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On September 06 2011 04:23 T0MORR0W wrote:
It's all about Hannibal. He consistently took on *Roman* armies much larger than his own despite being undersupplied for much of his campaign. Also he invented the double envelopment and rode elephants. Innovation and doing the impossible are what greatness is about and that's what Hannibal did.
Well he had much more experienced soldiers also. And he was good in battles, but out of the battlefield proved not such a good general. Still great, maybe even one of the greatest, but it is not like he made no mistakes.
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i think its a tie between goody and rommel if i read this tread comments correctly xD
well i think theres not a bigger difference possible ^^ rush rommel vs bunker goody
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On September 06 2011 04:29 MisterFred wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 04:07 Luepert wrote:On September 06 2011 03:50 MisterFred wrote:On September 06 2011 03:47 Luepert wrote:
Alexander the Great man, There's a reason he's called the great, he conquered the largest emppires ever held by one man before he was 35. Greek culture influenced the entire world and still does. He also died before the age of 35 and his empire fell to pieces around him. If you want to talk about holding territory and the influence of Greek culture, Seleucus Nicator is probably greater than Alexander. Lol you can't blame him for what happened after he died. Of course you can. What do you think planning for the future is some joke? Succession is a big deal. Any general who doesn't have a plan for what happens if he gets offed is risking a gigantic catastrophe for those he is leading. Taking huge risks that can lead to catastrophe is a negative quality in a general.
I think we are interpreting this thread differently, I guess I'm going mainly by battle prowess and strategy in war, " Taking huge risks that can lead to catastrophe is a negative quality in a general" He apparently didn't have this problem in battle.
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On September 06 2011 04:29 MisterFred wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 04:07 Luepert wrote:On September 06 2011 03:50 MisterFred wrote:On September 06 2011 03:47 Luepert wrote:
Alexander the Great man, There's a reason he's called the great, he conquered the largest emppires ever held by one man before he was 35. Greek culture influenced the entire world and still does. He also died before the age of 35 and his empire fell to pieces around him. If you want to talk about holding territory and the influence of Greek culture, Seleucus Nicator is probably greater than Alexander. Lol you can't blame him for what happened after he died. Of course you can. What do you think planning for the future is some joke? Succession is a big deal. Any general who doesn't have a plan for what happens if he gets offed is risking a gigantic catastrophe for those he is leading. Taking huge risks that can lead to catastrophe is a negative quality in a general.
You are mixing being general and being a rules/leader. Alexander was actually quite a good one in both areas. However big his fault was concerning things that happened after he died, it has no relevance for judging him as general. Generals are to be judged by how well they achieved military objectives with the resources at hand. There is some politics involved in judging a general, but only as much as concerns his interactions with a ruler(s), like advice given to the ruler, being able to convince the ruler about military matters. In case of Alexander he was both ruler and general, but he was pretty good general and pretty good leader in military matters. If there is something bad to be said about him as general it would be about his Indian campaign and the retreat from it.
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Succession after the death of a stable leader in a powerful empire proved difficult for any ancient civilization. It was either to a number of things including internal bides for power among different candidates, aggression from outside forces, etc.
Initially I thought this thread was about the leadership of generals in war time and not their skills as a politician and statesman.
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On September 06 2011 04:42 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 04:23 T0MORR0W wrote:
It's all about Hannibal. He consistently took on *Roman* armies much larger than his own despite being undersupplied for much of his campaign. Also he invented the double envelopment and rode elephants. Innovation and doing the impossible are what greatness is about and that's what Hannibal did. Well he had much more experienced soldiers also. And he was good in battles, but out of the battlefield proved not such a good general. Still great, maybe even one of the greatest, but it is not like he made no mistakes.
Well there is nobody who never made any mistakes. The thing is that he was put in a terrible situation and still trashed the armies of the most consistently militarily successful empire ever for several years on their own turf. Also somebody who rides elephants is awesome anyway. Hannibal pulled off some really amazing stuff in really bad circumstances against, and I cannot say this enough Rome. I would still say he is at the very least one of the greatest ever, and in my opinion THE greatest.
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United States43966 Posts
On September 06 2011 02:29 Darpa wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2011 20:53 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 20:35 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:On September 05 2011 20:22 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:57 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:51 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:38 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:00 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:It's hard to define the greatest. As all the candidates lived in different ages, different places, and so on. However, for me, note that this is subjective, the greatest general of all times would be Khalid ibn al Waleed. That man, it is said, has never lost a battle in his life and he took part in more than hundred. He managed to defeat the biggest powers at that time, the Persian and Byzantine Empire, with an army that was poorly equipped and were few in numbers. He was the one who brought and end to the first, while the latter has never managed to retake its lost territories in the Middle East. He is known for this saying: ''When I am in the battlefield, I love it more then when I am in my house.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-WalidHowever i bet the majority of you never heard of him, because as usual these kinds of threads treat only the West and Far East generals, rarely the Arab and Islamic ones. this guy was insane. defeating two of the worlds most powerful empires whilst being outnumbered the whole time? legend. fuck all this euro centrism! This is akin to calling a necrophiliac the greatest seducer of all time. If you actually knew your history you'd know the Byzantine and Persian empires had just fought each other to mutual destruction and the area had been pillaged, enslaved and burned to the ground so many times after the last hundred years there was nothing left to fight for and no will left to fight for it. ok fair point but the byzantines were still pretty strong and they outnumbered him a shitload. plus the guy fought over 100 battles and never lost one How were the Byzantines still pretty strong? In 613 Damascus fell. 614, Jerusalem. In 616, Egypt. The richest parts of the Byzantine Empire changed hands a dozen times. Constantinople itself was besieged in 626 and the Emperor was forced to accept a humiliating tribute to the Persian king. The Western Empire had fallen long ago (except Carthage), with the East reduced to a single city just three years before the first confrontation with Islam how exactly did you expect them to win? On paper Byzantium still looked impressive at the start of the conflict with Islam as they won the war with Persia and retook the lost territories two years before. In reality though, it was just colours shaded on the map. The lands were despoiled and Byzantium broken. It may be true that they weren't at the height of their power, but they still were the strongest nation at that time along with Persia. They had infinitely more wealth, weapons, and armies and then a bunch of people from desert come and humiliate them battle after battle. Not to mention that the Arabs fought both Byzantium and Persia simultaneously, just a few years after establishing the Caliphate. Nothing short of impressive. Completely short of impressive. In 626 Byzantium was reduced to a single city by Persia and barbarians from the north. In 627 the complete collapse of Persia allowed Byzantium to begin recovery and retake the lost territories but weren't productive. It's no use having five bases if you only have one probe and no minerals, it'll still take you a long time to recover. A strong breeze would have overrun Persia in the wake of the defeat of 627 (the peace treaty with Byzantium represented a total collapse of the empire), it was already dead. The war was almost as ruinous to the Byzantine Empire, bringing them to the brink of collapse and only surviving because Persia collapsed first, they were in no state to defend themselves against the new, energetic threat posed by the Muslim Arabs. This is Byzantium in 650, severaly weakened but still considerably more than a single city. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NYp8x.jpg) I realize that you stated that they reclaimed lost terroritory after the war with the Sassinad empire but at no point in my studies have I ever heard of them being a single city at this point in time, with little regional power. Can you source that? All of the other facts you stated are spot on in terms of time frame and historical accuracy, but it seems like that was an exageration to make your point. While Byzantium was severely weakend by 627 AD , they were still a formidable empire compared to what remained around them. They were never a single city in strength (unless im mistaken, but I cant find any source validating that claim) until the Turks really began pushing them on.The Seljuq Turks made their first explorations across the Byzantine frontier into Armenia in 1065 and in 1067, a good portion of historians (at least that I have read) believe that this was the Apex of the Byzantium empire. The point at which they had can systematically categorize the events which lead to the final fall of the empire, culminating in the the sack of 1204AD from crusaders. Even then Byzantines still held the majority of the pelopenesse in greece and scattered territories. They still limped on until the turks finally conquered the territory permanently around 1400 AD. If you look at maps after 650 AD, they began to expand aggressively again. Saying they were a breath in the wind i think is fairly large exaggeration I dont necessarily disagree that they were in a weakend state, and a shadow of their former strength, because they most definitly were. But I have to agree with Kasda that they were still certainly the most influential regional power of the time. No other empire aside from the Arab Caliphate existed south of the Danube. Now in turns of the general thread, I generally think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baibars is one of the top eastern generals, he pretty much single handidly ended the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, and his sons ended the principality of Antioch, he has a pretty cool history
Constantinople was besieged by a Persian army from the Asian side of the straits and an Avar army from the mainland side. Where exactly was their empire that year, Carthage excluded? The people still spoke Greek but the empire's ability to defend them, to levy taxes, to maintain the structure of empire was gone. Taking a map from many years later and saying "look at the shaded area, clearly they're fine" both doesn't address the fact that in 629 (when the Arabs appeared) they were fucked and that the shaded area had been fought over into the ground. They made a recovery in later years which is completely irrelevant to the point at hand.
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On September 06 2011 05:05 T0MORR0W wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 04:42 mcc wrote:On September 06 2011 04:23 T0MORR0W wrote:
It's all about Hannibal. He consistently took on *Roman* armies much larger than his own despite being undersupplied for much of his campaign. Also he invented the double envelopment and rode elephants. Innovation and doing the impossible are what greatness is about and that's what Hannibal did. Well he had much more experienced soldiers also. And he was good in battles, but out of the battlefield proved not such a good general. Still great, maybe even one of the greatest, but it is not like he made no mistakes. Well there is nobody who never made any mistakes. The thing is that he was put in a terrible situation and still trashed the armies of the most consistently militarily successful empire ever for several years on their own turf. Also somebody who rides elephants is awesome anyway. Hannibal pulled off some really amazing stuff in really bad circumstances against, and I cannot say this enough Rome. I would still say he is at the very least one of the greatest ever, and in my opinion THE greatest.
He kind of put himself in the really bad circumstances by probably starting the war. First blunder right there. Also at that point Rome was example of : We lose first X battles but in the end we win the war. It was not only Hannibal who defeated Romans at that time. A lot of Roman conquests and wars started with consistent Roman defeats, but in the end they won the wars. Romans had good military organization that was quite quickly evolving so that gave them advantage, they also had better political organization and superior population reserves for replenishing armies.
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On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 02:29 Darpa wrote:On September 05 2011 20:53 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 20:35 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:On September 05 2011 20:22 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:57 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:51 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:38 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:00 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:It's hard to define the greatest. As all the candidates lived in different ages, different places, and so on. However, for me, note that this is subjective, the greatest general of all times would be Khalid ibn al Waleed. That man, it is said, has never lost a battle in his life and he took part in more than hundred. He managed to defeat the biggest powers at that time, the Persian and Byzantine Empire, with an army that was poorly equipped and were few in numbers. He was the one who brought and end to the first, while the latter has never managed to retake its lost territories in the Middle East. He is known for this saying: ''When I am in the battlefield, I love it more then when I am in my house.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-WalidHowever i bet the majority of you never heard of him, because as usual these kinds of threads treat only the West and Far East generals, rarely the Arab and Islamic ones. this guy was insane. defeating two of the worlds most powerful empires whilst being outnumbered the whole time? legend. fuck all this euro centrism! This is akin to calling a necrophiliac the greatest seducer of all time. If you actually knew your history you'd know the Byzantine and Persian empires had just fought each other to mutual destruction and the area had been pillaged, enslaved and burned to the ground so many times after the last hundred years there was nothing left to fight for and no will left to fight for it. ok fair point but the byzantines were still pretty strong and they outnumbered him a shitload. plus the guy fought over 100 battles and never lost one How were the Byzantines still pretty strong? In 613 Damascus fell. 614, Jerusalem. In 616, Egypt. The richest parts of the Byzantine Empire changed hands a dozen times. Constantinople itself was besieged in 626 and the Emperor was forced to accept a humiliating tribute to the Persian king. The Western Empire had fallen long ago (except Carthage), with the East reduced to a single city just three years before the first confrontation with Islam how exactly did you expect them to win? On paper Byzantium still looked impressive at the start of the conflict with Islam as they won the war with Persia and retook the lost territories two years before. In reality though, it was just colours shaded on the map. The lands were despoiled and Byzantium broken. It may be true that they weren't at the height of their power, but they still were the strongest nation at that time along with Persia. They had infinitely more wealth, weapons, and armies and then a bunch of people from desert come and humiliate them battle after battle. Not to mention that the Arabs fought both Byzantium and Persia simultaneously, just a few years after establishing the Caliphate. Nothing short of impressive. Completely short of impressive. In 626 Byzantium was reduced to a single city by Persia and barbarians from the north. In 627 the complete collapse of Persia allowed Byzantium to begin recovery and retake the lost territories but weren't productive. It's no use having five bases if you only have one probe and no minerals, it'll still take you a long time to recover. A strong breeze would have overrun Persia in the wake of the defeat of 627 (the peace treaty with Byzantium represented a total collapse of the empire), it was already dead. The war was almost as ruinous to the Byzantine Empire, bringing them to the brink of collapse and only surviving because Persia collapsed first, they were in no state to defend themselves against the new, energetic threat posed by the Muslim Arabs. This is Byzantium in 650, severaly weakened but still considerably more than a single city. I realize that you stated that they reclaimed lost terroritory after the war with the Sassinad empire but at no point in my studies have I ever heard of them being a single city at this point in time, with little regional power. Can you source that? All of the other facts you stated are spot on in terms of time frame and historical accuracy, but it seems like that was an exageration to make your point. While Byzantium was severely weakend by 627 AD , they were still a formidable empire compared to what remained around them. They were never a single city in strength (unless im mistaken, but I cant find any source validating that claim) until the Turks really began pushing them on.The Seljuq Turks made their first explorations across the Byzantine frontier into Armenia in 1065 and in 1067, a good portion of historians (at least that I have read) believe that this was the Apex of the Byzantium empire. The point at which they had can systematically categorize the events which lead to the final fall of the empire, culminating in the the sack of 1204AD from crusaders. Even then Byzantines still held the majority of the pelopenesse in greece and scattered territories. They still limped on until the turks finally conquered the territory permanently around 1400 AD. If you look at maps after 650 AD, they began to expand aggressively again. Saying they were a breath in the wind i think is fairly large exaggeration I dont necessarily disagree that they were in a weakend state, and a shadow of their former strength, because they most definitly were. But I have to agree with Kasda that they were still certainly the most influential regional power of the time. No other empire aside from the Arab Caliphate existed south of the Danube. Now in turns of the general thread, I generally think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baibars is one of the top eastern generals, he pretty much single handidly ended the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, and his sons ended the principality of Antioch, he has a pretty cool history Constantinople was besieged by a Persian army from the Asian side of the straits and an Avar army from the mainland side. Where exactly was their empire that year, Carthage excluded? The people still spoke Greek but the empire's ability to defend them, to levy taxes, to maintain the structure of empire was gone. Taking a map from many years later and saying "look at the shaded area, clearly they're fine" both doesn't address the fact that in 629 (when the Arabs appeared) they were fucked and that the shaded area had been fought over into the ground. They made a recovery in later years which is completely irrelevant to the point at hand.
Capitol city being besieged does not mean that the country lost all of its territories. Byzantine Empire at that time was never really reduced to one city, which is the point he is contesting. Noone argues that they were not totally fucked after mutual near killing blows they traded with Persians.
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On September 06 2011 05:17 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 05:05 T0MORR0W wrote:On September 06 2011 04:42 mcc wrote:On September 06 2011 04:23 T0MORR0W wrote:
It's all about Hannibal. He consistently took on *Roman* armies much larger than his own despite being undersupplied for much of his campaign. Also he invented the double envelopment and rode elephants. Innovation and doing the impossible are what greatness is about and that's what Hannibal did. Well he had much more experienced soldiers also. And he was good in battles, but out of the battlefield proved not such a good general. Still great, maybe even one of the greatest, but it is not like he made no mistakes. Well there is nobody who never made any mistakes. The thing is that he was put in a terrible situation and still trashed the armies of the most consistently militarily successful empire ever for several years on their own turf. Also somebody who rides elephants is awesome anyway. Hannibal pulled off some really amazing stuff in really bad circumstances against, and I cannot say this enough Rome. I would still say he is at the very least one of the greatest ever, and in my opinion THE greatest. He kind of put himself in the really bad circumstances by probably starting the war. First blunder right there. Also at that point Rome was example of : We lose first X battles but in the end we win the war. It was not only Hannibal who defeated Romans at that time. A lot of Roman conquests and wars started with consistent Roman defeats, but in the end they won the wars. Romans had good military organization that was quite quickly evolving so that gave them advantage, they also had better political organization and superior population reserves for replenishing armies.
Which is exactly why what Hannibal did was so great. Hannibal was limited by Carthages inability to support him!
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Napolean isn't mentioned enough in this thread. The guy expanded and conquered huge proportions at a time and place where no one really thought that kind of expansion was possible. He did it by taking military organization to a whole new level, with a thorough-understanding of all the contingencies of maintaining an army, making drastic improvements and having huge success in matters most generals are never even asked to think about.
His biggest problem was he was so successful that he couldn't really see his limitations anymore.
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On September 06 2011 05:22 Undrass wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 05:17 mcc wrote:On September 06 2011 05:05 T0MORR0W wrote:On September 06 2011 04:42 mcc wrote:On September 06 2011 04:23 T0MORR0W wrote:
It's all about Hannibal. He consistently took on *Roman* armies much larger than his own despite being undersupplied for much of his campaign. Also he invented the double envelopment and rode elephants. Innovation and doing the impossible are what greatness is about and that's what Hannibal did. Well he had much more experienced soldiers also. And he was good in battles, but out of the battlefield proved not such a good general. Still great, maybe even one of the greatest, but it is not like he made no mistakes. Well there is nobody who never made any mistakes. The thing is that he was put in a terrible situation and still trashed the armies of the most consistently militarily successful empire ever for several years on their own turf. Also somebody who rides elephants is awesome anyway. Hannibal pulled off some really amazing stuff in really bad circumstances against, and I cannot say this enough Rome. I would still say he is at the very least one of the greatest ever, and in my opinion THE greatest. He kind of put himself in the really bad circumstances by probably starting the war. First blunder right there. Also at that point Rome was example of : We lose first X battles but in the end we win the war. It was not only Hannibal who defeated Romans at that time. A lot of Roman conquests and wars started with consistent Roman defeats, but in the end they won the wars. Romans had good military organization that was quite quickly evolving so that gave them advantage, they also had better political organization and superior population reserves for replenishing armies. Which is exactly why what Hannibal did was so great. Hannibal was limited by Carthages inability to support him!
My point was that defeating Romans in few battles was not such a unique feat and you conclude that that made him great general ? I said he was great general, but I do not base it on the fact that he defeated Romans in some battles. I also pointed out that he made many blunders in that part of politics that still belongs to the area of competency of generals and in military matters, so there are reasons not to consider him the "bestest" general of all time.
Also as for support from Carthage it seems it was partly inability , partly refusal by Carthage leaders
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Napolean isn't mentioned enough in this thread. The guy expanded and conquered huge proportions at a time and place where no one really thought that kind of expansion was possible. He did it by taking military organization to a whole new level, with a thorough-understanding of all the contingencies of maintaining an army, making drastic improvements and having huge success in matters most generals are never even asked to think about.
His biggest problem was he was so successful that he couldn't really see his limitations anymore.
Damnit I was just going to mention everything you wrote, however I will add on. It took pretty much all of Europe + Mother Nature to defeat this guy, before that there wasn't a commander in the world that could match his tactical genius.
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On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 02:29 Darpa wrote:On September 05 2011 20:53 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 20:35 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:On September 05 2011 20:22 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:57 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:51 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:38 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:00 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:It's hard to define the greatest. As all the candidates lived in different ages, different places, and so on. However, for me, note that this is subjective, the greatest general of all times would be Khalid ibn al Waleed. That man, it is said, has never lost a battle in his life and he took part in more than hundred. He managed to defeat the biggest powers at that time, the Persian and Byzantine Empire, with an army that was poorly equipped and were few in numbers. He was the one who brought and end to the first, while the latter has never managed to retake its lost territories in the Middle East. He is known for this saying: ''When I am in the battlefield, I love it more then when I am in my house.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-WalidHowever i bet the majority of you never heard of him, because as usual these kinds of threads treat only the West and Far East generals, rarely the Arab and Islamic ones. this guy was insane. defeating two of the worlds most powerful empires whilst being outnumbered the whole time? legend. fuck all this euro centrism! This is akin to calling a necrophiliac the greatest seducer of all time. If you actually knew your history you'd know the Byzantine and Persian empires had just fought each other to mutual destruction and the area had been pillaged, enslaved and burned to the ground so many times after the last hundred years there was nothing left to fight for and no will left to fight for it. ok fair point but the byzantines were still pretty strong and they outnumbered him a shitload. plus the guy fought over 100 battles and never lost one How were the Byzantines still pretty strong? In 613 Damascus fell. 614, Jerusalem. In 616, Egypt. The richest parts of the Byzantine Empire changed hands a dozen times. Constantinople itself was besieged in 626 and the Emperor was forced to accept a humiliating tribute to the Persian king. The Western Empire had fallen long ago (except Carthage), with the East reduced to a single city just three years before the first confrontation with Islam how exactly did you expect them to win? On paper Byzantium still looked impressive at the start of the conflict with Islam as they won the war with Persia and retook the lost territories two years before. In reality though, it was just colours shaded on the map. The lands were despoiled and Byzantium broken. It may be true that they weren't at the height of their power, but they still were the strongest nation at that time along with Persia. They had infinitely more wealth, weapons, and armies and then a bunch of people from desert come and humiliate them battle after battle. Not to mention that the Arabs fought both Byzantium and Persia simultaneously, just a few years after establishing the Caliphate. Nothing short of impressive. Completely short of impressive. In 626 Byzantium was reduced to a single city by Persia and barbarians from the north. In 627 the complete collapse of Persia allowed Byzantium to begin recovery and retake the lost territories but weren't productive. It's no use having five bases if you only have one probe and no minerals, it'll still take you a long time to recover. A strong breeze would have overrun Persia in the wake of the defeat of 627 (the peace treaty with Byzantium represented a total collapse of the empire), it was already dead. The war was almost as ruinous to the Byzantine Empire, bringing them to the brink of collapse and only surviving because Persia collapsed first, they were in no state to defend themselves against the new, energetic threat posed by the Muslim Arabs. This is Byzantium in 650, severaly weakened but still considerably more than a single city. I realize that you stated that they reclaimed lost terroritory after the war with the Sassinad empire but at no point in my studies have I ever heard of them being a single city at this point in time, with little regional power. Can you source that? All of the other facts you stated are spot on in terms of time frame and historical accuracy, but it seems like that was an exageration to make your point. While Byzantium was severely weakend by 627 AD , they were still a formidable empire compared to what remained around them. They were never a single city in strength (unless im mistaken, but I cant find any source validating that claim) until the Turks really began pushing them on.The Seljuq Turks made their first explorations across the Byzantine frontier into Armenia in 1065 and in 1067, a good portion of historians (at least that I have read) believe that this was the Apex of the Byzantium empire. The point at which they had can systematically categorize the events which lead to the final fall of the empire, culminating in the the sack of 1204AD from crusaders. Even then Byzantines still held the majority of the pelopenesse in greece and scattered territories. They still limped on until the turks finally conquered the territory permanently around 1400 AD. If you look at maps after 650 AD, they began to expand aggressively again. Saying they were a breath in the wind i think is fairly large exaggeration I dont necessarily disagree that they were in a weakend state, and a shadow of their former strength, because they most definitly were. But I have to agree with Kasda that they were still certainly the most influential regional power of the time. No other empire aside from the Arab Caliphate existed south of the Danube. Now in turns of the general thread, I generally think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baibars is one of the top eastern generals, he pretty much single handidly ended the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, and his sons ended the principality of Antioch, he has a pretty cool history Constantinople was besieged by a Persian army from the Asian side of the straits and an Avar army from the mainland side. Where exactly was their empire that year, Carthage excluded? The people still spoke Greek but the empire's ability to defend them, to levy taxes, to maintain the structure of empire was gone. Taking a map from many years later and saying "look at the shaded area, clearly they're fine" both doesn't address the fact that in 629 (when the Arabs appeared) they were fucked and that the shaded area had been fought over into the ground. They made a recovery in later years which is completely irrelevant to the point at hand.
Byzantine and Persia being the strongest nations of their time?
Is this a complete joke . . . or did Tang China just evaporate?
Before the year 1600 or so, the strongest nation in the world is China by default except for special circumstances (civil war, unrest and invasion)
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On September 06 2011 05:55 chenchen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:On September 06 2011 02:29 Darpa wrote:On September 05 2011 20:53 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 20:35 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:On September 05 2011 20:22 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:57 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:51 KwarK wrote:On September 05 2011 19:38 oldgregg wrote:On September 05 2011 19:00 KasdaTheEmperor wrote:It's hard to define the greatest. As all the candidates lived in different ages, different places, and so on. However, for me, note that this is subjective, the greatest general of all times would be Khalid ibn al Waleed. That man, it is said, has never lost a battle in his life and he took part in more than hundred. He managed to defeat the biggest powers at that time, the Persian and Byzantine Empire, with an army that was poorly equipped and were few in numbers. He was the one who brought and end to the first, while the latter has never managed to retake its lost territories in the Middle East. He is known for this saying: ''When I am in the battlefield, I love it more then when I am in my house.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-WalidHowever i bet the majority of you never heard of him, because as usual these kinds of threads treat only the West and Far East generals, rarely the Arab and Islamic ones. this guy was insane. defeating two of the worlds most powerful empires whilst being outnumbered the whole time? legend. fuck all this euro centrism! This is akin to calling a necrophiliac the greatest seducer of all time. If you actually knew your history you'd know the Byzantine and Persian empires had just fought each other to mutual destruction and the area had been pillaged, enslaved and burned to the ground so many times after the last hundred years there was nothing left to fight for and no will left to fight for it. ok fair point but the byzantines were still pretty strong and they outnumbered him a shitload. plus the guy fought over 100 battles and never lost one How were the Byzantines still pretty strong? In 613 Damascus fell. 614, Jerusalem. In 616, Egypt. The richest parts of the Byzantine Empire changed hands a dozen times. Constantinople itself was besieged in 626 and the Emperor was forced to accept a humiliating tribute to the Persian king. The Western Empire had fallen long ago (except Carthage), with the East reduced to a single city just three years before the first confrontation with Islam how exactly did you expect them to win? On paper Byzantium still looked impressive at the start of the conflict with Islam as they won the war with Persia and retook the lost territories two years before. In reality though, it was just colours shaded on the map. The lands were despoiled and Byzantium broken. It may be true that they weren't at the height of their power, but they still were the strongest nation at that time along with Persia. They had infinitely more wealth, weapons, and armies and then a bunch of people from desert come and humiliate them battle after battle. Not to mention that the Arabs fought both Byzantium and Persia simultaneously, just a few years after establishing the Caliphate. Nothing short of impressive. Completely short of impressive. In 626 Byzantium was reduced to a single city by Persia and barbarians from the north. In 627 the complete collapse of Persia allowed Byzantium to begin recovery and retake the lost territories but weren't productive. It's no use having five bases if you only have one probe and no minerals, it'll still take you a long time to recover. A strong breeze would have overrun Persia in the wake of the defeat of 627 (the peace treaty with Byzantium represented a total collapse of the empire), it was already dead. The war was almost as ruinous to the Byzantine Empire, bringing them to the brink of collapse and only surviving because Persia collapsed first, they were in no state to defend themselves against the new, energetic threat posed by the Muslim Arabs. This is Byzantium in 650, severaly weakened but still considerably more than a single city. I realize that you stated that they reclaimed lost terroritory after the war with the Sassinad empire but at no point in my studies have I ever heard of them being a single city at this point in time, with little regional power. Can you source that? All of the other facts you stated are spot on in terms of time frame and historical accuracy, but it seems like that was an exageration to make your point. While Byzantium was severely weakend by 627 AD , they were still a formidable empire compared to what remained around them. They were never a single city in strength (unless im mistaken, but I cant find any source validating that claim) until the Turks really began pushing them on.The Seljuq Turks made their first explorations across the Byzantine frontier into Armenia in 1065 and in 1067, a good portion of historians (at least that I have read) believe that this was the Apex of the Byzantium empire. The point at which they had can systematically categorize the events which lead to the final fall of the empire, culminating in the the sack of 1204AD from crusaders. Even then Byzantines still held the majority of the pelopenesse in greece and scattered territories. They still limped on until the turks finally conquered the territory permanently around 1400 AD. If you look at maps after 650 AD, they began to expand aggressively again. Saying they were a breath in the wind i think is fairly large exaggeration I dont necessarily disagree that they were in a weakend state, and a shadow of their former strength, because they most definitly were. But I have to agree with Kasda that they were still certainly the most influential regional power of the time. No other empire aside from the Arab Caliphate existed south of the Danube. Now in turns of the general thread, I generally think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baibars is one of the top eastern generals, he pretty much single handidly ended the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, and his sons ended the principality of Antioch, he has a pretty cool history Constantinople was besieged by a Persian army from the Asian side of the straits and an Avar army from the mainland side. Where exactly was their empire that year, Carthage excluded? The people still spoke Greek but the empire's ability to defend them, to levy taxes, to maintain the structure of empire was gone. Taking a map from many years later and saying "look at the shaded area, clearly they're fine" both doesn't address the fact that in 629 (when the Arabs appeared) they were fucked and that the shaded area had been fought over into the ground. They made a recovery in later years which is completely irrelevant to the point at hand. Byzantine and Persia being the strongest nations of their time? Is this a complete joke . . . or did Tang China just evaporate? Before the year 1600 or so, the strongest nation in the world is China by default except for special circumstances (civil war, unrest and invasion)
Eh, not by default and there was a lot of civil wars in China, also if they were successfully invaded and conquered that means they were not strongest long before the invasion  .There were a lot of periods in history before 1600 where China was fragmented and even when not too fragmented there was still some other arguably more powerful state. But you are right Tang dynasty is one period where they were at least some of the time quite probably strongest state in the world. Although later Caliphate was pretty equal for a time. BUT we are talking about events ending in 620s and that is time when Tang dynasty rises, so I see no reason to mention them.
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Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf - stop the invasion of Kuwait in 4 days. wow
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Hannibal, Cingeto, Cesar, a bunch of others... but in terms of accomplishments none even comes close to Sabutai.
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Are we talking purely from a military point of view, without including politics and/or personal life, primarily focusing on military victories and conquests? Should we consider their legacy, how small they started, their lasting impact in history, how their actions shaped generations, how far their borders were extended, how their genius their strategies were...?
'Cause if it's all of the above, it's close between Alexander the Great, Gengis Khan and Cyrus the Great. I'm leaning towards the latter, considering Alexander himself admired and envied Cyrus for his abilities both in combat and in politics, as well as his ultimate desire for peace over his kingdom which was the largest in recorded history.
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On September 06 2011 07:03 Xpace wrote:
Are we talking purely from a military point of view, without including politics and/or personal life, primarily focusing on military victories and conquests? Should we consider their legacy, how small they started, their lasting impact in history, how their actions shaped generations, how far their borders were extended, how their genius their strategies were...?
'Cause if it's all of the above, it's close between Alexander the Great, Gengis Khan and Cyrus the Great. I'm leaning towards the latter, considering Alexander himself admired and envied Cyrus for his abilities both in combat and in politics, as well as his ultimate desire for peace over his kingdom which was the largest in recorded history.
This is not true, the largest territory ever was Gengis Khan's.
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Robert E. Lee at the LEAST deserves an honorable mention. The guy did some amazing things when the odds were heavily stacked against him.
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EPT
