10 greatest military commanders of all time

freerepulic ^ | August 31, 2002 | zapiks44

[zapiks44]

Who do you think are the 10 best military commanders of all time? (By military commander, I mean someone who actually commanded armies and orchestrated the attacks, not politcal leaders, such as Churchill) Here are my picks:

1.Alexander the Great (The undisputed greatest military genius who ever lived)

2.George S. Patton ( Can't forget him)

3.Napoleon (Obvious, but the French don't get credit since he's techincally Italian!)

4.Julius Ceasar (Veni, Vetti, Vecci)

5.Richard the Lionheart/Saladin (The two men who've probably shaped the Middle-East more than anyone else)

6.Georgi Zhukov (Main architect of Stalingrad victory)

7.Erwin Rommel (The real "Desert Fox")

8.Hannibal (Coined the term (Crossing the Alps)

9.Stonewall Jackson (Of course)

10. Horatio Nelson (Stopped Napoleon from invading Britain and spreading to South America)

[vbmoneyspender]

That's why I voted for him as the worst military leader of all-time.

[ChicagoRepublican]

Alexander would easily succeed as an officer in any modern day army, that is if he was the exact same person at birth, just raised in the modern era. He was in extremely good physical condition, he was a great motivator of men and he had an above average intellect. There might have been some psychological and lifestyle problems that could be a hindrance though.

[Sam Cree]

What do you think of these guys? Some of them, like U.S. Grant, seem to have subscribed to what you describe as the stacking them like cordwood philosophy. Although I'm something of an admirer of Grant.

'Course, as a Virginian, I like the Virginians, whom I notice are pretty well represented in this discussion.

[Destro]

Alexander's army (which his father created) was the first one to use combined arms tacticts including atrillery (ballista, etc).

[bandleader]

George Armstrong Custer was quite a daring combat-leader.He became a darling of"Little Phil"(Sheridan)becuse of his exploits.The PC crowd has denigrated him for obvious reasons,but he was a superb cavalryman.There are a number of fine books on Custer,but one that relates solely to his Civil War duty that I would recommend is"Custer and His Wolverines"(The Michigan Cavalry Brigade 1861-65)by Edward G.Longacre.I mispoke when I elevated JEB Stuart to the top ten list.I meant Nathan Bedford Forrest.

[portfmgr]

George Armstrong Custer was quite a daring combat-leader.He became a darling of"Little Phil"(Sheridan)becuse of his exploits.The PC crowd has denigrated him for obvious reasons,but he was a superb cavalryman.There are a number of fine books on Custer,but one that relates solely to his Civil War duty that I would recommend is"Custer and His Wolverines"(The Michigan Cavalry Brigade 1861-65)by Edward G.Longacre.I mispoke when I elevated JEB Stuart to the top ten list.I meant Nathan Bedford Forrest.

105 posted on 9/1/02 9:32 AM Pacific by bandleader

He said it better than I could.

I felt the same way about Custer until I learned a bit more about him (learned enough to know that I'd need to learn a great deal more to have a better understanding of him). I certainly learned that he is more than the one-dimensional character that he had been presented to be.

Arrogant? Sure. Ambitious? Absolutely. But he had some other attributes too. He's an interesting subject, certainly.

[Living Free in NH]

How about our former Commander in Chief - William Jefferson Clinton? Nah, nevermind.

[fhayek]

I second Sherman. Grant gets most of the credit, but it was Sherman who won the Civil War (in my view).

[PAR35]

I hate to say it, but Alexander the Great would have some trouble under the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy.

And Richard the Lionheart?

[laconic]

I agree on Sherman; had he not taken Atlanta in September, 1864, Lincoln might have lost the November election to McClellan.

[Restorer]

Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan were both political leaders, not military men. At least GK was by the time the great conquests got rolling. KK was never really a general.

[Restorer]

In the end, De Wet was only defeated when the British put most of the women and children into concentration camps, under very harsh conditions, to prompt their husbands, brothers and fathers to finally surrender, two years after the defeat of the main Boer armies.

Somewhat of a myth. By the time the guerrillas gave up, the camps were in good enough shape that the women and children remaining on the land were much worse off than those in the camps.

The horrible death tolls in the camps were a passing phase brought on primiarily by the lack of interest of the British generals. Once the British public found out about these conditions, they rapidly changed.

[Restorer]

Hitler was not a military commander at all.

As others have pointed out, he was an amateur military strategist of genius. If nothing else, the Battle of France illustrates this. He forced the winning plan on jos reluctant generals and quickly defeated the Allies despite being faced with more and better quality forces in men, tanks and planes.

His attack on the USSR was also wildly successful at first. He did quite poorly in fighting on the defensive, as others have noted. He specialized in surprise attacks on unsuspecting victims.

[g'nad]

Thanks for the ping...will read more thoroughly then give you my opinion...

One glaring omission is Gaius Marius...

[Charlesj]

Good list, save for Patton. I might agree he was the best of the Allied Generals on the Western Front but he had huge resources. If you gave Manstein, Guderian, Model, Runstedt, Manteuffel, Bock, or any number of other German generals even vaguely comparable resources, I believe they could have EASILY defeated Patton. Genius in attack, not just "attack", makes a great general. MacArthur made some doozy mistakes, but with island-hopping and Inchon he was a genius. Hannibal's first 3 victories probably rank him a few notches higher. I'd agree that Alexander should probably be first, but he was lucky to be fighting Persians, Indians, etc.

[wardaddy]

Forrest did not found the original KKK, though he did join it. He left it too after Union occupation was over.

[wardaddy]

Giap won politically. Maybe that counts.

[wardaddy]

Ataturk is a good pick.

[wardaddy]

Lee did not have control over the west, Davis bungled that with his boy Bragg.

[wardaddy]

George Washington.....I know he never really won anything till Cornwall but he held off the greatest power in the world and won...strategically.

Gustavo Adolphus.....father of modern warfare.

Charlemagne....Europeanized Europe.

Lord Nelson.....an admiral.

Drake....as well.

Pizzaro....

Cyrus.....

William the Conqueror...major implications.

Peter the Great....defeated enemies outside and inside and modernized Russia to a degree from fiefdom.

Cromwell....came from nowhere literally.

Lee....large armies...modern weapons...big battles.

GC Marshall.....commanded the baddest ass army the world has ever known from afar.


This list could go on and on......there is no real top ten but in my mind's eye, Al the Great is number one to a majority of folks who follow this stuff.

I should mention Bolivar. I know he was no great tactician and fraught with personal demons but he moved a rag tag army all over the Andes from Caracas to South Central Peru at altitude and jungle which was no small feat and he whipped Spanish butt at Boyaca between Tunja and Bogota in some pretty rough high country. I have traveled extensively between Venezuela and Pery thru the Andes and it's a lunar landscape battlefield with low oxygen in many places along the way...far worse than anything Hannibal faced in the Alps with no civilization to speak of at the time (not much today either) plus Hannibal lost although he won a pile of battles.