Book Review
[Picture ID: The cover for the book, “The Worst Military Leaders of All Time.” Above the Main Title it says “Foreword by Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham.” Below main title is the line “Edited By John M. Jennings and Chuck Steele.” The text is overlaid on a colorless photo taken on D-Day, 1944 of a helmet atop a rifle stock, it’s barrel jammed into churned-up dirt. An open box of belted ammunition sits in the foreground. /End ID.]
Having once read “The Rise and Fall of Practically Everyone” I went into this non-fiction book expecting a little bit of humor and schadenfreude. Instead what I got was a dry, horrifying, but extremely educational lesson on what happens when you put the wrong men in charge during an armed conflict.
The book is organized into 5 parts each one featuring 3 commanders. The parts are listed in this order: Criminals, Frauds, The Clueless, Politicians, and Bunglers. Criminals are men for whom killing and torturing alleged enemies, allies, and definitely-not-combatants took higher priority than accomplishing objectives. Frauds lied about their expertise and people believed them at great cost. The Clueless operated on delusional beliefs regarding the enemies capabilities and their own forces. Politicians had to make decisions based on the politics of their society and the strategies in-use during the conflict they engaged in, and they chose poorly. Finally, Bunglers tried their best, it was nowhere near good enough, and they even admitted it (if they survived). These categories were formed by the editors while sorting submissions from historians who were simply assigned to write about the worst commander within the purview of their studies.
I don’t know if it’s problematic or good marketing to place the War-Criminals at the start of the anthology. It will certainly shock and resonate with a reader, at the cost of making one forget about the less outrageous subjects. This probably isn’t an issue for a diligent reader, which I confess to not always being.
The specific commanders are all men who have a lot of written evidence condemning them. But in the foreword, the editors say that the Third Reich (and other World War 2 fascists) have already been extensively examined. The purpose of this book was to focus on lesser known or unjustly revered men. Hence half the subjects being American or British. Some names, like George Custer and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna are relatively well known to Americans like myself. Others are more obscure (to me) such as Roman Fedorovich von Ungern-Sternberg, Nikias, or Nogi Maresuke.
As a creative resource, this book is perfect for military-focused authors who need references for incompetent and/or evil leadership that is realistic. I haven’t read every single work of military-fiction but I imagine there is a tendency to portray military commanders as brilliant but cruel. Hopefully this book makes an argument that cruelty does not equate to intelligence. And that really interesting drama takes place when plans do not go smoothly at all because the person who were in-charge were inept for one reason or another.
For a list of the names of all the subjects and contributing historians please see the tags.
