Was Ludendorff a competent general?

He was a cuck

Wonder Woman skewered him fairly easily.

more competent than Moltke. both were emotionally unstable though

He was in the start and the middle of the war, but I think he became unhinged by the end. I can’t blame him at all for this. I sure as hell couldn’t handle that shite and would have a full mental breakdown for sure. You either have to be a total sociopath or a one in a million man like Churchill to be able to stomach that responsibility and come out whole.

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You either have to be a total sociopath or a one in a million man like Churchill to be able to stomach that responsibility and come out whole.

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I think Churchill WAS a sociopath.

Have you read a good biography of him?

He was essentially abandoned by his parents and raised alone by a nanny amid aristocratic conditions and packed off to elite boarding schools as young as possible.

He didn’t have a nurturing childhood but had a ton of money and dare I say privileges and then was shaped by the fricked up British boarding school system.

It made for a unique psychology.

Throughout his politicomilitary career he constantly flip/flopped his beliefs and positons like the wind and never took ownership of his failures, always blaming others or conditions.

Now, thankfully that was ideal for surviving Dunkirk and the Blitz without breaking down like Ludendorff did. Churchill’s personality enabled him to just slough it off and not take it personally and trudge on in endless inflated self-confidence. That is what Britain needed, but I definitely think he was sociopathically inclined. That’s a lot of what made him the perfect man for the job.

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I think Churchill WAS a sociopath.

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As I was typing that I did begin thinking “Wait, is Churchill as sociopath?” I know he’s a huge a-hole and a hardcore alcoholic, but thinking it through I don’t think he was a sociopath. He was a textbook narcissist though.

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However, did he truly understand logistics? Didn't plan for supplying troops when the big advances were made, wasted a million troops lives on the 1918 offensive, and left a million troops in the east. Also didn't take care of important tasks such as food production when he took over economy and pulled men and horses out of the field

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To be fair, the logistics of traveling such vast distances has been a struggle for Generals throughout history. For example, you can likely attribute flawed logistics to the fall of the Persian empire (The war in Greece).

This was only compounded by modern warfare, and even more so because of the scope of the schlieffen plan. So, while it's definitely a negative for him, if you look at it in the context of 1916 it's not as poor planning as it seems.

1916? We are talking about Ludendorff's 1918 Spring Offensives.

The Schlieffen Plan was 1914, and interestingly enough, as I learned recently, logistics for the Germany's First Army that approached Paris was good enough throughout the campaign and the First Battle of the Marne. Germany lost the First Battle of the Marne not because they ran out of supplies, but, because France had managed to mass an extremely powerful counter-attack force on the German First Army's right flank.

First Army was totally out-numbered and was defeated by very aggressive offensive action by France's Sixth Army and other forces opposing the German units near Paris.

France was able to strategically redeploy by rail strong forces from their right flank and deploy them in and near Paris relatively undetected. The British Expeditionary Forces deliberately "slow-walked" their advance during the Battle of the Marne in order to reduce casualties by avoiding assault on anything stronger than a German cavalry screen.

Of course, you won't get the truth about the BEF's role in the Battle of the Marne in any military history written by a British author. British historians are generally published only if their versions of history align with the message disseminated by British propaganda, which is traditionally very protective of British prestige.

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Germany's downfall in both world wars. Devil's in the details and the leadership never got that.

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Germany’s downfall in WWII were that they were so evil that they were counterproductive to their own detriment. Seriously, what sense does the Holocaust make when you’re fighting the biggest war in human history? Why don’t you put the Jews, gays, and gipsies on the front line and then threaten their family from there? Then Hitler invades Russia before he’s secured victory in the rest of Europe, and finally stupidly declares War on the United States. That and he backed off of Moscow when he should have gone all in on it. Without Moscow and Leningrad, Russia was basically done.

I have a great video about Ludendorf actually, I think you will thoroughly enjoy it. LINK