Top 10 Worst Military Leaders in History

in war there are winners and there are losers sometimes an army is defeated because they simply faced a larger and more powerful foe other times they lose because of some bizarre set of circumstances that no one could have foreseen or because they were simply outwitted by a cunning adversary sometimes an army is even dealt a defeat because of bad weather as happened to the mongol fleet of kublai khan in 1281 which was destroyed by a typhoon as it tried to cross the narrow strait between korea and japan however there are those battles that were lost due to the sheer incompetency of a leader which is the reason we're making this video of course even a good military leader can have a bad day as such this video is not simply about leaders who lost a battle but those who either snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory or were classic incompetents that somehow managed to be given command of an entire army a few are on this list because they are perceived as being more capable than history demonstrates them to be in other words besides the worst leaders this list also contains the most overrated leaders who while competent to a degree don't rightly deserve the level of credit given to them by history finally this is not a list of generals only but of men some of them who may not have even been in uniform the made decisions that led to their armies getting into some sort of catastrophe and so without further ado here are the top 10 most incompetent overrated or just plain unlucky military leaders in history number 10 field marshal irwin rommel germany this is easily the most controversial pick as many people look upon the desert fox with a great deal of esteem today in our defense we don't maintain that rommel was a bad general in fact considering the circumstances he had to deal with lack of supplies harsh conditions being perpetually outnumbered he did a remarkable job as arguably germany's most successful or at the very least most popular general plus the fact that he was implicated in the plot to kill hitler though pretty late in the game makes him a bit of a hero to both sides however in terms of actual accomplishments the man may not quite live up to his reputation while an aggressive and capable commander he tended to be abrasive intolerant unteachable and rash to the point of fool-hardiness which might be one of the reasons he was defeated by the british in north africa not once but twice the first time at the hands of british general orcin leck and the second time by montgomery and well he was finally pushed off the continent afterwards given the task of securing the french coastline from allied invasion the atlantic wall he oversaw the construction of a formidable barrier of bunkers and gun emplacements that prevented the allies from taking the beaches at normandy on june 6 1944 for about half an hour or so thereby fully demonstrating the futility of depending on fixed defenses to stop invasions a lesson the germans should have remembered from france's futile efforts to hold the maginot line in 1940. obviously not all of this can be laid at rommel's doorstep as he did have to work under the limitations imposed upon him by the fuhrer but when one considers his almost legendary reputation it seems he should have been able to do more to stop the allied invasion of france number nine admiral genici makawa japan this is a case in which a successful commander enjoyed an overwhelming victory only to almost immediately squander the priceless opportunity afforded to him admiral mccarwell was an up-and-coming japanese admiral known for his intelligence and sound judgment when he assumed command of the japanese eighth fleet at rabal in july of 1942. just a month later he was to lead this same fleet to one of japan's greatest naval victories of world war ii when during the night of august the 8th to the 9th 1942 he slipped into the waters off guadalcanal and sent four allied cruisers to the bottom in a little under an hour in doing so he left the marines on guadalcanal without sea protection and rendered the transports anchored offshore sitting ducks however just as complete victory and the routing of the american forces on guadalcanal was all but imminent the admiral inexplicably broke off the attack and headed for home thereby saving the u.s navy from further humiliation and destruction had the man shown a bit more aggressiveness and sancty hapless transports very likely the u.s would have been forced to evacuate the solomon islands and the war would have been extended for months or possibly as long as a year rightfully criticized by superiors for his timely blunder he was given increasingly smaller and more isolated commands throughout the remainder of the war until being forcefully retired by the japanese navy in june of 1945 three months before the war ended not a bad officer but certainly an officer with bad timing number 8. saddam hussein iraq people don't normally think of the butcher of baghdad as a military leader though he certainly liked to wear uniforms but for 24 years he called the shots in iraq and that's exactly what he was like hitler every military operation was overseen by him personally and in great detail though again like hitler he left the day-to-day tactical operations to a group of hand-picked incompetents known more for their loyalty to him than for their battlefield prowess consider that during his reign saddam oversaw three major conflicts the invasion of iran and persian gulf one and two all of which he lost soundly although the iranian conflict dragged on for eight long years before saddam finally sued for peace his inept defense of kuwait in 1991 against u.s and coalition forces almost cost him his entire army not to mention his head while the follow-up war just 11 years later the us-led invasion of iraq in 2003 well that cost him both perhaps his best idea was convincing the world he had wmds in an effort to discourage an invasion thereby encouraging the very conquest he was trying to avoid worst he forgot to tell his own generals his wmds were merely a figment of his imagination much to their consternation as they were counting on using them to slow the american march on baghdad truly it could be said that no american military commander ever had a better ally than the madmen from tikrit 7. general george mcclellan usa while there were a host of bad generals serving on both sides during the american civil war mostly on the union side unfortunately the one that usually gets the most credit for dragging out the war as long as he did is union general george mcclellan mcclellan wasn't the worst general in the union army that title probably belongs to joe hooker or ambrose burnside but he was the most cautious which in war can be as dangerous as being too bold in command of the union army from november 1861 until he was dismissed by lincoln after the bloody and inconclusive battle of antietam in september 1862 mcclellan was famous for his take it slow approach that resulted in indeterminable delays and missed opportunities to hit the rebels hard and potentially shorten the war to his credit some of his biographers write that mcclellan was hesitant to commit to battle out of concern for the lives of his men which is admirable but missing opportunities to potentially and soundly defeat the smaller confederate army on several occasions may have inadvertently extended the war by years actually resulting in an even greater loss of life than might have been experienced had he simply been more aggressive the man's personal content for lincoln was also unwise he once refused to see the president when he visited his home in washington claiming he had gone to bed and would not be disturbed further his political ambitions he ran against lincoln in the 1864 presidential election made him more of a publicity hound than the type of quality commander that the union army needed again not a terrible general just the wrong man for the job number six general robert george nivelle france what douglas hague was for the british expeditionary force in france during the first world war he betrayed number five coming up robert novell was for france a french artillery officer who took command of the french army in december of 1916 he immediately set about doing very little but sitting by and watching his men and the huns slaughter each other on an unimaginable scale at the battle of verdon 21st february to the 18th of december 1916 novell went through french troops like pork through a sausage factory racking up an impressive half a million casualties before it was all over but it was his ill-fated and poorly planned novel offensive in the spring of 1917 that was his undoing promising a quick and decisive victory over the germans in april of 1917 navel sent over a million french soldiers against a german army half its size and got his proverbial butt kicked by the time the french government finally pulled the plug on the thing three weeks later over a quarter million french had been killed or wounded and the army was on the verge of wholesale mutiny it was only his quick sacking that prevented the french soldiers from turning on their own officers and the whole allied front from collapsing handing victory to the germans by default on the other hand had the germans won in the summer of 1917 there would have been no hitler and no second world war and history would have taken a very very different track unlike his british counterpart sir douglas hague neville did not return home a hero but slinked off to some outpost in africa the french equivalent of being sent to siberia to finish out what was left of his career he died in 1924 and was buried with full military honors and then promptly forgotten number 5. general sir douglas hague uk the commander of british forces in france during the disastrous battle of the somme in 1916 hague has the distinction of overseeing the greatest single day loss of british lives in history on the morning of july the first 1916 sixty thousand troops twenty percent of the entire british fighting force engaged was killed or wounded including all but 68 men of the 801 man strong first newfoundland regiment in an offensive that failed to gain a single one of its objectives hey gabba the optimist however did not consider the enormity of the casualties inflicted all that bad and even wrote in his diary the next day the total casualties cannot be considered severe in view of the numbers engaged and the length of the front attacked of course today such incompetency would result in the immediate sacking of the offending buffoon but things were a bit different back then in fact hague would continue to oversee the british forces for the rest of the war and was even promoted to field marshal for his fine work under his auspicious leadership some eight hundred thousand british soldiers would ultimately die remarkably hague came home a hero after the war and is still considered to have been a competent military commander by many today mostly people who never served under him one might assume while no commander on either side during that war comes off looking good when it came to incurring casualties what makes hague stand out is his seeming indifference to the carnage and an unwillingness to learn the hard lessons required to fight a war in the 20th century he had his moments of brilliance certainly but by and large he was definitely not the right man for the job 4. george armstrong custer usa the dashing custer may have made a fine 1940s era western hero but in real life he was the sort of military leader enlisted men deserved for brash intelligence and personally courageous his great undoing was his indifference for the welfare of his men or their safety for that matter as one of the youngest generals in the union army during the civil war his cavalry unit had the highest casualty rate of any in the army he was also savage when it came to dealing with indians whom he would slaughter without remorse his recklessness finally caught up with him however when he led his famous seventh cavalry to the disaster at little bighorn in june of 1876 losing almost his entire command in the course of a few hours when he attacked an indian encampment with several thousand lakota northern cheyenne and arapaho warriors in it somehow he became a legend as a result of this debacle largely through the tireless efforts of his widow libby who went on speaking tours on his behalf for the rest of her life demonstrating the old adage that americans tend to honor their defeats little bighorn the alamo pearl harbor 9 11 more than their victories while adored as a martyr by millions of americans for generations custer has not fared well with historians lately who have come to see him as the publicity-seeking indian-hating ambitious huckster that he really was dulling his sterling reputation considerably does he deserve such scorn well just ask any of the 267 men who died alongside him not to mention the native americans he slaughtered 3. douglas macarthur usa what douglas macarthur has made it onto the list of top 10 losers the hero of the pacific theatre and the mastermind behind the inch on landings impossible not if you look at the record though start with his incoherent strategy to defend all of the philippines that ended in the disastrous surrender at bataan in april of 1942 the largest mass surrender of american troops in u.s history follow that with an antagonistic ego that made him frequently unable to work with the australians defending new guinea and the ill-advised decision to invade peleliu a japanese stronghold of no immediate strategic value that cost 10 000 u.s casualties and took two months to secure then there is his insistence that roosevelt invaded the philippines despite the fact that the archipelago had no real strategic value so that he could keep his promise to the filipino people that he would return as if they cared the operation at late gulf took up so much in terms of military assets that doug may have single-handedly extended the war by months but what about korea i hear you ask wasn't he the mastermind behind the inchon landing that broke the back of the north korean army and almost secured victory on the peninsula or yes he was but considering that incheon was defended by only a small garrison of korean troops the rest being locked in battle with u.n forces around busan meant that only the most incompetent commander would have failed to take it it's what happened later however where doug shows his true nature ignoring intelligence reports that a million chinese troops were massing along the korean border ready to invade he suddenly found himself overrun by mao's best and brightest forces and he was forced to retreat well past that pesky 38th parallel only his timely firing by truman probably truman's best decision as president and general ridgeways his replacements tactical sense saved korea from becoming another soviet satellite state okay he was a decent military governor in japan after their surrender and kept the russians out of japan but beyond that there's not much that can be said for him either as a general or a person unfair appraisal you say well consider that this is the man who had to pull in favors and lobby congress to get them to award him the congressional medal of honor for his inept defense of the philippines in 1942 talk about gaul number two antonio lopez de santa anna mexico this colorful character should never have donned the uniform of a mexican general or well any uniform for that matter whenever he did bad things always followed for his hapless army yes he took the alamo in 1836 losing twice as many men as the texans but he lost his entire army and was captured at san jacinto just a few weeks later in a battle that lasted all of 15 minutes still popular in mexico santa anna liked to refer to himself as the napoleon of the west after a brief exile he returned home to once more be given command of the mexican army and the task of pushing a small french force out of veracruz he lost the battle along with a leg which resulted in the mexicans being forced to capitulate to the french but he returned home with his prosthetic cork leg in tow more popular than ever after a short stint as dictator he was to serve in this capacity several times during the course of his illustrious career he found himself again at the head of the mexican army as it was repeatedly trounced by american troops during the mexican-american war of 1846. it was during this war his court leg was captured by american forces and put on display by the way returning home to mexico after yet another ill-fated foray as a military strategist santarana once again took over the government and spent the next few years lining his pockets before the people finally got tired of him and sent him fleeing into exile in cuba in 1855. clearly in santa ana the mexican people had a man that was both a military and political catastrophe yet who managed to remain popular with millions of mexicans for years just as he does to some degree today 1. adolf hitler germany many might be surprised to see zafura on a list of failed military leaders largely because he was not a military officer however this is a list about failed leaders not necessarily officers which given his role in ensuring germany's long awaited defeat in world war ii makes him top of the list while it is true that hitler never commanded soldiers on the field in the last three years of the war he increasingly took over day-to-day control of his armies telling his generals where and when to attack and then refusing to allow them to retreat when defeat was inevitable while he was content to leave the tactical details of running the armies to his generals he set these strategic objectives oversaw the allocation of resources and all but drove the first tank into each battle after 1943 ensuring that no matter how well the germans fought they were doomed to failure with the former world war one corporal at the helm allied success was practically assured of course all of this was a good thing in hindsight for it's scary to think what the germans might have accomplished had hitler had a hands-off policy and left it to his generals to figure out how best to vanquish his enemies as he did for the first three years of the war by the way additionally this was the single biggest difference between hitler and his nemesis joseph stalin stalin knew he wasn't a military strategist and let his generals run the show hitler assuming his time spent in the trenches of france in the first world war made him an expert never figured that out much to his and an entire generation of germans detriment so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching

Channel: TopTenz

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Length: 17min 3sec (1023 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2020