Intro
America has certainly produced its share of military geniuses and occasionally military dunces. For all the balls-out bravado of Patton, the media-friendly presence of Schwartzkopf, or even the near-supervillain exactitude of Sherman, there are some American generals who have either been caught flat footed by the bitch goddess of Chance or ended up braiding the rope they ultimately hanged themselves with. Here are five of the more notable ones.William Westmoreland
The Man
General in charge of the U.S. Army forces in Vietnam between 1964-1968.
The Mission
Defeat the Communist North Vietnamese Army, preserving the Republic of South Vietnam.
The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Westmoreland maybe should have studied his history books a little better. A country that made the Mongols say “Fuck this” centuries earlier might have inspired some curiosity as to how a larger and numerically superior foe was made to leave. Particularly since the tactics hadn’t changed all that much.
The basic strategy Westmoreland employed to stop the NVA was attritional, the theory being that there is only a finite number of troops and a finite amount of material that the enemy can throw at you before he gives up. It was a perfectly sound strategy, having been thoroughly vindicated during Nazi Germany’s invasion of Soviet Russia during World War II. The problem was that the strategy works well when you’ve got two very large armies, both of whom have individuals (zampoliti on the Soviet side, the Gestapo on the German) who will cheerfully shoot you for your failures. It also relies on the willingness of both sides to play the attrition game, again as demonstrated by the quality of German training and equipment going up against the massed hordes of the Red Army. The NVA and Viet Cong were not willing to play that game. When it came to big armor and infantry engagements, the NVA tried to make a stand-up fight of it and ended up losing badly. So, they fell back on guerilla tactics, hit-and-run strikes, anything to make the American forces play their game. Just as the North Vietnamese were ill suited to big stand up fights, the U.S. Army overall didn’t have the right training or mindset to play cat-and-mouse in the jungles between Hanoi and Saigon or in the tunnels of Cu Chi.
Given time, they might have gotten that training, assuming Westmoreland had been more flexible and less wedded to his original strategy. But his military acumen was offset by his lack of communications skill. Consider the Tet Offensive, largely considered to the point where America lost the Vietnam War. From a military perspective, it was a complete disaster . . .for the North Vietnamese. Between the regular forces and the Viet Cong, casualties were appalling, and what was left went right back to the guerilla tactics that had been working previously. With daily protests back in the States where he was getting burned in effigy, Westmoreland had the perfect opportunity to convince the American public that a victory in Vietnam was possible if they could just be patient, let him work to his timetable and finish the job. Unfortunately, Westmoreland didn’t have a good working relationship with the American press. Walter Cronkite, shortly after the Tet Offensive, declared America had lost in Vietnam. Had Westmoreland been able to convince Cronkite that Tet really was a strategic victory, the outcome of Vietnam might have been different. As it was, he was undone by his inability or unwillingness to adapt to the circumstances, both on the battlefield and back at home.
The Fallout
Westmoreland was recalled after Tet and served as Army Chief of Staff until 1972. For years after, he refused to believe that America lost the war so much as failed to help South Vietnam win it. He would continue to have a prickly, sometimes antagonistic, relationship with the press. At the same time, for a guy who had been perfectly willing to use attritional warfare (and the attending number of casualties the strategy creates), Westmoreland seemed to genuinely care about his troops and his Army. He once flipped the fuck out when somebody used then-Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara’s term “body count” in his presence. He would continue to press for improving the lives of American soldiers for many years after his retirement from the Army. Westmoreland died in 2005 at the age of 91.
(References)
http://library.sc.edu/socar/uscs/99autm/westmor.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=9IsYIhP_8G4C&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&dq=westmoreland+v+cbs&source=web&ots=fPkP_7K7jo&sig=pOWzfwlLsEzYdHYZzTwvXbzSWI8#v=onepage&q=westmoreland%20v%20cbs&f=false
Douglas MacArthur
The ManCommander-in-Chief, United Nations Command during the Korean War
The Mission
Repel the invading forces of North Korea.
The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
If you look over MacArthur’s career, you have to wonder sometimes if he wasn’t actually two different people, both of whom traded off periodically to let one of them be “Douglas MacArthur” to the rest of the world while the other hung back as a member of the General Staff. The landing in Inchon, for example, was an example of “Smart MacArthur” at his best. This was then followed up almost immediately by “Stupid MacArthur” touring the battlefield and bitching about how North Korean snipers kept missing him. It was The Prestige meets Saving Private Ryan as performed by Adam Sandler.
Without a doubt, the real clusterfuck of the Korean War was the moment the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army turned up to reinforce the North Koreans. What made it such a clusterfuck was the fact that MacArthur was being played by the “Stupid” half of the team at exactly the wrong points in time. First was the conference at Wake Island, where MacArcthur spent a few hours bullyragging Harry Truman about how he was too epic to fail before confidently informing the President that when the Chinese said they wouldn’t countenance any UN troops north of the 38th Parallel, it was a bluff intended to discredit the UN.
Yeah, they weren’t bluffing.
In point of fact, the PVA had been marching at night, covering almost twenty miles a night, then hiding themselves from aerial reconnaissance during the day. They were hardcore enough that there were standing orders to shoot anybody who might possibly give away their position to the UN forces. They kept up their night marches after engaging UN forces at Onjong and Unsan, which in hindsight seems silly when you consider that MacArthur’s intelligence chief told him that there were no Chinese troops south of the Yalu River and the survivors said “Bullshit!” The grunts, in this case, knew better than MacArthur’s “pet Nazi.” In late November, hearing a lot of GIs talking about fighting Chinese forces, MacArthur hopped aboard a C-54 Skymaster (presumably his staff transport) and went looking for the Chinese. As he wrote in his autobiography:
For five hours I toured the front lines. In talking to a group of officers I told them of General Bradley's desire and hope to have two divisions home by Christmas .... What I had seen at the front line worried me greatly. The R.O.K. troops were not yet in good shape, and the entire line was deplorably weak in numbers. If the Chinese were actually in heavy force, I decided I would withdraw our troops and abandon any attempt to move north. I decided to reconnoiter and try to see with my own eyes, and interpret with my own long experience what was going on ...His “long experience” somehow missed 300,000 Chinese soldiers and their gear. MacArthur reported the results of his recon efforts to General Walton Walker, heading up the US Eighth Army, and picked up honorary combat wings for his trouble. The very next day, the Eighth was attacked by the PVA and the North Koreans. They were routed and driven back south of the 38th Parallel by the end of November.
The Fallout
Although the Eighth Army would eventually get their act together and stabilize the lines, retaking Seoul in March of 1951, MacArthur’s reputation had taken a beating. Worse, his “Stupid” side came out for an encore performance. After Seoul had been retaken by the UN troops, President Truman figured that a negotiated settlement was probably the best way to end the war. He prepared a thoughtful and careful response . . .which was torpedoed before it ever came out by MacArthur. In a simultaneous verbal slap to both Truman and the Chinese, MacArthur demanded the Chinese admit defeat. A couple weeks later, MacArthur wrote to Congress to criticize Truman’s strategic policies regarding the war and the larger political direction being taken. MacArthur was relieved of command and returned home. He died at the age of 84.
Oh yeah, and we’re still at war with North Korea.
(References)
MacArthur, Douglas (1964). Reminiscences of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. Annapolis: Bluejacket Books. ISBN 1-55750-483-0. OCLC 220661276
Schnabel, James F (1972). Policy and Direction: the First Year. United States Army in the Korean War. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. OCLC 595249.
George A. Custer
The ManCommander of the 7th Cavalry Regiment
The Mission
Round up every Plains Indian that wasn’t on a reservation
The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
This is perhaps cheating ever so slightly, since Custer’s permanent rank at the time of his death was lieutenant colonel, though he’d received brevet promotions up to the rank of major general at various times during his career. Still, he no doubt considered himself to be a general, among other things.
The Black Hills of South Dakota hold special significance for the Lakota tribe. In the late 1870s, they held special significance for white men too. More specifically, they held a shitload of gold. Custer had been to the Black Hills area once already in 1874, which helped spark a gold rush in and around Deadwood, SD. He’d also been involved in previous battles with various Plains tribes, and at some point had made a promise to them to stop being an Indian fighter, which he clearly didn’t remember or give a shit about.
The summer of 1876 found Custer back in the Black Hills, operating under orders from President Ulysses S. Grant to round up “hostile” Indians (the definition of “hostile” being “anybody who hadn’t put themselves on a rez”). For reasons only Custer could fathom, he went out with only the 7th Cavalry. Not “The 7th Cavalry and a couple other regiments,” just the 7th. Custer’s commanding officer, Brigadier General Alfred Terry, had offered to loan Custer four companies from the 2nd Cavalry, but Custer declined, believing the 7th could handle any band of braves they happened to run across. Even more baffling, Custer and his men deliberately boxed up their cavalry sabers, the only sort of close-quarters weapon that didn’t require gunpowder and wouldn’t need to be constantly reloaded. About the only decision which might charitably called sensible was to leave behind a battery of Gatling guns (remember, this was decades before Jesse Ventura had no time to bleed; Gatling guns were considered light artillery). Yes, they gave up a massive increase in firepower, but they weren’t having to lug gun carriages across the South Dakota plains. They “knew” they wouldn’t need them, so of course they didn’t have them when they really did need them. On June 25th, Custer’s scouts reported a massive encampment on the Little Bighorn River. Figuring that half his work was already done (the whole “rounding up” part), Custer decided to split his forces, surround the camp, and march them back to the rez at gunpoint.
What followed has become the definitive military debacle in world history. There are probably tribes in the darkest corners of the Amazon rainforest, isolated and without contact to the modern world, who have heard the phrase “Custer’s Last Stand” and understand completely what it means. A third of Custer’s forces were detailed to prevent the Indians from escaping. It was an eminently reasonable precaution, if escape had been part of the plan. It wasn’t, and those guys were the lucky ones, since they weren’t engaged by hordes of pissed off Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne warriors until much later and on much more favorable terrain. Whether by miscue or basic stupidity, the other two elements of the 7th drew aggro from Sitting Bull and his braves and were driven onto a ridge where no matter which way they turned, they were flanked. The cavalrymen ended up shooting their own horses to provide themselves with cover. The two elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment who hadn’t been told to watch the back door were wiped out to a man, including Custer himself.
The Fallout
Unlike Westmoreland, Custer had a great relationship with the press, even bringing a correspondent from the Associated Press along with him into the field (Yes, he was killed too). In point of fact, George Custer had become a media personality after the Civil War, and continued to evolve into a full blown media whore by the time of his death. Custer’s widow took it upon herself to write several books after the battle extolling how wonderful her husband had been before getting killed. On the other hand, august personages such as Grant and Phillip Sheridan, both generals from the Civil War, breached the social norm of not criticizing a fellow officer and basically denounced Custer as a stupid sack of shit. The debate continues even today.
George McClellan
The ManCommander, Army of the Potomac, and General-In-Chief of the Union Army
The Mission
Crush the Confederate Army and end the Civil War.
The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
If you want to find out where George Custer took his lessons in douchebaggery, consider one of his first postings out of West Point: a staff officer for General George McClellan during the Civil War.
McClellan, like a lot of officers in the Civil War, originally fought in the Mexican-American War. During that time, he got to be good friends with Winfield Scott, the man who would be General-In-Chief right at the very start of the Civil War. When hostilities broke out, Scott pulled strings and got McClellan promoted to major general. The first thing McClellan did upon getting his shiny new stars was to propose two battle plans for defeating the South. Scott looked them over and told him they were going with a different strategy. McClellan thought Scott was nuts. Why, the very idea that controlling the Mississippi River and blockading Southern ports could win the war was ludicrous.
Being a reasonably good soldier, McClellan moved through what would very soon become West Virginia, fought and won a couple of small skirmishes, and was working on building up training camps for the troops that the Union Army’s “Anaconda Plan” demanded. He was summoned to Washington D.C. on the strength of the fact that Robert E. Lee hadn’t yet gotten around to making McClellan his bitch. Because of those skirmishes in West Virginia, he was being hailed as the next Napoleon. McClellan chugged that Kool-Aid right down, as demonstrated in a letter to his wife:
I find myself in a new and strange position here—Presdt, Cabinet, Genl Scott & all deferring to me—by some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land. ... I almost think that were I to win some small success now I could become Dictator or anything else that might please me—but nothing of that kind would please me—therefore I won't be Dictator. Admirable self-denial!
Clearly, the enraged spirit of Cincinnatus was busy scaring the shit out of somebody else at the time.
From August 1861 until November of 1862, the record of McClellan’s campaigns reads like the recap of a particularly idiotic StarCraft multiplayer match. The Army of the Potomac reached a size of almost 200,000 men by the end of 1861, yet McClellan was convinced that he was badly outnumbered by the Confederates. He drew up grand plans to invade Richmond, only to find that the Confederate forces he was supposed to be engaging had moved to new positions without his noticing. This was compounded by the humiliating revelation that Confederate forces around Manassas had held advanced elements of the Union Army at bay with logs that had been painted black and set up to look like cannon. During the Battle of The Seven Days, McClellan wasn’t even on the battlefield, instead trying to exercise command of the Army from the decks of the USS Galena, which was several miles away and in the middle of a fucking river! Even stumbling across a copy of Lee’s war plans couldn’t get him to find his fangs. The Battle of Antietam would prove to be the single bloodiest day in American military history, in large part because “the Young Napoleon” couldn’t seem to figure out how to concentrate his forces properly. It’s considered a Union victory only because Lee retreated back into Virginia. McClellan opted not to pursue Lee, despite his still gargantuan number of troops. President Lincoln finally had enough and sacked him in early November.
The Fallout
The wonder isn’t that McClellan was relieved of command. It’s that it took so damned long to happen. Whatever his skills at logistics and training might have been, McClellan was completely unworthy of the “Young Napoleon” title the press hung around his neck. If he wasn’t jumping at shadows, or cleverly painted logs, he was refusing to discuss his plans with the War Department, talking shit about the President, and promising not to force slave owners in West Virginia and Maryland to emancipate their slaves.
Wait...WTF?!
McClellan was such a complete fucking stickler for the sanctity of the Constitution that while he wasn’t willing to join the Confederates over the issue of slavery, he wasn’t willing to bow to Washington’s orders to free black slaves, either. This didn’t exactly endear him to the Republicans in power at the time. His candidacy for the Presidency in 1864 on the Democratic ticket was doomed to failure, particularly going up against Lincoln, who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation right after Antietam. McClellan never again held command of a military force, and the highest post he ever held politically was Governor of New Jersey for a single term.
(References)
Sears, Stephen W. George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon. New York: Da Capo Press, 1988. ISBN 0-306-80913-3.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-19-503863-0.
William Hull
The ManCommander of the Army of The Northwest, 1812
The Mission
Invade Canada
The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
It should have been a slam dunk. A walk in the park. The Army of The Northwest should have been scarfing down poutine in Ottawa a month after they started. And they very likely could have if not for one critical factor: William Hull fucked up by the numbers.
To be fair, Congress didn’t exactly make his job any easier. Normally, when you make somebody a general and you’re sending him mail, the dispatch that a formal declaration of war has been voted out should take precedence over damn near everything. But in an incident that proves the U.S. Postal Service has been botching mail deliveries longer than any living person can attest to, the letter informing Hull that war had been declared arrived several days after another letter Hull received by special messenger which carried no great significance.
It also doesn’t help when other generals in the area take your suggestions and promptly ignore them. Before his appointment as general, Hull had been the Governor of the Michigan Territory. General Henry Dearborn had received Hull’s requests that naval vessels be built and deployed on Lake Erie to help with the defense of the border, particularly the city of Detroit, and blew them off completely. Thus, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that Fort Mackinac fell to the British forces, partially because they didn’t have any goddamn naval support.
However, Hull himself rightly shared in the blame, since it seemed that throughout the entire summer of 1812, he didn’t devote any sort of serious effort towards scouting or reconnaissance of the British forces. He allowed himself to get bullied by a much smaller force led by a suicidal bullshit artist named Sir Isaac Brock. After Fort Mackinac fell, Hull retreated to Fort Detroit. Brock proceeded to lay siege to the fort, having the various Native American braves (who still were badly outnumbered by the American forces) make a whole shitload of noise, just to make it seem like there was a bigger force. Despite having the opportunity to get an accurate count of his opponents and figure out just how long they really could hold out against them, Hull pussed out and surrendered. His career as commander of the Army of The Northwest had been just over three months.
The Fallout
Hull was court-martialed, convicted, and sentenced to be shot. Now, this may seem a little harsh for a guy who surrendered. In fact, it’s pretty damned excessive. When you’re commanding troops in the wake of guys like George Washington, it’s perhaps expected you’re going to try and make a fight of it, even if you do end up getting your ass kicked in the end. But a firing squad?! It seems so vindictive.
The fact that General Dearborn was the presiding officer of the court might have something to do with the verdict. Or that Hull’s subordinate Lewis Cass threw him under the bus and became the new Governor of the Michigan Territory. Or that the war diaries of Robert Lucas, probably the only officer in the campaign who did any serious fighting against the British, were used to prove Hull was a congenital idiot instead of a man who made some really stupid choices. Given all of that, the recommendation of mercy must have been an afterthought, a pro forma bit of legalese that nobody really read. Sort of like the EULA for computer programs today.
Luckily for Hull, President James Madison wasn’t interested in shooting generals merely because they screwed up. Madison figured mistakes can be made in any war, but they don’t rise to the level of treason, and shouldn’t be punished as such. Hull was given a reprieve and lived out the rest of his days in Massachusetts. Interestingly, Hull is probably the man who established the custom of defeated and disgraced American generals writing books about how things turning out badly really weren’t their fault.
(References)
Campbell, Maria; Clarke, James F. (1848), Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull, New York: D. Appleton, OCLC 2510566
Hull, William (1824), Memoirs of the Campaign of the North Western Army of the United States, A.D. 1812: In a Series of Letters Addressed to the Citizens of the United States, with an Appendix, Containing a Brief Sketch of the Revolutionary Services of the Author, True and Green, p. 15
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