The worst WWII commander by terms of the ammount of vainly lost lifes was Georgi Zhukov.

Originally Posted by Clockwinder

and Market Garden was an unmitigated disaster that he refused to take responsibility for right up to his death - even though he bullied Churchill and Eisenhower to make it happen and take the "shine" off that upstart Patton.

Monty took full responsibility for Market Garden, he just never said that it was an unmittigated disaster. He always maintained that it could have worked but didn't recieve enough support. Carlo D'Este states that Montgomery's admission of failure was unique: "the only admission of falure by a senior Allied Commander."

Eisenhower admitted it had been a failure only in private and had fully backed the plan going ahead from the moment Montgomery had presented it to him. He said later that "I not only approved Market Garden, I insisted upon it"

Montgomery himself said of Market Garden: "It was a bad mistake on my part – I underestimated the difficulties of opening up the approaches to Antwerp ... I reckoned the Canadian Army could do it while we were going for the Ruhr. I was wrong ............. In my — prejudiced — view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate"

And, on a side note, Patton was never Montgomery's rival. Patton was only at an equal level of command to Montgomery in North Africa and Sicily but beyond that he never commanded at the same level that Montgomery did and didn't achieve the level of successes or failures (rare though they were) that Montgomery did. Patton has no great battle victories to his name (only El Guettar could possibly count) and his single greatest achievement was the turning of the 3rd US Army at the Battle of the Bulge but beyond that his accomplishment are no greater than any of the other American Army Commanders.

If Montgomery had a rival in the European Theater of Operations it was Omar Bradley - who commanded at the same level he did from the end of Operation Overlord onwards - but Bradley's success rate is not that good either and his judgement was certainly as suspect as Montgomery's was during the Market Garden Offensive - particularly, in Bradley's case, for the Hurtgen Forrest Offensive and the Battle of the Bugle and the advance to the Elbe. However I doubt whether Monty counted Bradley as his rival either.

The point being that Patton's place in the pubic perception of history as being Montgomery's rival who Monty was constantly trying to upstage is a complete fabrication. Monty accepted Patton's strenghts and flaws and considered him a good general and the best thruster in the Allied Armies and would no doubt have loved to have had him under his command at several periods. It was Patton who hated Montgomery, not the other way round, it was Patton who was constantly trying to upstage Montgomery and the rivalry Patton believed that they had was purely in his mind.

Originally Posted by Shmack

The worst WWII commander by terms of the ammount of vainly lost lifes was Georgi Zhukov.

Didn’t Zhukov suffer high casualties because of Stalin's insistence on him racing to Berlin rather than using a planned campaign?

Originally Posted by Naddoður

Didn’t Zhukov suffer high casualties because of Stalin's insistence on him racing to Berlin rather than using a planned campaign?

Actually, Berlin offensive was quite a thought-out operation. There is a legend that Stalin ordered Zhukov to force Soviet offensive in order to capture the city by May 1st - big holiday in Russia. In fact, by the mid-April Zhukov found himself in the far vanguard of the offensive: he already could see Berlin outskirts while his main rearward was still in Poland. In this situation Stalin couldn't Zhukov order anything like that, for example to take Berlin by storm - that would mean inevitable defeat. Instead, everybody was waiting Rokossovski to capture Vorpommern, so there wouldn't be any northern danger to Zhukov's armies aimed at Berlin.

I was talking about early months of war, especially Moscow defensive-offensive operation. Numerous mistakes, overestimates of Soviet defensive capabilities lead to a) enormous casualities, b) strategic losses. For example, 700 thousand people were captured near Vyazma village just near Moscow, and Zhukov practically allowed this to happen because he thought it would stop the German offensive for a while. When he was taking command at some front sector, he could throw several regiments into the battle against a single German one. That's why Russia even during defence have lost twice as many people as the Germans.

There were many more talented generals in the Soviet army, but Zhukov became a political symbol. His disposal could have made people think that 'now it's really bad' and was unthinkable.

Thanks for the info, Schmack

Let us hear some more about the Soviets war effort. In Western Europe your contribution to the victory in WWII is not highlighted as much as the American/British.

Cheers

Well the Russian did a good job at Warsaw when they sat out side the city waiting for the Germans to crush the resistance to save them the job

Originally Posted by LeEnfield

Well the Russian did a good job at Warsaw when they sat out side the city waiting for the Germans to crush the resistance to save them the job

Oh, i'm sure you know the reasons of this, don't you?

Hitler. Apart from his own poor choice Hitler must take responsibility for the poor choices of his subordinates.
Mussolini. 8 million Bayonets?
Percival; bungled Singapore
Douglas MAcArthur, who should have foreseen a Japanese attack on the Philippines but allowed his air forces to be caught on the Ground.
Stalin: would sacrifice anything or anyone.

Without doubt, IMHO, Arthur Percival. No greater or more stupid surrender of 140,000 men for absolutely no reason... I can't think of anything as bad...

Originally Posted by virus

Without doubt, IMHO, Arthur Percival. No greater or more stupid surrender of 140,000 men for absolutely no reason... I can't think of anything as bad...

While he wasn't a good general (if the high command had though he was, he would have been transferred to the African campaign months before) he didn't surrender that many troops, it was around 60,000 - 16,000 British, 14,000 Australian and 32,000 Indian soldiers.