWIW Bradley got a divisional command , that he did not ask for, out of that report)
Vintage war hero burn
Harsh, but well deserved
@@toekneekerching9543 Patton saw lots of actually shell shocked soldiers he didn't react this way to. He was an experienced combat soldier from Mexico and WWI. He just had good reason to think the only two he slapped and their doctors were dogging it. Also the reporters who blew the story up were Communist stooges who were serving Party interests by trying to discredit successful American generals. Consider them as predecessors of today's media. Eisenhower's dismissal of Patton is yet another indication that while he was a competent middle manager and military staff guy he was not anywhere near being a great military leader. He held his position by being servile to General Marshall and Roosevelt, along with British interests most of the time. He never got near combat in his entire career, unlike Patton whose early career was in battle and who, along with MacArthur, exposed himself to enemy fire more than almost any other top Allied general. In that he behaved like a German or Soviet general. By the way, if Zhukov or another Soviet general suspected someone of faking it they would have shot them after a drumhead courtmartial. A German genetal might not have shot them but would have been far sterner than Patton was. I suppose a Japanese general simply would have beheaded them.
It's like my grandfather. In WW2 he downed 4 Heinkel bombers and 11 Messerschmitt fighters. He was by far the worst Luftwaffe mechanic that ever existed...
My grandfather liked to keep an open door policy at work. I guess that's why his U-boat sank, now that I think about it...
Quality lol.😂😂😂
My mother was a WAAF cook in RAF Bomber Command. There was a rumour that she was awarded the Iron Cross for incapacitating more airmen than the Luftwaffe.
This joke is on literally every WW2 video posted on RUclips for about 3 years. And it's still quite funny :D
😜
He go to jail for that?
Hitler: How's the invasion of Greece going?
Mussolini: You mean the defense of Albania?
Hitler: WHAT!?
Mussolini: What?
One story that I heard is that some witty French put up a sign at their frontier with Italy, that read: "French border here. Greeks, go no further!"
Brilliant! (LOL) 😂😂😂
@@jimcat68 Cheeky monkeys!
☺️
My grandfather was captured at Kasserine and had a lifetime of PTSD that plagued his life caused by 2 years in Stalag 7a. Still pissed at Fredendall.
Around 1939 a British army Lt Colonel was dispatched to Singapore to assess its susceptibility to invasion by land. This officer correctly anticipated where the Japanese would land and which routes they would use in their advance. He recommended an increase in air support, tanks and artillery to meet the invading army long before it reached Singapore, which would be difficult to defend due to terrain and availability of combat troops.
ukgov, including Churchill, preferred not to consider this a serious proposition and did nothing.
In 1941, promoted and in command at Singapore, the same officer knew the shortcomings of his troops and the likely outcome. He requested aircraft and tanks, none came.
He was hung out to dry by Churchill who bears at least some responsibility for the debacle (and sending warships PoW and Repulse to their destruction).
It could be argued Wavell wasn’t aware that the imperial Japanese army had become brutalised by their own side between the wars and thought surrendering the best option.
The defeated soldiers suffered PTSD. The ones at the beginning had it hard. From D Day onwards, it was plain sailing.
@@peace-nowIt wasn't plain sailing at all.
@@peace-now Are you five?
@@velvetcroc9827 They didn't call it the champagne campaign for nothing.
Mussolini was not a "knock off" version of Hitler. Mussolini pretty much invented modern fascism and came to power about 11 years before Hitler. Hitler, at first, looked up to and admired Mussolini. It was definitely a case of the student surpassing the master.
Ah, Eastern philosophy has it that if a student surpass his teacher, he is destined for greatness. Too bad that painter with the weird moustache had a terrible teacher
Hitler had many differences with Italian fascism. He never took Mussolini seriously. They had more disagreements than anything else. Up until the war started, italy was opposed to Germany and worked with the UK.
" ' Fascist ' is just the name of our party. We are actually Corporatists. - Benito Mussolini
Keep that in mind when the news mentions " corporate " Republicans or " corporate " Democrats.
@@alanmacification and the failed painter with the funny little mustache said, "I am a socialist"
Keep that in mind as well
So he's like Hydrox and Hitler is Oreos
It's just that Hydrox sucks ass compared to Oreos
Hydrox is basically the original and Oreos are the knock offs
There is a Romanian general named Ioan Sion who took out a T-34 tank with a bunch of grenades.
He was the only Romanian general who died in battle during WW2.
Did he blow himself up?
Lesley McNair died in 1944 during the battle for St Lo in Normandy
@@josuetsang5042 I didn't realize Romanian was actually code for United States, I always thought they were completely different countries, with two different armies. That'd be pretty embarrassing if you somehow mixed them up.
@@Erreul He probably commented here by accident
@@josuetsang5042 Is he Romanian?
"I cannot see what fredendall did to justify his existence"
Classic patton lol
Patton just dabs on everyone, friend or foe. I love that man.
I also love how he told a soldier he caught taking a nap, "Well, get back down there, son; you're the only sumbitch in this entire headquarters who knows what he's doing..."
Savage
Even the Germans did not get so much destroyed by Patton as Fredendall was
Unfortunately, Fredendall not only escaped all punishment, he was promoted after being relieved of command. Given that he was not only incompetent but also a coward, he should've been court-martialed.
Honestly you could make an entire video about Italiab generals. As Rommel said about the Italian soldiers:
"Gentlemen you have fought like lions and have been led by donkeys"
thats fascism in the definition. when lions stop listening to sheeps, and start to listen to donkey because they scream harder.
One exception: General Messe - the one Italian general that the was so good that the germans allowed him to lead german forces. Was with his corps also on the russian front.
@@ulrichbehnke9656 His title is actually Marshal Messe. And what defines the obscene crew that Mussolini had managed to select to lead the Italian armed forces is that he was sent to Tunisia when the place was about to fall, because high command wanted him out of the way. He was too good for their liking.
Given that Rommel abandoned the Italian infantry at El Alamein and left them to hold the line with no means of motorised retreat, I'm not sure he gets to comment on their leadership.
Mussolini replaced all the professional officers with fascist symptisers ,and that's the reasons for the many donkey officers that Rommel so well described
"He was in charge of the Italian invasion of Greece."
That's literally all you had to say.
You mean the defense of Albania?
“Criminal incompetence” is one of the most Soviet statements I’ve ever heard
imagine if we still had that now politicans wouldnt be as incompetent
Stupidity is far worse than conspiracy
@@Ok-but Except, you know, Stalin existed and he didn't off himself. He made some of the dumbest decisions thinkable.
@@MichaelDavis-mk4me one of the many flaws of communism
@@crhu319 That's certainly true. A true enemy of state, if smart about it, would never be as blatantly bad as the incompetent ones.
When General Clark went to Rome to collect his glory rather than give chase to the retreating Germans he gave up the initiative and the Italian campaign became a stalled stalemate for the rest of the war. That is incompetence if not dereliction.
Clark did indeed do a very stupid attack. This only compounded other crass stupidities
1 He was told not to do this by Alexander his immediate superior who gave a very British order that Clark ignored as it was not written down in military style.
2 He tried to arrest an officer of the New Zealand army. Said officer was going to Rome to arrange POW release, as ordered by his government.
3 Clark could not understand that he could not give an order to any New Zealand army members. As stated by their government orders.
4 Clark ignored the sound advice by the victors of Anzio. Which was exactly the same as Alexander had requested.
Clark could not be considered competent, Intelligent, or sensible by any standard.
Clark was a glory seeker, hence failed miserably as both a general and his quest for glory.
@@jdee8407 The muppet even referred to himself as Markus Clarkus
There was actually a congressional inquest into Mark Clark’s order to have the 36th infantry division make a frontal attack against a strong German position.
@@garrettramsey643 Thank you. One I did not know. Do you know the result.
Notice the persistent themes with these incompetents: Arrogance, lack of imagination and a bizarre focus on trivial matters while ignoring the big picture/signs. A truly lethal combination. That IJA general claiming to have won is shocking, his army starved and the Allied troops wiped out what was left. Probably deluded himself to that as he withdrew ahead of his struggling troops.
You see this more often in management. Arrogance. Refusal to admit mistakes. Changing orders betraying lack of purpose. Refusal to take the consultation of underlings.
Keep in mind, this is still a major issue in current militaries. I would say it's even more prevalent now among officers than it was then. There just hasn't been a large scale war for modern field officers to waste tens of thousands of enlisted lives on.
Nothing new. Been seeing it first hand in the workplace for 30 years.
To be fair, self confidence and the vision to make their own mind are key characteristics for a successful general too. They can be often be mistaken for arrogance.
As a former enlisted, NCO, and officer, I saw many more operations succeed than fail. The failures were evenly spread throughout the ranks. From Soldiers not mastering basic tasks, to NCO's and Officers' lacking familiarity with basic tactics.
Advance to the rear.
Fredendall's forte was as an instructor, not a field officer. He was a great example of how an organization tends to promote people past their point of competency (aka the "Peter principle")
To be fair, Fredendall probably needed that armored car. To protect him from his own side.
In Mitaguchi's defense, the Japanese doctrine of "living off the land and captured supplies" had worked early in the war. They tried the tactic in Guadalcanal (battle of Edson's (Bloody) Ridge) as well as Imphal. Both places with disastrous results, but only because they ran into stronger opposition than they anticipated (just barely).
And this is where the joke "Japanese soldiers are grass-eating species" came from....
@@FD_Stalker Not likely, by living off the land you have in a war means that you live off captured territory and is incredibly useful when gathering intelligence.
An example of this is when France tried to invade Germany and they managed to advance somewhere near the Siegfried line.
@@mrgamerguy9104 No that's a mistranslation from Japanese to English, I believe his original word is literally "We Japanese are grass eating animals since ancient time, you are surrounded by forest, how dare you report lacking of foods? Wtf is going on?" and that meme had been abused since internet era. Also the less popular but still funny word "All soldiers fired 3 rounds toward sky and our enemy will surrender"
@@FD_Stalker I never heard of the "grass eating animals" joke about Japan, but it sounds like a joke made in WW2 as the Allies refered to the Germans as "Jerries" or "Krauts" but most of the time it was just war propaganda to keep our men in good shape.
@@mrgamerguy9104 No its a reply he made when Kōtoku Satō reported lacking of food, causing 31 division lieutenant general Kōtoku Satō to lead remaining soldiers retreat. Later Mutaguchi wanted Kōtoku Satō to cut stomach but Kōtoku wanted this fool court-martial, and also Kōtoku himself because all the blame he suffered
3:13 was Mussolini really the knockoff version of Hitler? I mean wasn't he the original fascist? He was in power years before Hitler. Hitler was more like the new and improved version of Mussolini.
Major historical drop of the ball by The Front there
Il Duce was Adolf's goddamned ROLE MODEL.
Italian Fascism and German National-Socialism really differ ideologically but Mussolini was Hitler's idol. The Front really said something which is a product of Allied propaganda as in general Italy was considered "Germany's soft underbelly" as the Italian industry and military could not even compete with the German ones but the Allies didn't hesitate to cooperate with Mussolini in an eventual German invasion of Austria during the interwar period until the Italian invasion of Abbysinia.
I stumbled over this line as well. I even listened again, if I got it right. But I then I thought over again and came to the conclusion that it must have been meant in the way, that Mussolini was a knock-off of Hitler in terms of starting a war and trying to conquer land. There it was Hitler, who came first and had success. Italy on the other hand... they were late and never were really successfull.
The Front showed criminal incompetence ! Огонь !
As an Italian it's really difficult to decide who was the worst general during WW2 as many of the generals where really bad. I'd consider in the group also Graziani who "invaded" Egipt in 1940 with an army of "non soldiers" and with "no tanks" and was defeated from the Brits who fought with a ratio of 1/5 in terms of manpower. Another one was Gariboldi who led the italian 8th army in Russia with a wrong strategy, accepting to.put the mountain corp in the plain without At guns. Marco
Now now, Graziani had to follow orders from the dumbest leader in the world: Mussolini. I remember having read that Mussolini's telegram to Graziani read: " Attack the British in front of you STOP". And that is it. Graziani, without a clear military objective or a secure logistics line to the mainland, had no choice but to comply. He had secured considerable wins in the beginning, however armored units require spare parts and fuel... which Mussolini and the rest of the high command did not account for that consumption, hence starting what the English called "Sitskreig".
That bought the British time to reinforce, get more experienced units and counterattack.
I remember an Italian movie about soldiers fighting in the desert, extremely low on supplies. When a supply truck actually drives by it had nothing but shoe shine and Mussolini's White Horse which was supposed to be paraded at Cairo for the victory and wasn't to be. The soldiers had a choice between eating the damned horse or letting the convoy pass... they chose the latter. I can't for the life of me remember the title of that movie.
@@DeltaPi314 the movie's name is: El Alamein la linea del fuoco
@@DeltaPi314
RE: ". . . hence starting what the English called "Sitskreig"."
No.
The English called it "The Phoney War."
The French called it "la drôle de guerre."
The Germans called it "der Sitzkrieg."
@@spaceman081447 thanks for the correction.
@@pietroriva9383 that's the movie. It was pretty good edit: whenever I play Italy in Hearts Of Iron IV and invade Egypt i call the that war theatre " _Operation Shoeshine_ " or " _Operation Horse_ " because if that movie
Well, Weygand was, for sure, not doing a great job when replacing Gamelin, but he took the job at the worst time ever. Gamelin was far worse than Weygand in his job and prepare the fall of France, while Weygand could only see the whole front crumbling. So, you may consider a swap between Weygand and Gamelin in your worst general panel.
Arthur Percival was a monster towards the people of West Cork during the Irish War of Independence. Allegedly when people got wind of his surrendering to the Japanese and another blunder in North Africa they cheered and laughed
You mean he was good at fighting the IRA, and the poor dears didn't like it. Like when the IRA lost the Irish Civil War.
@@countofdownableHe was good at being a general for the greatest colonial empire of history and getting his ass kicked by a smaller nation just next door
the ira of west cork that murdered unionists and home rule supporters to steal their property? Yeah, I'm sure the bigots didn't deserve a bit of fight back from the RIC and army, as they tried to restore law and order.
Britain still won the war Irish boy, were you Irish pissed then?
One of the worst in history.
How about Mark Clark. After months of firece fighting the allies had finally unhinged the Monte Casino position. Clark was ordered to link up with the British and try to stop and defeat as much of the retreating German army as possible. Clark however wanted the glory of entering Rome as liberator. This gave the Germans the time and space to disengage, move north to yet another defensive line. His days of glory were shortlived A couple of days later D Day happened
Oops already commented Should read further down !
Clark reached the rank of 4 star general. He was well connected.
Fredendall was sent back home. Because of the way Eisenhower managed the change of command the reasons were buried and he was promoted lieutenant general.
Always wondered why this guys stats in hoi4 were so high... He really sucked.
Mark Clark was the youngest US 3 Star and 4 Star General at the time. So he must've done something right.
Incompetent American General: Re-assigned to someplace where they can't do damage, freeing up a possible more competent officer to move to the field.
Incompetent Russian General: Denounced, executed, and dumped in a landfill.
Based Soviet. I wish we could handle incompetent, negligent, and corrupt leaders in the US military this way. We have too many of these terrible leaders in recent times
Sometimes you have to love Stalin lol.
At least he wasn't the one who stopped clapping
Comrade Stalin was disappointed
Stalin shot a Soviet generals in The Great Purge in the '30s because they were good at their jobs and he viewed them as threat to his power. Kurschev only survived that time because the of the chaos after a defecting NKVD general pushed his name off the death list.
Fredendall was a good example of "who you know." After he was relieved, he was promoted. He devoted himself to building a bunker system far behind the lines.
"Promotion by the Dilbert principle" I remember reading the bunker thing, and how surprised any other leader that saw it was, about what the hell he was doing there.
My Grandfather had a nephew that was given a battlefield commission by Fredendall for being a good carpenter. The nephew drove a M4 and got bored during the delay after landing in North Africa. That was due to all the trucks and Jeeps being partially assembled and packed into crates for transport. The Army set up assembly lines on the wharves to put them together and he got busy with several others tankers building basic furniture out of the crates. They made tables, benches, chairs, desks and shelving that were put to use. Some high ranking officers noticed those so sought out their makers. They told Fredendall about them and that they were highly skilled tradesmen that built homes before joining the Army so would be handy to keep around to repair buildings that would house their headquarters. Fredendall agreed so gave him a battlefield commission to make him a lieutenant so he could head a platoon of craftsmen. I don't know if they worked on his bunker system. His tank did get blown to pieces during it's first engagement so was thankful for his new assignment of doing some repairs and building a lot of crates for officers that packed them with loot for shipment back to the States free of charge.
He employed almost all the engineering units in the war zone to dig his hole in the ground.
And we’re told that the u.s. army had the best leadership, but we learned that lesson the hard way.
Fun fact, Lloyd is my great great great uncle
"Italy's knock off version of Hitler"... Mussolini was Hitler's biggest inspiration before the war and actually took power a decade before Hitler. You gotta know what you're saying before you say it
Before the war the relationship between Mussolini and hitler was that between a ruthless politician and his psycho student. IE Mussolini advised Hitler "the men with whom you take power are not the same men with whom you govern" (he promoted to prestigious but harmless positions his own). The result was the "Night of the Long Knives".
Mark Clark was one of them, he held the Canadian army in place so the Americans could enter Rome first which was a major strategic blunder which allowed the germans to escape and regroup north of Rome where they had to be driven out yet again......
Classic Americans
Clark knew that his forces couldn't block the escape of the Germans so took Rome instead since it was a transportation hub being abandoned by German forces.
Interresting that Weygand is on your list. In France it is often considered that it is his predecessor Gamelin who was terrible, and that by the time Gamelin was sacked and replaced by Weygand it was already too late for him to recover the situation. Different points of view, learning everyday.
I'm guessing his part in calling to surrender and then, helping to sack/catch Jews awarded him this place...
but on a pure tactical and strategical failure basis, yes, Gamelin is solidly first...
@@kolerick I would put Huntzinger first on the list! For having retreated way too fast from Sédan...after having failed during the Phoney war to have enough pillboxes built to protect the area.
@@kolerick
I'm still extremely surprised that a channel centered on WW2 claims that Weygand was in favor of "total capitulation". Are they aware France signed an armistice that was far from "total capitulation".
@@lahire4943 let's be honest: given as even in France the real history of ww2 isn't faithfully told (in lieu of telling everything "bad" France did at the time and everything "good" the resistance did), it isn't strange that accurate history of what really happened at each step, isn't known in other countries...
there were a lot of f-up, especialy at the top, bad decisions and illusions, but not everything is that white or black...
and not many may share my oppinion, but the mother of all f-up was not reacting immediatly when Germany took the Sudettes... appeasement politic doesn't work with a populist governement... a fact we even witnessed in recent (read current) history.
@@kolerick
I agree with what you say, but we can expect better from this type of youtube channel, especially when it comes to factual events...
To be fair to both Percival and Weygand both were in lousy situations from the start (not that they did much to improve them) that even more competent commanders would have been hard-pressed to salvage. For Percival, the British invested an enormous amount of money in the defenses of Singapore practicaly all of it in fixed artillery positions that could only fire out to the ocean, the British stripped him of practically all air support for the more important European and African theaters and few of his ground forces were experienced in jungle warfare.
As far as Weygand is concerned, his chances for success were severely compromised by France's internal political squabbles, societal scars left by WWI and his predecessor, Gamelin, who was convinced that WWII would be fought like WWI and didn't take the lessons learned from Poland's quick defeat to heart and applied outdated military strategies and did so incompetently (whether this was due to age, senility or whatever is debatable). At the declaration of war, Gamelin's headquarters was unable to directly communicate with his field command lacking phones or radios, despite the common misconception that Germany had more tanks than the Allies the Allies actually had more but Gamelin diluted their strength by spreading most of them out as infantry support (like in WWI) and when his strategy failed he blamed treason among his field commanders and sacked many of them rather than blaming his strategy.
I kind of thought Gamelin should be given more blame than he received here.
Singapore's Fort Canning guns does fire out to the Malayan mainland though, you'll still have to shoot at ships steaming through the narrow Straits of Johor for example. They were still useless however since the RN only supplied the Fort with AP and SAP shells, which were ineffective for ground support usage.
Weygand is a german name.
@@brittakriep2938 French and german share a comon ancestor the Franks under Charlemagne French and germans had shared the same ruler ...
And yes he kicked more asses than Richard the Lionheart and Ragnar Lodbrok combined
@@jeremypintsize7606 : Those part of frankish tribe, which moved to current France gave France its german name Frankreich, and my, Brittas boyfriends, tribe the Alemannen gave Germany the french name Allemagne.
My favorite incompetent general in WWII is Alexei Vinogradov who commanded the Soviet 44th Rifle Division in the Battle of Raate Road during the Winter War. His division was destroyed by the Finnish Army and he was executed by orders that STAVKA gave.
Was he incompetent or just unlucky?
@@DrJ-hx7wv both
get executed by his own men
@Tavo Tamm Is that true? Seems exaggerated
@@PilotAwe that was not true. unless he really wants to expand the definition of "execute"
A "dishonorable" mention for worst US General officer might also go to MG John P Lucas, who commanded the US VI Corps at the Anzio landing in January 1944. As Churchill quipped, "I thought we were landing a wildcat behind the Jerry lines in Italy, but instead we got a beached whale...". Lucas' hesitancy to send a combat force to seize Rome, some 40 miles distant, but instead "consolidate" the beach head, was considered as allowing FM "Smiling Albert" Kesselring, who lacked reserves to deal with the beachead, as there was but a single infantry regiment in the vicinity on January 22nd, time to bring reinforcements from Germany itself and ferried over from Yugoslavia. By the time Lucas felt his command could break out, eight German divisions were in the line against him, and it was the attacks around Monte Cassino that finally won out in May 1944 that relieved the VI Corps before Rome was itself captured on June 4, 1944.
Lucas was ordered to create a beachhead to take pressure away from the Monte Cassino area and allow Clark to regain the initiative. The objectives given to him were not to go seize Rome. Yes he could've pushed further but he felt he was fulfilling his objective. The fact that Monte Cassino took an additional 4 months to capture was not his fault. Also it should be worth pointing out that the theater commanders did not want to do the Anzio landing. It was only at Churchill's insistence that the operation was undertaken.
@@andrewyoder7059 In addition Lucas was influenced by what had happened at Salerno
@@coleparker And anyway, Lucas only had an under-strength Corp at first (Right? Just Two Divisions?) and didn't want to go too far and be too thin on the ground.
I also heard that Patton wanted the Anzio 'gig', but because Clark didn't want to be 'overshadowed', he gave the job to Lucas (true/False? I don't know)
❤
I think you're being very unfair to Weygand. He was a very good general, the inventor of the elastic defense tactic that was used by the allies and the USSR to stop the blitzkrieg.
By the time he replaced Gamelin, who was the true worst general we had, it was already over for France, as half of the French army, including their most experienced soldiers, were stuck in the Dunkirk pocket. He cancelled the counter attack order because the British were running away and attacking would mean leaving their lines open to being attacked from behind and encircled, on top of just not having the manpower.
True. Gamelin should be at this spot instead.
"Running Away?" you do know when you are beaten right, The French lost the battle of France themselves.
@@cpj93070 Running away is what they did, and left all of their heavy equipment to the Germans too
@@Absinthis To fight another day, you French lost your country, and we know how shameful it gets for you to talk about.
@@cpj93070 I don't understand what makes you make. The British army did not send a lot of soldiers to begin with, and ran away at the first sign of defeat. What in my original tilted you?
Before watching the video: If Grigory Kulik from the USSR isn't here i'm gonna be surprised. There can be a whole lot of bad generals, but you have to be on a league of your own to single-handedly extend the entirety of WW2 by a couple of months just because you're that incompetent both in and out of combat.
Others would be Budyonny (Voroshilov could be a honorable mention, but he didn't cost the USSR 1.500.000 lives in two battles), himmler himself, and about of half of all italians generals in ww2
Update: I genuinely didn't remember that you talked about Kulik in the past, so fair enough to skip on him
@@alexvasnormandy did you know about Dmitry Pavlov before this video?
Well, at least Kulik payed for his incompetence...
Budyonny also always seemed like a very incompetent general to me, the defense of Kiev was a disaster. He was only saved by his civil war merits.
I don't think Budyonny was a good general, but I don't think he was the worst either. His defeats in 1941 were partially due to Stalins orders of no withdrawals and Stavkas tendancies to withhold permissions for tactical retreats until it was too late, and he wasn't the only commander involved with Kiev and Uman so there is some blame to be apportioned out. He conducted a defence of the caucusus during Fall Blau reasonably for a time. A poor record, but there are worse.
Mark Clark - preferred eating lobster in DC, than being with his men. My father was one of the few survivors of the crossing of the Rapido River
That's bullshit. Clark was known for visiting his troops when in action out in the field. That attempted river crossing was just one of several operations during the war that didn't work out for US forces.
That was all those lads from texas that got massacred isn't it?
For the USA, you could also include GEN Douglas MacArthur as both one of the worst and best of US Generals. He had advanced notice of the Japanese attack on the Philippines and didn't use his time to his advantage, lost his air force on the ground and ended up surrendering the largest US army in history.
Mac Arthur should have been sacked from the army for exceeding his authority during the burning of Hooverville
Yes but this advance warning he had, did he get it before Pearl Harbour was attacked, if he did then wouldn't his hands have been tied as the US wasn't at war?
My father use to say, "the only thing a marine is afraid of is an army general in charge".
He had the bad luck of being under MacArthur's command in WWII and Korea.
Not for nothing did his troops in Corregidor call him Dugout Doug.
@@andrewisotope8146 not for preparations.
Could you do a video on General O'Connor, please. One of the most overlooked British generals after Slim. I mean after rolling across Africa, he got captured. Then escaped and walked across Italy, then took part in D-day and actioned the break out, once Montgomery finally let him do his job
"Once Montgomery let him do his job"
Once the Germans were finished in France you mean.
@@lyndoncmp5751 no, when Montgomery actually let him get on with it his way, rather than hamstringing him with various levels of micromanaging
You are wrong.
There was no British break out until AFTER the Germans were dealt with. The break out did not happen until after the Falaise Pocket. Nothing to do with Montgomery hamstringing O' Conner and everything to do with the Germans defending stubbornly. Eight panzer divisions and three Tiger battalions were defending around Caen. NOBODY would have broken out against that lot, regardless of tactics. It wasn't until these panzer divisions were whittled down by mid August that any break out could happen.
I’d like to see the most overated generals. Especially after reading about Montgomery in Netherlands. Costed the Allies (Canadians in particular lives) thousands of additional lives for quite literally nothing, and then tried to blame it on Eisenhower (he was jealous because he believed he should have been Supreme Commander instead of Eisenhower) before Eisenhower put Montgomery in his place.
Montgomery was a lucky bastard. He wasn't even the first choice to take over 8th Army. That general was killed in a plane crash. Every battle he master minded, against an enemy with supplies and reinforcements was shit. Caen. Operation Goodwood. Market Garden. The Falaise Pocket, where he and our boot licker Bradley let their hatred for each other allow thousands of defeated Germans escape from the Allied breakthrough. Bradley was the "GI General"? LMAO.
@@GuapoJhimi A quote from Montgomery's own words:
"Waving my sword I ran forward in front of my platoon, but unfortunately I had only gone six paces when I tripped over my scabbard, the sword fell from my hand (I hadn't wound that sword strap round my wrist in the approved fashion!) and I fell flat on my face on very hard ground. By the time I had picked myself up and rushed after my men I found that most of them had been killed."
Talk about being a "lucky bastard".
I found this quote because somebody told me that the first thing he did when the war broke out was having his sword polished ...
@@tubepkn that would be WWI. Lieutenant Montgomery
@@GuapoJhimi well that's one side of a slightly more complicated story.
@@GuapoJhimi Not just that, the thing he's most well known for was the North Africa campaign. The 2nd Battle of El Alamein broke out while Rommel was home in Germany and the German forces got battered day 1. And yet Montgomery STILL nearly lost when a sick Rommel returned mid day the second day of the battle and took command of tactics back, so much so, Montgomery's second in command was said to have been practically begging him to retreat because they started losing so many men and the Germans had suddenly started battering their supply line. They only won because Montgomery was stubborn and willing to throw away as many lives as he needed because the belief was they wouldn't be able to make a stand anywhere else closer to Cairo, despite it being known the Germans had nothing left to fuel their panzers due to the Italian oil tanker that was sank headed to resupply them
Can you imagine having to work closely with someone as bad as Fredendall only to see him replaced by someone like Patton? Talk about a complete 180.
"We move Bravo Company out as bait, then use the armor and artillery stationed behind these rock formations to cut off the bastard's advance. Once they break ranks and retreat our fighters will harrass them as they- Why are you crying, Colonel?" "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's just...I can't remember the last time I was given a competent order and it's so beautiful, sir"
@N Fels do you have a source on the harbor thing? I know Patton was an extremely belligerent and racist. But I disagree that he didn’t comprehend logistics. If anything, he was painfully aware of his logistical situation as many of his advances were bogged down and left without gasoline because supplies were diverted to other unsuccessful operations.
@N Fels Montgomery? The same idiot that planned Operation Market Garden? Your credibility took a nose dive with that one
@@ralphalvarez5465 You're misunderstanding the problem here. N Fels isn't hyping Montgomery up to be an amazing commander. They're acknowledging that Montgomery, as the highest ranked British officer serving under Eisenhower, was someone who couldn't be openly trashed. The Western Allies were fighting a war that could only be won so long as the two main combatants, the US and the UK, remained as friendly and cohesive as possible. (If you want to learn more about what a lack of cohesion looks like, wikipedia the Battle of Brisbane and the consequences it had on morale). Eisenhower was keenly aware of the consequences of letting Patton continue to run his mouth; it would look like the US was taking over the show and was perfectly willing to ignore what British commanders suggested, which would have been disastrous for the war effort. N Fels is criticizing Patton for clearly not understanding the consequences of his actions there, not running defense for Montgomery specifically.
@@ralphalvarez5465 he lost me at Montgomery as well
@N Fels Market Garden was a disaster. I like your double talk and revision of history. Tell the veterans of the 1st Airborne what a brilliant idea it was. In fact, talk to the veterans of the the 82nd and 101st Airborne about this brilliant disaster. That's right, most of them are dead. You probably are some arm chair quarterback who never even served in a combat arms unit. How dare you even utter the name of PATTON and attempt to slander his good name! Next thing you'll be saying is what a brilliant military tactician, General Percival was!
As Sean Bean said in Sharpe when asked by a young soldier, I think the generals insane sir, and replied, I never met one that wasn't!
Insane can be forgivable and overlooked, incompetence that leads to a horrible defeat cannot. In some cases it might be better to be insane than incompetent.
@@schizoidboy Well I'd say many people I worked with over the years were both insane and incompetent, so the poor bastards had it both ways!
@@schizoidboy I'd argue insanity is actually a needed element for victory, though most just call it bravery in that context; even then incompetence trumps all
US Gen Mark Clark was atrocious too, totally bungled the Italian campaign
Clark won the Italian Campaign.
@@billwilson3609 - Yeah but he still screwed it up. He could have cut off the German retreat but went for Rome. The Germans escaped to fight another day.
@@adk46er5203 Alexander gave Clark the order to cut off the retreating Germans. Clark planned the Italian Campaign and knew that region well so doubted that his tired forces, that were low on men and material, would make much headway doing that. Clark didn't receive written orders from Alexander to cut off the Germans so rested his troops while working up alternative plans of action. The British and American's main goal was to capture Rome so Clark saw no real need to expend men and material on attempting to to block the retreating Germans where Alexander ordered since the Germans could simply take roads to the east to bypass his forces. Clark did have Truscott to make a feint towards Valmontone which tied up the German defenders for three days before realizing Clark's main force was head towards Rome. Clarks initial intelligence reports indicated that the route to Rome was lightly defended and German reinforcements heading south were being delayed by Allied bombing so didn't expect to run into those when his forces approached Rome.
Clark was friends with Alexander's Chief of Staff so told him about his planned operation just before it started so he could pass that on to Alexander. Alexander thought Clark's plan made sense and was delighted when his forces entered Rome.
General Pavlov became a victim of Stalin's incompetence in war preparations. And this is a story for a thick book. In my opinion, the worst Italian general was Rudolf Graziani. He was the commander-in-chief of more than 200,000 armies in Libya. In 1940 he attacked British forces in Egypt numbering about 66,000 men. He suffered a heavy defeat and his troops were pushed deep into Libya.
Graziani in the same book was a victim of Mussolini's hubris. He was forced to attack with no support, and even then he made few victories at first.
Graziani was a bully. He was great fighting ragged tribesmen with barely any guns, but was shit when facing a true army
Montgomery also wasn't the brightest, although he thought he was.
In the European scene he made mistake after mistake. Like starting Market Garden instead of focussing on Antwerp.
Because of this it took 6 months before the Allies had a proper harbour.
Montgomery was the best and most successful Western Allied ground commander of WW2. He won more battles and took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other Western Allied ground commander in WW2. Had Montgomery remained as C-in-C of all allied ground forces the war would have been over sooner. Unfortunately, Eisenhower took his job and dragged the war on longer with his broad front disaster, which got nowhere in the Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine and Alsace in autumn 1944 and then suffered an actual retreat in the Ardennes.
Before the war, Percival tried to have defensive positions built in Northern Malaya, but thanks to pre-war policy and bureaucracy, the work never got started. The use of Japanese tanks is well known, while the British had none. The reason for this was the fact that Malaya was far down the priority list, and being kept pushed further, and further back in the line. In 1941, there were plans to reinforce Malaya-command with 200 tanks, but then operation Barbarossa began on 22 June, and those tanks were re-diverted to be shipped to Russia instead.
At the time, the British were hard pressed on several fronts. At the home islands, in the Mediterranean, North Africa, the North-Atlantic and the Arctic. So when the Japanese landed, the British already had their hands full.
Didn't he lose to 15 tanks at Jitra and lost to 30 tanks at Slim River?
@@charlie8344 Yes, he did. But because Malaya command had such low priority they didn't have the training or the equipment to fight back. Yet, the British and Empire troops did the best they could under the circumstances.
But then again, these men faced an enemy that had been hardened by years of combat in China, and had been taught from early on that they were racially superior, to both Asians and Europeans. And combine that, with the attitude of "death before surrender", then you've got a formidable opponent.
Arthur Percival and the two commanders preceding him all called for tanks to be used in defending the Malaya Peninsula, since 1939. Sadly all their pleas had fallen to deaf ears. Churchill was a great war leader but he had many strategic blind spots.
@@tvgerbil1984 yes, Churchill was a great war leader but a very dodgy commander!
@@iangarrett741 I agree.
It's easy to interpret our heroes or someone we worship as infallible, but the truth is that we have forgotten that they are humans, just like us. And humans make mistakes.
The thing that justified Fredendall’s existence is that the U.S. Army knew enough to use the strengths of its commanders. Fredendall couldn’t lead troops in battle, granted, but he could train people. After he was “sacked” he was ordered back to the states, made CO of a training base in North Carolina and promoted.
Well then fair play to him, kinda like George Mcclellan in that way who was a really good administrator but a less skilled field commander
Of course they promoted him. Nothing the Pentagon loves more than a good incompetent who knows which ass to kiss. Our current crew including Generals Austin (Secretary of Defense), Milley and McKenzie (CENTCOM and commander in Afghanistan) are perfect examples. God save us if we have to fight China or Russia. Or even a neighborhood 3rd World street gang armed with bolt action rifles.
@@brianmccarthy5557 he wasn’t fully incompetent as op said he just wasn’t a competent field commander, if he was good at training troops I see no reason not to have him do that instead of blunder about the front, and if giving him the promo shuts him up so be it, that’s just my two cents though
@@juwebles4352 Fredendall excelled in training and organization. His doctrine gave America the finest trained and equipped army in the war. He had his whims, as they all did and do to this day. Remember, the first 18 months of the war was a crucial shake down of the US military. I took a few bloody noses to get the right people into the right place. I don't recall Patton every saying anything damning about Fredendall in his memoires. Perhaps so, and I missed it. But Bradley and a few others certainly did. And Patton wrongly gets quoted for it.
The usual way to sack ineffective commanders is to "promote" them to a not-operative position.
"Ah! The generals! They are numerous but not good for much!" - Aristophanes, 425 BCE.
I'm from Singapore, and when we were learning about Arthur Percival our class literally made memes about him being so incompetent.
I vote General Lucas who totally f’ed up the battle of Anzio by not moving his forces inland quickly. His dithering allowed the Germans to react, create defensive positions and bombard the hell out of the troops dug in costing thousands of American lives.
God damn that quote from Patton about that Fredyndal guy. Its such a simple but oh so brutal and savage burn.
Nah, it was pretty smooth brain. I would have laughed at how stupid it made Patton look.
Mark clark was the worst american general! he used the 10th mountain div as cannon fodder in senseless attacks at the end of the war, he was more concerned with good photo opps than military matters, pathetic
Mark Clark held back a perfect surprise attack at Anzio instead of letting his troops fan out and route the surprised Germans. He wanted to re-enact the landing the next day for photographers so he could get his picture in the paper as he knew once D-Day started he would be ignored.
I vote for Mark Clark, who blundered at Anzio and then let the Germans escape to fight again, as he drove to Rome instead of linking up with Alexander to trap the Germans. All of his blunders caused the extended fighting in Italy, and the loss of many lives needlessly. He and his subordinate Gen. Lucas were massively incompetent.
I would suggest that Lucas was not as bad as suggested. He was given a difficult task of trying to land a fighting force which was supposed to raid the back lines but was only given enough men to secure a beachhead and not go on the offensive. To have risked his landing site supply lines would have been reckless.
Clark and Almond, were both examples of what a general should not be.
Clark had a great chance of taking Rome and outflanking the Germans, but he let his opportunity slip passed him.
Mark Clark was a massive egomaniac as well, and one of nis nicknames was "Marcus Aurelius Clarkus"
@@johnsouto5221 Not being Caesar is not the same as being terrible. Mark may be sub par but not terrible. You got to give credit to the Germans. It was a tough situation.
For the British, I agree with Percivall but for close second place one could argue Montegomery who made the terrible operation Market Garden a thing, Didn't listen to intel and refused to admit his mistakes til the day he died. He even boasted over his militairy skills...
With regards to " Monty " definitely Antwerp
Making the common mistake made by those who have not a clue what they are talking about. Montgomery did not plan Market Garden that plan was executed by Brereton (American) There were a great many mistakes made in these two operations most were overcome to some degree. One was not and could not be rectified and damned the whole (poorly planned anyway) operation. That of Gen Gavin not to attack the Bridge when it was all but undefended. By the time he got round to sending his men to attack it the thing was so heavily defended it delayed XXX Corps who had arrived in the time allotted by the planners to get across a bridge which should have been in allied hands. They had 8 miles to go and the operation could have cut many months off the war, prevented the German army in Holland from being supplied and prevented them from escaping also. Montgomery was a pretty nasty individual (it has been suggested he was on the autism spectrum which would explain a lot about his personality) and difficult to get along with but he knew how to wage war. His biggest mistake was arguably not sending a force to cut off and then enter Antwerp thus giving the Allies a large port closer to where the logistics were creaking.
Montgomery was a very successful leader forget his personality problems look at his results.
On Percival, I'd qualify his 'dedication to training', since one of the biggest criticisms of him was that his command IGNORED training. Also, Percival didn't surrender against orders. He was eventually given the option to surrender if he thought continued fighting was pointless. He did almost nothing right in Malaya/Singapore, but he wasn't a coward.
I feel like that was mostly due to being on the back foot the whole way. I also doubt he had good intel on the enemy and the area. I would argue that he made logical choices that just ended up being wrong. Least he didnt blunder due to want of glory
@@intoHeck1964 Reading about the campaign in Malaya/Singapore, he made most of the decisions before the attack that caused his forces to be on the back foot.
-He actively prevented cooperation with the native leaders.
-He encouraged London into thinking everything was under control.
-He interfered with the ability of intel to gather information.
-He championed the insane RAF air plan.
-He encouraged the lack of cooperation between Army, Navy and Air Force.
-He ignored training.
-With no special doctrine for fighting in Malaya...he actively discouraged and ignored the few officers taking it seriously.
-The mishandling of Matador was partially his fault.
-That British forces were frozen waiting to launch Matador was his fault.
-During the campaign he constantly interfered with command at the front...usually by either making decisions that made no sense, ordering his commanders to do things that were impossible, or delaying making decisions until the Japanese made the decisions for him.
-He undermined the Australian defense plans and caused them to frail.
-In the defense of Singapore, he wouldn't build defenses for fear of looking weak to the native population.
-Ignored intel and placed most of his forces in the wrong place.
-Ignored common sense and defended strongly around the entire island, still fearing the Japanese would do the dumb thing at assault the Singapore fortress defenses amphibiously.
Ultimately, his biggest sin was he showed zero leadership, and acted in a way that instead of being defeated by Japan the British were humiliated by them. Its instructive to compare Malaya with the Philippines. MacArthur, with fewer troops, less equipment, in a worse geographical position...and even more on the back foot than Percival, was at least able to put up a creditable defense, and make the Japanese pay for their victory. Not so Percival. Percival even lost his honor by lying after the war about what happened.
Concerning the french: whatever flaws Weygand had, his predecessor Gamelin was far worse (imho). Refused to use radio and relied on messengers. Weygand made the one mistake of delaying Gamelins offensive for two days, which destroyed the last chance to save french situation, but it was Gamelin who had created the mess in the first place (and wether Gamelin offensive would have succeeded if started on time is not certain). After that defeat Weygand adopted the Hedgehog defence which was the right strategy but too late, by now France lacked the numbers. Weygand wasn't incompetent, but he screwed up at the wrong time.
The French were the largest and most powerful Army in Western Europe at the start of the war. But French Generals were hidebound traditionalists. The French high-command made a lot of mistakes in WWI but managed to defeat Germany in what was largely a static war of attrition. WWII was a different war, altogether. The best generals in any WWII Allied Army were the ones that learned to be flexible and aggressive in employing the new technology available and responding to Germany's dynamic blitzkrieg tactics. But no French general did that until the Americans gave a division to Leclerc.
@@GhostRanger5060 a lot of the military's incompetence was also caused by france ´s political instability, a lot of position were given because of political ideology, not competence
@@GhostRanger5060 As a Frenchman, it is true that our 1939 generals were not able to adapt to a movement war. But to their discharge, that was the idea of our grand battleplan too.
Actually, we could attack Germany by 1936, not anymore by 1939. We were facing a more industrialized and a twice-more populated country - colonies excluded. So we had to start another war of attrition, well-protected behind the Meuse river and the Maginot Line. The plan was good. The execution failed miserably as we all know.
In the end, I think Gamelin was much more responsible of the defeat than Weygand. Gamelin did not allocated enough divisions to defend the Ardennes and, above all, he did not trust aerial reports detailing gigantic german columns in the forest.
When Weygrand took over there wasn't forces available with which to throw back the Germans any longer. They had been wasted in Gamelins push into Belgium. While Weygrand may not have been a splendid General, Gamelin was many times worse.
@@GhostRanger5060 The French by no means where as defensively focussed as is often told, but by 1940 they were not ready for any offensive. that was planned for 1941 and their doctrines actually quite close to what the British and Americans excelled in later - ie overwhelming firepower and closely (cautiously) coordinated advance. Where the French army mainly failed in 1940 was in its communications - way too slow for Blitzkrieg. But any army would have been by 1940.
3:15 Mussolini was Italy's "knockoff version of Hitler". Given that he was in power 10 years before Hitler, I don't think that is a fair description at all. In fact, it is just indulgent verbiage.
Both of them are knockoffs of each other tbh
It's more that Hitler was the "improved model".
Given that Italy and Germany were very much confronting each-other over Austria in 1934-35 and that there were many authoritarian nationalist governments in Europe at the time, it is misleading to over-simplify things. If a couple of things had resolved differently, the whole situation could have gone in a different direction.
"Soldiers are not good on the battlefield without training hard beforehand. Whether it’s a soldier, a civilian wanting to run a marathon, or a CEO running a company, being successful at what you do requires focus, effort, and learning"
--Lt. Gen. George S. Patton
Exactly right, you have to walk before you run
CEO was not a term during Patton's time.
This lol
I mean the ceo term
@N Fels this is actually his son, who himself did attain the rank of Lt Gen in the Nam era. Source: am related
Percivals physical appearance made him a useful scapegoat. His memoirs reveal a very brave and intelligent soldier.
who still fucked shit up
His memoirs? according to my memoirs I am a military genius....................................
Hint. Its not by your memoirs but rather by your actions ye shall be judged.
@@fiachramaccana280 Gens Wainwright and Macarthur oversaw the same defeat in the Philippines, but they weren't condemned.
@@mrh9635 excellent observation. And they should have been. Although they held out for a lot longer if I recall. But Perceval was a disaster. He was more focussed on feeling sorry for himself and kept a self pitying defeatist attitude from the day he took command onwards. Very much like Gamelin and Weygand during the Battle of France.
He outnumbered the Japanese and could easily have mounted a very stiff defence for months.
Look at the Sikh last stand at Saragarhi. At the end of the day it comes down to character and fighting spirit. He had neither.
@@fiachramaccana280 In a war where Britain gave higher priority to supplying it's Soviet ally than to it's own Asian colonies, there was never going to be a favourable outcome.
According to the book, Thunder on the Dnepr by Bryan Fugate & Lev Dvoretsky, Pavlov was purposely scapegoated and sacrificed by Stalin.
Arthur Percival
Neil Ritchie
Fredendal
Mark Clark
Friedrich Paulus
Renya Mutaguchi
I thought for sure I’d see Mark Clark.
@@DiviAugusti Yep, when you halt an allied advance just to run off to Rome for a photo shoot letting the Germans slip away you earn the title for an incompetent idiot!
actually paulus fought very well and hold his foothold in stalingrad much more than expected.his failure was for not getting supplies and also that winter.telling paulus was a worst german general is like telling rommel is bad general because of his failure in north africa
Lucien Truscott recognized immediately that diverting forces to Rome meant at least another year of war in Europe. Between the torpedoes Admiral King refused to recognize as extremely flawed for 2 years, and Mark Clark's insubordinate sideshow to Rome the war was extended. This is not to mention MacArthur's early displays of incompetence. In the Pacific we had Lindberg extending the range of the P-38 by 200 miles by upping manifold pressures on their engines and the Pappy Gunn insistence on making B-25s and anything else Kenny had that flew into low level strafing monsters meant victory in the Battle of the Bismark sea as well as slaughter of Japanese as they attempted to reach Port Morsby overland. I am very glad that the Japanese did not get the atom bomb before the US did. I am very glad that Hitler did not get the atom bomb before the US did. Now the US faces the hypersonic threat. Faster and further in weaponry wins.
(Joke alert!) Paulus gets a "get out of jail card" at the end by being made a Field Marshall
3:14 Mussolini came first so he wasn't a rip-off of Hitler. If anything, Hitler was an upgrade of Mussolini. (Militaristically I mean)
Meh Hitler just listened to his Generals Mussolini didn’t. Hitler also maked almost every error possible when faced with actual decisions. D-day was successful thanks to him. Mussolini was just a complete idiot and a coward. And I would say that D’Annunzio rather than Mussolini can be seen as the creator ( indirectly) of Fascism and Militaristic Japan. Mussolini knew this ww1 hero could just spill a word to have everyone on his side. That’s why he kept the VATE under house arrest ( not officially but he was basically pressured to stay out politics. ) D’Annunzio was what linked Mussolini Italy Japan And Nationalism All together and he was the one to talk about the Superhuman theory. But nobody has as idea racism and anti-semitism in Italy. The Germans did after the monarchists divulged the voice of the Jewish Backstab as ESCUSE to their defeat. Mussolini sent gays and jews to several islands. The medics invented fake stuff to not get them persecuted. And the Army and paramilitary didn’t even try to actually capture the Jews. They rather shot some Train runner as Figural Punishment. But it is safe to say that more Non-Jews Italians died for any motivation during the war than Jew Italians for persecution. The Germans ironically fucked up the only thing Italy and Germany had that could have won them the war : Fermi and Einstein the two most important individuals for the Bomb. If the monarchists didn’t say the wrong stuff today maybe New York and London wouldn’t be as much populated and The Soviets wouldn’t even have come near to German core territory. But this isn’t our history thankfully or maybe unluckily depending on what would have happened after ww2 won by non racist-Germany and Competent Italy
Hitler was a military idiot. He was very good at consolidating political power. But he believed his own fantasy. To be any good at strategy and tactics you have to be able to see the situation accurately. Hitler couldn’t do that.
I'm surprised MacArther wasn't on the list
His "defence" of the Philippines was a disaster worthy of mention
McArthur is my number one because of the huge gap between public image and competence. PR general, absolutely awful in both WW2 and Korea.
@@abelmaster Disagree with your evaluation.
MacArthur is a weird one, as he had both moments of incompetence and moments of brilliance. The Battle of Inchon during the Korean war is an example of brilliance, even against the advice of other generals.
I think he's a long way from being the worst. Yes, his complacency after Pearl Harbor was as incompetent as it gets, but his retreat and defense of Bataan was pretty well executed. He's a General who did extraordinary things, then would turn around and do something incredibly stupid. Overall he was a good General, just no where near as good as other Pacific commanders like General Vandergrift, Admiral Nimitz , or Admiral Spruance.
@@sledgehammerk35 Pardon, but what complacency?
Percival's use of the word "sticky" reminds me of a misunderstanding that led to heavy losses of British troops in the Korean War when the American commander underestimated the dire situation they were in.
It's funny that Percival had the same mindset as France in that the forest was impassable but Japan and Germany went right through both.
Weygand signed the "Letters of Transit" that everybody was trying to get in Casablanca eventually Huphrey Bogart got them and he killed Conrad Veldt Claude Rains went along with it, and Victor Lazlo escaped with Ingrid Bergman and everything ended well. So Weygand did at elast one good thing
They were signed by Degaulle
At least they’ll always have Paris.
@@hemming57 That's a common mistake. Letters signed by DeGaulle would never have been honored in Nazi dominated North Africa.
@@Chiller01 Texas?
@@hemming57 No that’s Harry Dean Stanton
I agree totally with this list, but think a (Dis)Honourable Mention should be given to General Freyberg, the New Zealander who lost Crete and could have handed the Germans a nasty defeat had he:
a) Listened to the intelligence that was 100% accurate regarding time and location of parachute drops; and
b) Made the airfields unusable so they could not have been occupied to resupply / reinforce the Fallschirmjäger, who were otherwise stranded.
You're severely misrepresenting Freybergs' actions here. He was given Enigma intel for his own edification, but was simultaneously forbidden from acting on it in any way. Reading Enigma was a massive advantage for the Allies, and preventing the Germans from realising that it was compromised was a far higher strategic priority than almost everything, certainly much higher than a very minor, secondary theatre like Crete. You're correct, them Allies could have set up a perfect ambush at Crete and utterly destroyed the Fliegerkorps, but the Germans would then have known for certain that Enigma was broken, and could have fairly easily made changes to make it uncrackable for probably the rest of the war.
There is room to criticise the overall handling of the battle by Freyberg and his subordinates, but it should also be recalled that a lot of the Allied forces on Crete were recently evacuated from Greece, and were short on weapons and probably not in the best shape overall, as they were still reorganising, whereas the FJs were a crack unit with air superiority.
I'd also point out that wrecking the airfields was an absolute no-no, as that would have given away the Enigma secret too; there's no way that the Allies would have done such a thing without detailed foreknowledge of the impending invasion, and once the invasion started, they pretty quickly lost the ability to do so
Adding to the comment above, orders were given to not destroy airfields, because it was supposed to transfer planes there. Although given the situation in Mediterranean it would be not soon.
Freyberg was actually one of the better Commonwealth divisional commanders. However let's not forget he was the one who requested the bombing of Monte Cassino.
I think TIK did a long video on operation crusader and Freyberg and his New Zealanders fought hard. There was a South African commander who was much worse in that battle. Refused orders and didn't reinforce the new Zealanders when they were desperate.
At best Freyberg was an idiot who was capable of commanding a brigade at most. Most of those who knew him regarded him as a physically imposing but dull witted man. He just looked like a general. Very similar to Redvers Buller from the late Victorian era.
Percival's inclusion here is manifestly unfair. He wasn't a great commander, but he wasn't monstrously inept. He knew the problems with Malaya Command - the indifferent quality of the troops, the lack of funds, the complete lack of adequate naval and air support - and he tried to remedy them. He just did not have the necessary force of personality or the energy to do it.
1. While his troops DID outnumber the Japanese, most of the troops at his disposal were second-line formations filled out with raw recruits. Many of the Indian troops under his command, for example, were teenage recruits led by wartime-commissioned officers drawn from Britain, who didn't speak any Hindi. He had no tanks, and his troops lacked anti-tank weaponry. Some of the much-vaunted Australians sent as reinforcements had only been in uniform for two weeks.
Percival could, and should, have tried to train his soldiers more thoroughly, but he was hampered by the lack of space provided by the civilian authorities and the need to disperse his forces to protect RAF installations.
2. Percival was hamstrung by a bad pre-war strategy, the Singapore Strategy. Under this scheme, the bulk of the defence of Malaya was supposed to be the responsibility of the RAF and the Royal Navy. The RAF had sited its bases in Malaya without consulting the Army. Because the outbreak of war in Europe meant that the RAF could not spare the aircraft necessary to occupy these bases, Percival now found himself with a lot of empty, poorly sited RAF bases that were of no use, yet still had to be defended to prevent them from falling into Japanese hands.
It is clear, with hindsight, that Percival should have pushed for a more aggressive strategy, pushing up into Thailand to seize likely landing sites. But Percival didn't have the authority to take this decision on his own. That authority lay with Air Marshal Brooke-Popham, who was himself hamstrung by the intransigence of the Foreign Office.
3. Percival was only the GOC of Land Forces, and had no authority over wider policy decisions, such as the requisition of civilian labour to construct defences. Malaya remained under civilian authority until the surrender, and was run according to peacetime norms/ There was no blackout instituted, no mobilisation of society, and no attempt to tighten up administration. The civil authorities argued that this was necessary to avoid the danger of disrupting colonial control, but, this meant that Percival found himself having to detail troops to perform tasks - such as the building of defences - that should have been given to civilian labour formations.
Percival could, and should, have done more to construct defences behind which the Commonwealth troops could have recuperated and retrained, but this would have gone against the advice of his own chief engineer, General Simpson, who was of the opinion that fixed defences would be bad for civilian morale. While this sounds laughable, remember that this is a colonial society, where any admittance of difficulty in front of the natives as incredibly risky.
4. Percival himself was, arguably, a good man in the wrong position. He had led a brigade in 1918 and had been highly decorated for inspirational small-unit leadership, but since then his entire inter-war career had been spent as an expert in counter-insurgency, strategic analysis and staff work. He hadn't led a combat formation since 1918, had never led anything larger than a brigade, and had no familiarity with the Indian Army or its officers. Worse yet, he had been appointed to the position of GOC over the head of a man - Lieutenant-General Lewis "Piggy" Heath - who was both senior to him on the army list, and had led an Indian Army division against the Italians with great success. His Australian subordinate, General Bennett, was a raging narcissist who undermined him at every opportunity.
Percival wasn't a brilliant commander, but he doesn't deserve to be put alongside men like Kulik or Graziani. Salvaging Malaya command would have required someone like Montgomery - an experienced man possessed of bulletproof self-confidence and furious energy, who would ruthlessly prune the command and administration, plan cautiously, and would inject confidence wherever he went. But Montgomery wasn't yet of the necessary rank, and Percival was the only man available who had been to Malaya. He was also a protégé of Field Marshal Dill, who wanted to give Percival a command.
For me as an Australian I think he should have at least put up a fight. Surrendered many men who died on the railway later.
@@pweter351 He did! His army was on its' last legs when he surrendered. Percival went into captivity alongside his men, it was Gordon Bennett who fled back to Oz.
Maybe people would be more sanguine about his performance if he let his men dig in? The whole “bad for morale “ thing is pure fuckery and makes you souls like a massive bell end.
@@MrLorenzovanmatterho the Australians wanted to fight or try and escape he forbade it and forced them to surrender only to wither in the Japanese camps
@@pweter351 No, he ordered the surrender so there was no more fighting, partly to spare the civilian population a Rape of Nanking situation (what did happen was bad enough). Do try to give me any evidence he forbade escapes?
singaporean here.
about general percival, i don't think it's fair to call him incompetent. the malayan environment was very, very unsuitable for tanks, which he thought was sufficient to deter a ground based invasion. not to mention, strategically, malaya had little value.
the port in singapore was what was important. so he had spent what few resources he had on fortifying singapore against a naval assault (which was the far more likely strategy). it was actually quite an impressive fortification, just that the japanese bypassed it, like how germany bypassed the maginot line. the japanese using bicycles was just a pretty novel thing to do that he didn't consider. that, and their decision to go THROUGH the entire malayan peninsula just to fuck singapore up the ass was also a big "nani" moment.
You forgot to add MacArthur, Montgomery, Percival, and Blamey.
If you did “Incompetent Generals of World War One” would need several videos…
That would be half the Russian General Staff, atleast one British guy (yes, Churchill) and quite a lot of German, Austrian and French Generals........
I am not even halfway and I can't stop laughing at the idiocracy.
@@fabianmichaelgockner5988 don’t forget about the Italian genius himself… Luigi Cadorna
@@indianajones4321 just checked Wikipedia..............
How...did...he...become...General...again?...
Even I as a volunteer Firefighter knows damn well securing a town and trenches is way too costly. 1/4 millions for little to no gains.
And Defense....oh god...
@@fabianmichaelgockner5988 and his strategy for attacking the same river… twelve times
@@fabianmichaelgockner5988 His rival is Conrad von Hötzendorf of Austria
But once the german invasion had begun, Pavlov’s western front in it’s forward position didn’t stand much of a chance when Guderian’s second Panzer Group hastily moved around his southern flank. Initially he thought he faced only a single armored division from that direction. But as soon as he saw what was really happening, it was all too late.
Exactly it was Stalins fault but he needed a scapegoat for his mistakes.
@@rooseveltdarbey9493 Yes, ultimately it was Stalin himself who was responsible for the western front’s forward and dangerously exposed position.
And the Soviet Air Force was practically destroyed in the first three days of Barbarossa. The army was told “no surrender no retreat” and were also effectively blind as the Air Force was completely decimated. The Germans basically stormed through European Russia and only the weather and complete luck stopped the Wehrmacht.
Pavlov was basically one of hundreds of Soviet officers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time with no hope of stemming the German offensive, let alone putting up a passable defence.
Remember too that Stalin practically purged the Soviet officer cadres before the invasion of many of their best officers. The only ones left were yes men and junior officers that were rapidly promoted.
From Spike Milligan’s memoirs:
Churchill: have you seen the bill for Singapore? Those japa-bloody-nese, why did they come round the back?
Alan-Brooke: they’re tradesmen sir.
7:37 The greatest defeat in British history undisputedly has been the Dutch raid on the Medway in 1667
Really? Well, according to you presumably. Who could forget? Probably only you. Did you watch it live on TV?
Saratoga basically saved the American cause in the revolutionary war
Medway was not the greatest defeat, but it sure was the most embarrassing.
Which General do I think was the worst? Hard to beat the French one. Cowardly, incompetent, and actually did betray his country and work with the enemy. The others were bad but he combined all the worst traits of the others with actually working with the Nazis.
Bernard Montgomery should have made the list for the disastrous Operation Market Garden. He planned it and he owned it. Eisenhower was skeptical of the whole Operation but let him go ahead with it anyway.
He didn't plan it, the Air marshalls Lewis Brereton and Browning did. Montgomerys plan was Operation Comet.
Skipper Clinton, I think that is a different category, because the plan fell apart because of bad intelligence, and German Panzer divisions coincidentally resting there. As the attack was so far behind enemy lines it was not possible to bring the necessary suport needed to neutralise the threat. So I think that is more bad luck than bad generalship.
@@mtsenskmtsensk5113 No the Intel was spot on but because a double agent was uncovered by the Dutch underground Allied Intel didn't believe it.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- "Market Garden was a risky plan of British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. It was executed by 41.628 English, American and Polish airborne troops and three divisions on the ground. The operation consisted of two parts." Use Google, it's really simple!
@@skipperclinton1087 From chapter 6 of the United States Army in WWII Europe - the Siegfried Line Campaign
Quote" *On the Allied side, the planning and command for the airborne phase of MARKET-GARDEN became the responsibility of the First Allied Airborne Army. The army commander, Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton*
So there you have it, another monty myth thats often thrown around is DEBUNKED. Montgomery had ZERO control over the command of 1st Allied Airborne, no ability to appoint or dismiss subordinates, nor any control of objective targets or the timing, location & sequence of drops. 21st Army Group was to assume control of the Airborne Corps only AFTER they linked up, at which point it was far too late to rectify any of the appallingly bad planning decisions that Brereton & Browning had made.
Percival every time not only was the scale of his defeat massive but for the fighting men he surrendered to the Japanese their hell was just beginning
Soviet-Polish General Karol Swierczewski was infamously incompetent in every battle he found himself. Part of the reason was his alcoholism, which lead to offensives that needlessly cost the lives of the men under his command. However in Communist Era Poland, he was portrayed in propaganda as a "soldier of victory" and there was a forced hero worship of him.
Semyon Budyonny was also pretty incompetent, sabotaging Soviet efforts to create a tank corps, because he was convinced that tanks would never replace horses.
US Naval Ordinance deserves a special mention for refusing to fix the Mark 14 torpedo
Calling General D. Pavlov "the worst Soviet general" is a joke and it's based on completely false accounts from Zhukov's memoirs. Zhukov lied about the purpose and results of wargames conducted by the Soviet General Staff around New Year of 1941. In fact, both Zhukov and Pavlov were promoted AFTER those games with Zhukov becoming Chief of General Staff, and Pavlov receiving a rank of Army General. Say what you want about Stalin but he didn't have a habit of promoting people who have failed to meet his expectations. FYI, in 1939 Pavlov was the Chief of the Directorate of Tank and Armoured Car Troops of the Red Army so he's basically a guy responsible for military oversight of developement of T-34, KV-1/2 an T-40 tanks in the late 1930s. So why he was sacked in 1941? Because Stalin needed a scapegoat, someone to blame for spectacular defeats of Soviet Western Front in the opening stages of German invasion and Pavlov had a misfortune of being the highest ranking military field commander in that area.
Worst American should either have jointly gone to Lucas and Clarke for the Anzio campaign or MacArthur. I'd give it to MacArthur.
Worst French should not have been Weygand. He was 73 and called out of retirement only a few months earlier. He should never have been appointed. That decision is as crazy as if the US had recalled Pershing.
Gamelin had the whole of the phoney war to prepare and learn from Poland's experience and dropped the ball.
Macarthur and Montgomery are only missing from your list because of their PR machines. Both vie for the title of Best WWI general in WWII.
Montgomery was the most successful and savvy Western Allied ground commander of WW2. Nobody even comes close. He took more ground through more countries while facing more quality German opposition than any other. Defeated Rommel every time they met, got the allies out of Africa and into France. Then had to help bail the Americans out in the Bulge.
Patton's Lorraine disaster was far worse than Market Garden. As was Hodges Hurtgen Forest blunder. Both presided over by Bradley.
they're both niether as good as their PR nor as bad as the revisionism. i dont understand what you mean by WW1 commander' none of them thought like ww1 commanders. Montgomery was a mobilearmour commander; even the concept of that was impossibe to imagine for a ww1 commander
@@internetenjoyer1044 And McArthur always tried to go around an enemy stronghold instead of a frontal assault
great it is always good to learn about different aspect of military history it can helps us to learn and improve our modern day army
Can't you see , wars can't be won with fighting spirit alone
@@KrishnaSharma-ek3eq everyone knows that
The worst of all generals was clearly French general Gamelin, the predecessor of Weygand. He had a fair plan of fighting the Germans in Belgium, France being protected by the Maginot Line. But when Germans extended the war to Netherland, he took his last mobile reserve from the center to the far north of the front. French stopped the Germans in Belgium, but when the true thrust occurred in the Ardennes, there was no reserve to counter-attack. He also mismanaged the whole business, denying to give explicit orders because he was CinC and delegated the Belgium-Eastern France front to another general; but nonetheless sending direct orders to any unit, worsening the chaos. Giving the difference of speed between the Allies, who calculated on 20 to 40 km a day by infantry, when Germans performed 60 to 100 km a day by tanks and trucks, the result was hopeless.
The last straw was Weygand decision to postpone the attack of encircled Allies armies in Belgium between German panzer spearhead and much slower German infantry. But just coming from Syria Weygand needed to take contact with the multiple army generals to understand the moving situation, and with the political men to know what could be achieved.
The Japanese in India bit. Had the British Commonwealth forces not beat them with a very well executed defence the Japanese supply issue would have been irrelevant. The Japanese had banked on a quick victory (like in the past) but the Commonwealth, getting their measure by now, said no.
Fredendal was utterly inept and ignorant though he was rivalled by John lucas at anzio.....of all of the featured generals, percival was truly the victim of circumstance over ineptitude....the Italian general was the very definition of hubris.
Percival didn’t have much going for him strategically, but his tactical ineptitude was all of his own making!
The commander of his engineer battalion was begging for permission to build fortifications on the northern side of Singapore (on the approaches to the causeway and on the island itself) yet Percival was more concerned with a morale which was at rock bottom anyway!
Still, he must have had something incriminating against his superiors to escape cashiering at war's end.
Lucas was the main reason for the debocal at Anzio!!! Mark Clark was a great general and guy who used Japanese Americans in Italy to a great advantage!!!
@@ronaldhux7226 Clark told Lucas not to stick his neck out at Anzio before US forces landed since the Navy and Army were still having problems coordinating the unloading of men, material and supplies during beach invasions. Lucas had orders to move inland if possible yet decided he better get his stores of supplies organized before launching any operation so they wouldn't end up running out of fuel, ammo and rations because those were scattered about the beach with other goods that were brought in by the same boat. The GI's found themselves searching thru the crates for tents, ammo and rations before they could move forward to set up defensive positions.
@@ronaldhux7226 General Patton, on his way to England after being relieved, paid a visit to Lucas. He told him to watch his back with Clark, and expect to be relieved because Lucas was in a 'no win' situation. Post war analysis of Lucas' actions showed he did the right thing by building up his supplies. The entire reason for the Anzio landing was to relieve pressure at Monte Cassino and the Rapido River. Clark was to link up with Lucas in a few weeks, which turned into a few months. Lucas only had sea borne supplies, and they were cut in half when many of the ships and LSTs sailed for England for D-Day preparations.
I really appreciate the spirited discussion about this subject! Plenty of additional information is presented and various opinions are offered. The Front made it possible that a good discourse among people from all over the world engages. Well done gentlemen and brothers in arms (I guess not many sisters in arms are among us here...)
I would love to see a discord server of yours. Also more videos about the Cold War would be awesome
We have one! discord.gg/qt68efP
And I will forward that Cold War request to the team :)
Mark Clarke USA. A man who thought more about his profile than the lives of his men.
By 'going for glory' as in taking the city of Rome , US General Mark Clark allowed the German army to escape north and regroup. This in effect caused the deaths of many allied soldiers and protracted the eventual end of the war by many months!
General Mark Clark: didn't move quickly when he should have (Salerno), attacked when and where he shouldn't have and re-inforced a defeat (Gari River) and ignored direct orders to pursue and destroy the German 10th Army so he could capture Rome as a PR stunt. Result? Medals and promotion.
Best part? The capture of Rome got overshadowed by D-Day.
@@ww2expert283 Didn't he capture Rome the day before D-Day? So literally no-one cared
@@iammattc1 Precisely. To be exact, rome got captured on 5th June
Easy for you to say. You know what happened. Like you to do better without the support of RUclips to battle plan.
@@oneofspades Except that he clearly went against orders to instead, capture Rome for glory when could have caught the German 10th army that was withdrawing which lead to the uneeded extension of conflicts in Northern Italy. Of course this doesn't discredit the fact that all of us are lucky to not live through such horrors and are able to so call have the "support of youtube to battle plan"
And not a single German general. That is when you know things were bad. The enemy is falling giant yet it still fights with courage and determination while falling.
we had one call him Adolf Hitler 🤣
Well, hitler.
I'm waiting for a part 2 where you present us the worst German general, also, if you think of a French general, my guess would be Gamelin (who didn't think tanks could cross the Ardennes)
They actually couldn't do that it was the panzers only at that time that could do so
the least competent German general, hands down, was Heinrich Himmler. He was so bad that the German general staff (whom Hitler greatly distrusted at the time) had no problem convincing Hitler that his loyal(?) political ally was a lousy military man
Yeah, we need another video because a lot of French high officers were just as bad (or worse) than Weygand.
I think Gamelin is far worse than Weygand and this presentation of Weygand is exaggerated!
If Weygand lost time to launch the operation, it was mainly because he had no correct vision of the situation. Following the manifest incompetence of Gamelin, the French government called Weygand who was at this moment in Syria since the beginning of the war. Weygand lost three days in meeting in different headquarters to try to understand the situation and to coordinate the different allies because there was no clear organisation of the allied forces in this area between the Frenchs, the Britishs and the Belgians.
And another point, the general Gaston Billotte, commanding the French army group in the area died in a road accident. One week after his son, the futur general Pierre Billotte, did his famous charge of Stonne where his B-1bis tank destroyed 13 German tanks and two antitank canons in few minutes.
Gamelin is for me far worst :
- Even if he had fought brilliantly during the Great War, since he became a pure headquarter officer. He rarely left his headquarter in Vincennes, rarely discussed with frontline generals and have no affinity with tanks, aircrafts or mobile warfare as had Weygand who was aide-de-camp of Foch and military advisor during the Polish-Soviet war.
- He didn't organise well the command and some units could depend of several chains of command.
- He refused to think that tanks could cross the Ardennes... and refused to take in account the reconnaissance flights that detected these moves and the renseignements of the Belgian army about these points!
And after the defeat, Weygand was favorable to Pétain but was clearly and openly hostile to the collaboration with Germany above the war reparations indicated in the armistice of 1940. From July 1940 to November 1942, few days before operation Torch, he was in charge of North Africa and he hided weapons and soldiers, passing them for civil agents or police force, in preparation of the revenge. That explains why Germans arrested him when they invaded the South Zone late novembre 1942.
@@KrishnaSharma-ek3eq only? russian tanks. i said enough.
The worst Polish-Soviet general was Karol Wacław Świerczewski. He actually fought against Poland in the Polish-Soviet War, but during World War Two was installed as the commander of one of two Polish armies fighting on the Soviet side.
As a Singaporean working in the historic church that Percival's men had to use as a major field hospital, this hits hard.
"italy's knock off version of Hitler" ... Italy founded fascism, that Hitler copy pasted into Germany. If anyone's a 'knock off' its Hitler not Mussolini.
Pavlov was a victime of Stalin's orders. He was use a scapegoat for Zukhov and Stalin. With impossiable orders he was without chance to succed. Not many remember he was responsiable for technical modernisation of Soviet tanks forces after Spanish Civil War. He is a father of concept that bring T-34.
All relations about wargane came from Zukhov, who is caught lying in many other relations. Zukhov never was a good source.
You mean Zhukov? He was the best. Rokossovsky and Konev were top-notch too.
Percival might not be great, but I think bad luck was more a factor. If he had some heavy (or even medium) armor (which he didn’t) he would have better chances. If he waited a week more, the Japanese force could’ve collapsed being so undersupplied.
Spreading his forces too thinly was on him though, but he also face an enemy much more inventive and experienced.
It has been suggested that, when the British arrived with a white flag to talk about surrender, the Japanese assumed Percival was going to invite them to throw in the towel.
Cue counterfactual frenzy!
I have to say British focus in Europe (dire situation for them in late 1940 untill 1941) and abandon Asia which is the same reason when mostly SEA was in Japanese control so Australia government call US for help more than UK.
The generally inept tactics in Malaya were mostly caused by lack of knowledge of the real conditions. Percival had been in Malaya in 1936-8, and should have been aware that finger roads had been bulldozed into what had previously been jungle, a good deal of which had been replaced with rubber plantations. His maps didn't show this, but he suspected a Japanese assault from Thailand, and he had eight months as commander in theatre to reconnoitre, which apparently he neglected to do, assuming that the jungle was impassible. Probably the Japanese would have infiltrated through even trackless jungle to outflank his fixed roadblock positions, but they didn't need to, and his troops were rapidly forced from position after position. Meanwhile, in Singapore, he did precisely nothing to strengthen the defences, improve the water supply, or send non-useful civilians south. When the Japanese arrived at the Straits of Johore, anything he or anyone could have done would have been pointless, anyway. The lack of water would have forced surrender within a few weeks.
Immediately on arrival, a dynamic general would have put engineers and civilian labour to work to create cisterns and rainwater channels. He would have updated his maps, which were forty years old. He would have trained his men - Percival did do that - in the actual conditions. Above all, he would have seen to the defences of Singapore island. Percival made no attempt at all, although he must have been aware that a Japanese advance through Malaya would come to that. His lack of even the faintest attempt to prepare Singapore for defence and siege is reminiscent of a rabbit hypnotised by a snake.
IMHO, he should have faced court-martial for neglect of duty, been cashiered and dishonourably discharged, after the war - which he spent in comparative luxury in Japanese hands, not like his men, who suffered Changi and the Death Railway. Instead, he was allowed to keep his rank and pension, and retire to write his memoirs, eventually to die in bed full of years, a fate denied to most of those who had the misfortune to find themselves under his command.
Bad luck? I think not.
@@puffin51 everything you said absolutely use gigantic of resources even in Malaya which have geographic disadvantage that have long coast (ton of port) and have gigantic mountain in center of country with 50000 men can not hold Malaya anyway because they will burn supply so fast due logistics issues another one Churchill had to think they'll use Siam as second china to buy time for them which Siam surrender in few days so anyway for reinforcement is impossible and they can only defense and lose , the last thing in British government mind is they want to protect Singapore only even Percival can counterattack via Thailand but British government can not that reason was when Siam government try to contact British government via viceroy of India and they didn't respond anything to support Siam.
PS. When he assignment in Singapore he have mixed feeling about this word
"In going to Malaya I realised that there was the double danger either of being left in an inactive command for some years if war did not break out in the East or, if it did, of finding myself involved in a pretty sticky business with the inadequate forces which are usually to be found in the distant parts of our Empire in the early stages of a war."
And one thing Japan win over British is bicycle (it's real and not joking)
I had a few terrible NCO’s in my line team. They basically stopped doing any work once they got their stripes and complained about everyone they personally hated all of the time. When they actually had to do some work, they complained about it a lot.
General Lucas for not moving to high ground after the Anzio landing and Mark Clark would be two Good candidates for bungling.
Kasserine Pass wasn't good, but wouldn't worst US defeat have been the fall of the Phillipines.
It was certainly a larger and strategically important defeat, but it was fought well overall. The defense delayed the Japanese long enough that the Japanese commander was relieved as a failure.
@@rochrich1223 Wainwright was left holding the bag on Corregidor while MacArthur left for Australia. Wainwright had very little food, medical supplies or ammunition remaining when he surrendered. He had little way of knowing about the atrocities his men would be subjected to on the Bataan Death March.
Rough duty indeed.
I hear that as the Army advanced toward liberating his POW camp, he worried about how he would be received. After all, he felt like a defeated General. Would he be blamed?
Of course, the men who liberated him apologized to him for taking so long. Somehow that story touches me.
Mark Clark should be in this list.
In captain Basil Liddell Hart's " A history of the Second World War", he mentions that British high command was extremely concerned with the inadequate preparations in Singapore. They believed that Churchill had become obsessed with the conflict in the north African desert to the detriment of Singapore.Events were to prove them right.
Liddell Hart was extraordinarily biased. The North African Theater was also far more important than Singapore. It's not like the British had unlimited resources.
@N Fels Opinions are amazing things, aren't they?
Clark would have been a runner-up. Insubordination, going after Rome instead of destroying a whole German army by closing its escape route.