When was the last time heads of state or generals actually fought in battle alongside their troops?Last person I can remember is Napoleon
>>65150987Chad's president died in a firefight 5 years ago.
WW2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt_Jr.
>>65150991what a chad
>>65150987>generals actually fought in battle alongside their troops?Russia has sacrificed multiple generals as part of the meat grinder, like Andrei Sukhovetsky and Pavel Klimenko. Both major generals.
>>65151443Those are in reality, only majors at best in terms of actual command power. Puccia don't have real NCOs, so these "generals" fill in the void.
World War I British Army was pretty impressive.> French historian Laurent Guillemot working from a definition similar to Foch gives numbers of 76 British, 42 French, 2 Belgian, 2 Italian, and 2 Romanian generals killed on the Allied side and around 70 German, 40 Austro-Hungarian, and 1 Ottoman on the Central Powers side.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generals_of_the_British_Empire_who_died_during_the_First_World_War
>>65151462Damn all of these deaths boiled down to>General Ponsonby Nigelforce inspects the lines.>A shelling happens, killing the general & his staff.
>>65150987I mean Santa Anna was taking part in hostilities in the 1850s or so, not to mention his part in the Texas Revolutionary War. The War of the Triple Alliance also saw 90% of Paraguay's male population destroyed and only ended when a lancer speared President Solano Lopez through the heart. That was in 1870. But apparently King Albert of Belgium was the last person to actively lead troops into battle as a head of state.
>>65151538Bonapartism & its consequences has been a disaster for Latin American politics.
>>65150987This guy too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_Walker
Ike became president later, if that counts. Also Castro was in a tank directing troops at bay of pigs
>>65150987George II was a battlefield commander, but I don't think he engaged in combat, you done fucked up if your general and his staff are being engaged. Once firearms became a thing, kings and generals really couldn't risk it. Maybe James the IV was the last king in Britain (Scotland) to fight toe to toe with an enemy, and he paid for it with his life.>>65151497>General Ponsonby Nigelforcekek
Napoleon IV also carelessly stepped onto the front lines.
>>65150987Heads of state and generals aside, I read an opinion that western armies have a decent track record of officer attrition not being humorously lower than enlistedmen.
>>65150987Patton was commanding a Stuart when he landed in Africa. His tank even put a hole into a captured Renault FT of the same model he piloted in WWI.
dont remember his name but an american general was killed in normandy because someone had the brilliant idea to use B17s as CAS
>>65151892He relaxed.
>>65152018You're thinking of Lesley McNair, who was one of leading figures of the US Army's modernization programs early in the war. He wasn't even in-country to cexercise command, but was there as an observer, and partly as a deception to fool the Germans into thinking that he was in command of US forces in Normandy.
