Worst Military Leaders of All Time

I am not aware if this topic was already made, but if it was I can delete this one so we don't have two. Anyway, since we are looking at the greatest military leaders of all time on one thread, but there are terrible military leaders. Here are my candidates:

Adolf Hitler - If he left the war decisions to men like Erich von Manstein and Heinz Guderian I really think Germany had a real chance of winning against the U.S.S.R. and in fact, during Operation Barbarossa, Hitler had delayed Army Group Center to Moscow because when he reached Smolensk, he ordered the panzers down to reinforce Army Group South because it had not achieved its main goals yet. By the time Army Group Center charged again it was raining and they were forced to move slower.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna - This Mexican dictator never deserved to lead an army or even be in an army for all I care. After winning at the Alamo (a battle where he lost more men than the enemy) he moved to San Jacinto. When the Texas revolutionaries surrounded the Mexican Army, Santa Anna should have broke out, but instead had the army take its afternoon siesta and forgot to post guards. So the outnumbered Texans surprised the Mexican forces and only lost at least 9 men while the Mexicans lost 630. Santa Anna tried to disguise himself by only being dressed in his silk pajamas, but it failed when the men saluted to him.

George A. Custer - While not actually ordered the Little Bighorn (but was rather just on a recon mission) he did anyway with 700 men against over perhaps 2,000 Native Americans. He also refused Gatling guns which could have really helped during the battle. The only great role he had was when he saved one of Union's flanks from getting overrun on the last day of Gettysburg when the CSA cavalry attempted one last assault around the time of Pickett's Charge.

Are you really gonna call this man a terrible military commander for a single battle that would have been hard to win to begin with? He refused Gatling guns, because they would slow his army down too much. Like you said, he did well in the Civil War, and was a pretty good commander. Just because he lost one famous battle, does not in the slightest make him a terrible commander.


Anways, mine are Varrus (the Roman commander that lost at Teutoberg forest), and the idiots that commanded the Roman Army during the Battle of Wattling Street on "Time Commanders.

Arther Percival
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Percival
George B. McClellan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._McClellan
Ambrose Burnside
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside
Robert Nivelle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Nivelle

Adolf Hitler was best general.

No. Just no.

Don't deny the power of the fuhrer of Germany now march into Russia without any clothes on.

Actually it does, famous battles are usually the most critical, it would be like Charles "The Hammer" stopping the Muslims from entering Europe. He may have enjoyed success, but if he lost there he would have transformed history and make him awful. Unlike most generals, Custer did not even obey orders here and a good soldier would obey orders right?

Sometimes a soldier has to do what is right, heck most of the German military commanders had no desire to do most of Hitler's plans and would have (most likely) won the war had it not been for the structure of the Reich, next there comes a point when your morality should overcome your sense of obeying orders such as being ordered to commit a crime against humanity or war crime. Next Charles "The Hammer" Victory is ironic because the Byzantine wrote a book about how to defeat "those people" and its very detailed (one of the pages says "Cut of there beer" )

If one battle determined whether a military commander was great or terrible, then by that logic, Caesar should be considered one of the worst leaders of all time for his debacle at Gergovia.

Now here is the question. Was Caesar able to recover from Gergovia and learn from the mistakes he made? Did he fight in more battles after that one. Also I do look at other battles, but on very critical battle is what really has more of an effect take his fighting at the siege of Alesia.

We would never know if Custer would recover (which I personally think he would) because he kinda died at the battle.

They all seem to have on thing in common a sense of duty to fight. they messed up but they must have had some
optimism.

Yes that is fair.

This is about who is the worst commanders not who was the bravest and most optimistic.

Douglas MacArther. I know the mastermind of the pacific.

Let's start with the disastrous defense of the Philippines, ending with the largest mass surrender at Bataan. His huge ego made it impossible to work with the Australians defending New Guinea and that ill advised decision to invade Peleliu (it had no strategic importantce and was in no way worth 10 000 men or 2 months). His decision no return to the Philippians because of some vague promise to the people there, again ir had no real importance. The operation at Leyte Gulf ate up so many recources that he might have extended the war by months all by himself.

In Korea he did mastermind that Inchon landing, but the garrison there was so insignificant-the rest were at Pusan-meaning that only a idiot would fail. He fails a little while later, MacArthur ignores intelligent reports that a million Chinese were massing on the border and retreats way down the peninsula. Replacing him with General Ridgeway was oneof Truman's best decisions as president. Later on MacArthur had to pull favors and lobby congress to get his Congressional Medal of honor. His greatest victory to date is the defeat of the so called "bonus army".

Well said.

Monty was pretty bad as well.

These one sentence posts are getting really annoying. You need some sort of backing.

I had no time, as I had to leave for school in 5 minutes, and was just putting it there for debate. I can't elaborate about it at the moment either as I am on the school computers at the moment.

It's not just you but nearly everyone in this thread.