While the First World War was characterised by bloody stalemates and the famous,
although perhaps unfair, "lions led by donkeys" approach to generalship, the Second World War
was radically different. Second World War was a collision of different leadership styles and
strategies, giving us some of the most famous tacticians ever to command troops in the field.
Erwin Rommel, Douglas McArthur, Bernard Montgomery, Isoroku Yamamoto – these names,
and many others, are now mentioned in hushed tones, having become part
of the legendary fabric of the Second World War, larger-than-life models of how to run a campaign.
But what did these titans think of each other? Who feared who? Who struck trepidation into
the hearts of their fellow generals, and who commanded the most respect? Let's find out
in today's video.
El Aghelia. Libya. December 1942. The Second Battle of El Alamein has just been won. The forces of
Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, and one of the most respected Nazi generals, are in retreat.
The Allied forces pursue them, sensing victory, but something is wrong.
For the men of the British 8th Army, El Aghelia is not somewhere new. They've
been here before – twice before, in fact. This was an inhospitable place, especially to the
soldiers of the British 8th Army, more suited to the climate of Northern Europe or Canada.
Even the army's Indian, Australian, and South African soldiers,
arguably better prepared for the ravages of extreme heat, found El Aghelia tough going.
But it wasn't just the heat, it was memory too. Specifically,
the memory of engaging Rommel's forces here twice before. The memory of the tactics Rommel's
divisions used, the way they turned sandstorms and natural features into weapons and shields,
the way they moved like ghosts across a frightening landscape.
The way the Germans won here, time and time again, even when all seemed lost.
“The Agheila position was naturally very strong," Field Marshal Montgomery would later write. "It
covered the area of desert between the sea … which formed a difficult obstacle running
east and west. There were only a few tracks through this sand sea, and so long as Rommel
held the area, he could hold up our advance or alternatively could debouch at will against us.”
Rommel is one of the most famous generals of the Second World War, for good reason. The man
was a brilliant strategist and an astonishingly successful campaigner. But the name of Bernard
Law Montgomery carries almost as much weight. And, of course, this is for a very good reason
too. Montgomery understood that Rommel would seek to stop the advance here, so he planned a daring
attack, moving his troops along the coast to the north, and sending a second force to move up on
the German flank at the other end of the line, some 120 miles to the south. It was a success, the
ghosts of El Aghelia were laid to rest, and the Allies strode closer to victory in North Africa.
In his memoirs, Montgomery would write: "Rommel was the best general
the Germans had in the field. He was a great opponent, and I respected him greatly."
This respect is evident in the way Montgomery went about his campaigns. He knew exactly what
Rommel could do and recognised that the situation on the southern shores of the Mediterranean was
precarious. Whether this respect ever strayed into the realms of fear, it's uncertain – but
what is certain is that Rommel's forces had a profound psychological effect on Montgomery's
men. The tactics and manoeuvres deployed by Rommel were devastatingly effective, and the
knowledge of this lingered on, even when victory was within the grasp of the British 8th Army.
Erwin Rommel is one of those names that loom large in history. This is a man whose
strategic military mind and master tactics have become legendary in the years since the war,
and the general's famous plot against Hitler and subsequent death in the face of persecution by
the regime have helped to separate him from just another cog in the Nazi war machinery.
Whether the historical assessment of Rommel as a reluctant Nazi and an inherently good
man – "the good German as he was sometimes described – is actually
legitimate is up for debate. Some believe this is a myth, or at least a legend,
that has emerged due to his latter years and the circumstances of his death.
However, what seems more likely is that Rommel was indeed a great general and something of a
military genius. The staggering levels of respect that the Allied commanders
had for the Wüstenfuchs, or Desert Fox, certainly helped to fuel this.
Montgomery, who we've looked at already, certainly respected Rommel to the point of
fear. The American General George Patton may have harboured similar feelings.
When we think of General George S. Patton, it's not 'fear' that immediately springs to
mind. Instead, we think of George C. Scott and his bombastic rhetoric in the 1970 movie about
Patton's life. We think of exploits in North Africa, at Normandy, and during the push across
Europe. We think of the man who's commendation from the Sultan of Morrocco after Operation
Torch read: The lions in their dens tremble at his approach And yet, hints of fear do exist in
Patton's personal letters and diary entries. He certainly wrote favourably about the tactics and
military understanding of his German counterpart and may even have grown anxious about the prospect
of facing him. Patton, he who would not – could not – be rattled, may have been rattled.
He had good reason to be rattled. By January 30th, 1943, only a couple of months after the initial
Allied landing in Morocco, Free French troops engaged the Nazi 21st Panzer division at Faïd in
the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The brief firefight was successful, the Axis fell back,
and by the time the American 1st Armoured Division entered the battle, a full-scale
rout was on the cards. The 1st Armoured Division gave chase and ran right into a trap – a screen of
hidden anti-tank eighty-eights. "It was murder," a frontline artillery observer would later say,
"[the armour] rolled right into the muzzles of the concealed eighty-eights, and all I could do
was stand by and watch tank after tank blown to bits or burst into flames or just stop, wrecked."
This was a taster of what Rommel and his tactics were capable of. Three weeks later,
at The Battle of the Kasserine Pass, the Allies would witness this again, on a much larger scale.
The Kasserine Pass would be the first major defeat for the Americans outside of the Pacific.
It would also be the end for General Lloyd Fredendall. An experienced commander,
Fredendall found that the blame for Kasserine fell largely at his feet. The separation of his forces,
and his seeming ignorance of what Rommel might be planning, sealed his fate – some 3,000
allied soldiers were dead, the advance in North Africa had stalled, and Fredendall would be out.
Of course, it was Patton who replaced him. Perhaps the seeds of fear had already been sown.
There are myths surrounding Rommel, but there are certain myths around Patton too. The general's
historical legacy is a complex one. Known as Old Blood and Guts for his apparent bravery and
ruthlessness, this became "his guts, our blood" for many of the soldiers who served under him, as
it was them who would put themselves on the line for the cause. And yet Patton probably did care
about his men and certainly took steps to minimise casualties where possible. But General Patton
was also a proud man, one whose career served to define who he was and what he was all about. The
fact that Rommel had outfoxed his predecessor Fredendall – humiliated him, cut him down to
size – must have given Patton a chill. “Never take counsel of your fears. Pursue the enemy with
the utmost audacity," reads the inscription on Patton's statue at West Point, but when the enemy
could bring public disgrace and professional ruin, it's a different matter altogether.
Sparta in the 4th Century BC – a society built on military might and personal bravery. Zululand in
the early 1800s – the greatest standing army the region had ever seen, and a truly dominant force.
History gives us plenty of examples of martial peoples, militaristic societies in which strength
and prowess are everything, and there is no place for weakness. Few societies have been
quite so obsessed with military discipline and rank, however, as Prussia in the 19th Century.
This was the background into which Erich von Manstein was born. On November 24th, 1887,
Eduard von Lewinski and Helene von Sperling welcomed their son Erich into the world.
Eduard was a general in the Prussian army, and his father, Erich's grandfather,
had been an Oberstleutnant, or Lieutenant Colonel. Helene's father was also a genera,
and both sides of the family were firmly anchored in the Prussian aristocracy.
But little Erich would not stay a von Lewinski for long – he was soon adopted by Helene's childless
sister and her husband Lieutenant Georg von Manstein. Another layer of aristocratic,
military pedigree was added, and Erich von Manstein's future began to take shape.
The relationship between Naziism and the blue-blooded Prussian elite was a complex one.
On the one hand, Hitler's view of a German people reborn, of a society built upon racial purity
rather than aristocratic purity, was at odds with the very idea of a Prussian aristocracy.
And yet, the typically right-wing tendencies of this elite and their obsession was military
discipline and law and order made them perfect for upholding a fascist dictatorship.
The Prussian class also gave Hitler some of his greatest generals,
not least – Erich von Manstein. But von Manstein was different. He wasn't some
lumbering dinosaur harping back to past campaigns. He was the living,
breathing embodiment of Blitzkrieg– of hypermobile lightning war. Von Manstein's agility in the field
helped to shatter the French Army in the opening phases of the war, and he was instrumental as
the Nazi armed forces unleashed their hellfire on the Russians in the east the following year.
This certainly caught the attention of the Society commander Georgy Zhukov.
"Manstein was a highly talented commander, who was regarded as
the German army's leading strategist," he would write later in his memoirs,
but in those frightening first months after the non-aggression pact fell apart, Zhukov must have
felt something a little stronger than begrudging admiration. He may well have felt downright fear.
The speed with which von Manstein advanced on Leningrad was intended to strike a devastating
blow to Russian morale. His encirclement of three Soviet armies at Kerch in Crimea the
following year in 1942 was another exceptional piece of strategy and one that humbled a still
faltering Russian war effort. And then there was Sevastopol. The battlefield at Sevastopol
brought new challenges, restricting the rapid mobility von Manstein favoured. Despite this,
the German general's 22nd Panzer Division was still able to score a devastating victory over
the Soviet troops, essentially knocking Lieutenant General Dmitri Kozlov's 51st Army out of the war.
Who was the better tactician? Who was the more accomplished general? Was it Zhukov – hero of
Berlin, victor in the Great Patriotic War? Or was it von Manstein – the man who brought
Russia to her knees and almost brought her down altogether? In the end, it's the victors who
write the history books. As the dominoes began to fall – as the savage Russian winter took its toll,
as North Africa and then Italy fell, as the Nazis became desperately overstretched, and then as
Allied troops landed in France – the showdown in the east began to tip in Zhukov's favour.
By the time Berlin fell in May 1945, von Manstein was no longer in command. He was
arrested in his hospital bed after suffering complications from the eye surgery he'd received
the previous year. He would be sentenced to 18 years in prison for war crimes and died
in 1973 aged 85. His one-time adversary, Zhukov, would pass away the following year
Few Japanese soldiers understood the true nature of war as Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto did. In January 1941, almost a full year before the attack on Pearl Harbour,
the Admiral described his own reservations regarding the war.
"Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States," he wrote. 'It
would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco.
To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and
dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians have
confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices."
Despite this apparent uncertainty, it was Yamamoto himself who would be tasked with masterminding the
assault on the Pearl Harbour naval base – a daring mission with an uncertain outcome. The
Japanese knew that Pearl Harbour would bring the United States into the war, but they hoped that a
crushing strategic victory would essentially take her out of it at the same time. With her entire
fleet gone, the USA would be at the mercy of the Japanese, and the game would be up.
At just after 7 a.m. on the morning of December 7th, 1941, a radar station in Oahu picks up
unidentified aircraft inbound. The concerns are dismissed – surely this is just a detachment of
American B-1s. By 7:49, the unthinkable is happening, the Japanese attack begins,
as aerial and naval forces fight desperately to wipe the American fleet off the map.
For more than two hours, the fight rages – the USS Arizona explodes spectacularly at
8:10. At 9:30 a.m., the USS Shaw explodes in her dry dock. Half an hour later,
the Japanese forces disengaged – an enormous, unqualified win
and a massive leap forward for the Japanese juggernaut poised to overwhelm the Pacific.
Except, it isn't any of those things. Pearl Harbour burns. US military hardware sinks to
the bottom of the ocean. Nearly 2,500 American lives have been taken. But the attack is a
failure – both politically and militarily. The failure of the Japanese to declare war before
the assault enraged the American people, turning what could have been a death blow for morale into
a political rallying point. The US Navy's carriers, which were the critical strategic
targets, were not even at Pearl Harbour during the attack and remained unscathed and battle-ready.
Only three of the major ships hit by the Japanese that morning would be knocked out of the war.
The rest would be repaired and sent out into the fray.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
Whether this was an actual quote from Yamamoto,
or just a neat invention for the film Tora, Tora, Tora is uncertain.
But Yamamoto certainly understood the magnitude of what they had done. He reportedly spent
the days following the attack in a state of depression, agonising over what was to come.
"Yamamoto was one of the most able and resourceful military leaders of the war,"
General Douglas MacArthur wrote in his memoirs. "He was the architect of the surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor and was responsible for some of the most brilliant naval operations of the war."
And yet the surprise attack was a failure. Yamamoto would then preside over another defeat,
at Midway, in June of the following year. Often discussed as a key turning point – the moment
the tide of war began to shift against the Japanese – the strategic importance
of the Battle of Midway is perhaps a little overstated, a little too clouded in the fog
of legend and mythology. But this was still a monumental defeat for the Japanese and
one that certainly laid the groundwork for the Allied victories in the years to come.
So why did MacArthur fear Yamamoto? It was General Homma who had brought him to the very
brink of destruction in the Philippines – when Macarthur escaped from Corregidor island with
promises to return. What was it about Yamamoto that made him such a formidable adversary?
Yamamoto represented something a little different from other members of the Japanese
high command. The Admiral was not driven by ideas of supremacy and superiority – instead,
he was a soldier, someone who sought to temper the bloodthirsty
rhetoric of politicians like Hideki Tojo and transform it into a workable plan of action.
While the Japanese war effort was sometimes consumed by traditional notions of Bushido
and military honour, Yamamoto's style was more pragmatic and practical. If the Japanese were to
succeed in the Pacific, it would be men like Yamamoto who would make it happen. Perhaps
it was this factor that made McArthur uneasy, rather than banzai charges and kamikaze attacks.
As it turned out, Yamamoto would not live to see the end of the war. On the morning of April 18th,
1943, his Mitsubishi G-4M "Betty" transport plane was shot down in
an American ambush over the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Admiral Yamamoto lost his life,
and Japan lost one of its most brilliant commanders.
Yamamoto died in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Rommel; at his own hand,
after a plot to assassinate Hitler. Patton was killed in a car accident shortly after the end
of the war. MacArthur, Montgomery, Zhukov, and Von Manstein would all live to old age,
although Manstein would spend many of his later years in prison after his war crimes conviction.
Some found themselves on the losing side, while others were victorious. Some would live long
post-war lives, some wouldn't even see the end of the conflict. The stories we've looked at
may intertwine, but they are all individuals, and all unique. One thing that all these men shared,
however, is their military prowess – their formidable strategic understanding.
What do you think about the generals we've looked at today? Was MacArthur right to fear Yamamoto,
was von Manstein really no match for Zhukov? Let us know in the comments! Until next time...