Napoleon was ultimately defeated therefore he was NOT the best general ever.
My vote would go to General George Patton.
Patton never retreated. Ever.
That makes him number 1. You may not have liked working for him, especially training for him, but you loved not dying, and you loved killing tons of Germans.
The first to coordinate close air support with armor.
I'll go with George Washington.
This analysis in Wins against Replacement is an interesting thought exercise.
The provides a metric that is quantifiable in the overall effectiveness of a particular leader.
The measure does not take into account the level of daring/risk versus result.
Obviously, for Napoleon, he had many more battles and as such had a larger sample size thus yielding a better WaR value. One would have to devise a method to “normalize” the number of battles to level the playing field a little to give a more accurate representation. One would have to consider the mean value for the number of battles for all generals successful or not, and then apply that normalized mean to Napoleon to correct the data from a lopsided participation level. Even this would be subject to criticism and would not necessarily produce a more accurate measurement.
Agreed-Patton, with George Washington a near tie-we need more macho men like that today...