Who Were the Greatest Military Commanders (Of All Time) ?

[Cyropaedia]

In light of the upcoming film Alexander (the Great), who in your opinion were actually the greatest military commanders our world has known...?

Mine are Genghis Khan, Alexander, and U.S. Grant.

[Rockingham]

Here are some choices and comments that may stir things up.

Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Scipio, and Belisarius in the Ancient World.

These are obvious, except that Scipio, who defeated Hannibal at Zama, ought to be better regarded than he is, and the early Byzantine general Belisarius ought to be better known for his record of victories when grossly outnumbered.

On balance, Genghis Khan seems less a great military commander than to have been the summoner of a whirlwind. His overwhelming cavalry forces and extreme brutality account for his victories as much as his generalship.

The Middle Ages and Renaissance evidence little in the way of sustained military genius. Battles were limited in extent and constrained by political and diplomatic considerations, with unreliable seasonal or mercenary armies that made decisive results rare.

Washington, Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson, Lee, and Grant in the early Modern Era.

Washington is less a pure military genius than a genius at the greater, nation-making accomplishment of creating and preserving a functional army, winning battles when he absolutely had to, and surviving those battles that he lost.

Wellington's Indian and Peninsular campaigns, capped by the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo make for an extraordinary record. Napoleon's genius was marred by the folly of the Russian campaign and his bungling at Waterloo, with the general who invented Napoleonic warfare bested by a better practitioner.

Lee's superb character and mythic status on behalf of the Lost Cause tend to inflate his military reputation. Grant's drab personality tends to obscure his daring and innovation on the battlefield.

Von Manstein, Guderian, Patton, Dowling, Doolittle, LeMay, Eisenhower, Spruance, Nimitz, and Groves in World War II.

Von Manstein's recovery of the collapsed German front in Russia after Stalingrad was extraordinary. Guderian very nearly invented Blitzkreig and demonstrated sustained brilliance in France in 1940 and on the Russian front. Patton's flamboyance ought not to be allowed to mask his genuine ability, being regarded by the Germans as the best Allied field general.

If the Battle of Britain was Britain's Finest Hour, Dowding more than anyone else was the man who won it, despite a torrent of bad ideas and merciless hectoring from Churchill. Dowling's organizational and command innovations are still the foundation of modern aerial combat.

Contrary to most histories, Doolittle's impossibly daring raid on Tokyo had profound consequences: for fear of a repetition, the Japs withdrew substantial aircraft and naval forces from critical battlefronts back to Japan, and then they staked and lost four carriers and the war by trying to take Midway. In Europe, Doolittle became commander of the Eighth Air Force when B-17s were being shot out of the European skies at an unsustainable rate. He pressed for the counter-intuitive innovation that broke the German Air Force in a few months and made D-Day possible: let American fighters go on the hunt against German fighters instead of making them babysit the bombers.

Similarly, when air attacks on Japan were faltering due to poor accuracy at high altitudes and small bomb loads, LeMay radically revised B-29 bomber tactics. He stripped the guns out, loaded them with incendiaries, and sent then out at night at medium altitudes. Japan's cities and industrial capacity were soon devastated.

Spruance won Midway through coolly calculated gambles and then had the sense to withdraw so as to not get hammered at night by Jap cruisers and battleships. Nimitz made carrier warfare work for the US and rebuilt the Pacific Fleet after Pearl Harbor but is unjustly neglected due to his quiet temperament. Eisenhower made numerous mistakes, but his core accomplishment was monumental: training, equipping, and organizing raw American troops and making a fractious alliance work.

Groves, the tough-as-nails builder of the Pentagon and the A-bomb, never saw combat. But in an era in which logistics, organization, and technical innovations dominate, Groves changed warfare and made our victory in the Cold War possible by putting us first and foremost in nuclear weapons. The Left hates him for that and for his supicions about Oppenheimer's loyalties -- which earns Groves a lot of points by my reckoning.

Rommel and MacArthur are overrated and not of the first rank, having benefitted from a good press and inattention to their considerable faults and errors. Von Rundstedt is not of the first rank but close to it for consistently superior performance over a remarkably long career.

In the post-WW II era, Ridgeway deserves to be accorded greatness for keeping the American Army from collapse in Korea. Other than that, there are succesful military commanders, like Giap, Dayan, Schwarzkopf, but they are not among the greats.

[Doohickey]

Robert E. Lee underrated? Does he not have enough monuments public properties named after him on your planet?

[Antoninus]

The Roman general Belisarius. Hands down. Few military commanders in history have ever won more victories. None while hamstrung by the kinds of political intrigue, poor supply, and manpower shortages that Belisarius faced. Add to this that he was a superior fighter in his own right.

[snowsislander]

Zhukov was simply in charge of an eventually sound institution; he had some brilliant conceptions but also some stunning failures, and overall his record in an unimpressive one - great breakthroughs stabilized by inferior defending forces, much higher losses sustained from a position of material superiority, etc.

Zhukov did pretty good at Nomonhan, certainly far better than Kuropatkin ever managed against the Imperial Japanese Army.

[swilhelm73]

What of Tamerlane's defeat of the Ottoman Turks? The Turks had been a force before Tamerlane, and were notably a force after. But they only barely survived Tamerlane.

[Defiant]

The technology of the Mongols, their stirrups and ponies, and their ability to fire while on the move, allowed them to outmaneuver any army that they encountered, to outflank and then destroy them. Genghis was also incredibly smart at diplomacy. He would scout out an enemy years in advance, send agents and probe for a weakness, and then after laying the groundwork, he would attack.

One of the reasons that Genghis won was because he was so brutal to any enemy that defied him. When a city didn't open the gates, he laid siege, and when he finally got inside, he killed everyone inside, except for the women, who they raped . As a result, he didn't have to lay siege that often. He wasn't brutal because he wanted to kill people; he killed indiscriminately in certain situations because it helped him accomplish his objective.

[Antoninus]

Belisarius, Scipio Africanus

Showed up to this thread late. Should have known that someone would nominate Belisarius before I did.

[Verginius Rufus]

Why do you think Hannibal was a profoundly evil man? Most of what we know about him comes from his Roman enemies. That's like judging George W. Bush on the basis of what's written about him in The New York Times.

[Arioch7]

I had an argument with a World War Two buff that Donitz was not a rabid Nazi and he said "He was convicted by the Nuremberg Court."

From what I understand, he stopped Hitler's inspections of his crew to weed out Jews. He protected his crew from the Nazis and behaved in a reasonably honorable fashion given the circumstances.

I'm trying to think of individual sub commanders. Most of them were telegenic guys who wound up as folk heros back in Germany. Two Officers were a big deal if my memory serves right. One had blond hair and a movie star attitude, and one was just a kick ass Officer.

Arioch7 out.

[swilhelm73]

Thing is those defeated tried the PR move of exaggerating the number of Mongols to make their defeats look less bad.

IIRC, in fairness to the Mongols' opponents, the Mongols tactics also tended to make their numbers seem larger.

[krb]

George Washington.

[jps098]

Manstein owned the Russians

[qam1]

Atilla the Hun

Flavius Aetius, A.k.A. The "Last Roman" should be on the list

With a collapsing Western Empire he was able to beat/hold off the Goths, Vandals and of course his great victory over Attila at the battle of Charlons.

If it wasn't for Aetius the Western Empire would have collapsed 50 years earlier and Christianity would have been extinct by the 6th century.

[longfellow]

Patton and the guy who kills Osama.

[Antoninus]

Likewise Hernándo Cortés' conquest of the million-strong Aztec Army with only 600 men was incredible no matter how you slice it.

It would be... but that never happened. When Cortez defeated the Aztecs, he was supported by many of the surrounding tribes which had been previously subjugated by the Aztecs. The 600 vs. 1 million stuff is pure fantasy.

[GOPcapitalist]

He won. Lee lost. Deal with it.

Leonidas fell with 300 at Thermopylae to a 300,000 man army. Xerxes lost 20,000 men to win the battle. Does that make Xerxes the better general?

[mirkinmuffley]

BTW, As I type I have pictures of:

Grant
Buckner
Forrest
JeB Stuart
TE Lawrence (not a General until after the war?)

[unspun]

John F. Kerry

No, no. You're confusing Lt. "Kohn" with Jenjhis Kahn.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Who was the Celtic Chick that beat the Romans in Britain.

Boadicea.

Jeane d'Arc wasn't shabby either.

[Zechariah11]

But let's not think of him as a snotty-nosed kid with a slingshot, but as a young man who could use a sling deftly (eg. lion, bear). He had a huge faith and was backed by the army of Saul (eg. Jonathan, his brothers, et.al) who did the mop up work while David beheaded Goliath. (No AP reporters around to cry foul on that!)

If you want to really look at his generalship, you'd have to look to later when he was a regimental commander in Saul's army (remember his FedEx delivery of 200 Philistine foreskins to Saul for Michal? The Palestinians are still upset about that.).or when he was the general in command of his own forces at the Cave of Adullum, but far more likely the conquest of many surrounding countries as King.

Btw, his dalliance with Bathsheba occurred when he was at the palace instead of in the field with his army. @ Samuel 11:1 suggests he should have been with his army.

My understanding is that when military strategy of the Bible is studied (and has been by the modern Israeli army), it is the Book of Judges that is looked at.