Talk:General of the Army

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Contents 1 Insignia 2 Reason for the rank 3 Equivalents 4 Russian 5 Equivalent of Field Marshal?

[edit] Insignia

Non-logged in user removed the following text from the description of the 5-star general rank insignia: "Within the pentagon of stars is the United States Emblem of the Eagle and shield, the eagle in gold and the shield enamaled." I've done some searching, and can't find any of the insignia which actually had an eagle and shield within them. All seem to merely be a pentagon of 5 stars. Just noting the removal here in case anyone has questions about it. --ABQCat 19:06, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Reason for the rank

The five-star rank was created... to have American officers with ranks equivalent to the field marshals of Britain, to reduce friction over who was allowed to give orders to whom. Is this the real reason the rank was created?

Why I ask:

• as far as I know, there was only one case of a field marshal serving under an American (4-star) general: Bernard Montgomery under Dwight Eisenhower;
• Montgomery was promoted to field marshal in September 1944, three months before Ike got his fifth star, and so could still have claimed seniority;
• no-one seemed to care when Andrew Cunningham served in the rank of Admiral of the Fleet under Eisenhower for nearly eight months in 1943.

Is Montgomery on record as objecting to taking orders from a lower-ranking officer?

Furthermore: I can see why if you promoted Eisenhower, you'd also have to promote George Marshall (Army Chief of Staff) and William Leahy (effectively Chairman of the Joint Chiefs); but why Douglas MacArthur and Chester Nimitz? Is it because Eisenhower was junior to them (by time in rank), and they'd have been put out?

It seems a lot of trouble to go to, if it was just because Montgomery got his baton as a consolation prize for not being Allied Ground Forces Commander.

Is the real reason that by early December 1944 all the British chiefs of staff and most of the British Joint Staff Mission held five-star rank, and the Americans felt a bit, well, inferior?

Was five-star rank really necessary for the command structure? After all, the Americans were quite happy to have army groups commanded by lieutenant generals. — Franey 16:03, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Not really. These ranks have always been seen more as an honour than a necessity. That's why it was so daft getting rid of them from the British hierarchy in the 1990s. Another sacrifice of tradition for no apparent reason. -- Necrothesp 23:02, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't it also to cut down the pension bill for retiring service chiefs? — Franey 11:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have changed that to "no apparent reason except needless penny-pinching by one of the world's richest countries". Ah well. -- Necrothesp 18:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Equivalents

I fail to see the point of including equivalents here that are more commonly translated as Field Marshal. If the entire list is added, does this not make it rather pointless having two separate articles? Originally only ranks that directly translated as General of the Army were included. These are not all necessarily the highest ranks in their respective countries (e.g. in France and Russia, where they are effectively 'four-star' ranks), and therefore including all the 'five-star' ranks is not particularly appropriate. If we're going to do this then we should also include all the 'four-star' ranks for consistency, which seems rather silly. -- Necrothesp 23:00, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

The first 6 on the list translate exactly as either "General of the Army" or "Army General". The others are in foreign languages translating as various things (Wonsu I think means "Supreme One") with maybe only one or two coming close to Field Marshal. Literal translations to Field Marshal (such as Generalfeldmarschall are not included for the reason you mention. The others should remain. -Husnock 07:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Necrothesp. Is this article supposed to be about army ranks that (a) translate as "General of the Army" or (b) correspond to the U.S. Army rank? If the former, then you should lose everything after Te Ji Shang Jiang; if the latter, you should take out the French and Russian ranks, and you'd still be duplicating the Field Marshal page. (Te Ji Shang Jiang is itself debatable — the only on-line Mandarin dictionary I could actually use translated ji as "wing of an army", so you could argue that the closest rank is the French Général de corps d'armée.)

More-or-less literal translations of some of the disputed ranks:

• Mushir: Counsellor.
• Jenderal Besar: Grand General.
• Comandante en Jefe: Commander-in-Chief. (This is a title/officer/dignity held by Castro as head of state. Can it really be considered a rank?)
• Pradhan Senapati: Chief General. (Held by the Nepalese C-in-C. The Nepalese Army considers this the equivalent to the U.S. General of the Army. However, it is not the highest rank: there is a "six-star" rank of Arirathi — roughly "foremost chariot-rider", translated by the Nepalese as Field Marshal — which I'm assuming is reserved for the king.)

I suppose to avoid any implication of British or American bias we could start a page called Five-star ranks that don't translate literally as either Field Marshal or General of the Army. Anyone fancy it? — Franey 10:57, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Mushir was moved out of the article ovr to the Field Marshal list. I see nothing wrong with the list as it stands now. The ranks are divided nicely between this article and Field Marshal. And, about the article proposed, that would probably be VFDed due to the long and cumbersome title. -Husnock 11:01, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Really? VFDed? Why? — Franey 11:34, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I will most likely change this to a list page instead of disambig. The literal translations are eye opening. The Nepal translations I am very impressed with. Thanks for providing. Dont take too much offensive at VFDs, thats just the way this place works. Normally, very long and cumbersome article titles are merged or deleted. It would be like "United States Presidents who are one point broke a bone while falling down during a sporting event". An extreme example, to be sure! ;-) -Husnock 12:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid the article doesn't now make sense. It says that General of the Army is generally considered equivalent to Field Marshal and then goes on to say that some ranks are considered equivalent to both General of the Army and Field Marshal. Eh? -- Necrothesp 18:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I rewrote it. Non-European ranks and simultaneous equivalents to several European titles is what the point was. -Husnock 18:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Russian

In Russian it is "General of the Army", not "Army General"--Nixer 20:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Correct. But it just depends how you do the translation. Russian uses lots of 'of's: the X of Y of Z of the Russian Federation. Free-translating the rank to Army General - which I do all the time - reinforces its equivalency as a four-star rank, not a five-star. Buckshot06 12:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Equivalent of Field Marshal?

This article says General of the Army "is typically considered the equivalent of Field Marshal" (a five star rank). That's true of the United States, but I don't think it's true of all the other countries that have the rank General of the Army. The United States has a General of the Army rank *in addition to* the rank of General, and they use General as the equivalent of the British rank of General (a four star rank). But I think other countries have General of the Army *instead of* General, and they use General of the Army as the equivalent of the British rank of General.

So first, can someone confirm that my understanding of this is correct for some countries? Second, can someone specify which countries use which system? And third, I propose a rewrite of this article to reflect all this. Or better yet, we could move the equivalent five star ranks to the 5 star rank article and move the rest of the information in this article to the General Officer article, then make General of the Army redirect to the General Officer article. - Shaheenjim 07:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is very loosely worded and needs a cleanup. For the US, your second sentence statement is true, with the 'six star' General of the Armies above. For others - North Koreans and Cubans and whatnot - it can vary. Buckshot06 12:31, 30 October 2007 (UTC)