William Slim commanding officer of the 14th Army. Led his army from defeat to victory against the Japanese in Burma in some of the worst conditions of the entire War.
Poll: Greatest General of World War 2
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i am more wondering why carl mannerheim isnt on the list, the guy managed to resist the red army with barely functioning equipment in the deep cold of things.
so yeah my vote goes to him, just looking at the casualties on both sides should tell you how good he was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
so yeah my vote goes to him, just looking at the casualties on both sides should tell you how good he was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
This is to be expected. Germany's sole experience of democracy up to that time had been the short lived Weimar Republic following the end of WWI, a period of economic collapse and civil strife that ended with Hitler and the Nazis being voted into power. With the communists regarded as no better than the Nazis, and democracy being regarded as weak and ineffectual, it's only natural that the majority of the 20th of July Plotters, and others like Rommel, wanted to see a return to what they felt were the better, more stable days of Bismarck.albino boo said:
OT: Although I find Rommel fascinating and in many ways admirable, I'd say Zhukov. The Russian Front was the most apocalyptic conflict in human history and Zhukov was a major driving force in the soviet victory. The cost of that victory was terrible, but the cost of defeat would have been far worse, for all of us.
Those more stable days of repeated German aggression like the Schleswig-Holstein crisis, both Moroccan Crises and ultimately WW1. königlich Germany was just aggressive towards it neighbours as Hitler's Germany. The only difference is that königlich Germany largely didn't murder its own citizens, but ideas like freedom and democracy were not allowed. Rommel was a member of the Freikorps, a rightwing paramilitary organisation long before the rise of Hitler. The Freikorps tried to overthrow the Elected government in 1920.Sixcess said:
SckizoBoy said:
Andersonville wasn't part of systematic programme of extermination of its enemies by the state. The confederate prison camp was product of a deranged Swiss commandant and lack of oversight by higher command. Whereas Hitler's camps claimed the lives of 8 million and Stalin's camps claimed anything up to 25 million. There is no equivalence between the two.
Last thing the US and British landed in French protectorate of Morocco and French colonial Algeria. They met the 8th army coming from the east in Tunisia.
He was also a bit abrasive and had a bad habit of ignoring direct orders, especially when they came from the Italians. Among the higher ranks Rommel was actually liked all that much by a lot of them, though the lower ranks loved him.Shock and Awe said:
The Winter War is conflict between he Soviet Union and Finland and not part of the second world war. Those nations were not at war with anyone else at the time. The Finns joined in the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 but were forced to make a separate peace in 1944.felbot said:
Another reason why Mannerheim isn't on the list is that he lost, the Soviets overwhelmed the Finns in the end.
Not to mention, that the Soviet suffered such losses was because Stalin had recognised the military as a threat to him, and gotten rid of anyone who might pose a problem. That meant tearing the backbone out of it, slightly before the war.albino boo said:
gotta go with Rommel then Patton and Zhukov they all had their faults Patton was pompous Rommel had NO understanding of logistics and Zhukov pluged holes in defenses with the bodies of his men i have to give Rommel the win due to what he did with his lack of resources and not blindly following orders
I voted for "other".
My vote would go to Bill Slim, commander of the 14th British/Commonwealth Army in Burma. He retrained and re-equipped the army to effectively fight, what had up until then been a superior force, the Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Slim#Burma_campaign
My vote would go to Bill Slim, commander of the 14th British/Commonwealth Army in Burma. He retrained and re-equipped the army to effectively fight, what had up until then been a superior force, the Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Slim#Burma_campaign
My Vote goes to Manstein. If anything, the fact that both Rommel and Von Kluge (both Field Marshals at the time) told Manstein explicitly that they would follow his command if need be is pretty telling of the respect that Manstein commanded as a Strategist. Also, Hitler considered Manstein for command of the entire Russian theater, despite hating his guts.
I'd probably say Patten if he didn't make battle strategy based on Zap Brannigans Big Book of War. So I voted for the Desert Fox, a great commander, tactician, and man; in spite of being German when the Nazi's took power.
*poke* You realize the 8 million is the number for just the Jews, right[footnote]I think the popular number now is 6 million Jews died in camps, 2 million additional Jews died in other various ways during the Holocaust[/footnote]? Quite a few more million died in Hitler's camps. <.<albino boo said:
LetalisK said:
Its 6 million Jews and 2 million others giving a total of 8 million. The other victims include, Muslims, the physically and mentally disabled, Gypsies, Homosexuals and finally just plain opponents of the regime. However this figure excludes the number the number of Soviet PoWs that died. The figures are imprecise and are estimates at best. The figure of 6 million Jews comes from Adolf Eichmann, the man in charge of managing the movement of Jews to the camps, but the real figure is impossible to calculate.
From the point of view of Germany those were (with the exception of WWI that ended it) better days, of unification and an increase in german influence at home and abroad. Bismarck fought wars that left Germany better off than before, not worse. Let's also recall that democratic government was by no means the norm throughout all of Europe and beyond during the period in question.albino boo said:
Source?
Rommel was in the Wehrmacht, the army of the Republic, between the wars. Whilst there was plenty of often violent political upheaval from both the right (the Freikorps) and the left (the communists) during that time, Rommel had no part of it.
Actually....No... He did not plan the wall, but was volun-told (military term we use) to oversee it. It costed over 10,000 casualties to capture it,but more important was his plan to have all forces defend the wall as they should have rather then be spread out and allow the Allied forces to push forward as was the case. He argued that the Allies would be too strong on the beach at that point for what small amount of forces he had. Rommel greatly cared for his men and vowed to try and come back after being ordered away from Africa. His style was suited into keeping his men alive and kicking British and our American asses with quick smart planning. He didn't have the resources to take all the major ports in Egypt but very nearly kicked destroyed the British in Egypt who still had superior resources and numbers.Shock and Awe said:
Had Rommel been at D-Day and given REAL control of it..Hitler went mad during 43 I swear..It would of probably been a diffrent story... Had Hitler not GONE MAD, probably due to drug use because of his limb seizures, it would have been a much more successful war for Germany.
Only from the point of view the of the military elite, if you were a member of the Social Democratic movement the days of of the Kaiser were not better. The SPD dominated elections until the economic collapse in 1923.Sixcess said:
Rommel joined the Freikorps in 1918 but his Freikorps unit became part of Reichswehr in 1919 after the deal with Ebert in the wake of the Spartacus revolt. The adoption of Freikorps units wholesale into the Reichswehr was one the reason why the Freikorps launched the coup attempt. Their slogan was Reichswehr does not fire on the Reichswehr was largely true. The government was forced to Dresden but the coup was defeated by a general strike. The military elite had no public support for imperial Germany mark2 in 1920.
Considering the death toll of Poles alone was 2 million and a more recent re-examination of records puts the gypsy death toll around 1.5 million, I think it's safe to assume the number is much greater than 8 million. Usually Soviet POWs are included in the number, so all this considered it would not be difficult to reach 11 million.albino boo said:
And we haven't even brought soviet civilians into the mix, though whether their death toll could be seen as a result of the holocaust or other war crimes is debatable.