worst general in history

[dead0man]

Abdel Hakim Amer link
Luigi Cadorna link
Charles Alexander of Lorraine link
Charles le Temeraire (the Bold) link
William George Keith Elphinstone link
Francisco Solano López link
Arthur Percival link
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna link
Zhao Kuo
John Bell Hood link

Amer lost the Sinai to the Israelis for Egypt
Cadorna was the worst general in the war with the most horrible generals, wwi
Charles Alex had a long career stinking up the joint
Charles the Bold boldly pissed off all his neighbors (the PRC should take note)
Ephinston lead 16000 90 miles from Kabul to Jalalabad, only one dude made it.
Lopez attacked Brazil AND Argentina
Percival famously said "Defences are bad for morale – for both troops and civilians". a few months before the Japanese took Singapore.
Santa Anna was nowhere near as good as he thought he was.
Zhao Kuo only lost one battle, but it was a big one.
Hood, it's been argued, cost the South the south.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Oh yeah, I read about Elphinstone in “The Great Game”. Garbage.

[beaver2.0]

You probably haven't heard of him, because he lost before any battles were actually fought.

[dead0man]

You probably haven't heard of him, because he lost before any battles were actually fought.

deep man

[Orser67]

Solano Lopez has always been one of my favorite candidates for "worst ruler of all time"

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Solano Lopez has always been one of my favorite candidates for "worst ruler of all time"

Paraguay lost something like 40-50% of their entire population in that insane war. Paraguay is such a small country, they would lose in a 1v1 against Argentina or Brazil. Yet they declared war on both of them. Mind boggling.

[darklordoftech]

George McClellan was pretty bad.

[BenBurch]

Abdel Hakim Amer link
Luigi Cadorna link
Charles Alexander of Lorraine link
Charles le Temeraire (the Bold) link
William George Keith Elphinstone link
Francisco Solano López link
Arthur Percival link
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna link
Zhao Kuo
John Bell Hood link

Amer lost the Sinai to the Israelis for Egypt
Cadorna was the worst general in the war with the most horrible generals, wwi
Charles Alex had a long career stinking up the joint
Charles the Bold boldly pissed off all his neighbors (the PRC should take note)
Ephinston lead 16000 90 miles from Kabul to Jalalabad, only one dude made it.
Lopez attacked Brazil AND Argentina
Percival famously said "Defences are bad for morale – for both troops and civilians". a few months before the Japanese took Singapore.
Santa Anna was nowhere near as good as he thought he was.
Zhao Kuo only lost one battle, but it was a big one.
Hood, it's been argued, cost the South the south.

The PRC outweighs its neighbors by so much I'm not sure they could lose.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The PRC outweighs its neighbors by so much I'm not sure they could lose.

While the PLA is in much better shape today. the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 is yet another rebuttal to the idea that weight is all that matters.

[BenBurch]

The PRC outweighs its neighbors by so much I'm not sure they could lose.

While the PLA is in much better shape today. the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 is yet another rebuttal to the idea that weight is all that matters.

That was in 1979, three years after Mao died.  The PLA is in a much better position now.  Although, India is a lot stronger than it was then, too. 

[Gary J]

The worst General in US history was William Hull in the War of 1812.

An American army under the command of William Hull invaded Canada on July 12, with his forces chiefly composed of untrained and ill-disciplined militiamen.[95] Once on Canadian soil, Hull issued a proclamation ordering all British subjects to surrender, or "the horrors, and calamities of war will stalk before you".[96] This led many of the British forces to defect. John Bennett, printer and publisher of the York Gazette & Oracle, was a prominent defector. Andrew Mercer, who had the publication's production moved to his house, lost the press and type destroyed during American occupation, an example of what happened to resisters.[97] He also threatened to kill any British prisoner caught fighting alongside a native. The proclamation helped stiffen resistance to the American attacks. Hull's army was too weak in artillery and badly supplied to achieve its objectives, and had to fight just to maintain its own lines of communication.[citation needed]

The senior British officer in Upper Canada, Major General Isaac Brock, felt that he should take bold measures to calm the settler population in Canada, and to convince the aboriginals who were needed to defend the region that Britain was strong.[95] He moved rapidly to Amherstburg near the western end of Lake Erie with reinforcements and immediately decided to attack Detroit. Hull, fearing that the British possessed superior numbers and that the Indians attached to Brock's force would commit massacres if fighting began, surrendered Detroit without a fight on August 16. Knowing of British-instigated indigenous attacks on other locations, Hull ordered the evacuation of the inhabitants of Fort Dearborn (Chicago) to Fort Wayne. After initially being granted safe passage, the inhabitants (soldiers and civilians) were attacked by Potowatomis on August 15 after travelling only 2 miles (3.2 km) in what is known as the Battle of Fort Dearborn.[98] The fort was subsequently burned.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Regarding Amer, Israeli-Arabs wars are an excellent example of a numerically and frequently technologically superior force (the Arabs) being unable to beat more limited and at many times less equipped enemy due to their own incompetence and the latter's superior skills and tactics. This somewhat reminds of Iraq-Iran War. Iraq was being equipped by almost the entire world and, on paper, had more disciplined army, while Iran lacked more modern arms and its army literally was born out of the revolutionary chaos. Though Iranians failed in their subsequent attempts to invade, it was Iraq that failed epically in what was thought to be an easy task (defeating an isolated neighbour, weakened by the internal turmoil). I'm not sure I'd consider Amer as particularly terrible (certainly not good), more like a good representative of a wider problem.

Arab problems with winning as organized armies is a long subject. I'll just recall my favorite example from the Yom Kippur War. There were many instances Egyptian crews took freshly-delivered brand new Soviet tank and immediately drove to the frontline. They saw the enemy, aimed, fired and guess what happened. The bloody tank gun had been sealed for the transport.

You can easily guess the outcome for the tank and its crew.  

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Matthias Gallas, Imperial general during the Thirty Years War:

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[Mr. Smith]

Why no mention of George Armstrong Custer again?

[dead0man]

Why no mention of George Armstrong Custer again?

he was only a Col when he screwed the pooch.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The namesake of the largest military installation in the world by population (it's in North Carolina).

[CatoMinor]

Francisco Solano López should get honorable mention.

[dead0man]

Francisco Solano López should get honorable mention.

#6

[The Mikado]

In mild defense of Elphinstone, his catastrophic defeat was a terrible capstone of a long and fairly illustrious career including heroic conduct at Waterloo. The defeat was decades after he should have retired.

[CatoMinor]

Francisco Solano López should get honorable mention.

#6

Ah, must have missed him.