Great General or Fortunate Figurehead?

Was George Washington a great military leader that led a rag-tag army to victory over a superior foe, or was he merely the beneficiary of incompetent British leadership and well-timed foreign aid?

Scholars and amateur historians alike share differing opinions on this question, and it's unlikely that this brief series of articles will put the matter to rest. However, as we have just observed the 200th anniversary of Washington's death (December 1999) and are coming up on the 268th anniversary of his birth (February 2000), it is appropriate that we take our own look at this perennial question in history.

While Washington was in overall command of the entire American war effort, simple logistics and the limitations of that era prevented him from personally managing the course of events in all the colonies. Consequently, he was in direct command of American troops in only a few battles of the Revolutionary War. He lost most of them. In fact, among the consequences of Washington being driven from the battlefield were the losses of America's most populous city (New York) and her capital (Philadelphia). Then and now, critics point to these sobering facts as a reminder of Washington's failures as a military commander. They go further, arguing that even his successes were relatively small-scale affairs (Trenton and Princeton) and resulted from the overconfidence or incompetence of his enemies as opposed to any brilliance on his own part. And they point to Yorktown, the crowning achievement of the American Revolution, as the best evidence that America could not have won the war without French assistance.

Even many of Washington's proponents seem to concede his shortcomings as a military leader, while they extol his underlying qualities of courage, character and extraordinary leadership. As historian John Ferling writes: "Washington's leadership skills...are beyond doubt. At times he displayed considerable insight as a strategist...[but] [h]is great failure as a strategist came after the French entered the war. He grew overly cautious, refusing to act unless he could do so in concert with his ally. He was thus at least partially responsible for the war dragging on interminably through the 1770s and into the next decade, and almost ending disastrously."

Standing firmly on the other side of this question is a recent book, The Military 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Military Leaders of All Time, by Michael Lee Lanning. Lanning claims Washington as the leading general in not only American history, but also world history!

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