Posted on 11/14/2004 5:23:06 PM PST by 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.
It's so difficult to judge with Guderian, because he was removed from command just at the moment when his particular talents could have been the margin of victory in Russia.
When I consider Poland, France 1940, and the 1941 Russian Campaign, I see tactical and strategic brilliance, and an understanding of how to get ENOUGH supply and support to do what needed to be done. He ran out of autumn before he got to Moscow, but he did so undefeated. It is speculative to think what would have happened had he not been removed from command, and had Hitler trusted him to continue the drive.
Fortunately for the world, that didn't happen.
I disagree on MacArthur. I think MacArthur got caught with his pants down twice, once in the Philippines and once in Korea, and lost one and a half armies in the process. I would rate him as mediocre, and I think that his character flaw of overweening arrogance was the reason for it.
Likewise, I downgrade Halsey. He drove through two hurricanes. It was stupid. He should have learnt the first time. So should MacArthur.
By contrast, I think Eisenhower was the greatest American general in history. What he had to do in Europe was incredibly hard. Nobody has ever commanded an army that big. Nobody has ever commanded an army that diverse, comprised of that many different allies, with that many different languages and attitudes. Nobody has ever had to conduct an amphibious operation like that, against enemies that strong and dangerous. Yes, Eisenhower had immense power at his command, but he used it very efficiently and carefully. He did not squander lives, but was not remotely timid, like McClellan in an earlier period. He lacked Patton's and MacArthur's EGO, yes. I would say that MacArthur's ego was oversized. Patton? Yes, Patton was very good. I wonder, though, if Patton was capable of supreme command? Did he have the grand strategic vision of Eisenhower? Was he capable of the DIPLOMACY of alliance-based warfare? I don't know. Probably. Professional men often rise to the office. Eisenhower is in a different league from Patton, in my book, and when I contrast Eisenhower with MacArthur, the contrasts are all favorable, again in my opinion. I think that the Pacific theatre equivalent of Eisenhower, in the sense of having the grand strategic picture, a mastery of the details of command, but no appreciable ego to get in the way of execution (Patton's problem, to an extent, and especially MacArthur's problem) was really Chester von Nimitz. America has had many great naval heroes in single combats or battles. Perry's victory in Lake Erie, for example, was the most decisive and important victory on any side in the War of 1812. It guaranteed that the Northwest would be American, and not British. But America has had only a handful of great admirals in the grand strategic sense.
I would say that Farragut and Nimitz would be the only two who stand on a separate plane, but that Nimitz stands pre-eminent because of the nature of the enemy he had to fight.
The most powerful naval force in history, except one, was the Japanese Imperial Navy. It was also the best trained. Nimitz beat it. Japan's Navy was not akin to the Germans in World War I versus the British, or the French navy versus the British, nor the British Navy versus the Spanish Armada. It was beyond compare.
A nautical race, moreso than the Americans. The Japanese were akin to the British, but much more disciplined at sea, and much more powerful too, than the Royal Navy ever was. The Imperial Japanese Navy sent the Royal Navy ships in the East to the bottom, and would have finished off the Home Fleet too, had the Japanese been in the British home waters. And the Japanese top naval commanders were brilliant and very daring. They fought well at night, much better than the Americans (until radar levelled the field).
The truth is that, after Pearl Harbor, it took a miracle for the Americans to be able to climb out of their naval defeat. The miracle came quickly: Midway. But Midway was perilous. Much more perilous than, say, Wellington's "Near-run thing" at Waterloo, or Jutland or Gettysburg. They were decided over the course of hours or days. Midway was decided by a gap of perhaps 20 minutes. Midway could have easily been a Japanese decisive victory from which the United States might have not recovered.
Instead, the opposite was true, but only by the skin of the teeth.
When one considers the foe that Nimitz faced, it enhances his stature. Of course it was Spruance who won Midway, but it was Nimitz who put him there to do it.
William Tecumseh Sherman.
I think Arliegh Burke belongs in that list too.
"I think Judas Maccabeus fought about as much as any fighting general, probably more."
The Hammer Man! Without a doubt.
Who else would think of ordering his troops to circle a city every day for 7 days with the musicians leading the way.
And win!
I can accept those words.
But I tend to see in truly great commanders the ability to transcend the limitations of their traditions and to adapt, and to get others to follow them.
Of course, it is easier with kings than with generals in a Republic. An Alexander not only commanded armies, but he commanded the treasury and everything else. No general or admiral of any fame of the modern day commands the country itself which supports him.
I think that if one does not apply the strict victory criteria I used: win every battle and grand strategic campaign too, and if one allows for many, many defeats but accounts for the odds faced, then the greatest general of the 20th Century becomes obvious once one sees the name: General Giap.
He won a decisive, strategic victory against the United States of America and its Pacific allies. A bunch of half-armed men in pajamas defeated a superpower and a dozen other powers as well (Australia and Thailand, South Vietnam). And HE didn't win one battle in the field, so poor was his army.
But he won the war.
Brilliantly.
A grand strategic victory.
And then he blocked out the Chinese too.
Now, by those criteria, we get a very different list.
By those criteria, the greatest American general, hands down, was George Washington. He didn't win all, or even most, of his battles. But he was fighting a superpower with militia. And he won a grand strategic victory in the end, and a continent. Washington faced far worse odds, and a far more powerful foe, relatively, than Robert E. Lee did. But Washington won, against the worst odds ever faced by America, in any war.
Washington and Giap stand on the same plane, in that regard. They both humiliated a superpower, by fighting in the field. Washington at least won the final battles. Giap didn't win any major engagements, in the sense that he did not ever remain in possession of the field. But his Fabian tactics left him in possession of the WHOLE field at the end of it all. Not bad for a guy in pajamas!
Leonidas?
(the man portrayed in the photo you posted in #)598
The obvious ones such as Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, Napoleon, Lee, Jackson, Forrest, Patton, McArthur.
Some others are famous more because of the situations they found themselves in such as Eisenhower, Bradley, Zhukov, and Grant than because of brilliance. Most of those fortunate ones were competent but won mainly because of massive odds in their favor.
You know, you just picked two men who I would have picked, Washington is a given for all the reasons you list.
I also agree with you about Giap, he never won, but he did gain time for the enemies of America to do their work back home, thereby snatching political victory, in spite of overwhelming military "defeats", about which, as a Vietnam vet, I have some difficulty being "objective".
Because, we must learn that lesson from the Vietnam WAR, Military Victory is NOT enought! We have to win the political WAR also.
As we can see right now, by how the enemies of America including the democRAT party are working overtime to deny any victory to us. (Those vile scum suckers).
Too bad for them, we REMEMBER history.
"Stonewall Jackson on the Division and Corp level. Attaturk and Hannibal on the Army level. Napoleon too."
Not to mention Spartacus. He started out with a kitchen knife and slaughtered two Roman legions.
Nice lucid post....
And I share your thoughts about Eisenhower.
One slight correction. Ike was in charge Armies and nations. That is why I put Aetius in the list.
And I agree with your assessment of Admiral Nimitz. The freeway in Oakland, Ca is named after him. I believe he retired to Yerba Buena Island (the anchor for the Bay Bridge).
That was a time when military heroes were welcomed and hailed in the Bay Area....
Joshua Chamberlin BAYONETS!!!!!!!
At the crew or platoon level, it was Michael Wittmann.
At the battalion/Regimental level: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, probably the greatest citizen-soldier this country ever produced.
At the Division/ Corps level: Geuderian, Rommel or Reynolds.
At Army level: Patton, the most brilliant military mind of the 20th century.
Regards,
"I liked Norman Cota and Dick Winters."
28th "Keystone" Division bump...they were the ones who paid in blood so the 101st could get to Bastogne.
Regards,
I wouldn't compare the American Revolution to the Civil War, vis-a-vis your comment on Great Britain. The British were operating at the end of a very long, Trans-Atlantic supply line, while being burdened by the defense of the rest of the Empire (and embroiled, literally, in world war against France, Spain and Holland). The American colonists most certainly did not face the full force of the British Army and Navy. Not quite the same thing as a Northern army enjoying interior lines of supply and the ability to move masses of men and materiel vast distances at speed, due to the extensive rail network and along navigable rivers, mostly across friendly territory (particularly the Mississippi in the later stages of the war).
True, the Union was saddled with mediocre senior commanders, but once the right ones had been found (Grant and Sherman) and the philosophy of total war had been agreed upon, the result was more or less a foregone conclusion. The war, technically, was over when the Mississippi had been closed to the South, and New Orleans taken (most other ports of comparable size having been blockaded by Union Naval power), and it is a tribute to the Confederate army that they continued to fight for as long and as well as they did.
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Yes sir....perfectly right. Leonidas at Thermopylae.
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