# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/121 "2010-11-23T17:15:02Z")
Ernest J. King - 2 votes. Douglas MacArthur - 2 votes. George Tryon - 1vote. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/122 "2010-11-25T00:57:55Z")
**Lord Chelmsford** - 1 **Bill Halsey** - 1 **George Custer** - 1 **Curtis Lemay** - 1 **Heinrich Himmler** - 1: What field commands did he have? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/123 "2010-11-25T18:36:26Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > **Heinrich Himmler** - 1: What field commands did he have? A couple - he led [Operation North Wind](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nordwind) as commander of the Army Group Upper Rhine. After lackluster results there, he took over Army Group Vistula, where he performed with a distinct lack of any sort of competence. He was more thoroughly mediocre than anything, but he and his murderous incompetence can stick around for awhile IMO. **George Tryon** - 2. I will willingly accept the judgment that he was a huge bonehead on the day of his infamy. But still - peacetime navigational disaster. **Douglas MacArthur** - 2. Made his share of crappy blunders, but had his days in the sun as well. **Gaius Terentius Varro** - 1. Fighting a military genius and there is credible evidence he was scapegoated. Probably not great, but likely not quite the goat he was made out to be. ---
**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 26, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/124 "2010-11-26T14:35:34Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Maybe he wasn’t all that empathetic on a personal level - however, his “island hopping” strategy could be seen as much more effective in terms of keeping his men alive, especially compared to the way the Marines were used in the POA. MacArthur never send his infantry off on a direct assault if he could avoid it; you could hardly say the same about Nimitz. I don’t have the numbers with me, but I think MacArthur lost far fewer men than Nimitz, both in relative and absolute terms. > [@Tranquilis](#): > > I never said he was _nice_ to them. In fact, he wasn’t. But he took care for them - all his campaigns were carefully planned and plotted to keep casualties as low as achievable, consistent with the goals. That’s real loyalty - Taking care of the troops in the ways that ultimately matter. Man, that’s counter to everything I’ve ever read about him. His New Guinea campaign was regarded as a notorious meatgrinder, in which he sent men in frontal assaults against pillboxes while he sat 700 miles away in a bunker. Cite: [QUOTE=Wikipedia] In the Battle of Driniumor River, he would bring on “the New Guinea campaign’s bloodiest and most strategically useless battle.” [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Wikipedia] The four-week Battle of Driniumor River was one of the costliest of the campaigns in Papua and New Guinea, second only to the bloody head-on Allied assaults of the Japanese strongholds at Gona, Buna and Sanananda from November 1942 to January 1943. [/QUOTE] That’s three bloody head-on assaults and one “bloodiest and most strategically useless battle” in one casual three-minute search on one of his campaigns. ---
**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 26, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/125 "2010-11-26T14:39:47Z")
> [@Tranquilis](#): > > Douglas MacArthur: 1 vote. > Arrogant and a jerk, but loyal to his men, a skilled leader, and ultimately loyal to his country Not, however, loyal to the veterans of the [Bonus Army](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_army#U.S._Army_intervenes), who were apparently _someone else’s_ men and thus not worthy of Mac Arthur’s support. ---
**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 26, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/126 "2010-11-26T15:12:28Z")
I’m inclined to vote Tryon off the list in the round following Cloudesley Shovell, as his error was more cuplable, but not a combat error, and he had the gumption to go down with his ship. And I agree that Halsey shouldn’t be too penalized for underestimating the typhoons. His “Task Force 34” blunder was serious, but also the sort of price one pays for wanting aggressive commanders. People gave Spruance grief for not pursuing after Midway; it shouldn’t surprise anyone that an overpursuit error by the more aggressive Halsey followed. **George Tryon - 2 Bill Halsey - 2** Some of these folks I know little about. Which Duke of Buckingham are we talking about here? Wikipedia says the title was “created” four separate times for different families, and more than one were in battles. What made Xao Khuo especially bad? Also, I think several of these leaders share a particular failing, which I’ll call the Custer error for lack of a better term…underestimating “barbarian” or “uncivilized” enemies and suffering one catastrophic defeat: George Armstrong Custer, Oreste Baratieri, Lord Chelmsford, Crassus, William George Keith Elphinstone, Gaius Claudius Glaber, and Publius Quinctilius Varus for sure; one could arguably add Christian de Castries to that list for essentially the same mistake. Maybe we should vote them all off in one bloc when the time comes, since it seems to be the same (classic) mistake in each case). Also, William Hull and William Winder seem to be in the dock for the same thing – which one deserves the onus more? Paul D. Harkins and William Westmoreland screwed the same pooch as well, although Westmoreland appears to have had more warning and done less with more. . ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/127 "2010-11-26T15:39:04Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > I’m inclined to vote Tryon off the list in the round following Cloudesley Shovell, as his error was more cuplable, but not a combat error, and he had the gumption to go down with his ship. And I agree that Halsey shouldn’t be too penalized for underestimating the typhoons. His “Task Force 34” blunder was serious, but also the sort of price one pays for wanting aggressive commanders. People gave Spruance grief for not pursuing after Midway; it shouldn’t surprise anyone that an overpursuit error by the more aggressive Halsey followed. > > **George Tryon - 2 > Bill Halsey - 2** > > Some of these folks I know little about. Which Duke of Buckingham are we talking about here? Wikipedia says the title was “created” four separate times for different families, and more than one were in battles. What made Xao Khuo especially bad? > > Also, I think several of these leaders share a particular failing, which I’ll call the Custer error for lack of a better term…underestimating “barbarian” or “uncivilized” enemies and suffering one catastrophic defeat: George Armstrong Custer, Oreste Baratieri, Lord Chelmsford, Crassus, William George Keith Elphinstone, Gaius Claudius Glaber, and Publius Quinctilius Varus for sure; one could arguably add Christian de Castries to that list for essentially the same mistake. Maybe we should vote them all off in one bloc when the time comes, since it seems to be the same (classic) mistake in each case). > > Also, William Hull and William Winder seem to be in the dock for the same thing – which one deserves the onus more? > > Paul D. Harkins and William Westmoreland screwed the same pooch as well, although Westmoreland appears to have had more warning and done less with more. > . I’d take Crassus off your list of barbarian - underestimators: althought the Parthians employed the classic steppe nomad techique of using clouds of horse-archers, the Parthians were not really “barbarians”. Of the Hull-Winder duo, I “like” Winder better: he lost his country’s capital city to the enemy, whereas Hull only lost _Detroit_ - which was, in hindsight, a good idea. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/128 "2010-11-26T15:45:55Z")
**Sailboat** , I would disagree with your inclusion of the Vietnam fellows with those guilty of “Custer errors” (I like this term). Harkins comes close, but his failings were more due to him being an ignorant staff officer type rather than arrogance (Neil Sheehan described him as an “American General with a swagger stick and cigarette holder…who would not deign to soil his suntans and street shoes in a rice paddy to find out what was going on was prattling about having trapped the Viet Cong.”). Christian de Castries I’m not even sure belongs on this list, as it was Henri Navarre’s strategic blunder that put the French at Dien Bien Phu where Giap could surround them and pummel them with artillery. ---
**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:** [November 26, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/129 "2010-11-26T15:59:39Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Man, that’s counter to everything I’ve ever read about him. His New Guinea campaign was regarded as a notorious meatgrinder, in which he sent men in frontal assaults against pillboxes while he sat 700 miles away in a bunker. Cite: Again, I am not a fan of the man, but I doubt anyone could have turned the battles on the Pacific islands into anything but meatgrinders. > [@](#): > > That’s three bloody head-on assaults and one “bloodiest and most strategically useless battle” in one casual three-minute search on one of his campaigns. Hmmm. Reading the [description of the battle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Driniumor_River) it looks the battle was the result of Japanese reactions to Allied advances. It resulted in some 10,000 dead Japanese soldiers. The assessment seems to be from one author. ---
**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 26, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/130 "2010-11-26T17:28:07Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I’d take Crassus off your list of barbarian - underestimators: althought the Parthians employed the classic steppe nomad techique of using clouds of horse-archers, the Parthians were not really “barbarians”. I counter by pointing out that _everyone_ was a barbarian to the Romans. 🙂 > [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > **Sailboat** , I would disagree with your inclusion of the Vietnam fellows with those guilty of “Custer errors” (I like this term). Urk. I really meant to be changing the subject there, and saying Hull and Winder were in the dock for the same thing _as each other_, and Harkin and Westmoreland shared the same error _as each other_. I can see that it comes across as implying they all shared the same error as the “Custer Error” guys. I agree that’s not as clear with the Vietnam guys and totally inapplicable to the Canada guys. My own opinion is that Westmoreland’s biggest sin was lying to the public as a way of life, and not realizing that would cost his side support when it was revealed over and over again in little and big ways (the Tet Offensive being the biggest). ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/131 "2010-11-26T18:25:17Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Urk. I really meant to be changing the subject there, and saying Hull and Winder were in the dock for the same thing _as each other_, and Harkin and Westmoreland shared the same error _as each other_. I can see that it comes across as implying they all shared the same error as the “Custer Error” guys. I agree that’s not as clear with the Vietnam guys and totally inapplicable to the Canada guys. > > My own opinion is that Westmoreland’s biggest sin was lying to the public as a way of life, and not realizing that would cost his side support when it was revealed over and over again in little and big ways (the Tet Offensive being the biggest). Ah, I see. As for Westmoreland, he actually didn’t lie that much. He genuinely believed that the metrics they were compiling (most famously “body counts”) proved that they were winning, and that it was possible to win by grinding the enemy into ineffectiveness. I’d say his greatest sin was having a largely incomprehensible strategy, accompanied by a gluttonous appetite for men and materiel. ---
**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 26, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/132 "2010-11-26T22:08:41Z")
The results of our 4th round of voting: **Douglas MacArthur - 15** George A. Custer, William Halsey, George Tryon - 9 each Lord Chelmsford - 5 Gaius Terentius Varro - 4 Ernest J. King - 3 Crassus, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, William Hull - 2 each John Bell Hood, Curtis LeMay, Maximilian von Prittwitz, Publius Quinctilius Varus - 1 each The boldfaced leader(s) above are eliminated. That leaves: Abdel Hakim Amer: Panicked, lost Sinai in 1967 Oreste Baratieri: Routed by Ethiopians at Adowa Braxton Bragg: Bungling, irritating Confederate general Duke of Buckingham: Useless sycophant, incompetent military leader Ambrose E. Burnside: Defeat from jaws of victory Benjamin Franklin Butler: “Beast” hated in New Orleans Luigi Cadorna: Lost twelve consecutively; hated, cruel William Calley: Ordered, led My Lai Massacre Christian de Castries: Dien Bien Phu loser Charles Alexander of Lorraine: Sustained career of incompetence Charles le Temeraire: Rash rather than “Bold” Lord Chelmsford: Zulu dawn at Isandlwana Crassus: Army pincushioned by Parthians George Armstrong Custer: Cavalryman lost at Little Big Horn Carlo di Persano: Loser of Lissa William George Keith Elphinstone: Lost an army in Afghanistan Maurice Gamelin: Relied on the Maginot Line Horatio Gates: Fled headlong from Camden, S.C. Gaius Claudius Glaber: Why fortify against slaves? Hermann Goering: Prancing figurehead misused Luftwaffe Rodolfo Graziani: Trounced in North Africa Douglas Haig: Incompetent British WWI general Bill Halsey: Leyte Gulf errors; two typhoons Paul D. Harkins: Ignorant, overoptimistic in Vietnam Heinrich Himmler: Nazi botched every field command John Bell Hood: Recklessly stupid, lost Atlanta, West William Hull: Surrendered peacefully to inferior forces Thom Karremans: Toasted Mladić, allowed Srebenica massacre Hugh Judson Kilpatrick: Nicknamed “Kill Cavalry” for reason Ernest J. King: Anglophobe disastrously opposed Atlantic convoys James Ledlie: Drunk during Battle of Crater Curtis LeMay: Reckless, nuke-happy SAC chief Tiberius Sempronius Longus: Lost to Carthage at Trebia Francisco Solano López: Almost unmade Paraguay George B. McClellan: Timid, bungling, arrogant Union commander John A. McClernand: Useless political hack hurt Union Ratko Mladić: Ordered Srebenica massacre; since indicted Napoleon III: Clobbered, captured at Sedan Nicias: Commanded ill-fated Syracuse expedition Arthur Percival: Surrendered Singapore to Japan Philip VI of France: Crushed own army at Crécy Maximilian von Prittwitz: Peed his pants in Prussia Romanus IV of Byzantium: Lost Battle of Manzikert Zinovy Rozhestvensky: Led Russian Navy to annihilation Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna: “Napoleon of the West”? Ha! Daniel Sickles: Almost lost Gettysburg single-handedly Manuel Fernandez Silvestre: Lost badly in Spanish Morocco Geoffrey Spicer-Simson: Naval commander undone in Africa Frederick William Stopford: Blunderer at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli George Tryon: Sunk his flagship on maneouvres Gaius Terentius Varro: Blamed for defeat at Cannae Publius Quinctilius Varus: Army totally annihilated in Germany William Westmoreland: Brutal, unimaginative technocrat William H. Winder: Lost Upper Canada; Washington burned Xerxes I of Persia: Epic blunders in Greece 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 Same rules for the next round, which will end at noon EST on Mon. Nov. 29. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/133 "2010-11-27T03:02:39Z")
Sticking with: George Armstrong Custer – 2 votes Bill Halsey – 2 votes Adding: Lord Chelmsford – 1 vote ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/134 "2010-11-27T04:12:59Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Not, however, loyal to the veterans of the [Bonus Army](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_army#U.S._Army_intervenes), who were apparently _someone else’s_ men and thus not worthy of Mac Arthur’s support. No, they were a declared illegal assembly by the civil authorities to whom he was subordinate. Had he failed to follow his orders, he’d have been guitly at the very least of insubordination, and possibily mutiny. Or worse. The Bonus Army business was shamefull, but you can place no blame on MacArthur for that. Nor on George Patton, whom commanded the armored force backing MacArthur, nor on Dwight Eisenhower, whom was the Army’s liason with the police. No, put the blame for that squarely where it belongs: Major General Smedley Butler, Congress, President Hoover, and U.S. Attorney General Mitchell. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/135 "2010-11-27T04:21:11Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Man, that’s counter to everything I’ve ever read about him. His New Guinea campaign was regarded as a notorious meatgrinder, in which he sent men in frontal assaults against pillboxes while he sat 700 miles away in a bunker. By WWII, the business of theater commander leading from anywhere near the front line was about a hundred years dead, so your comment about ‘sitting in bunkers’ is absolutely pointless, and indicates your argument is weak. As for the ‘meatgrinders’ and ‘charging bunkers,’ those are artifacts of the terrain and the opponent: If there are only a handful of places suitable to the attack, any halfway competent enemy can plan to turn the approach into a meatgrinder. And the IJA was a hard-fighting, tough, and resourceful foe. My votes: Bill Halsey: 2 Verro: 1 Hood: 2 All for reasons previously stated. ---
**Author:** ![kfraser34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@kfraser34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kfraser34)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/136 "2010-11-27T08:28:27Z")
2 for Hull - didn’t get much support from his superiors… got out witted by a highly skilled general 1 for Varus, he was more of a governor than a general and ended up in an no win situation 2 Crassus just because he supported Caesar… ---
**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:** [November 27, 2010, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/137 "2010-11-27T13:47:57Z")
OK, another round: **Custer:** 2 Votes. Let’s get him off this list **Varro:** 2 Votes. I am becoming more convinced he was a fall guy for someone else and my final vote: **Benjamin Franklin Butler:** OK, this guy was inept and much of a political hack general as you could find, but he only managed to do some medium level damage. My vote is mostly for the fact that he is listed as being ‘hated in New Orleans’. FUCK that. More goddamn Confederate pity party. ---
**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:** [November 27, 2010, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/138 "2010-11-27T13:50:30Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > The results of our 4th round of voting: > > **Douglas MacArthur - 15** > > George A. Custer, William Halsey, George Tryon - 9 each > Lord Chelmsford - 5 > Gaius Terentius Varro - 4 > Ernest J. King - 3 > Crassus, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, William Hull - 2 each > John Bell Hood, Curtis LeMay, Maximilian von Prittwitz, Publius Quinctilius Varus - 1 each Hey Heir, doesn’t Graziani have a vote? I know I voted for him a couple of rounds ago. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/139 "2010-11-27T16:37:04Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > Hey Heir, doesn’t Graziani have a vote? I know I voted for him a couple of rounds ago. Voting isn’t cumulative. It resets every round. **George Custer** - 2 **Bill Halsey** - 2 **Lord Chelmsford** - 1 ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783/140 "2010-11-27T19:03:43Z")
re: Varus - I’m not sure “more a governor” cuts much mustard for me. He was a _Legatus Propraetor_, at the time a rank with both administrative and military oversight, including senior command duties. He wasn’t commanding the legions at Teutoburger Wald because someone else was sick - it was part of his job. One he had exercised when he held the same rank in Syria, where he quite effectively waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign. What we have is dueling traditions. Varus was very well-connected to the family of Tiberias, the second Roman emperor, and some attempt to rehabilitate his memory after the disaster ( which Varus was indeed blamed for at the time ) seems to have taken place. Tacitus assigns no blame to him, but Tacitus wrote three generations later, _after_ this rehabilitation had been pushed. Velleius Paterculus is not as well-regarded as Tactitus as a historian, but he was a contemporary of Varus and had known him personally and he was considerably less complementary, primarily in the area of character. Varus made a few arguable errors: 1.) The biggest was trusting Arminius. Arminius’s pro-Roman rival Segestes purportedly warned Varus against hm, but Varus was resistant to Segestes’ arguments. If this is the case, it was perhaps somewhat understandable as Varus trying to navigate between two subject factions ( Arminius had carefully cultivated a pro-Roman stance himself, he was a citizen with equestrian rank ), but it still shows a critical failure of judgment. 2.) He was overconfident. His march took him well north of previous Roman campaigns. Plunging three full legions into essentially uncharted territory without first scouting out the tracks more thoroughly was an act of hubris. 3.) When it came down to it, he committed suicide with many of his senior officers when he saw the battle was lost and about to turn into a massacre. Though it arguably would have made little difference and was considered an honorable and brave thing to do by Roman lights, I have to raise an eyebrow a bit. It is reported that after his troops became aware of his actions the final disintegration of the Roman army occurred. Failure to continue to rally may have snuffed whatever dim hopes some of those troops may have had. The exculpatory counter is that Arminius really had conceived the perfect ambush. It is in a way as classic an encounter as Cannae in showing one way to annihilate an army. Planning, preparations, execution - it was superbly done and once in position only a quick-thinking genius commander of a truly elite force probably would have stood a chance. Arminius isn’t usually placed in Hannibal’s league, because though he fought competently in the follow-up campaigns, in terms of great victories he was one and done, pretty much. But Teutoburger Wald was something of a masterpiece. So, I dunno about Varus. Classically bad? Probably not. Out of his depth and showing poor judgment? I’d say so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-leader-game-thread/560783.md?page=8)