By December 1864 Paraguay was at war with Brazil, and, when Argentina denied a request for the transit of a Paraguayan army across its territory, Lpez declared war on that country as well. Is the Biden administrations China policy too hawkish? Armchair historians often generalize that during the American Civil War, while the Union held a clear advantage in material, the Confederacy could field superior commanders. Two of the more prominent of these mistakes, both with wide and sweeping results, were the June 22, 1941 invasion of the USSROperation Barbarossaand the December 11, 1941 unprovoked and unwarranted declaration of war on the United Statesagainst the advice of Hitler's Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. McClellan was a superb organizer, a West Point-trained engineer who did much to build the Union army almost from scratch. All related (37) Sort Recommended Doug Szabo Author has 972 answers and 137.7K answer views Nov 27 My vote goes to adm Otto Zumwalt. Arminius cut off his head and sent it to another Germanic leader as a present. Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson put one forth in the PROVN Study, a Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of Vietnam. That document held that Westmorelands approach was not working and could not work because it ignored the real war in South Vietnams hamlets and villages, where the covert enemy infrastructure was through coercion and terror dominating the rural populace. Starting with the battle of Long Island, he lost way more fights than he wonyet he managed to win the war. Westmoreland held a press conference in which he categorically denied any such loss of confidence. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? Want to read more on this topic or region? Darius never showed up for the first battle and defeat (Battle of Granicus) because he didnt see Alexander as much of a threat to his empire. Many have described his activities as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history." 3 Nidal Malik Hasan Nidal Malik Hasan was a U.S. Army Major, and the sole suspect in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base, only weeks before he would have deployed to Afghanistan. Delivered Wednesday. Under Westmorelands command, the Vietnam war began smoothly as the U.S. won every battle. But in 1968, when Westmoreland became Army Chief of Staff, Communist forces baited Westmoreland into committing nearly 40% of his strength to the military outpost at Khe Sanh, then attacked cities and towns throughout South Vietnam. The Vietnam War, as Seen by the Victors - The Atlantic Finally, there was MacArthur's insubordination. His forces outnumbered Alexanders men by at least a 2 to 1 ratio, but Darius was still outflanked, defeated and forced to flee. Commanders of Chaos: The 5 Worst Generals in U.S. History 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Fort Bragg was named in 1918 during the Jim Crow era. That may have been true in the east (the worst of the Union generals in that theater rates his own entry on this list), but in the west it was a much different affair. Ulysses S. Grant made his Civil War debut at the Battle of Belmont against Confederate Gen. Gideon Pillow. They care about the one. Westmoreland didnt get it. James K. Polk. What defines Santa Anna is his utter failure to subdue the Texican rebels and block American expansion. Relations between the United States and China seem to be getting frostier by the day. The worst military leaders since Napoleon | History 101 Thus there was little internal capacity for debating or evaluating his chosen course of action. 88,594. Westmorelands strategy throughout the war was to win through Attrition Warfare (pounding the enemy through greater numbers and resources) which military strategists including Sun Tzu caution against using. Despite Lincoln's pleas for aggressive action, his Army of the Potomac moved hesitantly, its commander McClellan convinced himself that the Southern armies vastly outnumbered him when logic should have told him that it was the North that enjoyed an abundance of resources. They dramatically upped their game, pressing the U.S. worldwide. In 1940, after increasing pressure from dictator Benito Mussolini and facing demotion, Graziani followed orders and invaded Egypt with his Tenth Army. In other words, this book is a "how-not-to" guide to leadership. At the height of the Cold War, he dealt decisively with neither. Westmoreland was on a treadmill. FPs Ravi Agrawal spoke with two of the very best Russia experts:Angela Stent, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author ofPutins World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, and Michael Kofman, the research program director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses. Casey was an Army insidera four-star general and the son of the highest-ranking American casualty of the Vietnam War, a division commander who was killed in a July 1970 helicopter crash. His poor tactical decisions resulted in his army being routed by a smaller force of Redcoats and Loyalists at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780. But there was something that not even the factories of New York and Chicago could produce, and that was time. Lee demonstrated an immediate grasp of McClellans demeanor, and, during the Seven Days Battles (June 25July 1, 1862), Lee drove back the Union armies from Richmonds doorstep. McClellan was removed from command immediately after. Thus, almost by default, Westmoreland was left to go his own way, year after bloody year. This might have ended okay for Germany, provided they didnt do something like provoke a previously neutral country with Allied sympathies and an effectively bottomless war chest. 15. This would be known as the Tet Offensive and would become a major turning point in the war. Some 15,000 talents of gold (the so-called Gold of Tolosa) had vanished under his watch, never to be recovered. How might Vietnam or Iraq have turned out if a George Washington, a Ulysses Grant or a George Patton had been in command? The problem begins with the fact that nobody in the chain of command was really competent to critique Westmorelands performance. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. General and presidential candidate Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964) at his headquarters in Yokohama, Japan with US Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright (1883 - 1953) (right), and British Lieutenant-General A E Percival (1887 - 1966) (left) who were taken prisoner by the Japanese after the US retreat in the Bataan peninsula and released in 1945. Santa Anna liked to call himself the Napoleon of the West. And, like Napoleon, he squandered it all in one grand campaign. 8. Routed by U.S. forces under Winfield Scott, Santa Anna was again driven into exile. 2. It would be nice if all American generals were great. Eschewing a direct overland march to the Confederate capital of Richmond, McClellan orchestrated an impressive amphibious landing of more than 100,000 troops at Fort Monroe, at the southeast end of the peninsula between the James and York rivers. Sure, they ganged up on the Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae. Despite the Union outnumbering the Confederates, McClellan was unable to crush Robert E. Lee after failing to pursue him into Virginia. When the Germans shattered his troops and his reputation at Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in early 1943, Fredendall was only a major general and a corps commander. Weekly update on developments in India and its neighbors. Although Nelson was killed in combat at Trafalgar, Villeneuve outlived him only by six months. Not later than the autumn of 1966 the leaders of both services involved in fighting the ground war in VietnamArmy Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson and Marine Commandant General Wallace Greeneboth saw Westmorelands approach as fatally flawed and agreed on a viable alternative. The General Who Lost Vietnam | TIME.com Todays list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam. Without question, many lives would be saved if their tactical professionalism were enhanced.. Explore the benefits included in your subscription. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. While British cannons shelled the fort from the Canadian side of the river, Tecumseh marched his warriors through a forest clearing in an endless parade. The Top-10 Most Evil Leaders of the 20th Century - LinkedIn Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States. Disobeying orders, he sailed for Cdiz instead of the Channel, allowing Nelsons fleet time to return and effectively scuttling Napoleons plans for a cross-Channel invasion. Still, it is his world-changing defeat at Yorktown that merits memorializing. Michael Ray oversees coverage of European history and military affairs for Britannica. Driven into exile in 1845, he contacted U.S. Pres. Top Ten Reasons Field Marshal Montgomery is Not so Great The unprecedented violence of battles such as Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, and Gettysburg shocked citizens and international observers alike. Leaders of the Vietnam War - Wikipedia Yes, Westmoreland was the general who lost Vietnam. When the French deposed Benito Jurez and installed Maximilian as emperor of Mexico, Santa Anna, now 70, reached out to the U.S. for support in deposing the emperor. The Worst Civil War Generals on the Confederacy Confederate Maj. Gen. Gideon Pillow. 1968 takes the cake for me. Scott claimed that Pillow was ''the only person I have ever known who was wholly indifferent in the choice between truth and falsehood. When talk of secession reached Pillows home state of Tennessee, he helped organize the state militia and was appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate army. 4. - 3 Best: 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. After only 10 weeks into the Pacific War, Percival became responsible for the largest surrender of British-led forces in history. Grant had encircled the fort. Of course they raised this issue, leading Westmoreland to declare vehemently that establishing MACV Forward had not a damned thing to do with my confidence in General Cushman or the Marines, not a damned thing. That again was not only false but, given the existing paper trail, reckless as well. He was an artilleryman who missed out on the Army's great schools system, never attending the Command & General Staff College or the Army War College. Nor is being a bad battlefield commander, by itself, sufficient to make the cut. His 1812 campaign against Russia ended in complete disaster. These battlefield bumblers serve to provide that contrast. He denied senior civilian officials accurate data on enemy strength and composition, during development of a 1967 Special National Intelligence Estimate imposing a ceiling on the number of enemy forces his intelligence officers could report or agree to and personally removing from the order of battle entire categories that had long been included, thus falsely portraying progress in reducing enemy strength. Is Weiss correct? See the vast swaths of land to the north and south that arent Paraguay? Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. Most younger officers who worked around General Westmoreland, excepting only a very few among his many aides-de-camp or executive officers and the like, had no personal relationship with this difficult and distant man. There are a number of contenders for the top places on such a roster. A more positive example is George Washington. James Jay Carafano is a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges. Washington also suffered his share of defeats. With high hopes set upon his shoulders at the beginning of the American Civil war, quickly becoming General-in-Chief of the Union Army, McClellan would earn the distinction as a general of little action. Lincoln relieved McClellan but reinstated him after the devastating Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Westmoreland is often described as a Boy Scout, usually implying, it appears, that he was well-intentioned but nave. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. Instead of holding a natural defense line around Pyongyang, which would have given the United Nations control of most of the peninsula, the UN troops retreated all the way back into South Korea in a humiliating reverse for U.S. power after the crushing victory of World War II. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved, as Continental Army commander during the momentous American defeat of a British army at Saratoga in 1777, The Five Best U.S. War is an extension of politics, and if commanders dont help secure the desired political ends, they get a failing grade. The enemy did not lose heart, did not cease aggression. It was anotherhistory-changingevent, the birth of a truly exceptional nation. What he did not divulge publicly was that the United States. George McClellan is one of those generals who really looks great on paper. Westmoreland: the General Who Lost Vietnam The Western Front was a much bigger stage upon which to fail, however, and British commander Douglas Haig made the most of the opportunity. The Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial LectureThomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Ludendorff is one of historys greatest examples of a general who can win battles but still loses the war. In the opening month of World War I, Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg scored a crushing victory over the Russians at Tannenberg. Military Have your boss report to the French gentleman whose name begins with J at a place which begins with D which is five grid squares to the left of M. The Kasserine disaster had repercussions. 151. Many historians credit Benedict Arnold and others with being the real victors of Saratoga. The Roman Empire has a long, proud tradition of producing some of the finest generals in human history- and just as many of the worst. Advancing to the North Korean border with China also was a red flag for Mao-Tse Tung, who feared that American troops on his border were a prelude to U.S. invasion. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Pillow pulled the troops back to the fort to resupply them. Courses: Summer 2023 | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History After his defeat by the Texans at the Battle of San Jacinto, Santa Anna was captured. Reviews - Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam Lpez was the son of Carlos Antonio Lpez, a dictator who had done much to modernize Paraguay in the mid-19th century. In a war that saw more than its share of unskilled politically appointed generals, Pillow was arguably the worst on either side. How well that would have worked can be seen when Gates was sent to command American troops in the South. Jessica Chen Weiss, formerly a senior advisor for policy planning at the State Department under the Biden administration, makes the case that the United States is becoming consumed by competition with China, a strategy that could lead to dangerous conflict. Find Paraguay on a map of South America. Fighter Aircraft of All Time). When all is said and done, it doesnt matter how nice, brave, courageous, gutsy, loyal, or brilliant commanders theyve been. Because he never wanted to face a superior force, he refused to fight. Bombs away! Here are the 13 worst military movies in Hollywood history Here is a list of the 10 most famous Chinese generals in history. Explore the benefits of your FP subscription. Again fighting outnumbered Texans, this time Santa Anna would lose the battle stunningly. Read More. 13,091. The American Civil War was a factory for producing bad generals such as Braxton Bragg and Ambrose Burnside. On September 2, 1945, hours after the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender in World War II, communist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam, hoping. When two able and progressive Nationalist generals, Pai Chunghsi and Li Tsung-jen, begged the generalissimo to adopt similar methods, Chiang rejected them outright. Born in 1901 in Quang Binh Province (part of North Vietnam), Diem was the son of a well-educated mandarin (Vietnamese civil servant who took part in running the country) who served as the Minister of Rites and Grand Chamberlain to Emperor Thanh-Thai (1889-1907). They kept it as a war trophy, exhibiting the leg at. Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future. Download the new FP mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. The British gained control of the fort, dozens of cannons, the brig USS Adams (recommissioned the HMS Detroit), and virtually the entire Michigan Territory. His senior staff lacked diversity of experience and professional outlook, consisting mostly of people with backgrounds similar to his own, especially airborne. The next major British offensive came at Passchendaele (July 31November 6, 1917), where Haig lost another 275,000 troops in a battle whose name became synonymous with pointless slaughter. On the other side of the trenches in World War I was Erich Ludendorff, commanding the armies of Germany. But MacArthur's strategy certainly helped unleash 300,000 Chinese "volunteers" who inflicted significant casualties on United Nations forces. So unused to being challenged, the United States has become so filled with anxiety over China that sober responses are becoming nearly impossible. And how might that be impacting the world? Lewis Sorleys new book, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, is being published today by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Test yourself on the week of Feb. 25: Nigeria votes, Finland builds a border wall, and Israel escalates repression. Top 10 Worst Military Leaders in History - Toptenz.net Villeneuve lost 20 ships, while Nelson lost none. Alas, as a historian, he passed on the opportunity to answer Battlelands questions about what Vietnam should teach us about Afghanistan, and who, if anyone, is todays Westmoreland, during our email chat earlier this week: Whats the most important thing you learned writing Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam? Having amassed roughly twice as many losses in a single day as Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, had suffered during the entire Peninsular War, Haig saw no reason to change tactics. Ulysses S. Grant, who replaced McClellan, understood this. Today's list: The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam By the way, here is the first review I have seen of Sorley's new biography of Westmoreland, which I read in galleys. Answer (1 of 4): The former Cham general/leader Che Bong Nga was killed in the battle against the enemy Dai Viet (old Vietnam) but Che Bong Nga was LUCKY to be mentioned by the enemy Dai Viet historians to allow people to remember him. General Earle Wheeler was essentially a staff officer with virtually no troop leading experience, much less combat acumen. Military. In 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire. (You May Also Like: The Five Best Generals in U.S. History). up as tough on Beijing, even seeking to contain the rise of the worlds second-biggest economy. He was responsible for coming up with the idea of using force to restore constitutional order in Chechnya. On September 9, 1965, Navy Cmdr. Assuming you believe the subtitle to be accurate, who were GEN Westmorelands biggest accomplices in the loss? There appeared to be little serious planning for what would happen the day after Saddam was gone. This did not, however, achieve the postulated outcome. British Gen. Isaac Brock possessed a remarkable ability to anticipate his opponents moves and reactions, and it was not long before he had taken full measure of Hull. Having several decades of duplicity to draw on at this point, everyone had a pretty good idea of how any such deal would turn out, and the aging general was rebuffed by both parties. By one estimate from Harvard University, more than 130,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or severely wounded, in addition to the deaths of more than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians. Fortunately, along came Reaganif not for that, Westmorelands military reversals could well have signaled the beginning of our end. The world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. A very significant instance was his determination to arbitrarily hold down the estimate of enemy strength during a 1967 order of battle controversy. General William Westmoreland. When the War of 1812 began, Hull was commissioned a brigadier general and tasked with defending Michigan and invading Upper Canada. If there was a saving grace for America, it was that he wasn't commanding an army. Is the Biden administrations China policy too hawkish? James K. Polk. This strategy inevitably failed as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong maintained control over how the war was fought which was through guerilla warfare. Once again, McClellan worked his organizational magic, restoring the morale of a shattered Union army. Santa Anna would lose Texas at the Battle of San Jacinto. The Persians had a mixed record against the Greeks. Saul David reviews a surprising study of military failure and names his own five most infamous generals Saul David Thursday February 17 2022, 12.00am , The Times Percival surrendered Malaya to Japanese forces in early 1942, defying Winston Churchills own instructions for prolonged resistance. Military greatness can most easily be defined by comparison. To counter these, Major General William R. Peers commenced Operation Greeley using elements of the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade. That dubious distinction falls to William Hull, the only general officer in American history to be ordered before a firing squad for cowardice and dereliction of duty. It was a humiliating baptism of fire for the U.S. Army in Europe, and more important, caused British commanders to dismiss their Yank allies as amateur soldiers for the rest of the war. Vice President, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute. What was the worst battle of Vietnam? Among them are, of course, Lyndon Johnson himself, Robert McNamara, and General Earle Wheeler. Russias war is receiving critical assistance from authoritarian regimes around the world. Argentina, Brazil, and the Brazilian puppet government in Uruguay formed an alliance, and on May 1, 1865, they declared war on Paraguay. Gods and Generals (2003) Loss $61 million These are actually Civil War reenactors and probably the only people who paid to see the movie. Officially labelled a defector by the Pentagon, many suspected Nolan, an African American, changed sides after suffering a lifetime of racial discrimination. And what then? 3. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam employs repressive policies that often contravene international human rights law. The elder Lpez had bequeathed to his son a relatively powerful military by regional standards but had cautioned Francisco against using it to settle diplomatic issues. General Harold K. Johnson was an authentic battlefield hero, and as noted above was fundamentally at odds with Westmorelands approach, but he was not in the chain of command. In his single-minded pursuit of that objective, Westmoreland (despite his repeated claims to the contrary) essentially ignored two other crucial aspects of the war, improvement of South Vietnams armed forces and pacification.
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worst generals in vietnam