# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/41 "2010-11-16T18:18:34Z")
Frankly, regional sympathies aside I’d like to hear Oakminster’s reasons for including Grant and Sherman. As far as I know no Civil War General willingly killed civilians so I have no idea why Sherman was a ‘butcher’ . **Ulysses S. Grant - 2** The crater assault at Vicksburg could have happened to any general, and as far as Cold Harbor he was far from the only commander at that time and since that used outdated tactics against modern weaponry. **General William Tecumseh “War is hell.” Sherman - 2** He was successful at bringing the South to it’s knees the only way possible and fought with rare intelligence and insight for a Union commander. **Pyrrhus of Epirus - 1** Pyrrhus was a badass and lost simply because Rome could crank out more bodies. Hannibal discovered same. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/42 "2010-11-16T18:22:33Z")
One thing I like about this game is I really have no idea who will make it into the top few - none at all. In the “best general”, I could have predicted most of the top contenders … ---
**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:** [November 16, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/43 "2010-11-16T21:00:29Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > So apparently the name of this game is everybody take cheapshots at me. :rolleyes: Look, you know I differ with you on this from reading the “greatest” thread, but I thought the discussion lost something when you didn’t participate further. That said, and acknowledging my own bias, _naming_ somebody “May-He-Rot-In-Hell” is kind of a cheap shot itself, don’t you think? ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/44 "2010-11-17T00:45:31Z")
I agree this is much harder to predict than the greatest thread… Keeping the competent/good 2 for Pyrhus 2 for Grant 1 for Sherman. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/45 "2010-11-17T03:28:39Z")
1 for Sherman, if only because he’s got enough votes to make it through by now but I want to reinforce this. 1 for Grant, same reason. 1 for Pyrrhus, who despite his eponym wasn’t a bad leader. 1 for Custer; there may be som on there who deserve better than him, but it kind of stuck out. I can’t say he didn’t get what he deserved (while losing many men along with him), but in other situations he handled himself quite well. 1 for Arthur Percival, for lack of evidence. It’s hard to fault him for having almost nothing to fight effectively with. If he were brilliant, he might have done better (i.e. lost a few days later), but that doesn’t make him terrible. If I could keep a name on there, it’d have to be Curtis LeMay. Conducting a strategy of murdering civilians is neither honorable nor an effective use of military resources. ---
**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:** [November 17, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/46 "2010-11-17T14:00:53Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Frankly, regional sympathies aside I’d like to hear Oakminster’s reasons for including Grant and Sherman. As far as I know no Civil War General willingly killed civilians Well, that’s debatable. Confederate William Quantrill definitely deliberately killed civilians, notably at [Lawrence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Massacre), Kansas, but wasn’t a general. Confederate John Hunt Morgan was promoted to brigadier general and later investigated by the Confederate government for “charges of criminal banditry,” but my brief search can’t indict him for killing civilians. Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was a rough, aggressive man, and he _definitely_ contributed to killing civilians _after_ the war, by being a co-founder of the KKK; and he _definitely_ oversaw the killing of military prisoners _during_ the war. But whether he killed _civilians_ _during_ the war is unclear to me without further investigation. Union forces can probably be indicted for firing cannons fairly indiscriminately on the town of [Fredericksburg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_fredericksburg#Crossing_the_Rappahannock.2C_December_11.E2.80.9312), but it’s worth noting that Confederate sharpshooters had fired from the town, and one eyewitness stated that there were no more than four civilian deaths. > [@panamajack](#): > > 1 for Arthur Percival, for lack of evidence. It’s hard to fault him for having almost nothing to fight effectively with. If he were brilliant, he might have done better (i.e. lost a few days later), but that doesn’t make him terrible. I’m surprised to see this defense of Percival. He outnumbered the Japanese hugely, his units _did_ have equipment until the Japanese penetrated their lines and captured their supplies, and notably _the Japanese_ were running out of supplies at the key moment in the campaign: [QUOTE=Wikipedia] On 11 February, knowing that Japanese supplies were running perilously low, Yamashita decided to bluff and he called on Percival to “give up this meaningless and desperate resistance”. [/QUOTE] It seems clear from what I’ve read that mishandling, poor deployment (the British notoriously defended the roads and allowed the Japanese to go offroad and bypass them), and panic are the main reasons for the defeat. The Japanese troops were largely draftees without special training, despite the persistent Allied belief they were great jungle fighters. The British also appear to have had substantial numbers of aircraft, before permitting them to be destroyed on the ground. Although I don’t have time to do it this morning, I would like to lay out some criteria I think will be useful in determining who is the worst of the worst. I also want to encourage people to go into depth as well as simply voting; lambasting these unfortunates will probably be entertaining (since we’re not the ones dying). Speaking of entertaining, I will entertain for a moment the viewpoint that put Sherman on the list. The man does have some errors on his record. Chief among them are his failure to trust his scouts before Shiloh, leading to being forced back in surprise; his expensive, failed assault on the high ground at Kennesaw Mountain, and his inability to take the Tunnel Hill at Missionary Ridge. Of these, I’d say Shiloh was inevitable – everyone was surprised by how hard both sides fought there, and Sherman had previously been cashiered for “nerves” when (correctly) insisting the war was going to be much worse than anyone thought, so it’s inevitable that he would overreact by being _too_ placid at his next engagement. Kennesaw Mountain was Sherman’s last attempt at a frontal assault; he never repeated the mistake. Tunnel Hill stands out as his worst battle though. I’m tempted to excuse him because he faced Pat Cleburne, a worthy opponent by any standard, but apparently Sherman started late and sent in his units in fragmentary fashion against a strong position, this ensuring his considerable initial numerical advantage would be wasted. Everyone has a bad day though, and he _did_ win the war. So I’m booting the winners off the list first: \*\*Sherman – 2 Grant – 2\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/47 "2010-11-17T14:24:15Z")
**Grant** – 2. Grant didn’t screw up the Crater, he screwed up managing Meade, who in turn screwed up the Crater, undercutting Burnside’s plan. **Benedict Arnold** – 2. He’s 95% traitor, 5% heroic injured foot. AFAIK, he was never considered a bad military leader. **Earl of Cardigan** – 1. He was given bad orders. Lucan should be on the list for that. ---
**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:** [November 17, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/48 "2010-11-17T14:40:08Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > … **Ulysses S. Grant - 2** The [C]rater assault at Vicksburg could have happened to any general… Nitpick: Petersburg. ---
**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:** [November 17, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/49 "2010-11-17T14:47:05Z")
I’m not sure yet what precise criteria I’m going to be using going forward (once we’ve lifted the actually successful generals out of the pit); but I can say that I will consider losers to be worse than criminals - I expect to be voting for Mladic and Calley sooner rather than later. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/50 "2010-11-17T15:04:35Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > I’m not sure yet what precise criteria I’m going to be using going forward (once we’ve lifted the actually successful generals out of the pit); but I can say that I will consider losers to be worse than criminals - I expect to be voting for Mladic and Calley sooner rather than later. I agree; I’m thinking “worst” purely in the sense of opposite of the “best” thread - and in that one, the Khan won. Hardly a paragon of humane generalling! 😉 To my mind “the worst” has to have a spectacular career of loser-dom. Of course, this is partly self-contradictory, as you’d expect spectacular losers to have fairly _short_ careers … I’d also discount otherwise solid leaders who simply made a mistake (albeit fatal), or who were out-generalled by military geniuses. I think we should be looking for guys who, through that particular military combination of inflated sense of ability, misplaced confidence, and deep-seated stupidity, would be pretty well guaranteed to screw up on any occasion - and did, with terrible results. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/51 "2010-11-17T15:22:39Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > I’m not sure yet what precise criteria I’m going to be using going forward (once we’ve lifted the actually successful generals out of the pit); but I can say that I will consider losers to be worse than criminals - I expect to be voting for Mladic and Calley sooner rather than later. I agree with the general principal, I think military leaders should be judged on their military prowess, not their morality. Mladic wasn’t a terribly good general even ignoring his war crimes though (if your not going to be able to take a city after four years, you probably shouldn’t beseige it in the first place). And his war crimes, as well as being morally repugnant, were also military blunders, as they encouraged the intervention of NATO. ---
**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:** [November 17, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/52 "2010-11-17T15:54:45Z")
> [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > **Grant** – 2. Grant didn’t screw up the Crater, he screwed up managing Meade, who in turn screwed up the Crater, undercutting Burnside’s plan. Hee hee! It’s fun to think about the phrase “undercutting Burnside[s’] plan.” The poor man is already on the list deservedly, and someone _else_ is on the list allegedly for screwing up one of _his_ plans. 😛 > [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > **Benedict Arnold** – 2. He’s 95% traitor, 5% heroic injured foot. AFAIK, he was never considered a bad military leader. All right, I agree – I’ll use my unspent fifth vote on Bennie. **Benedict Arnold – 1** > [@Malthus](#): > > To my mind “the worst” has to have a spectacular career of loser-dom. Of course, this is partly self-contradictory, as you’d expect spectacular losers to have fairly _short_ careers … Right. I will tend to push off one-time losers before those who somehow managed to get back on the horse and lose again and again. That’s part of the rationale by which I picked my last three nominees, Goering, Hood, and Cadorna (in roughly increasing order of number of embarrassing defeats). Burnsides was already taken. 🙂 . ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/53 "2010-11-17T15:57:45Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > I’m not sure yet what precise criteria I’m going to be using going forward (once we’ve lifted the actually successful generals out of the pit); but I can say that I will consider losers to be worse than criminals - I expect to be voting for Mladic and Calley sooner rather than later. Mladic _was_ a loser, though. And as **Simplicio** ably pointed out, a more capable general would have avoided the massively wasteful, expensive and provocative atrocities that helped ensure his side’s defeat. If ever a general snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, it was **Mladic** - consider the formidable advantages in both men and arms he enjoyed at the start of the war. If he’d refrained from outrages, and exercised reasonable military judgment, it’s entirely possible that he could have forced a settlement on Serbia/Srpska’s terms, and the international community would have accepted it. (This isn’t meant as a defense of the Serbian ultra-nationalism that drove Karadic, Mladic, and Milosevic - merely a recognition that the Europeans probably would have accepted a war outcome that left Bosnia under the control of a non-genocidal puppet strongman, and that this outcome would have been militarily feasible if Mladic avoided both military intervention and militarily wasteful atrocities). ---
**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:** [November 17, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/54 "2010-11-17T16:08:12Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > …I think we should be looking for guys who, through that particular military combination of inflated sense of ability, misplaced confidence, and deep-seated stupidity, would be pretty well guaranteed to screw up on any occasion - and did, with terrible results. This seems an eminently reasonable approach to me. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/55 "2010-11-17T16:30:15Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > This seems an eminently reasonable approach to me. I don’t disagree - but on further reflection, I really do believe that it’s appropriate to consider particularly noteworthy outrages, at least in regard to the modern commanders. A core precept of the modern profession of arms is that one isn’t supposed to inflict outrages upon civilians - indeed, even soldiers of an invading army are obligated under international law to protect the welfare of the civilian populace. Commanders who turn their back upon that sacred duty - like Calley, like Karreman, like Mladic - fail at a core part of their jobs. It’s fair to hold them to account for that in this thread, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/56 "2010-11-17T16:51:33Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Right. I will tend to push off one-time losers before those who somehow managed to get back on the horse and lose again and again. That’s part of the rationale by which I picked my last three nominees, Goering, Hood, and Cadorna (in roughly increasing order of number of embarrassing defeats). Burnsides was already taken. 🙂 Heh, true enough. You have to admire losers who have the gumption, and opportunity, to screw up _repeatedly_. On reflection, though I nominated him myself, old Burnsides loses a few marks for _knowing he was a loser to begin with_. A real “winner” of this contest ought, ideally, to think he’s a second Alexander, while being punked by a platoon of angry kittens. 😃 ---
**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:** [November 17, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/57 "2010-11-17T16:54:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > A real “winner” of this contest ought, ideally, to think he’s a second Alexander, while being punked by a platoon of angry kittens. 😃 I have just [the kittens](http://users.wolfcrews.com/toys/vikings/) in mind for this purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/58 "2010-11-17T17:00:21Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > I don’t disagree - but on further reflection, I really do believe that it’s appropriate to consider particularly noteworthy outrages, at least in regard to the modern commanders. > > A core precept of the modern profession of arms is that one isn’t supposed to inflict outrages upon civilians - indeed, even soldiers of an invading army are obligated under international law to protect the welfare of the civilian populace. Commanders who turn their back upon that sacred duty - like Calley, like Karreman, like Mladic - fail at a core part of their jobs. It’s fair to hold them to account for that in this thread, I think. To my mind, it’s purely a matter of military expediency. In the modern world, perhaps it is no longer possible to pull a Ghengis Khan or Tamerlane and simply _terrorize_ a subject population into submission with gruesome atrocities, no matter how evil you are - for one, in a world of mass communication, attempting to do so may bring miltary force down on your head, as it did with Mladic. To that extent, atrocity adding opprobrium to defeat, it is a perfectly relevant criterion - your Calley doing more harm to his own side’s ability to win the war, for example. But I think for purposes of the contest, “worst” should be contrasted with the already-run “best”, with the eye firmly on results. “Most evil” or “worst committer of atrocities” may make a perfectly interesting contest in and of itself - for example, one could imagine Ghenghis Khan “winning” both contests! ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/59 "2010-11-17T17:38:08Z")
Benedict Arnold: While he was a traitorous douche, he wasn’t really bad at generalship. He’s not unique or intereting enough to be considered “worst”, even if loyalty is an expected part of the job. Heinrich Himmler: WHile you can technicall call him a “military leader,” he wasn’t only briefly in command, and was in a no-win situation. He certainly made newb mistakes, but his impact on events was never going to matter. Douglas MacArthur: As with Arnold, MacArthur was a capable general with discipline issues. Not the worst in spite of self-aggrandizment. John McClernand: Not even remotely useless. Like many generals, he definitely made mistakes and had an ego the size of Chicago. But he was pretty capable tactically and obeyed orders with discipline. His problem was not battlefield command but that he pissed off everyone he met. I give one vote to each. Some of these people shouldn’t have even been mentioned, but I’d like to add in Sherman, but I think the point has been made. I don’t see how leading the March to the Sea makes Sherman a bad leader, or even a bad man. It was a hard measure neccessary in a hard war. The fact that Southern civilians hated it was the point, not a fault. I would vote for Grant, and I was going to post this… Ulysses S. Grant: Aside from the reasons already mentioned, Grant was wildly successful. He didn’t botch either of the attacks mentioned, but the painful neccessities of the situation and bad subordinates (he demonstrated repeatedly that with adequate JO’s, he could accomplish anything). But I think the point is clear and Oakminster’s proposition is ridculous. ---
**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:** [November 17, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/60 "2010-11-17T18:18:13Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Douglas MacArthur: As with Arnold, MacArthur was a capable general with discipline issues. Not the worst in spite of self-aggrandizment Dugout Doug? Here’s what I wrote about him in that other thread: > [@](#): > > Technically his Inchon landings in Korea were pretty brilliant; it’s ironic that his lax, showy failures of WWII made him famous enough that he got the Korean command and the chance to finally excel. Then he threw it all away, almost going rogue. > > His loss of the Philippines perhaps couldn’t be helped, but by pre-positioning his supplies forward and holding the Filipino troops back in barracks, he enabled the Japanese to land on his heavy equipment and seize it unopposed. And by keeping his air forces grounded for hours and hours, he lost them to a surprise attack that surprised no one. And he had the assistance of the largest local submarine force in the world, which went completely to waste. > > After fleeing, Dugout Doug remained in a bunker 700 miles behind the front while his men worked their way up New Guinea. He issued communiques (after redacting the names of subordinates so they wouldn’t get any credit) blaming the Australian will to fight while the Aussies were taking heavy losses against machine-gun bunkers…bunkers American heavy equipment and resources could have eliminated without the need for so many dead Aussies. His unimaginative grinding attacks in this campaign consisted of other men dying while Mac talked about their failings. I believe the Philippines should have been much more defensible than Mac made them. The American/Filipino forces actually outnumbered the attacking Japanese. While it’s true the islands were isolated from reinforcements for a long time, they could have held out much longer and made more of a fight out of it i not for a series of misjudgments at the top, and near-panic. IMHO after several fantastic opening blunders, MacArthur succumbed to defeatism, since he knew home and help were far away, when he could have made a much better stand of it. Instead he was given the bum’s rush. . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783.md?page=4)