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On February 15 2011 16:03 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 15:29 allecto wrote:
Lee not really that great? Well, maybe not the elite of the elite, but I think the greatest American-born general deserves a spot in the top 20.
Edit: Ok, I can see 37 with what you say there. There were some blunders, but 37 is in pretty good company.
As for Scipio, the victory at Zama was an unfair fight, basically catching Hannibal in a bad place. And the campaign in Spain, though important, is definitely overhyped and I wouldn't put him past other Roman generals such as Caesar (for domination and training his soldiers well), Camillus (for defenses and sieges), and Marius (for victories but more for his reorganization of the military). Nothing against the rest, but why do you think is the campaign in Spain overhyped ? From what I read it was crucial to bind reinforcements that could have otherwise be sent to Italy and his execution of the campaign was pretty good. I think that it was actually one of the most important Roman decisions to keep his predecessors in Spain even after the initial defeats from Hannibal and not to recall them to Italy. Now that I read your post again, are you saying that the importance of the campaign was overhyped, or Scipio's accomplishments in that campaign ?
Both were overhyped, but more so his accomplishments. The campaign was important, very important, but the war could have been won elsewhere. He may not even be the greatest Roman general in Spain (see Sertorius). And Scipio's accomplishments are definitely overstated. He was an unusual character to say the least, racking up younger than normal leadership positions and used this to his advantage to get a propaganda machine rolling. The Scipio clan dominated 215-115 BC in terms of preeminence. The major source for the 2nd Punic War that we have is Polybius (everything else is largely based off of him), and he literally belonged to the Scipionic circle.
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Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
1. Napoleon Bonaparte - Excellent on offense and defense, greatest artillery captain in history, was only beaten on the field by vastly superior numbers and by generals who were smart enough to copy him.
2. Alexander the Great - Conquered the known world and could've kept going, but his own troops weren't as much of a badass as he was. Singlehandedly dismantled the greatest empire of the day (Persia). Led from the front, and understood everything there was to understand about warfare at the time.
3. Hannibal Barca - Nearly brought the ascendant Roman Empire to it's knees, but was eventually outdone by long lines of supply, the incompetence of his brother at Metaurus River, and Roman attrition tactics. Though the Romans were able to outlast him, it was only after they suffered three of the greatest defeats in their history, including the loss of 80,000 (!) men at Cannae to a brilliant envelopment.
4. Gustavus Adolphus - One of history's greatest military minds, he made Sweden into a major world power, rescued protestantism during the thirty years war, and then died on the field of victory at Lützen. His innovations included military uniforms, smaller more mobile fighting units, lighter and faster artillery, paper-wrapped bullets, and better training methods.
5. Saladin - A superb manager of logistics, and a patient and adaptive general. Saladin took back the gains of the second crusade, and stymied the third, after which the crusades almost never actually made it to the holy land. Defeated at Asurf by Richard the Lionhearted, he simply decided not to engage in a full battle again, and forced Richard to negotiate.
Reading through;
- Subotai was probably a better field general than Temujin.
- McArthur was a horrible general, Rommel was decent. Washington was decent.
- Lee brilliant on defense, but couldn't put together an offensive at all.
- Giap had a very long view of things, but his battle acumen wasn't so great. He lost a lot of troops.
- Hitler's military sense was one of the allies greatest assets. The decision not to drive on Moscow ranks among the worst in military history.
- Guy who mentioned Fabius the Delayer knows what's up.
- Belisarius is basically the most underrated general of all time. Maybe Richard O'Connor too.
- Best admiral was Nelson, Nelson, Nelson.
- No love for Fredrick the Great?
- Stonewall Jackson is overrated, he never beat anyone good, and could not work as a part of a team.
- LOL Montgomery.
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I definitely agree with people who have been saying stonewall jackson and robert e lee, that combo was beast! if stonewall jackson hadnt been shot that war could have turned out a lot differently. Those 2(i think they were best as a duo) were able to turn what should have been a conflict no longer then 6 months into a war that lasted for 5 years.
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On February 15 2011 16:04 Loser777 wrote:
@OP How could you include Rommel without considering Monty? North Africa?
Reading up on the Battle of Caen, The Falaise Pocket, and Operation Market-Garden will give you a different impression of General Montgomery. Not to say that he was a poor general by any means but he is not worthy of the "greatest of all time."
On February 15 2011 16:15 tree.hugger wrote:
- Hitler's military sense was one of the allies greatest assets. The decision not to drive on Moscow ranks among the worst in military history.
As a little aside here, I would argue that the Soviet Union is not the kind of nation that would not simply fall apart upon the capture of Moscow. Although it was the capital city, the people of Russia and the way of life there would make it very likely that they would remain stalwart in fighting the Germans(read: Partisan soldiers, sabotage, evacuation of industry eastward, etc.)
In addition, Stalin had actually anticipated a renewed offensive on Moscow in the early months of 1942 and concentrated a large number of divisions there. The break-out into the Caucasus and the Don was a harsh defeat for the Soviet Union.
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![[image loading]](http://file5.ratemyserver.net/mobs/1277.gif) ?
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What about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk?
I'm perhaps a little bit biased about this man, but he was awesome. Seriously.
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I don't understand all the adoration for Lee and Jackson. The early Union generals weren't that great and it's not like the South had some crippling qualitative inferiority either. Training, equipment, morale, etc were all on rough parity with the Union. They defended well, but that had a lot to do with the terrain, and on the offense their successes were limited as well. In any case I can't see them anywhere near the top 10 in history.
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Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
On February 15 2011 16:18 DrTJEckleburg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 16:04 Loser777 wrote:
@OP How could you include Rommel without considering Monty? North Africa? Reading up on the Battle of Caen, The Falaise Pocket, and Operation Market-Garden will give you a different impression of General Montgomery. Not to say that he was a poor general by any means but he is not worthy of the "greatest of all time." Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 16:15 tree.hugger wrote:
- Hitler's military sense was one of the allies greatest assets. The decision not to drive on Moscow ranks among the worst in military history.
As a little aside here, I would argue that the Soviet Union is not the kind of nation that would not simply fall apart upon the capture of Moscow. Although it was the capital city, the people of Russia and the way of life there would make it very likely that they would remain stalwart in fighting the Germans(read: Partisan soldiers, sabotage, evacuation of industry eastward, etc.) In addition, Stalin had actually anticipated a renewed offensive on Moscow in the early months of 1942 and concentrated a large number of divisions there. The break-out into the Caucasus and the Don was a harsh defeat for the Soviet Union.
Montgomery probably takes the cake for the most overhyped general of all time. It's a shame that O'Connor was captured by the Germans and that Slim was fighting in the CBI sphere, because both were much much better than Montgomery.
I dunno, the capture of Moscow would've almost definitely led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Not only was the Soviet Union a command and control economy/government where basically everything emanated out of Moscow, but Stalin was also holed up in the city determined to make his last stand there. Encircling and taking Moscow would basically cut off the head of the Soviet Union in every way imaginable. It's hard to think of a way they could've offered anything else but token resistance after that.
On February 15 2011 16:25 Underwhelmed wrote:
I don't understand all the adoration for Lee and Jackson. The early Union generals weren't that great and it's not like the South had some crippling qualitative inferiority either. Training, equipment, morale, etc were all on rough parity with the Union. They defended well, but that had a lot to do with the terrain, and on the offense their successes were limited as well. In any case I can't see them anywhere near the top 10 in history.
This. Jackson died before he faced anyone good in the field. Grant, Thomas, Sherman, Sheridan all came later in the war.
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Rommel was so cool 
i like his style
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I have to mention Vauban.
Although he was mainly an engineer and a defensive general, when it came to siege warfare he was the best his era had to offer. He never lost a siege and created a supperb defense for the country.
Here is his wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sébastien_Le_Prestre_de_Vauban
Defensive generals don't get enough love, of course conquering a big area is great, but successfuly defending his country against a conqueror despite bad odds is one of the greatest thing a man can do.
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Erwin Rommel (Mentioned in this thread already.)
I personally think Rommel was the best general ever. Not only for his decisive victories but he was also one of the few people who refused to carry out Hitler's extermination orders.
RamessesThe II
Wouldn't say he was one of the greatest generals be he was nonetheless impressive. He was probably the most influential Ancient Egyptian leader. Some people even consider him the Napoleon of Egypt.
Other great generals...
Napoleon
Vlad
Genghis Khan
Saladin
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I think it's a tricky debate to have without better definitions of "best general." If you say Robert E Lee is the best, you'd be overlooking his overconfidence and failure at Gettysburg. So, surely, he was a great tactician, but he became overconfident. Ain't that familiar to stacraft players, hah? The good ole I WON YEAHHH!...oh crap.
But, seriously, many of the generals listed here made really serious mistakes which basically should disqualify them from a "top 5" list. That'd be saying that consistency is not important in a good general, which it should be IMO.
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no love for Joan of Arc?
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On February 15 2011 16:20 KTF_CloaK wrote:
What about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk?
I'm perhaps a little bit biased about this man, but he was awesome. Seriously.
Wasn't he more of a politician?
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On February 15 2011 16:25 Underwhelmed wrote:
I don't understand all the adoration for Lee and Jackson. The early Union generals weren't that great and it's not like the South had some crippling qualitative inferiority either. Training, equipment, morale, etc were all on rough parity with the Union. They defended well, but that had a lot to do with the terrain, and on the offense their successes were limited as well. In any case I can't see them anywhere near the top 10 in history.
oh boy
I believe the underlined statement is an example of "false" if you were to look up that word in the dictionary
smoothbore musket/enfield imports vs springfield rifle
and let's not even go into artillery, supplies, or logistics
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Australia6232 Posts
Me.
I totally did not register this account to post in this thread.
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That's funny to say that france never won anything without Napoleon, and a bit ignorant in my opinion. What about Charlemagne for exemple ? Did you know France was actually one of the biggest colonialist nation out there ? How do you think they get their colonies ? By offering them some candies ?
And, what about WWI ? I mean yeah you can obviously argue that France was useless during WW II, but they almost did everything in the early stage of the first world war, Britain stuck with the irish independantist movement did not help much, and let's not talk about Russia.
DeGaulle was a wonderful strategist with no army 
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On February 15 2011 13:46 O-ops wrote:This guy is an arrogant prick. Zhao Yun was much better.
Are you serious? Arrogant? He is known for his unwavering loyalty and chivalry thanks.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.discerningtheworld.com/images/wpi/SatanHoldingWorld.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Yi-Sun-sin.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://guanshengdijun.com/images/guan+yu.jpg)
