I would say General Pershing for ordering the massive attack on the morning of Armistice Day, knowing the German enemy would be caught unprepared believing an attack offering no strategic value would occur on the last day of the war. I can only imagine the German reaction while sipping champagne and writing their last love letters only to see a massive American invasion force charging a mere hours before the end of the war. Brilliant!
That doesn't seem brilliant to me.
It seems bloodthirsty.
If the war is scheduled to end, and everyone knows it, then launching a surprise attack on the very morning that the war is to end strikes me as showing at least two things:
(1) A callous disregard for human life. The war is OVER, why, then, go in and kill and kill and kill. The night before Appomattox, Lee (allegedly) did not let his army hang any more spies, his theory being that enough blood had been shed, and there was no point in shedding it purposelessly, out of mere spite or revenge. Lee was right. I was unaware of any such attack by Pershing, but it reflects badly on him. And how many American doughboys, on the very eve of going home, had their lives thrown away by an asshole commander for absolutely no purpose.
(2) A potentially catastrophic lack of judgment. An armistice is not an unconditional surrender. It is an agreement between two sides, neither one of them beaten, to end hostilities. For it to work requires trust. For everyone in an exhausting war to know that it is to formally end in a few hours, and then suddenly have the enemy launch a massive surprise attack, very Japanese-like: were I the German commanders, I would feel that I had been treated in very bad faith. Indeed, how would I know that this was all going to abruptly end at 11:11? How would I not know that the enemy had broken faith to try to get the advantage under the guise of a flag of negotiation and agreement of armistice? Would not my honor be offended such that I might be likely to view the horrendous bad faith as a BREACH of the armistice, and continue fighting?
Had it been a French or British attack, it would be more understandable. Those people had been in a terrible war for so very long they truly had cause to utterly HATE the enemy and his race. But the Americans? What was the American reason for breaking faith and decorum like that? The Americans could claim no such historical business.
Now, truth is, until your post, I never heard of Pershing's surprise attack. But if it happened, it doesn't seem like a very heroic act to me. It seems strategically stupid: it might have completely blown the Armistice. And it seems cruel, bloodthirsty and callous. Attacks, esp. in WW I, killed a lot of the attacking soldiers. If it's true, Pershing threw a lot of American lives away for absolutely nothing, and showed incredibly bad judgment. That's not greatness.