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He was also entirely responsable for Germany's swift victory over France, and their heady advances into Russia. He just went insane once things got pear-shaped.
Losing a war when you're outnumbered 5-1 economically and militarily does not make you a bad commander per se

Starting on everyone at once does. He could have left the Russians alone.

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Doctadeth wrote:Rommel for the best - He was one of the greatest tacticians of the time with armoured warfare. He respected the POW status, rather then killing POWs.

Germany respected the Geneva Convention with regard to Western troops. Rommel was not alone in not executing POWs, but he was regarded as a "gentleman" it's true.

SS and the various massacres they perpetrated. Royal Norfolks for example.

Yeah. Someone's forgetting massacres in France, Italy, Austria, etc. Orders to execute commandos specifically targeted at the British, unrestricted submarine warfare/raiding, and terror bombing not excluded.

The Germans were really fickle with their Geneva guidelines in WWII, no matter who their opponent was.

My two votes for worst are Lord Mountbatten, or Lord "Wow we have too many Canadians around, how far to Dieppe?"

And Major General John Lucas, the commander at Anzio. Though if he hadn't done what he did, the world would never have gotten Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Who's the general who ordered the charge of the light brigade? Cause that guy fething sucks.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Who's the general who ordered the charge of the light brigade? Cause that guy fething sucks.

See that last post on the first page of this thread.

LordofHats wrote:The incident with the Australian triage center was actually the result of bad maps. Rommel and his command staff accidentally wandered into enemy lines and upon realizing this, he prompty bluffed his way out of capture. They didn't know the triage center was Commonwealth, and approached it only to find out where they really were.

He actually did that twice in the war (three times if we want to include the time his Storch was shot down).

Not just bad maps, but also a case of the front being so fluid. Staff from both sides tended to operate from the front. If I remember correctly the North African campaign saw some of the highest numbers of field grade POWs of both sides. For example One English staffer left his HQ to take a leak at night, spotted some vehicles that didn't belong where they were, walked up to see who it was and was taken prisoner to his surprize. Rommel and his HQ team decided to bug out before the sun came up. Rommel was also in the habbit of Personaly spearheading troop movements, and used his security team like a little quick reaction force. It was up to the rest of his force to play catch up, and some times they didn't.

Indeed. Von Ravenstein, one of Germany's best division commanders was captured by the dual habit of German leaders being in the front and the insanity of North Africa's front lines.

Yeah, my kind of thread. Firstly, a message to Lord of Hats. You can take your historical context and throw it in the trash

Secondly, there needs to be a third option for commanders instead of best and worst. This is not meant to be an insult but there needs to be a middle ground for the likes of George Washington. IMO Washington was an extraordinary leader, a heroic guy (see his exploits in the 7 years war) but pretty gak at conducting battles during the revolution. Still, he won the battle that mattered. Anyway, commanders like Washington don't fit neatly into the best or worst categories.

And finally, here are my recommendations:

Best - Eisenhower. Any man who could juggle having to deal with Patton, Churchill and Monty, whilst planning overlord, deserves 100 medals of honour.

Omar Bradley. He helped to sack MacArthur. Nuff said. Plus Operation Cobra was well executed.

Robert the Bruce - led his country to independance and defeated a medieval superpower in the process.

General Wolfe - for inspiring a great painting (plus that climb)

Worst: Mark Clark for the disaster at Anzio. What was it that Churchill said? We needed a wild cat and got a whale instead?

and finally. Please forgive the use of caps, but why does everybody forget HENRY RAWLINSON in these discusssions. It happens every time!!

HENRY RAWLINSON- who's that?
Just joking, you are correct, he defiantly belongs on the good list.

You can take your historical context and throw it in the trash

You realize sir, this means war

Lieutenant-Colonel Augustus Charles Newman, the commanding officer of No. 2 Commando during the St. Nazaire Raid in WW2. He and his men held off numbers vastly greater to their own whilst demolition teams wrecked the port, successfully destroying the only dock on the Atlantic which the battleship Tirpitz could be housed in. Then, upon realising that their planned escape route by sea was cut off, he led his men through the city in an attempt to escape to neutral Spain.

He gave his men three orders:
To do our best to get back to England;
Not to surrender until all our ammunition is exhausted;
Not to surrender at all if we can help it.

A total of 5 commandos managed to get to Spain and then back to England.

LordofHats wrote:Yeah. Someone's forgetting massacres in France, Italy, Austria, etc. Orders to execute commandos specifically targeted at the British, unrestricted submarine warfare/raiding, and terror bombing not excluded.

The Germans were really fickle with their Geneva guidelines in WWII, no matter who their opponent was.

When people start deploying Q ships, the only reasonable response is unrestricted submarine warfare. By doing that, the allies forced germany's hand as it were. And let's not forget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#Europe
no one had clean hands, but by and large the Germans did follow the Conventions regarding prisoners.

Bromsy wrote:When people start deploying Q ships, the only reasonable response is unrestricted submarine warfare. By doing that, the allies forced germany's hand as it were. And let's not forget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#Europe
no one had clean hands, but by and large the Germans did follow the Conventions regarding prisoners.

So its okay as long as we did something mean first?

And I wasn't referring to POW massacres. I was referring to massacres of civilians, at Ardeatine and numerous other Italian town, the massacre of an Italian division at Cephalion, Maille and Ascq in France. Kesselring worked thousands of Italians to death, and the SS executed thousands more (estimates are as high as 50,000). The list goes on. Saying the Germans were nicer to the non-Slavs, Romanis, and Jews isn't really saying much. EDIT: Hell, Germany committed more high profile war crimes in France alone than than the Western Allies in the whole war.

EDIT EDIT: But then this also ignores that the Germans were tried ex post facto for a lot of their war crimes, but that's a separate issue.

Bromsy wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Yeah. Someone's forgetting massacres in France, Italy, Austria, etc. Orders to execute commandos specifically targeted at the British, unrestricted submarine warfare/raiding, and terror bombing not excluded.

The Germans were really fickle with their Geneva guidelines in WWII, no matter who their opponent was.

When people start deploying Q ships, the only reasonable response is unrestricted submarine warfare. By doing that, the allies forced germany's hand as it were. And let's not forget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#Europe
no one had clean hands, but by and large the Germans did follow the Conventions regarding prisoners.

The Germans followed the convention until the Gestapo or SS got involved. Once either of these groups got into it, the convention went out the window. An example is the execution of 50 POWs who participated in the mass escape from Stalag Luft III (which was made famous by the film "The Great Escape") by Gestapo agents.

LordofHats wrote:

Bromsy wrote:When people start deploying Q ships, the only reasonable response is unrestricted submarine warfare. By doing that, the allies forced germany's hand as it were. And let's not forget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#Europe
no one had clean hands, but by and large the Germans did follow the Conventions regarding prisoners.

So its okay as long as we did something mean first?

Well... yeah.

Armenius?

The German tribesman who was responsible for kicking 3 Roman legions into their graves and out of Germany, and also responsible for instilling the idea of a nation into the tribes.

I think he was killed by his inlaws after his victory.

Cheers

Andrew

PS I say Germany in intallics because Germany didn't exist at that time, but it became Germany.

treadhead1944 wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Who's the general who ordered the charge of the light brigade? Cause that guy fething sucks.

See that last post on the first page of this thread.

Yeah, that's the one.
Sorry I missed that

AndrewC wrote:Armenius?

The German tribesman who was responsible for kicking 3 Roman legions into their graves and out of Germany, and also responsible for instilling the idea of a nation into the tribes.

I think he was killed by his inlaws after his victory.

Cheers

Andrew

PS I say Germany in intallics because Germany didn't exist at that time, but it became Germany.

The Roman term of the day was exchangeably Barbarian, or Germanian

I seriously want to throw Harold Crowbone into the mix here, but the problem with Viking leaders is that they were extremely fearsome in battle yes, but where they "won" more of their fame was with wits, and exploration.

Though, we could really throw Athelred the Unready into the mix of "bad commanders"

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

AndrewC wrote:Armenius?

The German tribesman who was responsible for kicking 3 Roman legions into their graves and out of Germany, and also responsible for instilling the idea of a nation into the tribes.

I think he was killed by his inlaws after his victory.

Cheers

Andrew

PS I say Germany in intallics because Germany didn't exist at that time, but it became Germany.

The Roman term of the day was exchangeably Barbarian, or Germanian

I seriously want to throw Harold Crowbone into the mix here, but the problem with Viking leaders is that they were extremely fearsome in battle yes, but where they "won" more of their fame was with wits, and exploration.

Though, we could really throw Athelred the Unready into the mix of "bad commanders"

Anyone who ends up with the title of "the Unready" really cocked up somewhere.

Bad: Douglas Haig

He sent men to their deaths, refused to update to modern tatics and used Napoleonic tatics. His stubborness costed millions of lives.
Christian de Castries

Responsible for the defeat at Dien Bien Phu. He preformed horribly through out the First Indochina war and he was captured for the majority of the Second World War.

Good: Napoleon Bonaparte

Crushed the Holy Roman Empire, sacked Eygpt, captured Italy.

THe Holy ROman Empire was only a name for a long time ago when Napoleon came. Germany and Italy were divided nations that couldnt stand before a united nation like France.

Egypt/the Mamelucks were even worse.

His invasion of Russia was even worse than that of Hitler.

Wellington and even Blücher were far better commanders.

Dark Scipio wrote:THe Holy ROman Empire was only a name for a long time ago when Napoleon came. Germany and Italy were divided nations that couldnt stand before a united nation like France.

Egypt/the Mamelucks were even worse.

His invasion of Russia was even worse than that of Hitler.

Wellington and even Blücher were far better commanders.

Opposite to contempary belief, the Battle of Waterloo was a tactical blunder by Napoleon's Sub-commanders not himself. Austria was not a push over nation and neither was Prussia, both of them were well established Land Based powers.

3 pages and as far as I can tell no one has mentiond Alexander the Great? Why is that?
I place him here as one of the best commanders becouse it was he that introduced the concept of tactics to beat an larger more powerful force. Also look at the amount of the world he brought under his domain;

He may have been as bent as a nine bob note but the boy could fight.

Ribon Fox wrote:3 pages and as far as I can tell no one has mentiond Alexander the Great? Why is that?

He was mentioned, though not by name... IIRC, someone posted him as "Philip of Macedon and his snot nosed kid" But, tbh, I would actually put little Alex ahead of ol' pops in this particular category.

3 paqges and no mention of Temujin, the Great Khan yet? Astonishing.

Bran Dawri wrote:3 paqges and no mention of Temujin, the Great Khan yet? Astonishing.

Tell us why he should be mentioned, don't just yell at us for not mentioning him

rockerbikie wrote:

Dark Scipio wrote:THe Holy ROman Empire was only a name for a long time ago when Napoleon came. Germany and Italy were divided nations that couldnt stand before a united nation like France.

Egypt/the Mamelucks were even worse.

His invasion of Russia was even worse than that of Hitler.

Wellington and even Blücher were far better commanders.

Opposite to contempary belief, the Battle of Waterloo was a tactical blunder by Napoleon's Sub-commanders not himself. Austria was not a push over nation and neither was Prussia, both of them were well established Land Based powers.

I know that and I wasnt talking about Waterloo.

However Prussia was in a state of decline, because they grew to fast and strong before. Prussia was in a bad shape when Napoleon attacked. Austria on the other hand was better of. I didnt say he was horrible, but not a great commander either. His decisions in Russia were just terrible. And the invasion of Egypt was no smart move either.

treadhead1944 wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:3 paqges and no mention of Temujin, the Great Khan yet? Astonishing.

Tell us why he should be mentioned, don't just yell at us for not mentioning him

Googled him and turns out he's Genghis Khan.

AustonT wrote:Hannibal, King David, Pompey Magnus, Caius julius Caesar, Agrippa, Tiberious, Belisarius, Arminius, Philip of Macedon and his brat kid, Carolus Martellus, Karolus Magnus, Frederick II, Napoleon I, Alexander Suvorov, , Cochise, Tecumseh Paul von Hindenburg, Ariel Sharon.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Ribon Fox wrote:3 pages and as far as I can tell no one has mentiond Alexander the Great? Why is that?

He was mentioned, though not by name... IIRC, someone posted him as "Philip of Macedon and his snot nosed kid" But, tbh, I would actually put little Alex ahead of ol' pops in this particular category.

Without Philip of Macedon there was no Alexander. Without the hegemony lil Alex wouldn't have had the scratch to get out of the Aegean. That's not to say he wasn't a military genius, just that any mention of Alexander III MUST include the contributions of Philip II. Plus it's a rather obvious choice for this thread and I like throwing him in under the radar.

Aye I agree with Auston, ever since I read Lion of Macedon I always liked Phillip more.

His Dad laid the foundations, Alexander might have been a bad ass, but getting gak started is the hardest part, so I side with Daddy as well.