Worst Military Leaders of All Time

And the fact that it was Russia...

How about Maximillian (the roman emperor who fought against constantine). He decided it would be a good idea to attack constantine across a rickety bridge with cavalry and heavy infantry. I mean even in Rome Total War thats a stupid strategy. Well astonishingly the bridge collapsed and he drowned because of his heavy armor.

And another crappy military leader (albeit fictional) is the sergeant in the dawn of war trailer. This guy takes a devastator squad in an uphill charge into a horde of ravenous orks. If you know a thing about warhammer 40k you would see this is not only suicide but also retarded.

No double posting, we have an edit button for a reason.

Adolf Hitler is sure up there, but I'd argue his best buddy Benito Mussolini has worse. At least Hitler had some success, Mussolini couldn't beat Ethiopia, freaking Ethiopia! Also General Jean Francois Carteaux, the original commander at the Siege of Toulon. Guy didn't even know when he was winning a battle, much less how to win one.

Emperor Romanos IV: the battle of Manzikert was a combination of poor intelligence, poor choice of men, and bad strategy.

And dont forget Greece.

George B. McClellen, after all, he had so many more men then his enemy (usually outnumbered them 2 to 1) and refused to attack almost always, was incredibly slow-moving (Lincoln said he had "The Slows"), and was constantly under the illusion that he himself was massively out numbered, which as I said, was simply not true. And even after he won battles during the Peninsula Campaign, he didn't press his advantage and retreated, giving up everything won. Put almost any other commander in his place, and it would have been the capture of Richmond.

Ambrose Burnside, after McClellen was removed from from his command after Antietam, Burnside was given command of the Army of the Potomac. He would lead the Union army into a defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862 after taking along time to make pontoon bridges for crossing the Rappehnnock River giving time for Lee to strengthen along Marye's Heights just west of town and easily repulse the Union attacks. Burnside did accept full blame for the failure and would be replaced as command of the Army of the Potomac.

Not that I do not agree with you or anything (because I do agree with you) but in McClellen's defense, his spies gave him completely absurd information. On more than one occasion, they told him that the Army of Northern Virginia vastly outnumbered him. So I can't really put all the blame on McClellan for thinking the Army of Northern Virginia had a lot more men than they actually had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_López_de_Santa_Anna

Somehow I knew you would pick a Mexican leader.

In Burnside's defense, it was the War department's fault that the pontoons weren't there on time. However, he should not have made the attack on the stone wall over the canal . Though, if it had been better supported, an attack on the Confederate right (made by George Meade's divison) momentarily broke the Rebel line. However, the rest of the army just sat on their hands, and the divison was wrecked.

Good point. But of course we also had other information that told us otherwise, he just ignored it.

I have to agree with you there. Also don't double post use the edit button.

Sorry, my bad.

if hitler had not stopt the panzers of army group center they would be out of supply lines and the infentry was way behined the panzers and could not have destroyd all the pockets ,hitler may have been an idiot when it came to millatary strategy but he did not do all bad and it was he who order the enncercelment of kiev which is the largest enncercelment to date. but he is a mad dolt and made multibel mistakes there does exist worse then him and i am not a nazi supporter but i am afraied the mexican gets my vote

The main reason he actually delayed the panzers that were part of Army Group Center at Smolensk was because he wanted Army Group South to catch up when it was far away from taking its objective; Kiev. Many pockets were swallowed up by the following infantry, that is was blitzkrieg is. Hitler had the chance to take Moscow because the road was open, but instead he wasted time trying to take Kiev and the fact is he could not take Moscow by the time they were back because the Fall brought heavy rain to the German advance and also reinforcements arrived at that time from the east, because Stalin learned from his top spy in Japan than the Japanese had no intentions of invading the Soviet Union at the moment.

What if he took Moscow and captured Stalin?


(Post merged by DMR. Double posting.)

Stalin would have probably been out of Moscow by then. And I still think Santa Anna was worse. Btw dont double post.