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On September 06 2011 02:56 NoobSkills wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 02:34 Mjolnir wrote:On September 06 2011 02:30 NoobSkills wrote:On September 05 2011 20:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 15 2011 13:53 Shrinky Dink wrote:![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/giCRx.jpg) Seriously though, if you look past the horrors he did, he was actually an excellent speaker, with his war machine being responsible for some of the greatest advances in technology and science, and recovered his country's extreme deficit in its economy at the time (following the Treaty of Versailles). I know it's obviously that he wasn't the greatest of all time, but IMO he is very underrated as a leader for his country since everyone looks at his cons. I think on the opposite he is very overrated. He was a psychotic maniac who came at the right place, right time. Nazi party was a fucking mess and a horrible bureaucracy, his military decisions have been most of the time horrible; he made a number of unforgivable mistakes against the opinions of all his general, in Russia, in Dunkerke, all the time. He was not a great speaker, he could just bark, and times were so fucked up that he somehow managed to transform a civilized advanced nations into a bunch of fanatics. If puking your hate and barking like a dog makes you a great speaker, then he was. He made the economy "better" by turning his country into a big barracks. That's not what I would call a success. I think Germany was doing better during the worst of the crisis than when he was in power. Nothing to admire with Hitler. He was plain mediocrity. Read Mein Kempf, it's a Manifesto of silly prejudices, bad analysis, misunderstood sources, horrible writing, stupidity and paranoia. He had an extraordinary success, but most of it was really due to the madness of his era than of his "genius". Great general... I would say Alexander. He definitely wasn't the best of all time, but as a general he is very near the top. You dismiss him because of his prejudices, but you might also forget that he did. -Inspire a revolution with words. -Motivated his country to go to war -Held two fronts -Convinced Japan and Italy(shortly) to fight as well -Had more precise bombing raids than the US -Went through with a poorly executed, but quite brilliant final strategy. That being said his cause for war was a ridiculous one, but perhaps that makes what he did even more impressive because not everyone was nearly as prejudiced before he came along. He is certainly not as greatest, I would give the title of greatest to those who not only were winners, but seized a large portion of land in the process and had the most challenge from the opponent. Genghis Khan, Caesar, Alexander the Great, Qin Shi Huang (i think was the name on the history channel). Out of all of those Qin Shi Huang and Alexander probably had the toughest opponents. Gotta disagree. Even putting his personal beliefs aside, I wouldn't even call him a good general. What he was good at, was keeping great generals in his entourage... even though he eventually stymied them and refused to take their advice. As a general himself, he was pretty bad in my opinion, and I'd throw it out there that Germany lost almost entirely due to Hitler's ego and poor decisions. You say that, but it isn't like any of these generals lead by themselves. They kept lower level tacticians in their entourage to micromanage. Everyone has advisers. Germany lost because they were outmatched in money, army size, technology.
Afraid not. Germany lost because they made utterly stupid decisions that caused them to be outmatched in money, army size, and (arguably not) technology.
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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. ![[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.
Well I did acknowlegde that map out of place I just couldnt find a 629 map, my point was they couldnt re expand if they didnt have the resources to do so. Which if they had been just a city of 50,-60 thousand people they wouldnt have been able too. This implies that they werent the big softies that seems to be the point of your argument.
On top of that the province of Egypt was regained by the Byzantine empire in 629 (and then lost again in 642 to the Caliphate). But I seriously doubt they would have been concerned with trying to retake egypt if they had no other holdings. which was really my point of the whole previous paragraph. I dont think there was a ever a point where the entire byzantine empire consisted only of Constantinople. There have been several times when armies were at the gates, and I am assuming that you are referring to the siege of constantinople in 629, but that siege was beaten down, and on top of that other armies of the byzantine empire were fighting the persians in different areas, the capital was sieged but by no means was the empire only one city.The emperors brother scored several victories against the persians shortly after the siege of constantinople.
Trezibond was always part of the empire and often came to its rescue. Saying that a siege of the capital meant that the empire didnt exist or had no power is not really relevants since its happened to hundreds of other kingdoms. The arab wars with Byzantium didnt really start until 634 with the invation of syria and really didnt see any success until the arrival of the general that the Kasda had mentioned.
I am not familiar with the Avar expansion aside from the attack on constantinople, but typically the slavic expansion into northern Byzantium was in the late 7th century. Which was at a point were byzantium had regained much of its holdings and strength.
The whole point is that I dont think Byzantium at that point in time was ever as weak as your claiming. In fact I think they were still quite formidable compared to other nations in the area.
Again, please dont take that the wrong way, those opinions are just from my knowledge of the subject, and I could be wrong, and will happily admit it if I could find something that validated that claim.
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i go with Alexander the great : )
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![[image loading]](http://ecdn1.hark.com/images/000/006/204/6204/original.0)
Easy answer 
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genghis khan, he almost conquered the world.
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I gotta say it's probably napoleon.
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On September 06 2011 05:55 chenchen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:
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)
China never had dominance like Roman or Mongol Empires had. Plus China was conquered many times by their northern neighbors. Not even near by default.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower. Not because of his battlefield prowess but by his pure logistical, coordinating and delegation capacity.
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On September 06 2011 15:10 jtrex wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 05:55 chenchen wrote:On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:
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) China never had dominance like Roman or Mongol Empires had. Plus China was conquered many times by their northern neighbors. Not even near by default.
But the same is true of the Byzantines and the Persians, neither of whom were that strong around 600 AD. In fact, the Persians would soon suffer a fate not unlike that of China to the Mongols, as the Persian Sassanid Empire would survive only until 651, after which Muslim Arabs overran Persia. The Byzantines, meanwhile, faced shrinking territories, to the extent that their holdings in 717 AD barely looked like an empire.
In any case, he has a point about Tang China, though only about Tang China. There were two periods when China could conceivably have been called one of the strongest states in the world, and that was during the Han and Tang dynasties (the Han longer than the Tang). You might be able to throw in the early Ming, as well, though the Ming was not able to extend its power very far.
It was during these rare times that China was able to defeat unified steppe empires to their north - the Xiongnu in the case of the Han, the Gokturks in the case of the Tang, neither of which were weak entities by any means. I'd consider some of the greatest Chinese generals to have lived during these times - commanders like Huo Qubing, who soundly defeated the fearsome Xiongnu horse warriors with his crack cavalry.
Though, to be fair, the Romans and the Mongols weren't perennially powerful, either. They each had their time in the sun, and subsequently fell into decline and decay. And I'm not sure that their power was more enduring than that of China's, as neither the Roman empire nor the Mongol empire has survived, whereas something of a Chinese empire persists to this day.
No single country was strong throughout the course of history.
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On September 06 2011 15:10 jtrex wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 05:55 chenchen wrote:On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:
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) China never had dominance like Roman or Mongol Empires had. Plus China was conquered many times by their northern neighbors. Not even near by default.
Chinese dominance as the strongest nation in the world before Industrial revolution is well documented. Even in the time of turmoil, the ability to rally troops for the Chinese was unheard of in the West. Additionally, their dominance extends not only in military but also in economy, technology, and public welfare.
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On September 06 2011 15:56 FindMeInKenya wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 15:10 jtrex wrote:On September 06 2011 05:55 chenchen wrote:On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:
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) China never had dominance like Roman or Mongol Empires had. Plus China was conquered many times by their northern neighbors. Not even near by default. Chinese dominance as the strongest nation in the world before Industrial revolution is well documented. Even in the time of turmoil, the ability to rally troops for the Chinese was unheard of in the West. Additionally, their dominance extends not only in military but also in economy, technology, and public welfare.
I think you're talking about economic power, as I think I've read somewhere that China (and India) had the strongest economies prior to the Industrial Revolution. Militarily, I don't see where you're getting this idea.
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Surprised this thread still going. Iv'e been revising my top 100 and i still got loads to do. Here we go...
NOTE: I DO NOT INCLUDE ADMIRALS. THEY ARE GOING TO BE JUDGED IN THEIR OWN CATEGORY.
MY current top 100(still very much underwork)
+ Show Spoiler +1 Temujin (Genghis Khan) 1167 1227
2 Alexander the Great 356 BC 323 BC
3 Gaius Julius Caesar 100 BC 44 BC
4 Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 1821
5 Aleksandr Suvorov 1729 1800
6 Hán Xìn 196 BC
7 Khalid ibn al-Walid 584 642
8 Hannibal Barca 241 BC 183 BC
9 Timur 1336 1405
10 Jan Žižka 1370 1424
11 Belisarius 505 565
12 John Churchill (Duke of Marlborough) 1650 1722
13 Subotai 1176 1248
14 Gustav II Adolf 1594 1632
15 Scipio Africanus the Older 237 BC 183 BC
16 Sir Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) 1769 1852
18 Eugene of Savoy 1663 1736
19 Selim I 1470 1520
20 Raimondo Montecuccoli 1608 1680
21 Maurice, comte de Saxe 1696 1750
22 George Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) 1405 1468
23 Stefan cel Mare (Stephen III) 1433 1504
24 Frederick II of Prussia 1712 1786
25 Philip II of Macedon 382 BC 336 BC
26 Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne de Turenne 1611 1675
27 Chandragupta Maurya 298 BC
28 Robert Clive 1725 1774
29 Erich von Manstein 1887 1973
30 Nadir Shah 1688 1747
31 Gaius Marius 157 BC 86 BC
32 Heraclius 575 641
33 Gonzalo de Córdoba (El Gran Capitán) 1453 1515
34 Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke 1800 1891
35 Maurice of Nassau 1567 1625
36 Heinz Wilhelm Guderian 1888 1954
37 Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson 1824 1863
38 Robert E. Lee 1807 1870
39 Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé 1621 1686
40 Tiglath-Pileser III 727 BC
41 Thutmose III 1540 BC
42 Tran Hung dao 1228 1300
43 Toyotomi Hideyoshi 1536 1598
44 Lucius Cornelius Sulla 138 BC 78 BC
45 Yue Fei 1103 1142
46 Babur 1483 1530
Shapur I 272
47 Louis Nicholas Davout 1770 1823
48 Janos Hunyadi 1387 1456
49 Duke of Parma (Alessandro Farnese) 1545 1592
50 Leo III the Isaurian 685 741
51 Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck 1870 1964
52 Simeon I the Great 864 927
53 Hamilcar Barca 270 BC 228 BC
54 Nurhaci 1558 1626
55 Winfield Scott 1786 1866
56 Charles XII 1682 1718
57 Oda Nobunaga 1534 1582
58 Shivaji Bhosle 1627 1680
59 Francesco I Sforza 1401 1466
60 Stanislaw Koniecpolski 1590 1646
61 Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars 1653 1734
62 Louis Joseph de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme 1654 1712
63 Georgy Zhukov 1896 1974
64 Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus) 214 275
65 Epaminondas 418 BC 362 BC
66 Jan III Sobieski 1629 1696
67 Alp Arslan 1029 1072
68 Constantine I the Great 272 337
69 Murad IV 1612 1640
70 Baibars 1223 1277
71 'Amr ibn al-'As 583 664
72 Emperor Taizong of Tang (Li ShìMín) 599 649
73 Sargon of Akkad
74 Suleiman I 1494 1566
75 Shaka Zulu 1787 1828
76 Charles Martel 688 741
77 François de Montmorency-Bouteville 1628 1695
78 Aleksandr Vasilevsky 1895 1977
79 Jebe 1225
80 Rommel 1891 1944
81 Lautaro (toqui) 1557
82 Flavius Stilicho 359 408
83 André Masséna 1758 1817
84 Mahmud of Ghazni 971 1030
85 Ulysses Simpson Grant 1822 1885
86 Carl Gustav Mannerheim 1867 1951
87 Uqba ibn Nafi 622 683
88 Muhammad of Ghor 1162 1206
89 Gazi Evrenos 1417
90 Robert the Bruce 1274 1329
91 Mustafa Kemal 1881 1938
92 Albrecht Wallenstein 1583 1634
93 Takeda Shingen 1521 1573
94 James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose 1612 1650
95 Pyotr Bagration 1765 1812
96 Ranjit Singh 1780 1839
97 Samudragupta 335 380
98 Michael the Brave 1558 1601
99 Ahmad Shah Durrani 1723 1773
100 Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby 1861 1936
The top 30
1 Temujin (Genghis Khan) 1167 1227
2 Alexander the Great 356 BC 323 BC
3 Gaius Julius Caesar 100 BC 44 BC
4 Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 1821
5 Aleksandr Suvorov 1729 1800
6 Hán Xìn 196 BC
7 Khalid ibn al-Walid 584 642
8 Hannibal Barca 241 BC 183 BC
9 Timur 1336 1405
10 Jan Žižka 1370 1424
11 Belisarius 505 565
12 John Churchill (Duke of Marlborough) 1650 1722
13 Subotai 1176 1248
14 Gustav II Adolf 1594 1632
15 Scipio Africanus the Older 237 BC 183 BC
16 Sir Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) 1769 1852
18 Eugene of Savoy 1663 1736
19 Selim I 1470 1520
20 Raimondo Montecuccoli 1608 1680
21 Maurice, comte de Saxe 1696 1750
22 George Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) 1405 1468
23 Stefan cel Mare (Stephen III) 1433 1504
24 Frederick II of Prussia 1712 1786
25 Philip II of Macedon 382 BC 336 BC
26 Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne de Turenne 1611 1675
27 Chandragupta Maurya 298 BC
28 Robert Clive 1725 1774
29 Erich von Manstein 1887 1973
30 Nadir Shah 1688 1747
Some thoughts
1.Genghis Khan takes no.1 and the reasons as i previously stated in this thread are simple - he made the largest empire in the world, fought like no other, his army's fought samurai's in japan and knights in Poland. He started from scratch(his father was a tribe leader at best), and proceeded to steamroll the world.
2. Alexander is always a bit tough, i always disliked the fact that his soldiers ''rebelled'' in India, but that can be excused. Another factor why he isn't no.1 is the fact that he did not face macedonian phalanx very much, except in small occasional rebellions. Khan faced cavalry just like his many times.
3. Caesar seems to have gotten a bad rap over the last century, i still don't get why - he fought every kind of troop possible in numerical disadvantage(though not as big as he claims) and won, only having two small tactical defeats which he bounced back easily. The case against him is always ''he ended the republic, made civil war''. This is a tough point to argue when talking of ''best general''. Politics like that tend to overshadow caesar's conquest
4. Napoleon could be higher, but his campaign of Spain is to me the big thing. Russia is not even that bad, he got bad weather and it screwed him. But the spanish ulcer that he never finished to me is a big no-no. He deserves recognition still for how he controlled ridiculously big army's, much bigger then the three above.
All i know for sure is that the top 4 are very much ahead of the rest; at least with the historical sources we have. It is possible that some leaders lower may have been as great, but sources are lacking(Han Xin and Chandragupta Maurya come to mind as two guys who unified huge parts of territory.)
Other points
- Who is Han Xin? Check out the wiki page at least. Pretty much the reason china got the han dynasty.
- Why is Frederick II so low? Getting into war vs sweden(north), austria(south),russia(east),france(west) just doesn't seem smart. Yes he won 3 major battles, but in the end destroyed a large part of his country&population for 0 territorial gain.
- ZOMG!! where ARE THE WW2 GUYS!!. Calm down. The ww2 guys are VERY hard to judge because they had constraints like no others. Logistics and politics played a huge role. Rommel made too many mistakes in the Tunis campaign, Zhukov didn't have very much success in 1941, Patton did well but with his overwhelming advantage he should have done even better.
- The US civil war guys? Stonewall makes it between 30-40, lee a little more down. Lee in my mind made a mistake at Antietam(we can blame Gettysburg on jeb stuart).
- Hitler, Eisenhower, Stalin, Augustus? Those guys don't fit the general type. They were important, they just don't fit here.
- Euro-centrism is blatant in my list. Im still going over Asian generals thoroughly and im finding new guys here and there. Just to have Han Xin at 6 for me is quite something. I think emperor tang will move up, im studying his campaign's and he's quite impressive.
- Hannibal? Ah yes, why is our favorite alpinist so low? Because 1st he lost 1/3 or his army crossing the alps and he didn't even create much of a surprise effect. Yes im aware how insane Cannae is - it's a great battle, but he still ended up losing the war thoroughly. He ended up losing at zama. Yes im aware he got 0 support from carthage, but he still made some mistakes like believing all of Italy would rally to his cause.
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On September 06 2011 15:56 FindMeInKenya wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 15:10 jtrex wrote:On September 06 2011 05:55 chenchen wrote:On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:
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) China never had dominance like Roman or Mongol Empires had. Plus China was conquered many times by their northern neighbors. Not even near by default. Chinese dominance as the strongest nation in the world before Industrial revolution is well documented. Even in the time of turmoil, the ability to rally troops for the Chinese was unheard of in the West. Additionally, their dominance extends not only in military but also in economy, technology, and public welfare.
Probably they had the strongest economy and the biggest population, but by no means their army was the strongest. They had the biggest economy and population and yet they could not conquer or subjugate their neighbors. Most of the time the opposite happened, they were conquered by their neighbors. Chinese military dominance - over Chinese peasants.
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On September 06 2011 16:51 jtrex wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 15:56 FindMeInKenya wrote:On September 06 2011 15:10 jtrex wrote:On September 06 2011 05:55 chenchen wrote:On September 06 2011 05:06 KwarK wrote:
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) China never had dominance like Roman or Mongol Empires had. Plus China was conquered many times by their northern neighbors. Not even near by default. Chinese dominance as the strongest nation in the world before Industrial revolution is well documented. Even in the time of turmoil, the ability to rally troops for the Chinese was unheard of in the West. Additionally, their dominance extends not only in military but also in economy, technology, and public welfare. Probably they had the strongest economy and the biggest population, but by no means their army was the strongest. They had the biggest economy and population and yet they could not conquer or subjugate their neighbors. Most of the time the opposite happened, they were conquered by their neighbors. Chinese military dominance - over Chinese peasants.
Depends on the period of history, I think. During the early, formative periods, the Chinese conquered their neighbors more than the other way around. During the later, decadent periods, the Chinese were conquered by their neighbors more than the other way around. You're treating China as if only the later periods are relevant. But the problem with this thinking is that China wasn't always this big - like the Romans, they became big by conquering their neighbors.
For example, during the Han Dynasty, China conquered:
South China (which was not originally part of China)
Vietnam
North Korea
The Tarim Basin
Parts of Inner Mongolia
Parts of Manchuria
At its height, the Han empire matched the Roman empire in size and population, and was the most powerful political entity in the eastern half of the world.
If you would admit the Roman Empire, then you must also admit Han Dynasty China. They were comparable.
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So many to choose from Alexander - Napoleon - Washington - Khan - Vlad - Julius Caesar - Rommel ( who would have kicked all of our asses if not for us breaking the German code ) - Hannibal who made even the Romans cower in fear - Patton - MacArthur and so many ... many more but my vote goes with Rommel.
edit: I think not enough people think of Erwin Rommel as great because he was on the losing side. but you have to look past victory's and defeats and look at troops they commanded which is why Alexander will never make it high on my general list. Not 1 German soldier under Rommel's command was ever convicted of war crimes and Rommel went against the orders of Hitler several times, and prisoners were treated with respect
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Sad to see Rommels name mentioned so many times and Lieutenant General Sir Leslie James Morshead's not once. Definitely not the top general of all time but if you mention Rommel I feel like you have to mention him. Also, another amazing Australian general is Sir John Monash.
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On September 06 2011 17:30 Yuriegh wrote:
So many to choose from Alexander - Napoleon - Washington - Khan - Vlad - Julius Caesar - Rommel ( who would have kicked all of our asses if not for us breaking the German code ) - Hannibal who made even the Romans cower in fear - Patton - MacArthur and so many ... many more but my vote goes with Rommel.
edit: I think not enough people think of Erwin Rommel as great because he was on the losing side. but you have to look past victory's and defeats and look at troops they commanded which is why Alexander will never make it high on my general list. Not 1 German soldier under Rommel's command was ever convicted of war crimes and Rommel went against the orders of Hitler several times, and prisoners were treated with respect
I have hard time seeing Rommel as top general not because he was on the losing side, but because he did not really accomplish that much. He showed great tactical genius, but he never commanded really big force in action and never had to manage really complex front. He might have been able to do it as well, but we won't know. There were hundreds if not thousands generals in history that achieved feats of similar scale to his.
If I had to put forth top German general in WW2 it would definitely not have been Rommel. Probably Mannstein.
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Yi Soon Shin. Greatest Naval tactician in history. His self taught, in less than 6 months, tactics are still studied seriously in US Naval academies. Every Battle a victory, every battle an overwhelming victory.
When you're outnumbered 100 - 1, all you need to do is have some speshul taktiks to rout the enemy!
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EPT
