Famously Mmediocre Generals

[nonconformist]

A lot of people bag Rommel for his efforts in the '44 bomb plot due to the fact he was once an ardent Nazi and his efforts came late in the war.

I say 'at least he did something!'. Model, Kesselring, Rundstedt, Guderian etc etc etc all did nothing. The German officer corps, particularly those in high command seemed more concerned with their careers than the fate of Germany.

And what did Rommel do exactly?

A bunch of guys more courageous than him came up and said "Uh, we're thinking of blowing the Fuhrer up. also we want you to take his place".

Rommel did nothing either way, why would he? If it succeeded he'd go from Fieldmarshall to Kaiser.

 

[Adler17]

Rommel should never become a ruler. He was needed as a kind of prominent member to show the people the support of the Wehrmacht. Indeed it was planned to make Goerdeler to a provisorical Reichspräsident and to reenforce the constitution. The next steps were elections to the Reichstag as well as preparing a new constitution. It might be also that the Kaiser was reinstalled as head of state as the Hohenzollern had close connections to the resistance.

Adler

 

[privatehudson]

Or alternatively the resisters might have put Himmler in charge as they once suggested to him.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Every right? He was attacking neutrals, you know.

Those poor defenseless Ships of War


No military should every allow themselves to be defeated in such a manner and if they put themselves in such an unsound position then it almost equates to being a coup de grace to finish them off in one evening.

 

[Zibong]

Both of the Alexander Haigs were terrible, yet famous generals.

Alexander Haig (British Empire) squandered many lives in WW1
Alexander Haig (American Empire) squandered many lives in Vietnam

DOUGLAS Haig was the British commander in WWI. Personally, I think the commanders in WWI were unfairly blamed for the bloodshed. The weapons of war were so new, and the tactics were so antiquated. ALL commanders basically had to rewrite their tactics manual on the fly. Unfortunately, in order to learn from your mistakes (as the Entente showed at 2nd Marne and the rest of "Germany's Black Day"), somebody has to MAKE THEM in the first place (i.e. Somme).

THAT said, if Douglas Haig is to be considered a mediocre general, wouldn't EVERYONE involved in that war be considered mediocre? Foch, Petain, Luddendorf, von Hindenburg, Pershing, Brusilov? Are there any stand-out commanders in that War? And would a military genius such as Alexander or Hannibal or Napoleon had any better success in Haig's/Foch's/von Hindenburg's place?

 

[rilnator]

Sonderkommando's in Africa, and absolute butchery of Italian soldiers in Italy.

Sonderkommandos in North Africa? Rommel was never in charge in Italy.

 

[Stapel]

I guess it is depending from your point of view....

George Washington comes to mind.
Probably the greatest organiser ever of a rebelious bunch chasing secession (which is really, really hard, imho), he wasn't much of a general on the battle field.

I also think Napoleon is overrated. Maybe he did win the greatest battles, possibly against all ods, but in the end marching towards Moscow with 500.000 soldiers was an outright stupid decision.

And I think Montgomery gets too much criticism. He was very eager to find a way to end the war in 1944. There was a huge political agenda for this: The longer the war lasted, the more countries would fall under Stalin's USSR. He made more than one plan to end the war in 1944. The first was turnt down by Eisenhower, the 2nd (Market-Garden) approved. Montgomery usually gets a lot of criticism for being the soldier that went one bridge too far. But in the end, Market-Garden was, imho, a very justified gamble to end the war 6 months earlier.

 

[pawpaw]

Rommel was never in charge in Italy.

Rommel commanded Army Group B in Northern Italy after the overthrow of Mussolini from August 43 to November 43 when Kesselring replaced him.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Rommel commanded Army Group B in Northern Italy after the overthrow of Mussolini from August 43 to November 43 when Kesselring replaced him.

We have a WINRAR. And during this time Rommel established the policy that all Italians opposing the occupation should be summarily executed, and all soldiers obeying the legitimate Italian Government and fighting for neither side should be sent to concentration camps.

 

[Dachs]

THAT said, if Douglas Haig is to be considered a mediocre general, wouldn't EVERYONE involved in that war be considered mediocre? Foch, Petain, Luddendorf, von Hindenburg, Pershing, Brusilov? Are there any stand-out commanders in that War?

Well, Nikolai Yudenich (Armenian Front) comes to mind, as does Oskar von Hutier (infiltration tactics). Had it not been for Richard Hentsch, Alexander von Kluck would no doubt be also in that list.

But yeah, generally most of the war wasn't too bright.

 

[neutrino]

Regarding Zhukov:

I have been reading some books written by David Glantz for some time. (He should be familiar to those who like reading about the 'Eastern Front' in detail.) According to him, Zhukov's biggest fiasco was Operation Mars, which took place during winter of 1942, aimed at cutting off the prominant German salient facing Moscow.

By the numbers, lot more troops and tanks were used in Operation Mars than Operation Uranus. Therefore, the former was the 'main' Soviet winter offensive of 1942.

Problems with Operation Mars:

1. A lot of this had to do with more heavily forested terrain around Moscow, coupled with the static nature of the battles in the north and the center. The Germans had a plenty of time to entrench and fortify.

2. Unlike Stalingrad, the Germans had a handful of fresh reserves (Panzer Divisions) to reinforce the Rzhev salient.

3. While German Sixth Army was led by a mediocre man known as Paulus (I think he was a good staff officer, but his forte was not in command), German Ninth Army was led by Model, who was among the best senior commanders the Germans had.

4. The initial Soviet onslaught towards the western flank of the Rzhev salient looked promising. However, the other pincer (Soviet Western Front, led by Konev) bogged down.

5. This is where things got pretty bad: Zhukov committed second echelon and exploitation forces to reinforce the first echelon. With forested terrain with limited roads, massive congestion resulted. The Soviet losses were staggering. Yet, they failed. The area of operation was too small and congested to allow operational freedom.

(Zhukov got into the same lapse at Seelow Heights in 1945.)