Overrated.

This is coolbert:

From the latest issue of "Armchair General" as extracted.

"Who was the War's Most Overrated leader?" by Laurence Rees. [World War Two]

A list from that period the choice to include those leaders from among the military and political sphere both. Considerations to include only the war years and nothing more.

* Arthur "Bomber" Harris.     Max Hastings, British historian.   "became almost obsessed with pursuing the destruction of German cities, when a more strategic approach . . . might well have more greatly benefited the Allied cause."

* George S. Patton.     Geoffrey Wawro, director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas   "he was pitiless about American casualties."

* Omar Bradley.      Conrad Crane, chief of Historical Services for the Army Heritage and Education Center    "too cautious at very critical times in 1944  and I don't think he reacted well at the Battle of the Bulge."

* Bernard L. Montgomery.     David Cesarani,   British Historian   "grossly overrated as a military leader and his political ineptitude is absolutely breathtaking."

* Mark Clark.     Andrew Roberts,   British historian  " Clark doesn't seem to have any personal redeeming features"

* Douglas MacArthur.     Antony Beevor,   British military historian.   "attempts to influence strategy in the Pacific were probably totally wrong"

* Dwight D. Eisenhower.     Richard Overy, professor history at the University of Exeter.   "He plays almost no part really in constructing, organizing and carry through the operations."

* Franklin Roosevelt.     Anita Przmowska, Polish historian.     "a gap between  between pronouncements and delivery."

* Winston S. Churchill.     Juliet Gardiner,   British social historian  "He made a lot of very stupid military decisions, or tried to make them, to interfere"

* Joseph Stalin.     Robert Service,  Soviet expert.     "He brought the political and the military sides of the war together, but he fought a disastrous war in other respects."

* Georgi Zhukov.     Kirill Anderson, Russian historian    " the number of losses among his soldiers wasn't very important"

* Charles de Gaulle.     William Hitchcock,  professor of history at the University of Virginia.  " difficult, so obstreperous, so unwilling to be flexible, so unwilling to take a second tier position, when he was lucky even to be in the room"

* Emperor Hirohito.     Akira Iriye,  Harvard historian.   "overrated by postwar apologists as a man of peace."

* Adolph Hitler.     Simon Sebag Montefiore, British historian.   "more and more mistakes and became less and less educable"

* Albert Speer.     Adam Tooze, Professor at Yale and a German expert.   "his contribution to the war effort has been grossly exaggerated"

* Heinz Guderian.     Robert M. Cition  professor at the U.S. Army War College.    "Guderian was as loyal to Hitler as they come."

So many possibles. And other experts would have submitted other names. And the devoted readers to the blog can compile their own list?

coolbert.