OT: Favorite General

[Jon Patrick]

Okay, I admit this is a bit of a silly question, but there was a pretty good show on the History Channel last night called "Rommel: The Conspirator", talking about Rommel's career, and his loyalty to Germany, wanting to believe that Hitler would sue for peace, and yet not betraying those who would try to assissinate Hitler... and ultimately loosing his life for it.

Years ago, when me and a buddy would play Axis and Allies, we came up with a theory that he and I (generally and broadly speaking, of course) mirrored Rommel and Monty... he was much more of a balanced player, whereas I would look for a weakness to exploit in a daring and focused attack.

Needless to say, I am a big fan of Rommel..This program reminded me of that little fact.

So, the question is: who was your favorite General of WWII? Axis or Allies, and if it's a Major or Field Marshall, let's not be picky...

J

[Bill101]

Manstein. Simply because he was both very good and left an excellent set of memoirs.

His book Lost Victories explains the strategic options available at each stage of the campaign he is describing, before going on to describe what happened. I've read it 3 times, and I'm sure that I'll read it again some more times.

Not sure I'd agree with his politics, but you can't have everything.

At least he does have joint top ranking in SC with Zhukov.

[JerseyJohn]

Jon Patrick,

Good Thread, last time it came up some guys had dozens of names going back to Ramessis and included Admirals! I have nothing against naval commanders and, in the Pacific Theater, it would be unavoidable.

Rommel was a great general, very tactical as a result of his rapid advancement from commanding a panzer division in France 1940, to commanding what ammounted to an Army Group two years later.

I don't think he ever gave proper consideration to logistics. After the fall of Tobruck both Hitler (based on von Paulus' study of the situation) and Kesselring, wanted to capture Malta and consolodate the position.

Neither of them wanted to try for Alexandria primarily due to the extremely long supply line, which stretched from Tripoli itself (a port in reality) and not from either Benghazi or Tobruck, as is widely believed -- they were both secondary ports.

Rommel convinced them that Malta would soon be a meaningless and isolated outpost, that he could dash east and seize both Alexandria and the Suez Canal before the Eighth Army could be reorganized. He was wrong, of course, even before he'd taken Tobruck -- with vast quantities of needed war materials and oil -- Auchinlek had reserves fortifying Ruesat Ridge south of El Alemain. Had Rommel known this he would probably have opted for the more sensible Paulus plan.

Once the offensive began, Rommel's lack of emphasis on logistics became glaringly obvious in the fact his supply officer was only a major!

Paulus had the opposite problem, too much time in the General Staff and not enough as a field commander. He was a horrible choice to replace the extremely able (though ardently nazi) von Richenau as Sixth Army commander. Richenau was destined to command Army Group South after Rundstetds second retirement, but suffered a fatal heart attack early in 1942.

Still, Rommel may well have been Germany's best tactician.

Like Hubert, I feel Germany's most brilliant general was von Manstein. He'd have been one of the war's starting fieldmarshalls if it hadn't been for his knack of turning people against him. So he languished as a staff officer, then took command of a corps during the second half of the French Campaign, and rose to his full stature on the Russian Front. Considering his huge talents, it's interesting that he didn't see more action; After Kursk Hitler dismissed him due to his open criticisms and never brought him back.

Anyway, rather than bring this thing back to Ancient warfare, I'll say von Manstein is my favorite WW II commander. I'll wait for the premise to be expanded upon before discussing other commanders of both sides.

Bill101

Your post got in while I was writing my own, glad we agree and I like the way you stated your point. Indeed, Lost Victories is one of the finest books on the war by a major participant.

[ December 07, 2003, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[jon_j_rambo]

This guy is bad ass. If you want to come home alive, you'd want to serve under this guy, check out the survival rating of his troops. He took Blitzkrieg in the correct direction.

If it wasn't for the US-Politians, WW-II would been done earlier with Patton. Imagine if they let Patton dictate policy & plans (the waste of American lives at D-Day is just such an example. D-Day cost too much & could have been planned better.)

Patton would have a made a run for the White House too...remember the movie "Brass Target"? US-Politicians had something to do with it.

Sadly enough, the American people have demonized this guy. Do you hear any roads or high schools named after him? People laugh at his behavior, manners, & speech...whatever...If your freezing in Bastogne & ready to die, give George a call, he'd be more than happy to help you out.

His tactics with tanks were taken from Civil War Calvary leaders such as Stuart, Forrest, Sheridan, & Custer.

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[Panzer39]

If we could list Admirals, I would go with Doentiz. Had Germany gone with full out sub production and not tried for a balanced fleet, Doentiz's u-boats would have owned the Atlantic from the onset.

As for generals, I like Model, I don't think he gets as much credit as he deserves. As a side note, can someone please tell me why so many people love McArthur? He never came across as anything great to me.

[JerseyJohn]

George S. Patton, Sr. wasn't actually villanized till after the movie Patton came out in 1970. As he was the perfect image for the anti-war movement to pick as a target.

I had a history professor who fought in the Spanish Civil War and later served with Patton and also Hodges, who commanded the neighboring army in France. He swore by Hodges, who almost no one ever heard of, and said he never liked being in Patton's sector. My uncle was in recon and used to joke about Patton, saying he saw him posing for a photo once, supposedly pointing toward Germany but in reality he was pointing to France. When I asked him whether Patton was a good a general he shrugged and said the only important things are equipment and who's got the best troops, generals don't matter, so his view wouldn't fit into this discussion.

Personally I think Patton was a very good general, probably on a par with Rommel, who's tactics and published works he studied very closely. Both were outstanding tacticians and Patton was undoubetly better at handling logistics. If Patton hand been less flamboyant he'd probably have been treated better by historians. The ivory handled pistols and highly reflective helmet made him an easy figure to caricature even without the soldier slapping and mule killing incidents. Additionally some of his statements were deliberately misquoted, which didn't help but I don't see where any of that should have influenced his appointment as a field commander.

Before the war ever began Patton and Eisenhower had an old black mark against them with many reporters. In 1929, as majors, they were constantly at Douglas MacArthur's side during the Washington Bonus Marcher's action. By way of background, these were out of work World War One veterans who camped at Washington D. C. seeking a bonus which had been promised them. The maturity date was 1941, but they wanted it fourteen years early because they were destitute. Herbert Hoover ordered Douglas MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff at the time, to clear the marchers makeshift shacks back from the capital building & complex. MacArthur stupidly went about the task as though it were a military campaign, clearing away all the shacks driving the marchers completely out of DC. Which is one of the main reasons MacArthur left the army and took a position in the Phillipines as that country's Fieldmarshall! -- He was not a regular army general when the U. S. first entered WW II.

During the thirties most of the stigma was removed from Eisenhower, despite the fact that, still a major, he served under MacArthur in the Phillipines. MacArthur later referring to him as the best clerk he ever had, and Eisenhower saying he once studied dramatics under MacArthur!

But Patton had the aristocratic soldier image which many associated with MacArthur, and his part in the Bonus Marcher image never really faded. I don't personally know whether either he or Eisenhower behaved with enthusiasm at the event. It seems doubtful to me, I've got a much higher regard for both as men than I have for MacArthur. Another thing Patton had in common with MacArthur was the ability to conduct successful offensives with comparatively low casualties, which in the final analysis is probably the only thing that really counts.

My choice for most outstanding American general isn't likely to be mentioned so I'll mention him here.

He commanded what has come to be an almost forgotten side show in Burma and the IndoChina region. Known to the press as "Vinger Joe" because he didn't care for most correspondants, Stillwell, but his troops referred to him as "Uncle Joe!"

In January 1942, with the United States at war in both theaters, Chief of the Army George Marshall said he wanted to assign Stillwell to the top field command in Europe, but he was the only American general who spoke fluent Chinese and was too valuable for his knowledge of Asia, so that's where he was sent.

During the killing retreat from Burma, Stillwell, already a very senior general and supposedly past the age of grueling physical activity, moved all along the line -- on foot! -- stopping to urge on stragglers, privates and civilians alike, not by barking orders, but by helping them to their feet and saying, "Come on son, you're feeling bad but you don't want to hang around and wait for the Japs!"

On his famous visit to Brigadier General Merrill, still organizing the marauder unit, Stilwell walked among the ranks with a sagging worn green cap and no insignia of rank. Stopping to ask a pair of staff sergeants where the general's HQ was, a nearby second leutenant overheard one man, unaware he'd just addressed a Lt. General, say, "Jeezus that poor old geezer must have a bunch of bastards on his draft board!" The other nodded, "Yeah, guess they upped the age. It ain't right."

Aside from all that he was a great military commander who after did the best he could for those fighting under him, including Chinese Nationals, who he took pity upon, not only refitting them but also retraining themselves and their officers to United States standards. His reward was usually to receive a new batch of untrained, ill-led and ill-fed wretches along with an order to send those he'd rebuilt back to Shiang Kai Shek's warlord hacks when they were ready for combat.

He ended the war on Okinawa, a four star general filling a three star position, on his own request, replacing Lt. General Simon Boulivar Buchner who had been killed in combat.

Stillwell died of cancer in, I believe it was 1946. He was never vilanized, only forgotten. For those interested the best work on the subject is Barbara Tuchman's Stillwell and the American Experience in China.

[ November 30, 2003, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[JerseyJohn]

"As a side note, can someone please tell me why so many people love McArthur? He never came across as anything great to me."

Panzer39

You wrote your posting while I was working on the above entry, but it's obvious we've got similar view of Old Dougie.

My main dislike for him is as a human being, I think he was too much of an egotist and far too self-serving. As is obvious I think what he did in 1929 was contemptable.

To give the devil his view, at his best he really was a great general, but, in later years prone to strange episodes of inaction. Of course, he was already in that stage of his life when WW II began.

On the first day of the War he was ordered to send his B-17s and other heavy aircraft on a preemptive strike against the main Japanese on Formosa (known now as Taiwan). Instead he sat in office the entire day and did nothing. Japanese bombers from that very field caught his aircraft on the ground and destroyed them!

On other occasions he gave ludicrous instructions for his troops to leave private property, including foodstuffs and medical supplies, undisturbed during their retreat to the Bataan Penninsula as these were private property -- the Japanese, following close behind, had no such inhibitions and took everything.

A few months later, when he made it to Australia, several generals and government officials wanted him courtmarialed for his Phillipine mistakes, but FDR made the correct decision, the nation needed heroes, MacArthur was already regarded as one and his skills as a general were undoubted even by his numerous enemies.

He commanded extremely well throughout the rest of the war, his New Guenea Campaign was masterful. He's often credited with the Island hopping strategy, which in reality was Nimitz' idea and it was the Navy who most often incorporated it. But later MacArthur was instrumental in directing the main drive toward the Phillipines instead of Formosa, which was the Navy's plan. MacArthur won his point not on military grounds, but on the basis that every Phillipino was an American citizen and had to be liberated at the earliest possible time. And he was right. Upon landing he made the famous statement, "I have returned" which would have been typical of his ego, except the truth is he wanted to say "We have returned," but the Defense department advised him to make it personal as by then his earlier vow of "I shall return" had become a propaganda watchword in the United States.

In the Korean War, he started off suffering the consequences of an ill-prepared, poorly equiped and barely trained Army of Occupation in Japan. The truth is he had never devoted any time or effort in keeping it a military unit. Japan was considered an easy assignment during the late forties and MacArthur spent all his time either entertaining or deciding upon Japanese national policy. He was, in effect, the country's ruler. Only one unit of that entire army was ready for battle, and that was the HQ staff. It's M.P.s were spit and polish and included an elite drill team. Such things don't win battles. In MacArthur's defense, his military career should have been long over by then, but he was a five star general on active duty.

So, the North Koreans flooded across the border in 1950, there had been many rumors of Soviet Migs and T-34s along with later model tanks, but MacArthur didn't take them seriously. Neither did the State Deparment. Truman had dismantled most of the American Intelligence bearaus after WWII, and there was of it mainly paid attention to Europe and gave little regard to Asia.

Recovering quickly from his initial lapses -- similar to the way he'd reacted after Pearl Harbor -- MacArthur pumped thousands of troops into the Korean Penninsula, most of them very poorly prepared for combat. Among the things missing was anything capable of stopping a Soviet heavy tank! Even as the lines gradually stabilized green troops were thrown in, usually with hideous casualties.

MacArthur's master amphibious landing at Incon is well known. What is less well known is how he proceeded to botch the remainder of the war right up to his dismissal.

Assuming positions along the Manchurian border, MacArthur pushed for a drive directly into mainland china, a political situation too involved to enter into here, but the point is he was making decisions far beyond his post.

But the worst thing is he went back to ignoring inteligence reports, this time concerning the infiltration of at least a hundred thousand Chinese "volunteers" through his front lines and into the North Korean mountains. There was no reason not to believe those reports as much of that line had been unmanned till the Chinese had crossed the river and taken position.

Once again MacArthur was taken completely by surprise, this time by the appearance of a very large army behind his own positions! As usual, with the chips down he regained his old form and salvaged the situation, narrowly avoiding a fiasco -- one of his own making!

By that time I believe he was in his mid-seventies. Even at that point in his life he behaved with personal bravery, refusing to duck under fire, telling those around him that the bullet hadn't been made with his name on it.

His dismissal and return to the United States (he hadn't returned at all since accepting the Phillipine Command during the thirties) is well known. By that time the press and most of the senate hated Harry Truman even more than MacArthur, so many of the unfavorable facts were glossed over. He returned a hero, correctly predicting that the next president would be a WW II Five Star General. Only it was Eisenhower instead of Douglas MacArthur.

Shortly before his death poetic justice struck. On a trip to the Phillipines Miss Manilla placed a ceremonial wreath about his neck and said, "Welcome to the Phillipines, General -- is this the first time you've visited our fair land?"

The absurd remark must have killed him.

[ November 30, 2003, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[imported_Rannug]

John you should have been a history teacher!

Great stuff!

Rommel is my favorite WW2 General, a great tactical warrior and a decent human too.

[JerseyJohn]

Rannug,

Greatly appreciated and glad you like it.

If I'd been a history teacher the kids would probably have killed me early in my career, but thanks all the same. I'm toying with the idea of going back to college and maybe being a rookie teacher at age sixty or so.

It would be like Goodbye Mr. Chips, only without the first half of the movie.

[ November 30, 2003, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[jon_j_rambo]

Jersey --- You (or your friend) bring up an interesting issue: "Who gets the credit? The Generals or the Factories of Pittsburgh & Detroit?". Yes, being on the right side has a lot to do with things. Maybe Patton was a good delegator of duties, who knows, & the Ivory Pistols were just for show. All I know is Leadership starts at the top, but having good commanders beneath is just as important. But without supply, equipment, & technology, all is unimportant anyways.

Maybe Patton had a FOW-sniffer & MMP-enhancer. I wonder how God sees all of this & whether He takes sides?

[JerseyJohn]

General Rambo

Agreed on all counts, including speculation on God's view of things. Every country, including the supposedly atheistic USSR, claimed God was on it's side!

There's no doubt in my mind that good generals make a lot of difference and a great general might make all the difference, despite my uncle's opinion (he's still alive, and still mad at the government for charging him for a motorcycle he abandoned in the mud under fire!).

It's like baseball teams, a great manager won't lead a lousy team to the pennant, but a lousy manager might prevent a great team from finishing on top.

History is full of underdog armies winning because they had a great commander, and equally full of great armies losing because they were led by an inept one.

In broad terms, I'd say it's roughly an equal split on material, training and leadership.

[Les the Sarge 9-1]

I have learned one valuable thing in all my years studying war.

Great generals don't exist.

Some men are lucky, and some men are not. The lucky usually survive. The unlucky don't.

You can show me countless battles from history, and I can show you how most of the battle was decided by General Fate and his sidekick Murphy.

Fame comes to those that know how to create it.

[Les the Sarge 9-1]

Oh for the record, I like Patton because he seemed "cool".

I would never be able to do Ike's job, because I am to much a tactless big mouth hehe.

[Bill101]

Les, I disagree. There's some truth in that, but just as some of us are better at SC than others, so some generals were better than others.

I think this is borne out more by studying military campaigns (i.e. strategy) than by a study of battle tactics.

A great general is someone who was almost consistently lucky, and the reason for this was because, to quote Napoleon, "they knew how to master chance".

A good strategist requires nerves of steel not just for one hour or day of battle, but for the whole time from settling on a plan to its completion.

My vast wargaming experience confirms this, as every strategic campaign we've fought at my club has sorted out the men from the boys in a way that tactical games never do.

[ December 01, 2003, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

[JerseyJohn]

So,

Ambrose Burnside = Wm T. Sherman

George McClellan = U. S. Grant

Braxton Bragg = Robert E. Lee

Pemberton = Stonewall Jackson

Perhaps, just perhaps, there's a flaw in that reasoning, somewhere. ...

[Wolfpack]

Gauis Marius....oh wait, you said WWII...I'll second the vote for Model. If you needed a gap filled or had to have an attack turned back, he's the one to turn to. He performed brilliantly on the biggest stage in the war.

[Les the Sarge 9-1]

Well let's take our Patton for example then.

Say the doofus doesn't slap the soldier in Sicily. Naturally he stays in position and is not in the doghouse. He deploys to Italy and becomes yet another General who fought there that no one remembers.

Or he doesn't insult the Russians, and end up cooling his heels in the Dover area.

He wanted to attack the 15th across at the Pas de Calais eh. Now that would have been a disaster eh. The allies nearly mangled Overlord. I don't want to think what would have happened in the Pas de Calais.

No, we were lucky that Patton was a doofus when we needed him to shoot himself in the foot. He might not have been in the right place at the right time to save our butts at Bastogne.

His drive across France was incredible. But then the crushed German war machine was running away kinda fast too.

I find it annoying that Generals like Wavell get forgotten, while that pompus prima donna Monty gets the glory at Alamein (after all the wretched dirty work was over). Wavells advance on Tripoli was one of history's greatest advances. But no one mentions it much.

And we would never have known Monty's name if they had not gone and saved Greece's bacon.

Patton and Monty were both lucky to be where they were when they were there.

MacArthur wanted to stay in the Philippines, and he resented being pulled out. If he had stayed, we would not know his name. His judgement while passionate, was not brilliant at that moment.

Famous men put in famous locations at critical moments in time.

[Iron Ranger]

If your looking for Theater or Group leaders of WWII the best was:

Nimitz: He is the only one (beside the some of the Russian Generals) that defeated his opponent when he did not have the number, tech or experenced troop advantage. From 1941-1943 Japan had the advantage in at least one if not all three of these areas and his 'troops' beat them in almost every engagement. Sometimes it wasn't pritty but they won.

The best example was the turning point battle of Midway.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Nothing against Nimitz, but lets be fair. He was quite aware, that even if he lost his Task Force(s), he could replace them, while the Japanese could not.

Even if the US had "lost" at Midway, they still would have won the war, simply because they could replace the losses.

There are such things as great generals, but as was pointed out, being a great battlefield general is quite different than being a great strategical general.

The other problem is that when generals achieve that rank, they are really more politicians than military. They have to be, otherwise, they would not have achieved the rank they did (unless they got the rank because everyone else ahead of them has died).

Great generals have the ability to obtain more from the whole, than the sum of the parts. In the business world its called synergy... in plain language, when 1 + 1 = 3.

Thats one of the things that the German military system was able to produce, something that almost every military recognized after the war and copied. The German military system was able to obtain great results, despite mediocre generals, making thier Generals appear much better than others. The American, British and Russian systems needed a great general to obtain great results, otherwise the system produced so-so results, even if the general was good.

[Bill101]

Les

A mark of a great general is whether they generally had good ideas or not. It's not just whether they had one great idea, but whether they consistently came up with good ideas.

I don't know enough about Patton, but here's one great and one awful example of generalship from the early 18th century:

1) The Duke of Marlborough's campaigns against the French and Bavarians during the War of Spanish Succession are an example of a great general at work.

His crossing of the lines of Ne Plus Ultra without having to fight a battle was brilliant, as was his march down the Rhine to join forces with Prinz Eugen, before leading their combined armies to victory at Blenheim.

He won all of his battles, and is rightly regarded as one of England's best generals.

2) The Jacobite Earl of Mar's campaign in Scotland in 1715 was a complete disaster due to his poor leadership.

Having raised the standard of rebellion and assembled a large army which vastly outnumbered his opponent's force by about 5:1, he then threw away this advantage by dithering. He didn't know what to do, and just waited for ages hoping that something would come up.

Being in rebellion he needed to act quickly and win a victory as soon as possible before the government could react, and also before his allies in England were defeated.

To his credit he did send some troops into England to assist the rebellion there, but his leadership both on a strategic level and during the one battle he fought, at Sherriffmuir, was appalling.

Unfortunately for the Jacobite cause, the leadership of the force they raised in England was also uninspired.

If the Jacobites in 1715 had been led by generals of the quality of Caesar, Napoleon or Manstein I cannot see that things would have happened in the same way.

Leadership and good decision making are without doubt a very important factor in warfare.

Of course there are plenty of people who could make good generals but never get the chance to, but to say that all generals are equal, which is what your statement that "great generals don't exist" infers, cannot be true.

[ December 02, 2003, 06:35 AM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

[Konstantin V. Kotelnikov]

Even though he was purged by the time of WWII, his writings, theories and reforms were present during the war.

Mikhail Tukhachevskii

He would have been better in the field than Zhukov. And Zhukov was no slouch.

Someone that actually fought in WWII, Konev.

German... Manstein

American... McArthur

British... Wavell

French... They had generals? Oh god no, not De Gualle. That guy needed a can of whoop-tushy opened up on him.

Italian... Jury is still out. We're currently "processing" prisoners of the Italian 8th Army. We'll get back to you on that.

Japanese... Any one that will actually admit what happened at Nanking.

[Les the Sarge 9-1]

To some extent, I think most great generals are more or less pre 20th century when brains was all you had to work with.

You certainly didn't have real time intel, and there was no CNN to exploit

You couldn't sit back and let technology do all the work either.

[JerseyJohn]

What I like about Stillwell is he was thrown into a hopeless catastrophe that was not of his own making -- Burma 1942 -- and salvaged the situation. He was a super inspiration for both his staff and his troops in the field, he was not flamboyant, looked like any elderly private concealing three or four stars!

The true test of a great general is how he handles defeat. Stillwell, though not defeated himself, did a magnificent job of pulling someone else's mistake out of the fire. He never had the chance to make a victory run because the political hacks thought it was more important for him to do the dirty work for the Nationalist Chinese and then turn things over to them for the final laurels. In any case, unlike Mark Clark being photographed in Rome instead of shattering the routed Germans, Stillwell had no interest whatever in fame and glory.

The German Fieldmarshal Walther Model was similar in both his circumstances, approach and results. He ranks high on my German list, but I don't think anyone ranks with Erich von Manstein for pure skill and handling of an army.

For the British, both Wavell and Auchinleck are underated; Auch acquired a bad reputation by replacing Richie as Eighth Army Commander and remaining as Commander of the Middle East Theater. Ironically, he succeeded in halting Rommel at First Alemain and was replaced by Montgomery, who was given Auchinleck's winning hand as a gift.

Churchill was very unfair in his handling of field commanders. Wavell was similarly mistreated by Churchill when the PM's ridiculous Greek move backfired on him; my only guess is he was angry with Wavell for advising against it in the first place.

Which introduces another element, how politicians influence which generals get the chance to shine, and which ones don't.

One British general who will never be mentioned in this WW II group is B. F. Fuller (correcte to JFC Fuller -- see below), retired and kept from the public due to his fascist sympathies, he created all the innovative tactics used by both sides in WW II; Guderian took many of his blitzkrieg ideas straight out of Fuller's late WW I campaigns and also from his later writings.

[ December 02, 2003, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Bill101]

John

I think you mean J.F.C. Fuller. To say that he had fascist sympathies is actually quite an understatement.

I've never seen a book of his theories available (I have looked at some of the histories he wrote), but a contemporary of Fuller's who also influenced German thought was B.H. Liddell Hart.

I'd strongly recommend his book Thoughts on War. I've read some of his others, but this one is definitely my favourite.

He can't be classed as a great general though - his highest wartime command was in charge of a platoon of infantry for a short time at the end of WWI!

There was mention of De Gaulle above. He was one of the better French commanders in 1940, and his book Vers l'Armee de Metier, translated as The Army of the Future, is another one of those prophetic works from the 1930s. If only the French High Command had read it!

[JerseyJohn]

Bill

"To say that he had fascist sympathies is actually quite an understatement."

I posted a photo once of Fuller in front of a line of other British fascists giving the outstrtched hand salute! Yes, definitely an understatement; I believe he once ran for office on the Fascist Party ticket!

I was juxtaposing Fuller and Hart's initials. Yes, J. F. C. Fuller. I read a few of his books while in the Air Force and remember thinking they were written much later than they were.

I was under the impression that the closing British Offensives were his plans? I'll need to look it up; true, he didn't rise to Major General till after the First World War, at which time he was as well known for insulting his brother officers as he was for his knowledge of military theory.

You're right, though, he can't be considered a great battle field commander because he never actually held the requisite position during time of war.

I don't believe Hart was as influencial as was once thought. After WW II he helped a lot of German generals, including Guderian, who, in his post war book, Panzer General (?) mentions Hart as having been an influence, but this seems to have been more out of gratitude than actual fact.

Hart's works are also very good. His reputation sank during the war after he said, during the winter of '39-40 that the Maginot Line would hold and also expressed confidence in the French ability to hold off the Germans as they had in the First World War. And through it all, Belgium didn't even conduct a decen mobilization for fear of antagonizing Hitler!

A little background on Fuller that doesn't really do him justice, but is fairly brief.

J.F.C. Fuller (1876-1966), full name John Frederick Charles Fuller, was a British general, military historian and strategist, notable as an early theorist of modern armored warfare. He was also the inventor of "artificial moonlight". In addition to his military accomplishments, Fuller was a vigorous, expressive and opinionated writer of military history. In the 1920s, he collaborated with his junior B.H. Liddell Hart in developing new ideas for the mechanization of armies. Upon his retirement in 1933, impatient with what he considered the inability of democracy to adopt military reforms, he became involved with Sir Oswald Mosley and the British Fascist movement. His ideas on warfare continued to be influential in World War II, as much with the Germans, notably Heinz Guderian as with his own country.

Books by Fuller

The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (New York, 1929)

Grant & Lee (London, 1933)

Memoirs of an Unconventional Soldier (London, 1936)

The Second World War, 1939-1945 (New York, 1949)

A Military History of the Western World, 3 vols. (New York, 1954)

Further reading

"Boney" Fuller: The Intellectual General by A.J. Trythall (London, 1977)

This article courtesy of Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. GFDL: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

Another article, this one mentioning his staff work in the late WWI British tank offensives.

John Frederick Charles Fuller was born in Chichester in 1878. He was commissioned into the British army in 1899 and saw service during the Boar War in South Africa. During the First World War he was a staff officer in France and in 1916 he became chief staff of the British Tank Corps, and it was he who planned the Cambrai offensive which took place in 1917 which involves 381 tanks.

After the war Fuller wrote many books, two of the most popular being 'Tanks in the Great War' (1920) and 'Memoirs of an Unconventional Soldier' (1936).

His advocacy of armoured tank warfare, to be used in lightning concentrated thrusts, was considered too extreme for the military establishment in Britain, but was taken up avidly by the younger German Generals, particularly those like Guderian in the new Panzer arm of the German army. These tactics became known as Blitzkrieg when unleashed upon the West in 1940.

It was in 1934 that Fuller joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union and during this period he wrote frequently for both the main fascist newspaper of the day “Action” and likewise for the magazine Fascist Quarterly. He visited, as a reporter, both Ethiopia and Spain during the conflicts in these countries. He was also a prolific writer for the more mainstream journals of the day in both Britain and the United States of America. He lectured in army staff colleges and was saved from internment during the war by Churchill’s intervention. In 1948 he wrote one of the first books covering the period, called The Second World War 1939-1945. Still regarded as a seminal work on the subject.

Keith Thompson

[ December 02, 2003, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]