100 WORST Britons - according to the Daily Mail
 

Quote:

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Field Marshal Earl Haig...Responsible for the needless death of countless British Tommies in World War 1

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True. But also responsible for the death of over 20,000 in ONE day - on 1st July 1916 on the Somme! Over 450,000 casualties while under his command!!

Not true. Churchill ordered it - at the behest of one Joseph Stalin.

Nothing has change in Parliament then.

There were many more. Just picked two or three from a Mil standpoint.

Was Johnny Rotten on it?

Or Neil Kinnock??

Or our "friends" Admin Guru or WEBF :)

:D None of the above!

Was The Scottish Officer featured?

Haig - Agree. Some would argue he was just doing his best, according to the rules of war at the time. But his war of attrition resulted in enormous numbers of British casualties, partly because of his wish to keep his offensives all-British affairs, instead of waiting for support from French and US forces.

Harris - Disagree. I think a WW2 Lancaster crew member summed it up very succinctly:

"If you couldn't get the German in his factory, it was just as easy to knock him off in his bed. And if old Granny Schiklegruber next door got the chop, that's just hard luck."

Cromwell - Disagree - Not quite as bad as Charles I, who claimed to rule by divine right.

Tony B Liar multiplied by 100

I vote for the chap who short changed me at least ten quid in a bar in Oxford last weekend -- tosser.....

I will resist the temptation to name the establishment in this forum.




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Prince Edward (Current one) must have been on the list!

Or maybe he was on the "100 Britons who squeezed as much out of his position as possible!!!"

:p ;)

The Duke of Cumberland (the one that ravaged Scotland).

mutleyfour

Prince Edward is in the list.

Lynda Lee Potter said the following

I take it that The Mail didn't include the forces sweetheart, Mrs. Thatcher, who presided over:
The wholesale destruction of the army medical services.
The closure of the military hospitals.
The introduction of a series of kit issues that rendered a servicemans life in the field more painful and dangerous.
A "morale boosting" payrise that gave servicemen about 3%, over 18 months when inflation was running in excess of that.

I never did understand why most people in the forces supported her when she so royally shafted all three services in succession.

Churchil
 

There has to be a entry for Churchil. A monumental ***ked up person if there ever was one. The first to take the credit for suscess and the last to take the blame.

And with a massive belief in his own abilities and insights which lead us to defeat after defeat in WW2. No wonder he was snozzled every hour of every day of his life.

A Civilian

Actually, Churchill was in the 100 BEST Britons. Quite rightly in my view. But then what do I know? I only lived through the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. But, I wouldn't expect you accept my opinion.

However, your view of Churchill is based on what exactly?

Churchil was a nutter
 

Actually, Churchill was in the 100 BEST Britons. Quite rightly in my view. But then what do I know? I only lived through the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. But, I wouldn't expect you accept my opinion.

However, your view of Churchill is based on what exactly?
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That's interesting as my grand-parent's always hated Churchill. I suggest that you read a few biography's of him. All of them, even those which are biased towards him have quite a few negitive things to say.

Completely disregarding his pre-ww2 history, his wartime failure's were massive. He led the British empire from one defeat to the next. And whilist he can't take the blame for everything (as the higher ranking army, airforce and navy leader's can also be blamed for them) here's a few.

Norway. The distarious failure of the royal navy created a minor scandel in it's day (Churchill was the 1st lord of the admiralty)

Churchill was for attack Russia (which was then allied with germany) to help out the Fin's. Imagine what effect this would of had on the war.

Greece & Crete. A massive waste of both lives and equipment which had been synpthoned off from the western north africa front. The loss of this equipment effectivly lead to a nigh on 3 year battle in north africa. This was based on his "gung ho" style of leadership. The "we must attack them on all fronts" tactics led
to a rout by the massivly outnumbered british force.

Far East. The loss of the Prince of Wales (and the battleship i forget its name) which were the only capitial units of the RN then in the pacific. They were sent by Churchill as a "show of force". He though that this would stop Jap aggression (even though the Jap's outnumbered them 10 to 1) none of his advisor's agreed with this "thinking". (This resulted in the "the british empire has never suffered such a massive defeat". Showing his inability to judge the Japanese as being dangerous foe's on racist grounds.

The almost severing of ties between the Aussies, NZ's and British due to Churchill's wish to keep them in North Africa after the Japanese attacks. This probably lead to Austrialia's pro-US stance after ww2.

The North African field I could probably talk about all day. Suffice to say he constiently forced premature attacks before sufficent forces had been built up amongst other reasons. Churchill was wont to rant and raves against his general's throughout the war. But probably the worst example of this was 2nd El Alamein. An attack on Romel 5 days!!!!! before the America Torch landings.
They attacked by order from Churchill (on political grounds) even though the most sensible thing todo. Was to wait until the American's landed. The German's would of been forced to withdraw and we could of swept them up in the net so to speak. 2nd El Alamein was a distaster in both lives and equipment (they lost 60% of there tank force in this battle, a loss of 3 for 1 versus the Germans) all thrown away for a gain that they would of received anyway 5 days later.

Read a few biography's. The overriding presence of the domination of Churchill's "orders/ threats" appears in nearly every biography of every senior british general ever published. Nobody liked him or his absolutist style of leadership.

I can name a lot more if you like.

A Civillan

Lets take a look at some of your points, shell we?

"Completely disregarding his pre-ww2 history, his wartime failure's were massive. He led the British empire from one defeat to the next."

Perhaps you might not have considered that for the first few years of the war, the allies were losing the war, due to the combination of blitzkreig and the strength of the axis forces. This is the main reason the allies may have appeared to lurch from one disaster to another.

"Norway. The distarious failure of the royal navy created a minor scandel in it's day (Churchill was the 1st lord of the admiralty)"

Indeed he was First Lord of the Admiralty. The key mistake Britain made was not to act fast enough. Churchill realised the strategic importance of Norway, to deny bases for U boats, surface raiders and aircraft, and to cut of supplies of Scandinavian iron ore for the German war machine. The Germans realied its importance too - and acted first.

"Churchill was for attack Russia (which was then allied with germany) to help out the Fin's. Imagine what effect this would of had on the war."

At the time Russia was on Germany's side, remember? If Hitler had not attacked Russia then they would proably have still been allies. At the Red Army had suffered from Stalin's purges, and was ill equipped.

"Greece & Crete. A massive waste of both lives and equipment which had been synpthoned off from the western north africa front. The loss of this equipment effectivly lead to a nigh on 3 year battle in north africa. This was based on his "gung ho" style of leadership. The "we must attack them on all fronts" tactics led
to a rout by the massivly outnumbered british force."

I thought the Greek campaign was due to strategic reasons, principally access (maintaining it ourselves and denying it to the Germans) to oil from the Middle East. Crete was captured by German airborne troops after a seaborne invasion was thwarted by the RN. As for attacking them on all fronts, you might consider that fighting on several fronts simultaneously is what put an end to the third reich.

"Far East. The loss of the Prince of Wales (and the battleship i forget its name) which were the only capitial units of the RN then in the pacific. They were sent by Churchill as a "show of force". He though that this would stop Jap aggression (even though the Jap's outnumbered them 10 to 1) none of his advisor's agreed with this "thinking". (This resulted in the "the british empire has never suffered such a massive defeat". Showing his inability to judge the Japanese as being dangerous foe's on racist grounds."

The other capital ship you are thinking of was the Battlecruiser
Repulse. This was force Z. Force Z was destroyed by very heavy air attacks by Japanese aircraft. Force Z had sailed without a carrier. Whether a carrier, and her fighters, could have saved Force Z is something we will never know. Incidently a (fairly) reason programme on Channel 4 covered the loss of Singapore in some detail. The main culprit (according to the programme)? The commander in Singapore. It wasn't just Churchill who dismissed the potential of the Japanese, in fact there is little evidence to suggest he did. But many people of that time were dismissive of the Japs - for racial reasons. Certainly the Singapore commander was.

I canit be bothered to comment on your other comments but consider this......

When Churchill entered No10 we had almost lost the war. The speed and ferocity of Blitzkreig, the superiority of Axis forces and the state of our defences (neglected in the 20s and 30s) brought us close to defeat. The Battle of France was lost as the French Army collapsed. The BEF fell back to the French coast, centred around Dunkirk. Britain was defeated.

But when the BEF was evacuated, Churchill managed to turn this into a moral victory. And this, in my opinion, was what made him such a great leader. He INSPIRED people, to banish ideas of defeat or a shameful capitulation from their minds, and to fight on.
Could Britain have survived 1940 without his leadership? I don't think so. Later he was instrumental in gaining more and more insistance from the USA until they entered the war. When they did he played a major part in getting the Americans to concentrate on the European (and Atlantic) theatre before the Pacific.

He made some mistakes, yes, but could anyone else have taken his place in 1940?

Churchill had imense leadership, character, courage, determination, tenacity and vision. For these reasons he will always be a great hero, the greatest of horoes, to me, and to very many others, particularly those of us with true blue British blood to whom patriotism isn't just a concept but a real emotion.

Churchill was not only Britain's saviour in the war years, he was also, IMHO, the epitome of Britain and what to be British means.

If the spelling wasn't so bad, (English not your first language, is it A Civilian ? ), I would say we had just found Moritz Suter!

While I deplore A Civilian's language and appalling spelling, he's dead right on Norway, the attitude to Stalin, etc. and ignores Churchill's appalling record between the wars (his attitude to the Unions, the General Strike) and the Dardanelles and Gallipoli in WWI. Massive achievements, for sure, but accompanied by massive failings - perhaps Churchill should be on BOTH lists, bad and good.

I can't believe that certain peeps would even consider placing one of GREAT Britains GREATEST heroes on the WORST list! Notwithstanding the fact that some of his decisions were suspect, WE WON! Let us not forget that, as Beags rightly puts, he effectively snapped victory from the proverbial. In my opinion (and I daresay i'm probably not alone on this one), without the great times-reading-cigar-smoking-charismatic-yet-doesn't-mince-his-words Mr Churchill, we would probably be all wearing black garb and goose-stepping about the place shouting in annoyingly edgy visigoth/hun accents. Too frequently, we allow poor decisions (in this case, the minority) to tarnish great ones (in this case, to not accept defeat). I can think of a few worst Britains:

Liam Gallagher (and his T!at brother)

Ken Dodd

Wrotter

The Krankies

Lemmon Drop Kid