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World War I is generally discussed by many wargamers in the context of the "worst" generals, due to the many incredibly wasteful battles that had no real result beyond attrition. However, the "best" commanders are less often discussed. WWI is an interest of mine and I'd love to hear your thoughts on these categories in WWI. I expect this forum has a few folks who could expand my horizons on these questions:

1. Top Five Army Commanders

2. Top Five Corps or Division Commanders

3. Top Five Front Line Combat Leaders

Regards,

- Erik

Well, Byng was a good commander. General Hermann von Francois, the field commander of German forces at Tannenberg, did quite well.

Think I'd be hard pressed to put together a Top Five, though, considering how badly most bungled it.

Agreed. Finding a top five (in a good way) commander in anything related to WW1 is hard.

Army: von Below, Brusilov, Allenby, Foch, Ludendorff (before he went crazy)
Corps: von Sanders (hard to tell where he belongs, army or corps), Mustafa Kemal (ditto except corps or front-line), French (before the BEF grew), Byng and Francois (Terminus is right on both)
Front-line: Lettow-Vorbeck, Monash, Currie (for Vimy Ridge)

Honorable mention: von Mackensen for his ability, for having the coolest helmet/headress of ww1 and for looking like my crazy great-grandfather.

You also have to include Petain for how held the French army together at Verdun and rebuilding it after the mutiny of 1917,

Monash did some of his best work as a corps commander.

Allenby for his campaign in the middle east.

I agree completely with Anarchyintheuk's list with the edition of Hutier as a very good German Army Commander. His accomplishments at Riga and during the Peace Offensive were very impressive. Hindenburg of course needs a mention. Von Seeckt was also a masterful staff officer and later rebuilt the post war German Army. Bruchmueller was the war's best Artillery officer at the Army level. It was said amoung the Germans that any fire plan that he was responsible for was sure to succeed.

Oh yeah, definitely Hutier... Forgot about him...

Top five army Commanders? Max Hoffman , Von Mackesen,Conrad,Joffre,Brusilov
Top corps?VonHutier,Putnik,Kemal, Allenby, Monash.
Front line Von Lettow, Murta,Scheer,Von Richtofen, and last but not least Nungesser.

Is this now a Euro-board or have all Americans forgotten Pershing?  Kept the AEF intact; initiated Meuse-Argonne over intial resistance from allies.

Laurence of Arabia ! .. of its an irregular force .. and no idea if its even modelled within the game but it would be great if he/they were involved somehow .

I agree, Pershing should be included in the list. Marshall as well since he was the Chief of Operations for the First American Army. Very strange, I am American but didn't even think of the American's initially. I always think of WWI as mainly a European affair with America simply tipping the balance decisively toward the end.

Here a just a few.
 
Corps Commanders:
BEF IX Corps: Maj-Gen. Sir Walter Pipon Braithwaite
 
BEF XIII Corps: Sir Walter Norris “Squibs” Congreve, VC (Victoria Cross On 15th December, 1899 at the Battle of Colenso, South Africa. On 15th December, 1899 at the Battle of Colenso, South Africa, Captain Congreve with several others, tried to save the guns of the 14th and 66 th Batteries, Royal Field Artillery, when the detachment serving the guns had all become casualties or been driven from their guns. Some of the horses and drivers were sheltering in a Donga about 500 yards behind the guns and the intervening space was swept with shell and rifle fire. Captain Congreve, with two other officers* helped to hook a team into a limber and then to limber up a gun. Although wounded himself, seeing one of the officers fall, he went out with an RAMC Major* and brought him in. (Was the father of Major W. la. Touche Congreve, who earned the Victoria Cross on 20 July 1916 at Longueval, France - posthumously))
 
BEF XIV Corps: Frederick Rudolf Lambart “Fatty” Earl of Cavan
 
Front Line Commanders:
 
BEF 36th Ulster Division: MG Clifford Coffin, VC (Victoria Cross on 31st July, 1917 at Westhock, Belgium, when his command was held up in attack owing to heavy machine-gun and rifle fire. Brigadier-General Coffin went forward and made an inspection of his front posts. Although under the heaviest fire from both machine-guns and rifles and in full view of the enemy, he showed an utter disregard of personal danger, walking quietly from shell-hole to shell-hole giving advice and cheering his men by his presence. His gallant conduct had the greatest effect on all ranks and it was largely owing to his personal courage and example that the shell-hole line was held.)
 
BEF 38th Welsh Division: BG E. Alexander, VC (Victoria Cross on 24 August 1914 at Elouges, Belgium, when the flank guard was attacked by a German corps, Major Alexander handled his battery against overwhelming odds with such conspicuous success that all his guns were saved notwithstanding that they had to be withdrawn by hand by himself and volunteers led by a Captain of the 9th Lancers (see F.O. Grenfell Reg. No. 492). This enabled the retirement of the 5th Division to be carried out without serious loss. Subsequently, Major Alexander rescued a wounded man under heavy fire.)
 
BEF 46th Division: MG Gerald 'Gerry' Farrell Boyd: ( ‘The ranker general’, entered the army as a private soldier in the Devonshire Regiment in 1895. He fought in the South African War as a sergeant and was awarded the DCM. He was commissioned in the field as a Second Lieutenant in the East Yorkshire Regiment in May 1900. In 1904 he was promoted Captain in the Leinster Regiment, the rank he held on the outbreak of war. He began the Great War as Brigade Major in Hunter-Weston’s 11th Brigade. In March 1915 he was promoted GSO2, 1st Division, then under the command of Richard Haking. He also received his majority in the Royal Irish Regiment. In July 1915 he was promoted GSO1, 6th Division (Major-General Charles Ross). He held this post for a year before being promoted BGGS V Corps. He was chief of staff of V Corps for two years before being given his own command, 170th (2/1st North Lancashire) Brigade, 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division, TF, in July 1918. On 4 September he was promoted GOC 46th (North Midland) Division in succession to Major-General William Thwaites. He was 40. Twenty-five days later the division broke the Hindenburg Line at Bellenglise, one of the outstanding divisional performances of the war. Boyd embodied the ‘can-do’ spirit of the army of 1918. His Confidential Report at the end of the war spoke of his being ‘a disciplinarian, a tremendous worker, at all times cheerful and optimistic ... and he can, and does, breathe his own indomitable spirit into his men’. ‘Major-General G F Boyd had a most attractive personality,’ recalled the historian of 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. ‘He was young. He was handsome… He had a smile for everyone. He had a brain like lightning and an imagination as vivid … When the 46th Division was placed in his hands he seized it as an expert swordsman seizes a priceless blade. This was just the weapon he had been looking for. He would wield it as it had never been wielded before. He would breathe his luck upon it; with it he would leap to victory.’ Major-General Gerry Boyd died young, while Military Secretary at the War Office.)
 
 

I think Pershing was pretty average really.  Can't think of much exceptional he did.  I suppose 'average' can be considered good given the state of most Brit/French generals though!

Can't think of a top 5 really but names I can think of I don't see mentioned...

Herbert Plumer
Edmund Allenby - he tore up the Ottoman Empire pretty well!
Henri Gouraud  (not sure as to his military competence but he was certainly inspiring!)

I think two names who really shine bright would be Hutier and Monash but they have already been mentioned.



...for the naval war I would controversially say John Jellicoe, who was, after all, eventually proven right (ie the blockade ruined Germany).

I'm hard pressed to think of 5 commanders (or politicians) in this war who shouldn't have been shot out of hand for gross incompetence and murder.

I don't think there was all that much difference in the amount of political miscalculation or military incompetence in WWI and the vast majority of other wars. It was just that the scale had grown so vast, that those mistakes now led to the death of numbers unimagined.

I have such a hard time coming up with any generals who are worthy of note from WWI. Most of them had no idea how to conduct a battle. Just send 4 waves of soldiers against a defensive position hoping there would be enough left in the 4th line to take the position. Hardly a plan of an accomplished general.

That being said, I would like to name the General of the Canadian Corps, Sir Arthur Currie. The Canadian Corps was one force that the Germans avoided. It was also to be in the forefront of the BEF's efforts to win the war. Such as Third Ypres and the Hundred Days in 1918.

Sadly, the Canadian contribution to the Great War has gone unappreciated for far too long. The commitment the Canadians made to King and Empire were beyond reproach and should be noted as a significant force behind the defeat of Germany.

I think of Napoleon's remark that Generals win the glory while the soldiers win the battles.

British/Commonwealth Corps commanders: Currie, Monash and Maxse.

ORIGINAL: kylenapoleon
Sadly, the Canadian contribution to the Great War has gone unappreciated for far too long.

Canada's contribution in both World Wars in unappreciated.

It is difficult to remove the combatants from their times but the blatant disregard for the value of human life in the face of the predominance of rapidly industrialized warfare is almost unimaginable. Morons like Haig, Falkenhayn, Joffre, etc., cannot, IMHO, be sheilded.

I have such a hard time coming up with any generals who are worry of note from WWI. Most of them had no idea how to conduct a battle. Just send 4 waves of soldiers against a defensive position hoping there would be enough left in the 4th line to take the position. Hardly a plan of an accomplished general.

That is true at the start of the war - but tactics on all sides evolved considerably - by August 1917 the British, for example, were using the platoon as the basic combat unit and integrating trench mortars with the platoon's inherent firepower of Lewis light-machineguns, rifle grenades and rifle sections. The tactics (see for example the 38th Division Orders for Attack in August 1917 - G484) included bypassing enemy strongpoints and attacking them from the rear.

Another example of British/Commonwealth tactical evolution is the tank attack at Cambrai where, for example, the 7th Somersets - supporting tanks - managed to capture a strong point (the village of La Vacquerie) that was the front line of the Hindenburg line by frontal assault - losing 6 dead and 34 wounded out of a battalion of about 800.

There were significant tactical advances (both offensive and defensive) by all sides of the war. These were brought about by intelligent officers both learning from mistakes and by training others. These officers were at all levels of the forces involved.

What must be remembered though is how much technology advanced in the war - changes in artillery techniques on all sides were immense, aircraft were used for the first time in large numbers for combat, tanks were invented, light machineguns were deployed for the first time, flame throwers and gas were developed into usable combat tools. All of these changes were implemented by the military on all sides of the conflict by men who had the vision to see their capabilities. They then had to be tried out, refined and retried until tactics were evolved to use them properly.

ORIGINAL: Bossy573

I'm hard pressed to think of 5 commanders (or politicians) in this war who shouldn't have been shot out of hand for gross incompetence and murder.

I dunno, its hard to say. Consider Rawlinson, commander of "The First Day on the Somme". An incompetent butcher? Looking at the Somme it would appear so. But he also commanded at Amiens in 1918, "the black day of the German army".

ORIGINAL: 7th Somersets

I have such a hard time coming up with any generals who are worry of note from WWI. Most of them had no idea how to conduct a battle. Just send 4 waves of soldiers against a defensive position hoping there would be enough left in the 4th line to take the position. Hardly a plan of an accomplished general.

That is true at the start of the war - but tactics on all sides evolved considerably - by August 1917 the British, for example, were using the platoon as the basic combat unit and integrating trench mortars with the platoon's inherent firepower of Lewis light-machineguns, rifle grenades and rifle sections. The tactics (see for example the 38th Division Orders for Attack in August 1917 - G484) included bypassing enemy strongpoints and attacking them from the rear.

Another example of British/Commonwealth tactical evolution is the tank attack at Cambrai where, for example, the 7th Somersets - supporting tanks - managed to capture a strong point (the village of La Vacquerie) that was the front line of the Hindenburg line by frontal assault - losing 6 dead and 34 wounded out of a battalion of about 800.

There were significant tactical advances (both offensive and defensive) by all sides of the war. These were brought about by intelligent officers both learning from mistakes and by training others. These officers were at all levels of the forces involved.

What must be remembered though is how much technology advanced in the war - changes in artillery techniques on all sides were immense, aircraft were used for the first time in large numbers for combat, tanks were invented, light machineguns were deployed for the first time, flame throwers and gas were developed into usable combat tools. All of these changes were implemented by the military on all sides of the conflict by men who had the vision to see their capabilities. They then had to be tried out, refined and retried until tactics were evolved to use them properly.

I agree, really, WW1 was a hotbed of innovation, more so than WW2 even. I think in WW2 they refined a lot of things, but really, the first modern war was WW1. The way in which war was fought was revolutionised between 1914 and 1918.