The worst armies in history

Hello you all.

Determining the worst army must be put in the context of wars or time periods that wars were fought in. For example, I would have chosen the French army as the worst in WWII if it weren�t for the Italians who literally were a curse on the Germans rather than a blessing failing in every campaign even with immense odds in their favor. They went to war to relieve Germans only to find themselves asking the Germans to do the exact opposite and thus saving Russia from annihilation.  None the less, the French didn�t even put up a decent fight against the Germans in 1940 in defense of their country (unlike the Italians did in Sicily though with German help) nor did they launch a guerilla war worth mentioning. But to their credit they rebuilt their army remarkably fast and from the beginning and by the war�s end managed to at least do some pretty good performance. The Soviet would have been definitely first because of what happened in Barbarossa (2 million POW in only one month!!!) to their credit they fought the onslaught of the Nazi�s with 19^th century hunting rifles and no air support but they stopped the Germans in only 6 months. The Mexican Army deserves a prime spot since it was good for nothing from the very beginning.

A final note on Algeria and it war of independence. Well I am sorry to state some facts about that war that few people know or want to hear. First, the French alone had 400 000 war hardened men, excluding the 150 000 harkis, from 1957 till the wars end in 1961 while the number of the rebels never exceeded, as the French say, 25000 at any given instance. Second, after going back to Time magazine�s free archive, there is no better source than first hand accounts, the rebels didn�t even have enough fire arms so they in many instances resorted to machetes and axes, now I needn�t describe what the French had at their disposal. Third, and here is the remarkable story, ONE QUARTER of the Algerian population (from 1.8-2.5 million) were put en mass in exposed concentration camps (called villages) with little food and NO clean water, half on them were under curfew and the rest were largely supportive of France. Fourth, No, the French didn�t win the war, they lost it and lost it miserably, the Algerian rebels controlled much of the mountains of the north for the most part of the war, when ever the French come they disappear and when they go they return. They established in the areas that they controlled a network of schools, clinics, makeshift hospitals and somewhat of a quasi-judicial system and it was never broken. The �successful� Challe ended up with the FLN reorganizing it army and returning to the same locations �liberated� earlier two months after the �success� of the operation.

Al-Jassas ibn Murrah   

Sorry to disappoint you Tancrede but facts are facts, if you return to Time magazines archives you will find that what I said was the truth. The only error that I made is in the numbers of the French army, it was 450 000 according to Collier�s year book of 1958 and the French estimate of the rebel forces was as I said 25000-30000 men. As for the �crushing� of the rebellion, well it was not crushed, they continued to be deadly, launch successful attacks and remain in control of large areas.

Regards

Al-Jassas

Hello to you all.

Well Tancrede, I returned for the third time today to Collier�s year books of 1958, 1959 and 1960 and again, the French estimates are 25000-30000 in 58 and 32000 in 59. However, the French army in the 1960 edition claims that in Jan of 59, FLN had only 25000 men, and were reduced to 16000 by mid 1960 while at the same time claim to have killed 26 339 as you said and 10 000 prisoners??? Mind you there was little or no infiltration from either border and yet they kept the 25000 number constant. The numbers just don�t add up. As for the successful attack in 1959 the average daily attack on military and civilian targets was 50 attacks excluding large scale military operations a day. An example of a successful attack in 59 was the attack on the Ain Zana barracks using artillery and over 2000 men. I should point out here that I do not deny that the French did succeed in containing the extent of the rebellion, but in the end none of their tactics worked to win the war outright. The support for the FLN increased by the day even among the Harkis

None the less, this is a thread about the worst armies so let us keep it like this. If you want to discuss the Algerian War of Independence then put a new thread in the modern warfare section and I would be more than happy to continue the discussion there.

Regards

AL-Jassas

P.S. I am not 100% neutral in this subject since I am an Arab and my sympathies are obvious that why I hope that more discussion is made seperatly.

Not to mention the French ,even with the full support of US, still got their ass kicked  in Dien Bien Phu by the vietnamese guerilla and effectively ended their rule in IndoChina.

Hello to you all.

Sorry about my double post earlier. As I said Tancrede, this is a thread about the crappiest armies not the Algerian war of Independence, so let us stick to the subject. The war in Vietnam was conventional war, the French didn�t have the will nor the stomach to indulge in yet another war only one year after WWII and in a far away place to satisfy the ego of several thousand plantations owners against the will of 30 million Vietnamese. The Vietnamese had all the support that they wanted from China and Russia in addition to the fact that they had abandoned Japanese military hardware as well as a well trained army and excellent commanders (who were taught by the French). The entire population of the north (and they were in the majority) were supportive of the campaign and already controlled large lands. The French didn�t even invest in Vietnam half the assets they did in Algeria for simple reasons, France was in financial crisis and Vietnam didn�t have as much colons as Algeria. A final note here about the military casualties of the French in Algeria, according to De Gaulle, the French losses until Nov. 10 1959 were 13000 dead French soldiers, 6000 men up from De Gaulle�s earlier estimate on Oct 23 58 of 7000 and this was when the rebellion was lost. In addition to that, the guy says that they killed 68000 rebels in that same period while at the Evian peace accords ceremony the French military �Official� death toll for the entire war was 12000 men !!! Remember that this was a �Public Security� operation so daily figures were not put out to the public like official military. So, just as I said before numbers just don�t add up. The legionnaires alone lost up to 1200 men in the official figures.

As for citing Mr. Horne�s book, well I can tell you that I had the pleasure of reading the book earlier in the summer when I was at the University and the French to the guy (at least in my view and I am biased) were angles. They were good-hearted peace loving delicates who were forced to wage a noble war on those savage Arabs and Berbers who were given all the privileges that a third class citizen of France had and yet had the audacity of waging war for independence? Ungrateful SOB�s don�t you think. Not to mention the freedom loving OAS who were protecting French civilians by targeting the French government and Algerian population both in France and in Algeria. By the way Horne rarely calls OAS attacks �terrorism�, mostly this happens in the context of attacks agains the government or French civillians, despite the fact they killed more muslim civilians between the years 60-62 than what the FLN killed of pied-noirs in the entire campaign. See http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/webberm/algeria.htm for more details.  

Back to the worst armies, I think that the Turkish army of the Balkan wars was the worst army the Turks ever had and one of the worst armies in the world at that time. The Lebanese army is also a good candidate although I think that the armies of most small countries are bad. The Sri Lankan Army is terrible, 24 years fighting a rebellion in a tiny part of the country that simply has no strategic importance and no advantage for the defenders (Jaffna is an very tiny isolated peninsula) and yet the couldn�t even prevent the rebels from acquiring an air force. Finally, to probably the worst army in history, the Qing army of the 19^th century. On paper, they were great, almost 1 million regulars and million of militias. But in reality, they barely could end a rebellion that was done by warlord who were even more wretched than they were. And when conflict with neighbouring powers occurred, nothing but utter humiliation happened to the Chinese. From the Sino-Japanese war of 1895 to the more humiliating and more terrible Boxer affair, China�s enormous army was simply good for nothing.

Al-Jassas ibn Murrah