Who was the most brilliant general of the war?

[unmerged(3420)]

First choice would be Manstein. His plan to conquer France succeeded brilliantly; a nation that held off Germany for over four years in WWI was crushed in six weeks of WWII. Manstein was more than a planner; his response to the Stalingrad crisis of 1942-43 was a miracle of improvisation, crushing the Soviet spearheads and re-establishing a front line that had evaporated three months earlier, taking 250,000 Germans and as many Axis troops with it.

Second choice would be Zhukov. In 1941 his performance saved first Sevastopol, then Leningrad, and finally Moscow (where he beat Guderian). Save one blunted offensive in front of Moscow in 1942 (Operation Neptune), every command he held triumphed over its opponents. Zhukov can also claim to be the first true blitzkrieg general; he used armored exploitation tactics against the Japanese in Mongolia in May of 1939 (!) at Khalkin-Gol.

Third would be Patton. His exploitation in France in August of 1944 was the most daring and brilliant operation conducted by the West during the War (though Midway comes close). And his counterattack at Bastogne showed a depth of generalship and planning rarely credited to a man tagged with a "shoot-from-the-hip" image.

 

[Allenby]

And now for some humour...

How about Marshal Budenny? Only lost 1.5 million men in 1941

Rudolfo Graziani? Why bother with war when you can visit the opera?

General Maurice Gamelin? We don't need a telephone at HQ

Lloyd Fredendall - great performance at the Kasserine Pass

Lt-General Arthur Percival? Now there was a man with balls.

Heinrich Himmler! The famous commander of Army Group Vistula.

Admiral Tom Phillips - who cares about air power? I'm commanding the Prince of Wales!

Hermann Goering? "I'll wipe the Britain out in four minutes"?

All have gone down in history for their outstanding and memorable command!

 

[jacob-Lundgren]

just my opinion but i dont think a *best* general can be decided, simply because each one faced very different situations, however a most influential on the war or a best for that country makes sense, but american generals were enver in a position that germans were and germans werent in a position the soviets were, so its like comparing apples grapes oranges and bananas

a best admiral perhaps simply because the essential differences between ships are not as great as between armies.

 

[birch23]

An interresting topic which have been and will be discussed forever.

just to set one thing straight.Contrary to most beliefs the inventor of Blitzkrieg via armor was not Guderian,Manstein,Rommel or Lidell-Hart for that matter.It was actually Charles de Gaulle who first wrote about that subject as far back as 1926-1927 I think.This was one of the reasons he was put on the side by the French High Command who thought that armour should be dug down and act as an artillery which could be moved...

However if you take the generals by nation there where many who were just that tiny bit better than the rest.

Germany;von Rundstedt,Manstein,Guderian,von Kluge,Rommel and Halder,and Dietl Seaönitz Kieseritzky Air + Land;Kesselring SS;Hausser

England:Alanbrooke(Perhaps the best tactician of them all)Alexander,Gort(defence of Malta)Gott, + a whole bunch of good commanders.Sea;Actually none outstanding,Air;Leigh-Mallory,Park and Tedder...note too that the British had the best commandos too.(mostly Scottish btw.)

France;de Gaulle (innovation) Lattre de Tassigny,Giraud. none in sea and air,

Australia;Morshead

New Zealand;Freyberg

Italy;Messe,Borghese

Soviet;Zhukov,Rokossovskij,Koniev,Chukov and a couple more none air and sea.

USA;Patton (he was one of the few Allied Commanders who understood Blitz)Clark,Marshall Sea;a lot of fine commanders but Nimitz and Halsey on top: Air Spaatz perhaps LeMay.

Japan:A lot of fine leaders on both sea,and land none in the air though.but Yamamoto,Yamashita are the top,but there are quite a few too choose from.

Now you could begin to compare these and make your pick and I can guarantee one thing,you will never be in agreement...

 

[Quetzok]

i think the generals and military leaders are not comparable. too many things that affect the outcome of the operations they had to manage. like a lottery.
the only way to measure military leaders is to compare the losses their army suffered in combat. so, paulus should stand very high in ranking because he didn't sacrifced his army.

 

[unmerged(13158)]

Ok, since no one is willing to define what "Brilliant" means, I'm going to define it: Zhukov.

This is why:

*He moved to command no less than 4 major fronts - wherever he was most needed - as the Germans drove on Moscow. This included the counter attack that drove the germans back.

*He engineered the Stalingrad masterpiece.

*He won the race to capture Berlin.

*His most critical battles were won without air superiority.

*He never lost a battle.

And most importantly: He defeated all the German Generals who everyone claims was brilliant. In so doing, he garnered victories in the most critical battles for USSRs survival.

 

[donkeysaint]

Originally posted by Industrious
Ok, since no one is willing to define what "Brilliant" means, I'm going to define it: Zhukov.

This is why:

*He moved to command no less than 4 major fronts - wherever he was most needed - as the Germans drove on Moscow. This included the counter attack that drove the germans back.

*He engineered the Stalingrad masterpiece.

*He won the race to capture Berlin.

*His most critical battles were won without air superiority.

*He never lost a battle.

And most importantly: He defeated all the German Generals who everyone claims was brilliant. In so doing, he garnered victories in the most critical battles for USSRs survival.

I agree with Zhukov being one of the greatest, but I think you are giving him a little to much credit.

It is true that by using a lot of brutality (which indeed was needed, but also very Zhukov-like) he managed to prepare a solid defense at Leningrad. He also managed to do the same at Moscow, but what really stopped the Germans there was the mud-season that made any offensive pretty much impossible, their insufficient supply and equipment and off-course the famous General Winter.

Operation Uranus (the Stalingrad offensive) was as much, if not more, Vasilevski's work.

During the push towards Berlin, Konev and Zhukov had a race. They both wanted that glory. These two men where bitter rivals and deeply recented eachother, and Zhukov's artillery actually fired at Konev's troops. Misstake or not, it happend.

And he was indeed defeated, and quite handsomely to. There was an Operation Mars in November '42. It turned out to be a dissaster. Zhukov later claimed that Mars was nothing more than a diversion for Uranus, but the massive force that was used for it says different.

My candidate would be Manstein, for reasons allready stated in other posts. He was truly a brilliant commander, both on a tactical and strategical scale.

After him there is an even match with a few Russians (with Zhukov as a main canditate) and Germans. IMO a commander that didn't fight on the eastern front couldn't even be considerd. That was where WWII was truly fought and decided.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Originally posted by Quetzok
i think the generals and military leaders are not comparable. too many things that affect the outcome of the operations they had to manage. like a lottery.
the only way to measure military leaders is to compare the losses their army suffered in combat. so, paulus should stand very high in ranking because he didn't sacrifced his army.

I think the real question of this thread is "which general was most outstandingly or consistently brilliant given the circumstances they were in or given".

Saying who is the most brilliant isn't the same as asking "who would win: Rommel or Zhukov?"

About Rommel, IMO: It's hard to knock a man who inspired such confidence from his men, and I'm sure every one of them would disagree with me, but to me, it looks like his success is mostly due to not following the instructions given to him, which of course the British were decyphering.
It's one thing to say he succeeded because he outsmarted the enemy or (again, IMO), the enemy outsmarted themselves.

 

[brandnew70x7]

Zhukov also did a good job on Khalkin Ghol.

 

[unmerged(15904)]

Hands down Rommel. They were actually going to make him the new leader of Deutschland if Hitler's assassination succeeded.

 

[brandnew70x7]

No they weren't..

 

[unmerged(3115)]

Originally posted by mavraam
Patton.

Guderian may have invented Blitzkrieg, but most of his success was against armies that were taken completely by surprise. Never having seen this type of attack.

Patton on the other hand went against the obviously well prepared German Army and beat them at their own game. And he did it with vastly inferior tanks. Most of America's modern Armored land doctrine was developed by studying his successes.

Aye but what quality was the german army in the west 1944? What mobility did they have? What reserves did they had? Numbers of equipment?

How many germans faced him or did the brits draw away the bulk of the german forces? Against a mobile army how would he have faired with his damn the flanks policy? Air power air power air power.

(dont get me wrong though, patton was a good general)

IMHO:

The best generals were for each country
manstein
zhukov
bradley
o'conner

the worst had to be
bundenny
percivel
macarthur
(umm a bad german general? anyone? help me out here.)

 

[unmerged(8000)]

Don't over-rate France, and in WW1 they definately didn't hold off Germany on their own, they probably wouldn't have won the battle of the Marne without the British and from 1917 there were more British units on the Western Front than French. Also don't forget the large numbers of German troops tied up by Russians.

ON the topic I would rate Manstein the Greatest Commander of the second world war, he most importantly (among other german generals) kept Germany in the war 1-2 years longer than they probably should have (considering the dissproportion of German to Russian forces in the east). His tactical control of units was superb and his only major blight, the battle of Kursk was primarily ruined by Hitler and conservative Germans who wanted to build up forces instead of keeping surprise. Keselring also deserves a mention for defence of Italy.

 

[Maximilian I]

this thread belongs into the history forum .

 

[unmerged(6964)]

There is already a thread on this topic open in this fourm. You guys might want to check it out.

 

[unmerged(65)]

Originally posted by barrabas
... IMO a commander that didn't fight on the eastern front couldn't even be considerd. That was where WWII was truly fought and decided.

Finally some sense of scale in these crazy and very interesting discussions...

I do not intend any insult on the memory of those that fought in other fronts, I suppose that on an individual level suffering and effort are pretty much the same anywhere . It´s just that the scale of the war on the those fronts was almost ridiculously minute when compared with the eastern front. I just read a book that had a bunch of detailed statistics on war material/production and where it was used. It was sobering reading. According to this source, in 1945 only, the soviets put out more than 30.000 tanks (mostly T34/85 models) whereas the rest of the allies pulled together produced some 5-7.000 tanks (many of them crappy shermans when they should be producing those nifty new heavier models, sorry can´t remember their names).
Note tha I am aware that if the war had lasted another year USA war production would have been overwhelming (read somewhere there wher some 60.000 tanks coming out of the production lines by the end of the war!), but that´s one of those what if scenarios.

 

[Thelamon]

Considering Patton:

"he beat the Germams at their own game"

I don't think so - the whole post D-day stuff took place when Germany was allready defeated - against a more or less "rag tag" leftover army without aircover or sufficient supply.

The imbalance of conditions at that time of the war makes it very hard to realy judge the skills of commanders.
(who knows how Patton would have faired trying to operate in a 1941 D-Day...)

In land battles it's probably the likes of Zhukov who decided the war.

On the american side its certainly Nimitz and other Pac-theater guys + Eisenhower for D-Day overall strategie.
(probably the biggest US war hero was some unknown "economics nerd" coordinating the massive production - or even Henry Ford... laying the foundations for US's later econo-superpower)

 

[unmerged(6964)]

Originally posted by barrabas
IMO a commander that didn't fight on the eastern front couldn't even be considerd. That was where WWII was truly fought and decided.

I think that's a bit too reductionist. It's only one step from saying that the Eastern Front was the main theatre, therefore the best general MUST be one from the Russian front to saying that the Russians beat the Germans on the Eastern Front therefore the best general MUST be a Russian one.


Anyway, the truth is that it's very difficult to judge because different generals do different things well. For example, my vote for best American general of the war would go to George Marshall, even though he never commanded at the front. But he was a genius when it came to organisation and logistics and in many cases that is what counted, banal though that fact is. Equally, Brooke deserves consideration for best British general due to his time as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (though my personal vote would be for Slim).

 

[aprof]

Originally posted by Deserteur
The Americans did not need much brilliance, not even at the D-Day, because whenever problems occured, they simply had to call in the airforce.

Naw, the American tactic is to call in artillery.

But as to best generals of WWII, I go with Rommel, Zhukov, Patton.

 

[zChan]

Originally posted by birch23
An interresting topic which have been and will be discussed forever.

just to set one thing straight.Contrary to most beliefs the inventor of Blitzkrieg via armor was not Guderian,Manstein,Rommel or Lidell-Hart for that matter.It was actually Charles de Gaulle who first wrote about that subject as far back as 1926-1927 I think.This was one of the reasons he was put on the side by the French High Command who thought that armour should be dug down and act as an artillery which could be moved...

However if you take the generals by nation there where many who were just that tiny bit better than the rest.

Germany;von Rundstedt,Manstein,Guderian,von Kluge,Rommel and Halder,and Dietl Seaönitz Kieseritzky Air + Land;Kesselring SS;Hausser

England:Alanbrooke(Perhaps the best tactician of them all)Alexander,Gort(defence of Malta)Gott, + a whole bunch of good commanders.Sea;Actually none outstanding,Air;Leigh-Mallory,Park and Tedder...note too that the British had the best commandos too.(mostly Scottish btw.)

France;de Gaulle (innovation) Lattre de Tassigny,Giraud. none in sea and air,

Australia;Morshead

New Zealand;Freyberg

Italy;Messe,Borghese

Soviet;Zhukov,Rokossovskij,Koniev,Chukov and a couple more none air and sea.

USA;Patton (he was one of the few Allied Commanders who understood Blitz)Clark,Marshall Sea;a lot of fine commanders but Nimitz and Halsey on top: Air Spaatz perhaps LeMay.

Japan:A lot of fine leaders on both sea,and land none in the air though.but Yamamoto,Yamashita are the top,but there are quite a few too choose from.

Now you could begin to compare these and make your pick and I can guarantee one thing,you will never be in agreement...

Mannerheim should get a nod as well