three best commanders of world war two

Somebody from another thread said that people get their history from Hollywood. I think most of these kids get their history from video games.

 

Ike
Runsdelt
Kesslring
Rommel

 

Monty did increase the landings but even Ike said that most of the fighting was left up to the Americans. You can even see clips of the british walking up off the beaches drinking tea and eating crumpits while our boys were having a hell of a time in Omaha.

Sorry, thats a load of crap.

 

yeah it was on the histroy channel. The beach commanders who controlled the beaches or whatever they were called wanted to keep moving off the beach so the other waves could come in but some of the brits were just standing there drinking tea. If you read the article it says that Ike complained to some other guy (can't remmeber his name) that most of the fighting was left up to the Americans.

 

I must admit that I am constantly surprised at these who were best/worst threads. What I find surprising is two things:

First that people jumps into these threads comparing the commanders without wondering whether it is possible to compare them? Is it possible to establish some common criteria on which you can judge the generals and compare them? Personally I think not and I fully agree with Gnomey that this can be nothing more that a subjective listing of favourites.

Secondly on how thin and rude analysis' people generally base their judgements. Not of course that I am expecting some kind of academic excellence here but more than this:

In general you raised some good points. However, you have to remember that even history itself is subjective in nature. Hence the question "whether it is possible to compare them (generals) and to establish some common criteria on which you can judge" them, on which you affirmed to be negative, is quite literally a narrow-minded (in the sense of tunnel-vision) viewpoint. Of course, it's impossible to have a completely non-subjective comparison, but then again, it does NOT mean that it's not insightful to make meaning comparison. To provide you with a rather simple example would be applying the premise of Game Theory to compare generals to see how they performed based on the army that they were given, or to analyze the tactical ability, strategic grasp of a particular theatre of war of various commanders. It's then possible, even at a rather elementary level, to say certain things that are subjected to comparison.

Regarding your 2nd point, I fully agree in general. For example, a lot of posters just listed their 3 choices without any other comments, which does not generate any type of discussion and certainly did not offer any insight into why these choices were made. I, for one, would love to hear the reasons behind the choices.

 

In general you raised some good points. However, you have to remember that even history itself is subjective in nature. Hence the question "whether it is possible to compare them (generals) and to establish some common criteria on which you can judge" them, on which you affirmed to be negative, is quite literally a narrow-minded (in the sense of tunnel-vision) viewpoint. Of course, it's impossible to have a completely non-subjective comparison, but then again, it does NOT mean that it's not insightful to make meaning comparison. To provide you with a rather simple example would be applying the premise of Game Theory to compare generals to see how they performed based on the army that they were given, or to analyze the tactical ability, strategic grasp of a particular theatre of war of various commanders. It's then possible, even at a rather elementary level, to say certain things that are subjected to comparison.


I have no problem agreeing with you on your points in general as I wasn't actually searching for measurements and comparisons in a positivistic sense. The reason I expressed myself in this way was because I wanted to question the underlying assumption on comparability in this thread expressed in the title of this thread and in the replies so far which clear is based on a positivistic point of view i.e. ranking 1-3., which to me is narrow mined.

Yes – making comparisons can be very valuable studies and Game Theory could be one of methodologies used for such studies, yet it must be acknowledged that the premises of each study is based on the choices made by its author and thus have its limitations because of factors omitted. Generally there is no problem in this (I have hundreds of those studies on my shelves) however this does not result in any ability to rank the commanders - quite the contrary they often reach the conclusion that each commander had his strong and weak sides under different conditions.

This brings me to the point where I think we are in totally agreement namely that without knowing the premises and argumentations this thread is of little value. From my point of view the value lies not in the conclusion but in how people have derived at it.

 

the brits were just standing there drinking tea. most of the fighting was left up to the Americans.

This may have been true in some places. Do you know how long the beaches are? They run on for miles and miles. So I'm sure some (both British and Americans) had a better landing than others.

But from the beaches then what? Hard fighting. The British were involved in hard fighting whilst Patton was able to charge on through open countryside !

 

yeah it was on the histroy channel. The beach commanders who controlled the beaches or whatever they were called wanted to keep moving off the beach so the other waves could come in but some of the brits were just standing there drinking tea. If you read the article it says that Ike complained to some other guy (can't remmeber his name) that most of the fighting was left up to the Americans.

I wouldn't regard anything on The History Channel, except their show, "Modern Marvels: The Zamboni" as being definitive on any subject.

The British took their share of a beating on their beaches, and faced the bulk of the German panzer divisions after that. I can show you a photograph of Sword Beach with a man crumpling to death on one side of the shot while another strides along in seeming perfect safety. D-Day was like that...total chaos in one place, total calm in another. There are better sources on the battle than The History Channel.

Moderator's hat for a moment: this subject of the "three best commanders of the war" is good fun, but a little vague. Naval, air, and land commanders do different things. So do brigade, division, corps, army, and theater level. You can't compare Admiral Halsey with Marshal Koniev, or General Pete Quesada with General Yamashita.

Then consider how that applies down to battalion and company commanders. You can't compare Charles Hazlitt Upham with Bernard Freyberg.

I just request that people think about that when they're talking about "best commanders."

Carry on!

 

Yeah I'd like to see a picture of that kiwi. Thanks.

 

Yeah I'd like to see a picture of that kiwi. Thanks.

You'll find it in a number of books on the battle...I think it's even in Max Hastings' Overlord. It's one of the first photographs in R.W. Thompson's book from the Ballantine series, D-Day, in the introduction. That book was, literally, the first one of the series.