Thread: Britain's Greatest General Debate

There will be a debate on 30 Oct 08 at 7pm in the Guildhall, Salisbury on the above topic. The host (I have never heard of him) is David Dickinson (I understand he is not the weird orange bloke who hangs around antique markets).

The combatants are:

Saul David for 1st Duke of Marlborough;

Simon Scarrow for 1st Duke of Wellington;

Damien Lewis for 1st Viscount Slim.

My vote is for Slim, however Saul David is probably the most compelling speaker.

His grace the Iron Duke IMHO...

...as opposed to 'Britain's Greatest Debate General', which was the headline after the government vetoed Dickie 'balls of steel' Dannatt for the top job.

OK Duke of Marlborough and Duke of Wellington were responsible for battering the French (always a worthy task) but Its very difficult to decide because your candidates fought in different styles of warfare and is really quite difficult to compare their battles.

Also I feel more candidates should be up there, like Edward the Black Prince and many others.

The most amusing....

Read 'Defeat into Victory' and there can be only one winner!!

Originally Posted by fusil89

OK Duke of Marlborough and Duke of Wellington were responsible for battering the French (always a worthy task) but Its very difficult to decide because your candidates fought in different styles of warfare and is really quite difficult to compare their battles.

It hardly takes a great general to beat the French, now does it?

SLIM!

As someone said, read Defeat into Victory.

Wellington. Just look at the number of campaigns that he dominated and the time period he did it over.

Originally Posted by Crazy_Legs

Read 'Defeat into Victory' and there can be only one winner!!

I totally agree. Having read "Slim the Standard Bearer" by Ronald Lewin you realise what a human character he was, and 50 years ahead of his time in terms of management technique and "diversity". And of course he got into the mind of the enemy to great effect. The way he also resisted the pleads of the "special forces" lobby insisting that a normal soldier, well led, motivated and trained could do just as good a job. The retreat from Burma would have broken a lesser man. No wonder he was loved by his men.

Slim's got my vote.

Would it be impudent to ask what the point of this debate is? These men, as great as their achievements undoubtedly were, are long dead. Unless this debate is intended to finally put an end to the saga of the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square, I think they are wasting their breath.

I don't know much about the Duke of Marlborough, much to my regret, but understand he had a difficult job as he was commanding a coalition.

The Duke of Wellington had some excellent results in India, but could be argued, that his posting there was much to his elder brothers influence. In Spain, his initial results at Rolica and Vimeiro were outstanding, defeating the fench as soon as he landed, however if he was still the commander of the expeditionary force instead of Sir John Moore, the question would be could he have extracted his force under pressure of Napoleon's advance.

Later in Spain Wellington had an advantage that his overland supply lanes were more secure and Royal Naval supremacy alowed him the freedon of manouver, the French did not have. Also with Spanish forces spread wide, French forces in Spain could not consolidate against him. But saying all that he did co-ordinate a solid alliance in the penninsula.

Slim, well I have to say, always been a fan, based on extracting his force then re-building it for re-capture of Burma. Faced with the difficult terrain, an enemy that did not now when to give up, all the time being at the bottom of the food chain when it came to reinforcements, Europe taking the priority.

How about Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell? Nearly drove the Italians out of the whole of Libya before having to divert forces to Greece in 1941. This whilst being outnumbered by the Italians.

Or Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham? Commanded the forces that cleared the Italians out of the Horn of Africa, taking 50,000 captive for 500 KIA.

Or maybe Sir Thomes Fairfax or Oliver Cromwell. Both of whom managed to to take a rag bag mix of soldiers from 3 seperate armies and build the first standing national army in the 1640's. Or maybe Sir John Norries, commanded forces for Elizabeth 1st in Ireland, Holland and France in very akward conditions. Or Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, finally defeated the various rumbling Irish factions in 1604 after nearly 30 years of on/off warfare. Or General James Wolfe, whose capture of Quebec ended his life in 1759.

All three great generals, however neither Slim or Wellington were/are considered the best of their generation as Napoleon or Guderian.Manstein usually take these plaudits. The reson for this is that they completely re-wrote the rule book and shattered the conventions of what had gone before. They were the visionaries that transformed warfare. However if we look at Malborough we see he is the visionary who changes the nature of warfare with his dramatic movements and highly agressisve battle tactics.

If you don't know much about him he is definately worth a read. A good book on Blenheim which explains how his rapid and highly suprising manouvre forced the battle, and then how he tactically controlled the battle, forcing the French to conform to his desires and then having sucked in the French Reserves to the flanks shattering the weakened French centre with his massed cavalry will be a good start. Vision, innovation and balls of stell.

Jusy my twp pennies worth.

CJ

Slim commaded the largest and most diverse of Britain's Armies in WW2. He was also (unlike - tantalisingly absent from the nomiinees - Monty) personally responsible for the defeat of the enemy's main army in the field, despite being at the bottom of the resources prioority list, and at the end of a most extraordinarily stretched line of sommunications. He managed to maintain excellent relations with, and the complete trust of, the allied officers he worked with and for (a feat that consistently defeated Monty), and always gave the credit for his victories to the blokes who fought for him.

Not bad for the grammar-school educated son of a dodgy Brummy ironmonger.

He gets my vote.

Arthur Wellesly commanded at least 3 very different armies.

In India it was diverse with mainly Indian local troops backed up with EI company and regular British troops.
In the peninsular it was a mixed brew of European troops with varying experience.
The Waterloo campaign was mostly unseasoned troops.
Wellingon never lost a battle, despite having more worries than more contemporary generals.