Posted on 01/05/2018 9:50:10 AM PST by C19fan
Like Hannibal, I wanted to rank powerful leaders in the history of warfare. Unlike Hannibal, I sought to use data to determine a general’s abilities, rather than specific accounts of generals’ achievements. The result is a system for ranking every prominent commander in military history.
(Excerpt) Read more at towardsdatascience.com ...
That argues that his methodology is garbage.
Longstreet should be on any list of great generals.
good recap. Lee faced a general that did not think in conventional terms. Grant realized that sometimes “defeat” only existed in the mind of the man commanding the army.
Rome was an up-and-coming city state in Alexander’s day, and would have given him a challenge. The later Romans always boasted that had he turned West he would have found Rome a harder nut to crack than Persia ... of course, he would have done so, but at a cost to both sides ...
Longstreet was a very good general but he did not distinguish himself either time he was given an essentially independent command during the war.
Grant turned the handle of the meat grinder because he had more meat than Lee. Grant was a butcher.
I’ve read it. It’s still on my bookshelf.
Patton had a massive ego. Granted. However, when he figured out that the planes were key to coordinating an attack, he literally left the decision on when to attack to junior officers in airplanes.
He let them do the leading, which for a general in WWII was extraordinary.
He was something else.
I have heard people say this often about Napoleon, but it is my recollection that he won the war against Russia in the Summer and occupied Moscow for quite a long time. He expected the Russians to come make peace terms with him, and so he lingered in Moscow.
The idea that they would just sit out in the countryside and wait him out seems to have never occurred to him, because that's just not the way things were done.
By the time he figured out that they weren't coming back, he found himself facing his most deadly enemy. The Russian winter.
I therefore think his primary mistake was not logistical, but grasp of the situation and timing. Had Napoleon abandoned Moscow and headed back before winter, the Grande Armée would have been preserved.
In other words, not really a logistical problem.
To some extent, that adds to Napolean's credit. If those who learned from him are better than him, it shows how much he innovated. It's like today's physics student who studies Newton and his successors. Today's student knows more than Newton, but you see Isaac Newton's brilliance in the emphasis even today on his work.
Agree.
Longstreet was a 20th century general stuck in the 19th century.
Hear Hear ! I think Washington is deeply under appreciated as a general!
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There was nobody but Washington who could have won the war.
No more so than Lee sending his troops up Malvern Hill or Cemetery Ridge.
And I know it is more of an engineering marvel of its day (or even today) but the bridge his army built over the Rhine in what - a week? I watched a documentary on that wherein they really could not explain how the Romans were able to do it in the time frame they did. Quite amazing. But it does point to leadership and motivation.
The statistic placed Lee as below average.
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Lee started the war in the rear. Grant started the war as a clerk in his father’s store. Sherman was the superintendent of the school that would become LSU.
a nice analysis
Now there’s an incredible general even if the ancient chroniclers are exaggerating!
Lee lost a higher percentage of his men in battle than Grant and his losses in the 7 days battle were an astronomical meat grinder. He let his men get chewed up because he figured McClellen was timid and didn't have the stomach for such battles - and he was right.
“To some extent, that adds to Napolean’s credit.”
that was what I had intended to say, but probably didn’t do so clearly
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