Worst generals of WW1

I nominate Douglas Haig, the Butcher of the Somme. His arrogance killed hundreds of thousands of British and French soldiers for nothing. Then called it a "Glorious Victory"

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I nominate this as the worst thread on Veeky Forums at the moment.

>worst general of WW1
>Not the Spaghetti Grinder himself
>mfw

Ludendorf lost the war

You underestimate Veeky Forums.

>ok guys here's the plan
>we'll kill ourselves on the fortified mountains until the austrians feel bad about killing so many people

>you see, the Austrians have a pre-set kill-limit.
>all we have to do is throw men at them until they hit that limit and shut down

Ian Hamilton was worse than Haig.

>Haig pursued the only strategy possible, given the situation the armies were in: that of attrition which wore down the German army and delivered the coup de grâce of 1918. Gary Sheffield stated that although Terraine's arguments about Haig have been much attacked over forty years, Terraine's thesis "has yet to be demolished".

>Military historian John Bourne wrote that this was not the case. Haig, although not familiar with technological advances, encouraged their use. He also rejected claims that Haig was a traditionalist and focused only on cavalry tactics. Cavalry represented less than three percent of the BEF in France by September 1916, whilst the British were the most mechanised force in the world by 1918, supported by the world's largest air force. The Tank Corps was the world's first such force and some 22,000 men served in it during the war. The Royal Artillery grew by 520 percent and the engineers who implemented combined arms tactics grew by 2,212 percent. Bourne wrote that this hardly demonstrates a lack of imagination.

>David French wrote that British daily loss rates at Normandy, in which divisions lost up to three quarters of their infantry, were similar to those of Passchendaele in 1917, while average battalion casualty rates in 1944–45 (100 men per week) were similar to those of the First World War.

>John Terraine wrote:
>It is important, when we feel our emotions rightly swelling over the losses of 1914–18, to remember that in 1939–45 the world losses were probably over four times as many ... the British task was entirely different, which is why the (British) loss of life was so different: about 350,000 in 1939–45 and about 750,000 (British deaths, 1 million including the Empire) in 1914–18 ... – ... The casualty statistics of the Great War ... tell us ... virtually nothing about the quality of ... British generals. The statistics show that ... the British losses in great battles were generally about the same as anyone else's.

>He also wrote that British perceptions were coloured by the terrible losses of 1 July 1916 (57,000 casualties) but that it should also be remembered that the British never suffered anything like the losses of June 1916, when the Austro-Hungarian Army had 280,000 casualties in a week, or of August 1914 when the French Army lost 211,000 in 16 days, or of March and April 1918 when the Germans lost nearly 350,000 in six weeks (8,600 per day), or 1915 when Russia suffered 2 million casualties in a year.

Enver Pasha, lost to weather

German guns were far more numerous and had a longer range. Attacking with infantry or retreating were both better options than holding a position getting raped by artillery. Retreating as an opening move in a battle is generally frowned upon.

They were all generally awful.

Massive fucking disconnect with their thinking.

>the enemie's waves of riflemen will not get past all my machine guns and artillery.
>I'll get past the enemy's machine guns and artillery with my waves of riflemen.

I hate this meme

You have absolutely no idea how much of a misinformed meme opinion this is

The French were taking massive casualties at Verdun. The British had two choices- either forsake their alliance with the French and do nothing or engage the Germans and take heavy losses against superior guns and better-fortified positions.

They chose the latter. They took heavy losses. And the Allies ultimately won the war.

WW1 was a tragedy and a horrific loss of life, but that wasn't the fault of the generals. They did the best they could in the situation they were in.

>It's 100th anniversary of The Somme
Damn.

yeah, there's pretty much no other logical choice
fuck this dude

you think so? i can fix that

You're not defending every general or most of the generals early on, are you?

Same timeframe, I say he counts

>REEEEEEEEEE BLOOD SACRIFICE

12 fucking battles on one river

well what else are they going to use a centurion mk3?

Mind you the shock troopers weren't around 1916.

>haig
>learned the lessons of the Somme which helped the British win the war
>forced to attack at the Somme otherwise the French would've dropped out of the war from the constant pressure at Verdun
>Russian failure in their own offensive led to an increased necessity of the Somme

>Russian failure in their own offensive
In WW1 terms the Brusalov offensive was a success,it all but knocked A-H out of the war

Agreed but the failure to seal the German fate and take pressure off Verdun really forced Haig's hand. I'm merely talking in terms of Haig's reputation.

one of the greatest generals in the war was Aleksei Brusilov

youtube.com/watch?v=QvB5TBnTfJw&index=2&list=PLB2vhKMBjSxMhAeYNstfBGyXcRN7o0TyF

I'd incriminate Nivelle for being the worst WW1 General, mostly for the Chemin-des-Dames debacle.

>looks like the germans are finally wearing down and I'll have news of the war ending in a few months
>fuck letting my soldiers rest in these last peaceful months, I'm gonna try to grab another bout of glory for myself
>that's it boyos, let's attack the germans one last time, for the lulz!

>They chose the latter. They took heavy losses. And the Allies ultimately won the war.
What people never realise is that Germans losses were worse in retrospect.

1916 was the year when Battle of Verdun and Battle of Somme raged on the western front while Brusilov offensive almost brought A-H on its knees(if it wasn't for inactivity of more northern armies Russians would probably win) and Germans themselves took considerable losses(100k less than Russians in total?).

Germany now needed to support the Austrians on every front since Austrians were mostly out of reserves by the time, and when they've sent men at "reasonable" rate at Verdun, the additional battle at Somme forced them to send their last reserves, composed of very experienced soldiers phased out from Verdun to fight British who drafted few months before. At Somme they've lost their best men while British lost just a bunch of almost green recruits. It's was after 1916 when Germany started experiencing actual, huge shortage of manpower.

While 1914 was marked by gigantic German/Central Powers successes and so was most of 1915, 1916 was the year the war started to look badly for them.

The 'Worst general' award goes to the General Officer Commanding the AEF 'Black Jack' Pershing ... first he refused to allow his troops to fight under allied commanders (which you may not find unreasonable) then he repeated the mistakes the British and French had already made and learnt from. A good job perhaps that the US only fought for the last 6 months of the war.

Cadorna or Hotzendorf

Everyone gets everything about WW1 wrong. You're all so fucking stupid.

+1 for Nivelle. His mistakes could be seen as forgivable if they had occurred in 1915. To have been so reckless with French lives in 1917, after all that had gone before, was appalling.

>le everyone is retarded but me but I won't put any points out there for fear of being wrong
Ebin

>so, I told my soldiers to pile up in front of their machinegun nests or face decimation, they did it the absolute madmen

Even worse, he fucking ran away leaving his troops alone in the battlefield with no one to issue orders, goddamn it makes my blood boil knowing that we have streets with his name.

Even more after their victory at verdun.

kek, I was thinking:
>Austrians will run out of bullets eventually :DD

>"Austrians? A trifle. It was simply a matter of outsmarting them. You see, Austrians have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down."

>Tsar Nicolas II: What do you mean he attacked East Prussia? What an absolute mad man! Did it work? No... well, what were the losses... 170,000 men you say? What about the Germans... 12,000... Well at least he had the good sense to commit suicide. I'm sure that the rest of the Imperial Army Command will be much more prudent and avoid these sorts of one-sided losses for the rest of the war."

Every British general involved in the Battle of Passchendaele. Little wonder why David George wanted Arthur Currie to take over High Command.

Canadian here, how does Arthur Currie rate as a ww1 general?

>Arthur Currie
One of the greats

>Won the single most important battle of the war
>The battle shortened the war by years
>Bad general

Confirmed for not reading books.

>General Haig, how do we measure our success given that no side has made any land gains?
>Whoever suffered more casualties is the winner!

Fucking why?

>transmit orders over the radio
okay

>unencrypted
NO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!

but didn't the offensive also cause the collapse of the russian empire somehow? I heard this by a historian reviewed on the radio a couple months back

>for the rest of the war."


"And for the Second World War to come."
*he looks into the camera and winks*

No Conrad Von Hotzendorf hate?

>basically lobbied for the start of the war
>lied to his ally Germany about where he was sending troops, fucked over Germany's plans in Russia
>Sent his troops to die in the Carpathian Mountain winter repeatedly
>managed idiotic campaign against Italy (not that the Italians were much better)
>Fucking destroyed the entire Austro Hungarian Empire

Fuck of Conrad

rrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee