# Worst Military Leader (game thread) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 15, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783 "2010-11-15T21:20:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/341 "2011-01-19T21:33:11Z")
Sticking with: Tiberius Sempronius Longus – 2 Nicias – 2 Switching for now to: Manuel Fernandez Silvestre – 1 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/342 "2011-01-19T22:21:55Z")
Manuel Fernandez Silvestre - 2 Votes Nicias - 2 votes Zhao Kuo - 1 vote. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/343 "2011-01-20T16:40:23Z")
Some real garbage left! Manuel Fernandez Silvestre - 2 James Ledlie - 2 Nicias - 1 ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/344 "2011-01-20T16:46:21Z")
It’s like we have 3 dimensions of ineptness… - Losing big - Losing often - Your ineptness having a huge effect on the world it shouldn’t have had. Losing big is like Zhao Kuo. Losing often is like Santa Anna Huge effect on the world it should have had is like Percival…well I guess he lost big as well 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/345 "2011-01-20T16:48:56Z")
Nicias lost big and had a big effect. Just saying. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/346 "2011-01-20T16:54:46Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Nicias lost big and had a big effect. Just saying. Yea, but he is overshadowed by another on the list…which is why I (reluctantly) chose him. It’s getting tough to choose. About the only one I feel ‘comfortable’ putting down now is Silvestre and Ledlie. After that I am going to second guess myself like crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/347 "2011-01-20T19:36:56Z")
But I recall a few folks pointing out that a real winner is someone who thinks they were a super badass general and went out ready to kick someones butts but lost due to sheer ineptness or a stupid-beyond-reason underestimating of the enemy, or losing to some weaker enemy. Not someone who reluctantly went to war and lost to a substantial force of Spartans. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/348 "2011-01-20T20:10:52Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > But I recall a few folks pointing out that a real winner is someone who thinks they were a super badass general and went out ready to kick someones butts but lost due to sheer ineptness or a stupid-beyond-reason underestimating of the enemy, or losing to some weaker enemy. Not someone who reluctantly went to war and lost to a substantial force of Spartans. Yeah, that points out my alternative factor - along with losing big, often and badly, a real “winner” (at this stage) has to lose in a manner particularly humiliating. They gotta have _style_. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/349 "2011-01-20T20:17:32Z")
Oh, and votes: Nicias - 2 Manuel Fernandez Silvestre - 2 James Ledlie -1 ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/350 "2011-01-20T20:22:23Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Yeah, that points out my alternative factor - along with losing big, often and badly, a real “winner” (at this stage) has to lose in a manner particularly humiliating. They gotta have _style_. 😃 I agree with it as a tie-breaker; I just don’t think we’re deep enough into the dregs for it to apply to Nicias yet. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/351 "2011-01-21T16:59:55Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Tiberius Sempronius Longus - 2 > Frederick William Stopford - 2 > James Ledlie - 1 > > We’re pretty much down to army-killers and war-losers now, so I’m ready to vote for the failures who nonetheless were only responsible for a small part of the action. That pretty well expresses my feeling. Tiberius Sempronius Longus lost to Hannibal, not _in itself_ a sign of incompetence, and he had military successes before and after that (Grumentum). He does lose points for walking into a classic ambush, but that shouldn’t put him into the finals. Stopford wasn’t the main strategist in charge at Gallipoli and the battle itself wasn’t decisive in any sense (the victors, the Ottoman Empire, subsequently collapsed). He loses points for sitting on his thumbs, breaking at least three cardinal military rules: pursue your strategic purpose, retain the initiative when you have surprise, and _seize the high ground_, especially if you are camped right below it. Ledlie was a moral coward. That’s bad, but the list has its share. Tiberius Sempronius Longus - 1 Frederick William Stopford - 2 James Ledlie - 1 Abdel Hakim Amer - 1 I’m going to add this gentleman as a result of having seen a History Channel program recently (yeah, I know): Abdel Hakim Amer. Yes, he allowed himself to be bumrushed out of the Sinai. That’s relatively small potatoes historically, it was just once (in the 1960s, even), and frankly the situation was confusing and threatening enough that I don’t see his decision as being _entirely_ disconnected from reality in the way some of our other candidates’ decisions have been (Percival, Hood, Elphinstone, Cadorna, Goering, and, had it come to it, Curtis LeMay all suffered from much more distorted ideas of what was really happening and what they should be doing militarily). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/352 "2011-01-21T17:49:40Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > I’m going to add this gentleman as a result of having seen a History Channel program recently (yeah, I know): Abdel Hakim Amer. Yes, he allowed himself to be bumrushed out of the Sinai. That’s relatively small potatoes historically, it was just once (in the 1960s, even), and frankly the situation was confusing and threatening enough that I don’t see his decision as being _entirely_ disconnected from reality in the way some of our other candidates’ decisions have been (Percival, Hood, Elphinstone, Cadorna, Goering, and, had it come to it, Curtis LeMay all suffered from much more distorted ideas of what was really happening and what they should be doing militarily). I agree that Amer may be too small-potatoes to be a real ‘winner’, but he gets high marks for losing so very quickly and so very completely and in such a shameful way. His personal panic-and-retreat order was the direct cause of the absolute collapse of Egyptian resistence in the Sinai, for which he’s rightly on the list. The Israelis would probably still have won had he not issued it, but he could surely have saved much of his army, or at least made a better showing, if he hadn’t. However, what I’m not sure of is to what extent he ought to get marks for the utter humiliation and dishonour this campaign brought on the Egyptian armed forces (I’m referring to the ‘we will crush you’ propaganda build-up, and the atrocious way retreating Egyptian soldiers were treated by their own side - deserted by their officers and in some cases allegedly even shot by their own side to prevent the news of the disaster spreading) – maybe those marks go to Nassar. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/353 "2011-01-21T17:58:28Z")
The results from Round 25 of voting: **Manuel Fernandez Silvestre - 9 Nicias - 7** James Ledlie, Tiberius Sempronius Longus, Frederick William Stopford - 5 each Arthur Percival - 2 Abdel Hakim Amer, Zhao Kuo - 1 each The boldfaced leader(s) above are eliminated. That leaves: Abdel Hakim Amer: Panicked, lost Sinai in 1967 Luigi Cadorna: Lost twelve consecutively; hated, cruel Charles Alexander of Lorraine: Sustained career of incompetence Charles le Temeraire: Rash rather than “Bold” William George Keith Elphinstone: Lost an army in Afghanistan John Bell Hood: Recklessly stupid, lost Atlanta, West James Ledlie: Drunk during Battle of Crater Tiberius Sempronius Longus: Lost to Carthage at Trebia Francisco Solano López: Almost unmade Paraguay Napoleon III: Clobbered, captured at Sedan Arthur Percival: Surrendered Singapore to Japan Philip VI of France: Crushed own army at Crécy Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna: “Napoleon of the West”? Ha! Frederick William Stopford: Blunderer at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli Zhao Kuo: Became idiom for “bad general” _Eliminated:_ Ulysses S. Grant William T. Sherman Pyrrhus of Epirus Benedict Arnold James II of England Earl of Cardigan Cloudesley Shovell Douglas MacArthur William Halsey George A. Custer Curtis LeMay Lord Chelmsford George Tryon Geoffrey Spicer-Simson Benjamin F. Butler Xerxes I of Persia Ernest J. King Gaius Terentius Varro John A. McClernand Daniel Sickles Christian de Castries Maximilian von Prittwitz Rodolfo Graziani William Westmoreland Crassus William Calley Carlo di Persano Heinrich Himmler William H. Winder Ratko Mladić Paul D. Harkins Oreste Baratieri Romanus IV of Byzantium Varus Hermann Goering Zinovy Rozhestvensky William Hull George B. McClellan Judson Kilpatrick Thom Karremans Ambrose Burnside Gaius Claudius Glaber Douglas Haig Braxton Bragg Duke of Buckingham Maurice Gamelin Horatio Gates Manuel Fernandez Silvestre Nicias Same rules for the next round, which will end at noon EST on Mon. Jan. 24. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/354 "2011-01-21T18:08:28Z")
Reposting: Tiberius Sempronius Longus - 2 Frederick William Stopford - 2 James Ledlie - 1 ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/355 "2011-01-21T18:35:11Z")
I know it’s not an exact science, but I’m having trouble getting my head around Manuel Fernandez Silvestre, who planned a campaign that resulted in a modern state’s humiliating total defeat by markedly (militarily) inferior third-world tribesmen, being let off the hook before subordinate James Ledlie, who sat out one assault. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/356 "2011-01-21T19:16:48Z")
So now we need to get nit-picky. Arthur Percival - 2 I still think that he had very little support and it was not entirely unreasonable to expect the jungle would hold back the Japanese somewhat. William George Keith Elphinstone - 1 I think with a historical perspective, if you’re a Westerner fighting in Afghanistan you already have two strikes against you. Frederick William Stopford - 2 Bad planning and even worse execution. Par for the course in WWI ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/357 "2011-01-21T19:18:47Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > I know it’s not an exact science, but I’m having trouble getting my head around Manuel Fernandez Silvestre, who planned a campaign that resulted in a modern state’s humiliating total defeat by markedly (militarily) inferior third-world tribesmen, being let off the hook before subordinate James Ledlie, who sat out one assault. Ledlie probably benefits from “Civil War Inflation” - that is, his importance is inflated because he’s well known; plus the Crater is just so damned weird and memorable. No that you mention it, he ought to be turfed now, and should have been earlier, for being small fry. James Ledlie - 2 Longus - 2 Stopford - 1 ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/358 "2011-01-21T19:24:55Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So now we need to get nit-picky. > > Arthur Percival - 2 > I still think that he had very little support and it was not entirely unreasonable to expect the jungle would hold back the Japanese somewhat. Difference of opinion, I know, but to me Percival is the poster boy for losing despite numerical superiority. The Japanese also had little support, and he substantially outnumbered them, and had the advantage of conducting defense from prepared positions. I would find it entirely appropriate for hi to make the final few rounds. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/359 "2011-01-21T19:32:24Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Difference of opinion, I know, but to me Percival is the poster boy for losing despite numerical superiority. The Japanese also had little support, and he substantially outnumbered them, and had the advantage of conducting defense from prepared positions. I would find it entirely appropriate for hi to make the final few rounds. I agree - Percival has what it takes to go the distance. Edit: he is kinda reminiscent of Amer. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/360 "2011-01-21T20:20:23Z")
Sticking with: Tiberius Sempronius Longus – 2 Adding: Frederick William Stopford – 2 Napoleon III – 1 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783.md?page=19)