best British General level Commander for each century

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Subject: best British General level Commander for each century
paul1970 9/25/2007 8:38:57 AM

as above

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DragonReborn 9/25/2007 1:15:13 PM

Technically the modern term British would only go back to 1707 with the Act of Union.

However I have pushed the term British to refer to any General who fought for the inhabitants of Britain - the last one is a bit tenuous!

20thC - Field Marshal William Slim - WW1 & WWII

19thC - Duke of Wellington - India and Napoleonic War

18thC - General James Wolfe - Battle of Quebec
           - John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough - War of Spanish Succession

17thC - John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough - War of the Grand Alliance
           - Thomas Fairfax & Oliver Cromwell - English Civil War

16thC - Thomas Howard Earl of Surrey - Flodden Field

15thC - King Henry V - Agincourt

14thC - King Edward III - Hundred Years War

13th C - William Longsword 3rd Earl of Sailsbury - Battle of Damme

12th C- King Richard the Lionheart - Third Crusade and Siege of Taillebourg

11thC - King Harold Godwinson - Battle of Stamford Bridge
            - William the Bastard - Battle of Hastings (Not really British but Norman but he became English King and he was a great General?!!)

10thC - Edward the Elder - Battle of Tettenhall

9thC - King Offa of Mercia - Wars between British Kingdoms
         - Ecgberht of Wessex - Battle of Ellendun
         - Aethelwulf -Battle of Englefield

8thC - Æthelbald King of Mercia - Battle of Newanbirig

7thC- Æthelfrith - Battle of Chester

6thC - Ceawlin King of Gewissae – Battle of Deorham

5thC - King Arthur - Battle of Mons Badonucus

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paul1970 9/26/2007 5:52:57 AM

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paul1970 9/26/2007 6:00:37 AM

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Herald1234 Bernard Law Montgomery 9/26/2007 6:14:10 AM

Rotflmao

After Market Garden, Goodwood, and a few previous crockups like El Alamein and Husky? He ranks down there with the likes of William "BULL" Halsey-a totally overrated press made tin hero.

Herald

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paul1970 9/26/2007 8:27:05 AM

Rotflmao

After Market Garden, Goodwood, and a few previous crockups like El Alamein and Husky? He ranks down there with the likes of William "BULL" Halsey-a totally overrated press made tin hero.

Herald

well that would be your opinion....

please expand on what went wrong with those ops?

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Herald1234 9/26/2007 9:38:59 AM

El Alamein. Infantry caught in the minefields-misuse of Ultra.

Husky, The Herman Goring Division was never accounted for properly amd Bernies staff screwwed up the beach approaches and failed to co-ordinate the paratrooper operationn properly.

D-Day Caen the key terrain feature was NOT seized at all cost thus prolonging the bocage fight for two murderous months.

Goodwood. Britiash and canadian troopsand armor were sacrificed in an operation that makes butcher Haig look like a positive military genius.

Antwerp-Eisenhower told that!@#$%^&*()) idiot Bernard Law to clear the Scheldt to ease the Allied logistics strain. Instead the buffoon decided on Market Garden instead and threw away an Allied airborne army on a one road offensive to "cross the Rhine". the Scheldt was still German held and the Canadians were still dying trying to open up the approaches to Antwerp and Horrocks was still sitting on hos armored ass, when that paper hanging son of a bitch sprang his December surprise on Bradley. If Monty[SARCASM} had just done as he was told and opened Antwerp the British could have moved up to the Rhine in January instread of in March and glory hog Patton would not have stolen Monty's penumbra in the Bulge crockup. Monty could have had Antwerp and his northern push if hye's paid attewntion to :LOGISTICS and the map. He was an IDIOT.

Herald

Monty was the MOST overrated general in WW II

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Herald1234 Cleaned up typos 9/26/2007 9:43:57 AM

El Alamein. Infantry caught in the minefields-misuse of Ultra.

Husky, The Herman Goring Division was never accounted for properly amd Bernies staff screwed up the beach approaches and failed to co-ordinate the paratrooper operations properly.

D-Day Caen the key terrain feature was NOT seized at all cost thus prolonging the bocage fight for two murderous months.

Goodwood. British and Canadian troops and armor were sacrificed in an operation that makes butcher Haig look like a positive military genius.

Antwerp-Eisenhower told that!@#$%^&*()) idiot Bernard Law to clear the Scheldt to ease the Allied logistics strain. Instead the buffoon decided on Market Garden instead and threw away an Allied airborne army on a one road offensive to "cross the Rhine". the Scheldt was still German held and the Canadians were still dying trying to open up the approaches to Antwerp and Horrocks was still sitting on hos armored ass, when that paper hanging son of a bitch sprang his December surprise on Bradley. If Monty[SARCASM} had just done as he was told and opened Antwerp the British could have moved up to the Rhine in January instead of in March and glory hog Patton would not have stolen Monty's penumbra in the Bulge crockup. Monty could have had Antwerp and his northern push if he'd paid attention to LOGISTICS and read the map. He was an IDIOT.

Monty was the MOST overrated general in WW II.

Alexander was far better.

Herald

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the British Lion Herald1234 9/26/2007 10:02:26 AM

Rotflmao

After Market Garden, Goodwood, and a few previous crockups like El Alamein and Husky? He ranks down there with the likes of William "BULL" Halsey-a totally overrated press made tin hero.

Herald

While I'm inclined to agree that Monty was woefully overrated, he was far from useless as you seem to suggest.

Firstly looking at Market Garden... that was a very high risk operation, BUT the plan that Monty devised was actually very sound. It was a failure in intelligence that really scuppered it. No one seemed to know about the bloody SS Panzer units parked there. Had they not been there, the plan could have very well succeeded.

Goodwood was a bit of a cock up... While it's true that he was facing the toughest German units in Normandy during it, he seemed to think that World War One style tactics would be a good idea.
It did however achieve its goal of drawing the main Panzer units off the American front, allowing a breakout, BUT at far too great a cost.

El Alamein? Not sure what you're getting at there. I realize it was a very high casualty operation, but there were very few other ways that battle could have been fought. In a big open dessert like that, an offensive against a tough opponent is always going to be costly. Not to mention the allied tanks had an unfortunate habit of exploding when a German so much as sneezed on one...

And following on from that El Alamein point, we get to why Monty was a worthwhile general. That would be his strategic planning ability. I freely admit, when it came to tactical battle management he was far from spectacular, but he sure knew how to plan! He told Churchill before Alamein that he would not be rushed... he would take his time, and only attack when he was ready. He was one of the key planners for Normandy, and as I said earlier, Market Garden was a fine (though risky) plan let down by rotten luck.

Monty (and I know I'm going to sound like some apologetic here) basically had the misfortune of consistently going toe to toe with Germany's best units. That damned 21th Panzer Division was a constant thorn in his side.

All that being said, I still very much agree that he was way overrated. And I certainly wouldn't put him in the same league as Slim

Regards,

B.L.

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Herald1234 B.L. reply. 9/26/2007 10:20:12 AM

I will agree to disagree.

I look at BLM with a firmly jaundiced eye.

He was too slow.

He was a very poor logistician and a terrible incompetent when iot came to armored warfare.

And I savagely disagree that he was a good planner. He was a far poorer planner than Alexander, who is often overshadowed in the histories, and had the bad misfortune to be saddled with Mark Clark, who was if anything the far worse American version of Monty than Monty ever was. (Vainglorious twerp.).

I will say this: Horrocks, Leese, and O'Connor are often overlooked when it comes time to trot out the good British WW II generals.

And no American Army general comes close to General Slim, though, Stillwell, Taylor, Patch, Hodges, Eichelberger Collins and Patton are very good ones.

Herald

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paul1970 9/26/2007 10:50:22 AM

Rotflmao

After Market Garden, Goodwood, and a few previous crockups like El Alamein and Husky? He ranks down there with the likes of William "BULL" Halsey-a totally overrated press made tin hero.

Herald

I essentially agree with all that...

M.G. failed because people did not feed the info back on resting panzer units... it probably would have worked if the panzers were not there. Monty may have delayed or cancelled all together if the info was fed back to him.

Goodwood allowed the western breakout and something had to be done to make a break. I think a lot of what happened is down to the simple fact that it had to be done to stop the counterattack elsewhere. bocage territory is not the best for grand sweeping tank actions. but doing Goodwood meant that the allies achieved their objectives within the 90 days that Monty himself suggetsed it would take? he used attrition here even though in his public press he was pretending not to?

not sure what you mean by Husky. what did he cockup there?

I also rate Slim as best but raised Monty as a possible rival for the crown. I would class Monty's tasks as being harder than Slim's and so the question would possibly be what would Slim have done if in the west and would he have been any better than Monty?

Paul

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