So, based on replies so far, the list of countries that haven’t had a leader with flag rank experience is:
Australia
Canada
Libya
Under discussion:
Austria
India
New Zealand
Disqualified:
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States
King Idris of Libya, though, when he was Emir of Cyrenaica in exile, though, did command guerrilla troops against Italy. Does that count?
I wondered abut that, but coukdn’t tell from the wiki articles how involved he was on the actual military decisions, or was he more of a political leader, delegating authority to military?
By contrast, it’s my understanding that Michael Collins (in another sort of fluid situation) played an active military role, in the IRA and later within the provisional government, so I’ve not included Ireland. But, open to correction by someone with a firmer grasp of the Irish Civil War.
How do you want to count Iceland?
In the era since they regained sovereignty, they haven’t had a military for their prime ministers to have served in, except that they briefly tried to establish one during WWII. It didn’t go very far before the UK, and then the US, took over their defense. And they guy who was trying to train the army at that point didn’t become PM. I suppose the early Prime Ministers (either during home rule from 1904-1917, or the 1917-44 Kingdom) could have served in the Danish military. A quick glance at the list suggests they were career politicians.
I think you can disqualify virtually every country in Latin America. All have been subject to military coups at one point or another. For some of the smaller countries, the main question might be whether a leader actually held a general’s rank in an army rather than being head of the National Guard, say.
That is very depressing. Not a surprise, based on my previous thread, but very depressing.
How do you deal with an independence movement in the colonial era? For example, Mugabe didn’t hold formal military rank, but he led a successful guerrilla movement, which is probably equivalent.
And we also run into the issue of coups after independence, which can get very complicated. Idi Amin is a good example. He was a general in the Uganda Army before leading the coup that took him to power.
How about several other relatively young countries, such as:
Belgium
Estonia
Latvia
As recently as World War I, King Albert I of Belgium personally led his troops in battle.
For the record, here are Latin American countries with examples of at least one leader who held a general’s rank in the armed forces. In most cases they were dictators. Several countries had many such leaders.
Mexico: Santa Anna, Huerta
Guatemala: Efrian Rios Montt
El Salvador: Carlos Humberto Romero
Nicaragua: Jose Santos Zelaya
Costa Rica: Federico Tinoco Granados
Panama: Torrijos, Noriega
Colombia: Gustavo Rojas Pinilla
Venezuela: Marcos Pérez Jiménez
Ecuador: Guillermo Rodríguez
Peru: Juan Velasco Alvarado
Bolivia: Luis García Meza Tejada
Chile: Augusto Pinochet
Paraguay: Alfredo Stroessner
Argentina: Jorge Rafael Videla
Uruguay: Gregorio Conrado Álvarez
Brazil: Humberto Castelo Branco
Dominican Republic: Rafael Trujillo
Cuba: Raul Castro
Thanks I did not know of his military activity.
The US has had a few more generals as presidents - Grant and Eisenhower are two obvious examples - both of them famous wartime generals who grabbed the White House as a nice post-war jaunt before retirement.
Sure - there’s also Jackson, Harrison and Garfield.
And Pierce.
In addition to Stalin, Khruschev was a general in the Soviet Army, seeing duty at the battle for Kiev and the siege of Stalingrad.
South Africa is definitely disqualified as Prime Ministers Louis Botha and Jan Smuts were both generals. Botha actually commanded the South African forces invading German South-West Africa while he was Prime Minister. Interestingly, both men had been Boer generals fighting against the British Empire in the Anglo-Boer War, and subsequently became generals fighting for the British Empire in World War I (and WWII in Smuts’ case).
It certainly counts.
And this, I believe, was the last time a European king led his troops from the front. And, yes, he held rather more than ceremonial power.
For Latin America I forgot:
Honduras: Oswaldo López Arellano
Haiti: Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Here’s a list of countries that have been ruled by military dictatorships.Most of them were probably ruled by generals, but a few were led by officers of lower official rank. For example, the Suriname military coup was led by a group of 16 sergeants.
None of the Indian PM’s since 1947 have ever held any military rank of any sort.