| Ok, time to have a bit of fun:
Underestimating the enemy: that one has to go to the Italians who underestimated just about everybody, but particularly the Ethiopians. They attacked an army of horse-mounted sword wielding cavalry with a modern (for the time) armoured force, and proceeded to win a war with a long drawn out campaign, when they should have trounced the Ethoipoans in two or three days. For good measure, they were then kicked out of Africa by the Brits, whose favourable kill ratios were the most spectacular of the war.
Unfit Leaders: General Ambrose Burnside.... 'nuff said!
Intelligence blunders: I would change this to "horrid decisions in the face of useful intelligence". The two prizes go to Marshal Montgomery who went ahead with Market-Garden (an airborne assault) in spite of the fact that a German Armoured division was known to be resting a few kilometers from the drop site.
The second goes to Stalin, who did not prepare for Barbarossa in spite of the fact that his intelligence services knew the date, time units commanders, axes of attack, reserves, and everything else. Stalin chose not to believe it, and we all saw the result.
Political influence: Has to go to Stalin for Barbarossa and to Hitler for his attempts to micromanage the war from before Stalingrad right up to the end. He managed to subjugate the German General staff, which was argueably one of the best in the world, and he replaced them with a buch of vapid, useless yes-men.
Dean. |