Smack Down – How the ‘Patton Slapping Incident’ Nearly Cost America One of its Greatest Generals...

On August 3, 1943, General Patton slapped a soldier in an Army hospital accusing him of cowardice. An excerpt from the article:

"“Firm and drastic measures are at times necessary… but this does not excuse brutality, abuse of the sick, nor exhibition of uncontrollable temper in front of subordinates.”
— Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

MILITARY HISTORY IS replete with tyrannical commanders.

Frederick the Great was notorious for his harsh Prussian discipline. He often said that his soldiers should fear their own officers more than the enemy.

Italian field marshal Luigi Cadorna had 750 of his own troops executed for cowardice during the First World War. No army that fought in Europe between 1914 and 1918 shot more of its own soldiers than Italy.

Joseph Stalin’s 1942 Order No. 227, also known as the ‘Not One Step Back’ directive, made giving any ground in battle an offence punishable by death. The Soviet dictator once remarked that in the Red Army it took more courage to retreat than it did to advance.

In its nearly 250-year history, the United States Army produced few similarly callous leaders — it’s doubtful if the American public would have tolerated them. They certainly didn’t when it came to the firebrand George S. Patton.

The outspoken and flamboyant general unleashed a storm of controversy when he famously berated and then struck two shell-shocked soldiers during the 1943 Allied campaign in Sicily. Amazingly, the fallout from the incidents very nearly ended his career."