The best Commander in Victoria

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Re: Joffre!

Originally posted by EricGS
You all seem to have forgotten Joffre. The General who managed to respond flexibly enough to stop the German juggernaut in 1914 and seems to have been well liked and well respected by all his contemporaries.

Have fun,
Eric.

Hi Eric,

I tend to lump Joffre into the same league as Haig. He was a meat grinder when push came to shove like Haig, hence my lack of respect for either.

Joffre certainly was an incredible judge of character as was evidened by his constant dismissal of generals that didn't fit his mould of elan and offensive mindset. He canned his protege and friend Lanrezac (5me Armee commander) because he knew he wasn't up to what Joffre wanted.

Joffre was WWI's version of Eisenhower, he juggled personalties and calmed unrest amongst the various staff at his disposal. Nevertheless he was a meat grinder when you got down to the brass tacks.

Foch and Petain were the stars really in my mind.

Best,

Grell

 

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Re: Joffre!

Originally posted by EricGS
You all seem to have forgotten Joffre. The General who managed to respond flexibly enough to stop the German juggernaut in 1914 and seems to have been well liked and well respected by all his contemporaries.

Have fun,
Eric.

Didnt Joffre get the sack?

 

[unmerged(8394)]

Originally posted by Vorotyntsev
By the time Vic starts, Bolivar, O'Higgins and San Martin are well past their military careers.

And the best are definetly Samsonov and Rennenkampf, hands down.

Samsonov and Rennenkampf, I never heard of them, Why were they great, what did they do?

 

[unmerged(6159)]

They lost at Tannenburg.

San Martin was a better general than Bolivar. Just doesn't get the same kind of press. His is the most impressive mountain crossing in history, hands down.

Ataturk would get my vote, but his most important achievements were after the end of Victoria. Gallipoli is better knwon for obvious reasons, but his achievements AFTER the occupation of Constantinople are what really stand out. From nothing he managed to create an army and a country, and overturned everyone's plans for the Middle East. A great general no doubt.

But Scott had to be tops. Quite aside from the Anaconda plan his campaign in Mexico is one of the all time greats. Wellington said that Scott was "the greatest living soldier" and called the campaign "unsurpassed in military annals". And this from someone who knew a thing or two about abandoning his lines of communication. I'd urge those who are so keen on Lee to read about the Mexican campaign. Scott and that campaign were immensely influential on American military thinking.

 

[EricGS]

Joffre was a butcher but...

Yes Joffre was as responsible as any other for the butchery on the Western Front. But was there another option? Sitting back and accepting the status quo was unacceptable, firstly to public opinion which demanded an end to the war and secondly economically, no nation could afford to continue the war for too long. This goes doubly for the French, much of whose economic base was occupied by the Germans.

The tactics that eventually broke the stalemate were only evolved by trail and error. The generals did learn from the butchery of the Somme and Verdun, as did the soldiers. New tactics and strategies were evolved, as in any long war.

The question is, who under the conditions of the war did best? In the early war - before he was sacked for reasons beyond his control - Joffre was one of the best. And before the stagnation of trench warfare, his action on the Marne, defeating a German army that was better trained and equipped than his own and one using plans and tactics honed for fourty years, was well done. The French army was poorly trained in comparison, and their own plans were already out of the window.

Much of this thread has concentrated on generals from the ACW and WWI. Why? Because these are long wars where generals who were intially unimpressive, learnt and evolved, or were replaced by younger ones who had proved themselves in junior posts. Thus Lee changed his stratgy to adapt to circumstances and the Union eventually promoted generals such as Sherman and Grant. Even Jackson suffered defeats in the Valley and learned from them.

Where else had long wars where good generals could prove themselves? I admit that post 1815, pre 1939 military history is not a speciality of mine, but my guess would be the Balkans. The various wars of independence and then wars between these new states although iirc much of the officering for Bulgaria, Serbia etc was actually done by Austrian and Russian "military advisors". Does anyone know enough of these wars to come up with good generals, and give us a potted history of their careers, bad points as well as good?

Have fun,
Eric

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Well, Serbia's Putnik has to rate pretty high as a defensive leader. I wonder if VIC generals will have 'traits' like the ones in HoI.

 

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Hi Eric,

Joffre clung to plan XVII tenaciously in the early stages and even when informed of German movements in Belgium still clung to the belief that a powerful and determined offense would crumble the enemies will to fight. He found out soon enough in the frontier, that that tenet held no water.

His retreat to and battle around the Marne was perfect. But it didn't win the war, it allowed the Germans to fall back and entrench. So much ado 'bout nothing.

His strengths were outweighed by his flaws.

Best,

Grell

 

[Spruce]

Re: Who is the greatest?

Originally posted by Haftor
In my opinion there is a major misapprehension in this thread. There is no point in arguing who where the best commander, if one does not consider what and who they where up against and what their objectives where. One ought to keep in mind that to an example a German army commander’s ability can not be measured against an American Civil War general’s ability as they led their forces under quite unlike conditions against dissimilar foes in diverse terrain, with other doctrines, and most significantly with other political and military objectives.

I can not agree more, but we've got to be realistic. We're all human and have our own favourite commander, some people by feeling - others by doing deeper research on the topic. And we have to respect that.

Anyhow, I feel that some criteria should be handled =

- compare a few generals in their own time settings and consider the boundary conditions they had to figth within,
- the people who did their research (historians) should judge. We all have our favourites... and on the internet there are always sites that have pro's and con's,
- look at the entire combat record, not at one battle or campaign!
- look at the larger picture. So imho, only army, corps and perhaps brigade commanders come into consideration (same goes for naval off course). There's no point in focussing on a one time extra ordinary performance of a lower officer...they are heroes but not suitable for a grand strategy game,
- the larger picture can also be imho = the political weight the commanders had, popularity,

A little example, the first army generals of the Potomac army were perhaps not that bad. They simply failed in their mission = capture Richmond. It will be very difficult to call them bad, the General is only one soldier of the army

 

[Mike Mathis]

-Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng
-General Sir Arthur Currie

These two men transformed the Canadian forces from yet an other group of colonials into some of the most feared troops in WW1.

For a bit of history see http://www.ideaman.net/articles/buspersnlleadership/WinningPrinciples.rtf .


Mike Mathis

 

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Hi Mike,

How's it goin' eh?

You gotta love those guys. I do however think of them as average. Sure we (Canada) like to cling to the belief that we had the best of the best, but 4 divisions, come on. Byng was a mini Haig. That's my thought.

I think we should, when giving our opinion on Generals give them a score of one as poorest to ten as highest. That would help some I think.

Byng is a pure 4.
Joffre a 5
Haig a 5
Foch a 7
Petain a 6
Von Moltke (the senior) a 9.

My thoughts anyway.

Best,

Grell

 

[unmerged(3168)]

I don't know if he was the Best, but I'd put John Monash up there in the 8's or 9's. His use of combined arms was brilliant, even revolutionary for WWI and he achieved great results with minimal casualties.

 

[unmerged(4974)]

best generals

I grew in the South, so I'd always believed that Lee was the greatest general since Napoleon. Then I read JFC Fuller's book comparing Grant and Lee. Now I think he was probably too hard on Lee, but Lee did make some crucial strategic and tactical mistakes, and Grant was consistently excellent after Shiloh. On balance, I'd say they were roughly equal, but were very different kinds of generals. I think a better comparison to Grant isn't Lee, who was a strictly operational commander, but Moltke the Elder. Given the magnitude and speed of Moltke's victories, I'd rank the top post-Napoleonic pre-WWI generals as

1) Moltke
2) Grant
3) Lee
4) Radetzky (this old man was quite cool)

Valeskoi

 

[unmerged(8913)]

Re: best generals

Originally posted by valeskoi
....and Grant was consistently excellent after Shiloh....

I don't know if I'd say "excellent". He just used his numerical superiority to his advantage, knowing that he could absorb many more casualties than Lee could, and just pressed on regardless of his own casualties. I don't really see the tactical or strategic genius there to rank him among the very top commanders of the game's era.

 

[unmerged(8394)]

Originally posted by Mike Mathis
-Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng
-General Sir Arthur Currie

These two men transformed the Canadian forces from yet an other group of colonials into some of the most feared troops in WW1.

For a bit of history see http://www.ideaman.net/articles/buspersnlleadership/WinningPrinciples.rtf .


Mike Mathis

I dont know either of these guys in person, But what you said about WW1 was correct and I remember my Grandad saying that they always felt safer when the canadian were around. He also said that when the canadians were around there was about to be a push!!!!

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Originally posted by Grell


You must be joking? Kitchener, one word.....Isandlwhana. He was inept and overconfident.

And he wasn't even present. In fact he had nothing to do with the battle of Isandlwhana whatsoever. The british commander during the Zulu war was Chelmsford...

However the best british officers of this period was probably Wolseley and Roberts. Honourable mentions should go to Havelock and the often forgottenHope Grant - probably the best fighter of them all...

Of the Americans I would rank Winfield Scott on top, but just for his Mexican campaign (which was brilliant). His civil war anaconda plan wasn't exactly what defeated the rebels, and the Union would probably have lost the war if he had remained in command. He made A LOT of mistakes during 1861...

US Grant and Shermans deserves place 2 and 3. Those of you who think Grant wasn't brilliant should study the Vicksburg campaign.

Lee and Stonewall is highly overrated. Lee was a great tactician but not much of a strategist. Jackson fought a great campaign in the valley, but was a disaster during the 7 daysbattle. Longstreet was probably a better corps-commander.

Best general of the period was off course the elder Moltke.

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Re: Re: best generals

Originally posted by Marcus Valerius
I don't know if I'd say "excellent". He just used his numerical superiority to his advantage, knowing that he could absorb many more casualties than Lee could, and just pressed on regardless of his own casualties. I don't really see the tactical or strategic genius there to rank him among the very top commanders of the game's era.

One word: VICKSBURG

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Originally posted by Spruce
The Union didn't win because Grant got a great plan and modernised warfare. Lincoln went back to the plan that was designed by Winfield Scott.

Not really. Scott's Anaconda was a strategy to strangle the confederacy by seizing the Mississippi and blockading the post. The Union would then "strangle" the confederacy and win without fighting major battles.

Grants strategy was to destroy the rebel armies instead of trying to conquer territory. He used the Unions numerical superiority to put pressure on all the rebel armies at the same time so that they couldn't reinforce eachother.

 

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Originally posted by Frodon
And he wasn't even present. In fact he had nothing to do with the battle of Isandlwhana whatsoever. The british commander during the Zulu war was Chelmsford...

However the best british officers of this period was probably Wolseley and Roberts. Honourable mentions should go to Havelock and Hope Grant

This is bang on correct. Lord Chelmsford was in command, but even he was not there as he add already moved on with half the troop!

He realsied what was happening but got back there too late.

If anyone wants to know more about this that Watch "Zulu Dawn". Its not totally correct but the main theme is there

 

[Spruce]

Originally posted by Frodon
Not really. Scott's Anaconda was a strategy to strangle the confederacy by seizing the Mississippi and blockading the post. The Union would then "strangle" the confederacy and win without fighting major battles.

Grants strategy was to destroy the rebel armies instead of trying to conquer territory. He used the Unions numerical superiority to put pressure on all the rebel armies at the same time so that they couldn't reinforce eachother.

I've got to say 2 things about the analysis =

- Scott's plan was indeed more of a grand strategie plan. Altough it included military incursions to divide the South. The march for Atlanta was only another copy of the masterplan,

- Grant's strategy was not to destroy the rebel armies, his plan was merely a realisation of Scotts Anaconda plan. Remember that Grant was supreme army commander of all the armies,

The Anaconda plan crushed the Southern backbone to withstand Grants armies.

About Grant I've got to promote him from a mediocre general to good. I'm still not convinced he was an excellent general like Lee and Jackson. How much credit the general gets depends somewhat from site to site.

I've found out that Grant was an excellent leader. He was able to gather the best of the best and to pursue the plan to the max. On the other hand, he got his victories when the South already was in ruins.

And also the fact that the South didn't win their decision battles stands for something,

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Originally posted by Spruce

I've found out that Grant was an excellent leader. He was able to gather the best of the best and to pursue the plan to the max. On the other hand, he got his victories when the South already was in ruins.

Don't agree. US Grant fought his best battles in 1863 when the south was still alive and kicking. After the initial failed plans, Vicksburg was a masterpiece that was bolder and more brilliant than anything Lee or Jackson ever succeeded in. And Chattanooga wasn't exactly bad either. You should check out Bruce Catton's excellent Grant-biographies...