Grading Generals
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- WRob895656
- WRob895656
- DennisM_3
- Lawhawk
- not_him_again
- JS_Mill
- not_him_again
- DennisM_3
-
Brian Tubbs
- DennisM_3
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» WRob895656 - New Member here
Hello,I have just discovered your very interesting site through simple browsing. I find that it is related to my deep interest in military history.
I am currently researching and writing a massive project dealing with U. S. Army Generals of World War II. My ambition is to live long enough to finish it since that might make me a very old man.
My project requires tremendous amounts of data, and the search and research is ongoing. Perhaps some of you will be helpful to me and, hopefully, I might reciprocate.
At any rate, I look forward to learning more about you.
WRob895656
-- posted by WRob895656
» WRob895656 - Rating Generals
Dennis,I would doubt that many generals, great or otherwise, wasted much time developing a strategy to protect the enemy. I'm talking about DURING the battle. Of course, when the fighting is over and won, the victors should be humane to the defeated. Obviously, in WWII, our air forces tried to bomb targets that had military significance and not engage in wanton destruction of civilians, but I gathered in your article that you were talking about concern for casualties re enemy combatants.
Most commanders had all they could handle worrying about their own casualties.
-- posted by WRob895656
» Lawhawk - There are numerous elements to keep in mind when rating generals
There are numerous elements to keep in mind when rating generals. This includes both tactical and strategic planning. Tactical success has to be followed up by taking strategic advantage to press home the tactical success. Failure of either aspect lessens the ability to produce results on the battlefield.Adaptability to changing circumstances and integration of new technology and tactics are also important to a general's success. This would also allow one to effectively compare generals of different eras; the Greek win at Salamis with the Leyte Gulf campaign in WW II or the Thermopolye battle with the Desert Campaign of Rommel.
What other elements do you consider important?
-- posted by Lawhawk
» not_him_again - important features
I guess that I would say the most important quality a general can have is the ability to override self doubt- "To not take counsel of your fears." I am not just talking about confidence here, but rather a kind of decisiveness that recognizes that in war boldness usually pays off.This quality is usually found in the all time greats- Jackson, Scipio, Alexander, Patton, ect. all come to mind.
-- posted by not_him_again
» JS_Mill - Decisiveness, definitely
plus intelligence, openness to new ideas, flexibility and coup d'oeil -- the ability to take in the salient details of a battle at a glance. My nominees for top generals (other than those mentioned above) would be Sir James Wolfe and T E Lawrence.I've just finished Norman W. Dixon's excellent book "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence". In it, he points out that military organisations develop a number of disciplines and drills which have among their purposes the reduction of a number of primal human fears. Because of this, they tend to systematically attract (and worse, systematically promote) people for whom these features have a particularly strong attraction, because they have particularly problematic relationships with their own drives and fears. When these dysfunctional personality types are promoted to the rank of general, they no longer have a superior officer to act as a "father figure", and the result is often a paralysing internal conflict. As a theory of the First World War, it seems very convincing -- but it makes one wonder how competent military commanders exist at all.
jsm
-- posted by JS_Mill
» not_him_again - I tend to agree with much of Dixon
As to how you get competent commanders; sometimes you don't, until serious enough reverses happen that change becomes necessary.The perfect example of that is the American Civil War, where Lincoln had a 2 year period of disasters before Grant. Even after it was obvious that Grant was the right choice, it took some time before he was given supreme command.
General Fuller comments on some of this sort of thing in his book "The generalship of ULysses S. Grant" I recommend it highly.
-- posted by not_him_again
» DennisM_3 - Peter principle
Generals are like people in any other line of work, that is, some of them adhere to the Peter Principle. (Be promoted as long as you do a competent job; your final promotion puts you in a job you aren't competent to do, but you'll never be DEmoted, so you remain in a job you can't do.)Since peacetime requires different skills than war, military folks sometimes get promoted very high up the ladder, then discover that they have no talent at all for the warfighting when it comes. They may have been promoted many levels beyond their wartime competence because there was no way to measure that during peacetime. Grant had gotten out of the Army, because he wasn't a good fit during peace. The war was a different story.........
-- posted by DennisM_3
»
Brian Tubbs
- Great article, Dennis
I'd like to open up a new question on this very good discussion. Can a "great" general lose most of his battles?
As a Revolutionary War buff, I'm thinking of the forgotten and underrated Nathanael Greene. From a battle win-loss standpoint, Greene didn't fare too well against General Lord Cornwallis. But in the grand strategic scheme, Greene had Cornwallis chasing him around the countryside, just the way he (Greene) wanted. Eventually, the battered and exhausted Cornwallis withdrew to Yorktown, and then Greene notified his superior (Gen. Washington), and the rest is history.
-- posted by Brian Tubbs
» DennisM_3 - Re: Great article, Dennis
In response to message posted by BrianTubbs:All is forgiven! No, really. I think you're correct, a great general can lose many if not most of his battles. Look at George Washington. Many of his battles weren't 'won'; but he was very god at extracting his troops from extremely dicey situations.
It really depends on how you define a 'win', I think. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army lost virtually every battle with our troops, but their tenacity allowed them to win the war. Rommel was a great General, but most of his battles were losses and his campaigns turned out to be total losses. Not his fault, but not a win either.
Thanks for the comments.
-- posted by DennisM_3
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