Greatest Military Leader of all Time

Macmorris

Another great forgotten general is Flavius Belisarius, the Byzantine who helped Justinian repel attacks from the Persians and Bulgars and regained much of the western Roman empire from the Ostrogoths and Vandals.

He had 40 successive victories and was nearly always outnumbered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisarius

tim3115

netwhizkid wrote:

Ye all forgot Genghis Khan, he conqured the biggest land mass in history, He was a frigtening warrior and a sorts yet to this day no one had found his grave. It supposed to be in Mongolia though, needle in a haystack thing.

Regards netwhizkid

Yeah but he was supposedly killed by his own horse

secret_squirrel

Talking of forgotten generals - hows about Gustav Adolfus in the 30 years war? Napoleon and Von Clausewitz really rated him.


Also Wellington never considered himself Irish - recall the (paraphrased) quote -

Just because one is born in a stable it does not mean one is a horse.

Manach

Flavius Belisarius: I have been reading the alternative history series of books about him, written by Eric Flint and David Drake. In real life as well, he seems to have accomplished quite a lot given the often patchy support he received from his superiors.

The Lopper

I said Napolean Bonaparte, but tbh i don't really know too much, just to say, personally i feel Michael Collins was more a Secret Service man rather than a miltary leader. His intelligence system was his claim to genius.

supersheep

Zhukov was goo, but what about Operation Mars? Half a million troops fed into the meatgrinder for 40,000 German casualties and little to no ground... But he still gets my vote, because Stalingrad was quite impressive, and Russian hats are bloody cool...
Rommel wasn't so good in the desert when faced with more equal armies, if I recall correctly. Napoleon and Bonaparte were both excellent, but they didn't have to deal with modern warfare. They had more time to think before battles.
Hitler was a fool. Perhaps the most important reason Germany lost the war.

The Lopper

supersheep wrote:

Napoleon and Bonaparte were both excellent, but they didn't have to deal with modern warfare. They had more time to think before battles

ROFL, Napolean and Bonaparte????!! I hope that was a typo

county

kev boy wrote:

why isnt Adolf Hitler in your list you moron?
He is the greatest man that ever lived..

SIEG HEIL...

cromwell

supersheep

The Lopper wrote:

ROFL, Napolean and Bonaparte????!! I hope that was a typo

Oops. I meant Napoleon and Alexander... Very much a typo.

TerrorFirmer

D-Day nearly failed and I wouldn't put its success down to Ike. More time and resources Rommel would have finished the Atlantic Wall and we would live in a diferant world.

As it was, there was almost a disaster on Omaha. A defeat at omaha would have left flanks exposed and threatened the entire invasion. Added to that, panzer divisions tied up in eastern poland were only released late into the battle, and the allied forces had time to entrench themselves further inland....one of many ridiculous occurances due to hitlers stubbornness.

Hitler was a crap military leader, as I read before, he was a "gifted amateur", but by no means a good general. Many ridiculous and avoidable mistakes made that cost him dearly in the overall scheme of things.

Rommel was a fantastic general in any case.

supersheep

Like holding back Guderian's Panzers when they could have swooped on Dunkirk, and basically annihilated the BEF. That could have won the war...
Or switching from attacking RAF bases to the Blitz... Or not holding off on Barbarossa (or going too late)... Or Stalingrad... And so on.
The Battle of the Bulge was pretty inspired though...

Mordecai

I think Hugh O' Neill is regarded as one of the best commanders of the 16th century. Kinsale was just a bit unfortunate.

Dave!

George Bush! \m/

KnowItAll

MobileInfantry wrote:

Hitler was a crap military leader, as I read before, he was a "gifted amateur", but by no means a good general. Many ridiculous and avoidable mistakes made that cost him dearly in the overall scheme of things.

He made a mistake in taking on the Russians and declaring war on the US. That dosn't mean he was a crap military leader.

Baggio

what about Charlemagne or Richard The Lionheart??
The Lionheart whos bravery and military quality spread terror amongst the saracens, and he proved to be veryy much a match for his rival and eventually mutually admired foe saladin. It has been said that at one battle such was the arrival of The Lionheart himself feared by many of the saracen wariors, that their worst fears were confirmed , as his ships pulled in close to landing , and the first person to land off the ship in thigh high water was the Lionheart himself in full battle gear complete with overszied 2 handed sword, the result was utter terror amongst the saracens and the ldraining away of their will to fight on that day...
.read this account years ago,,not sure if it was to do with the re-taking of ACRE but may have been......
he's up there lads!!..careful of that 2 handed sword...OUCH!!!!

Ciao' amigos...Baggio....

CerebralCortex

KnowItAll wrote:

He made a mistake in taking on the Russians and declaring war on the US. That dosn't mean he was a crap military leader.

You really want read more about Hitler's endeavours before you say something like. If Hitler was as good a military leader as you claim him to be how do you explain the mess at Stalingrad or the Kursk battle. He never listened to his Generals and he didn't know how to make up his mind or pull of a good strategic retreat.
He was so crap that in just one battle he managed to loose all his initiative for good on the eastern front(see the Battle of the Kursk).
Don't even get me started on D-day he slept through the whole thing the clown.

I'm glad he was crap or we'd be speakin the Kaiser's German right now.

He had Rommel killed and he was General of General's imho.

Baggio

Mind yu.
....am a big fan of Romell too and Collins aswell, Collins? - his amazing results here were noo fluke, brilliant mind, and hairraising dash - who could get away with walking amongst his own enemy as he did around Dublin in the way that he did?,,amazing.And basically run a countrywide war on a bike?..the flying columns were a major close concern to him and he did whatever he could to keep on top of things , and to help every volunteer in whatever way he could thats a fact.
Romell was an amzing man, was a terrific interview a couple of years ago on the arts show with Miles Duncan I think - with Romell's son ,,,fascinating stuff,,,Erwin was forever castigating his son for being in Hitler youth, he despised the Nazi's and was a field marshall/soldier first....but there's no doubt the allies would have done business with him and ended the war if ol mustache ape man hitler hadnt survived the bomb assasination attempt that time ...pity...still even ol' Churchill gave Romell a public salute in the commons when news came thru of his enforced suicide.

go on the romell!!!.....ciao'...Baggio....

TerrorFirmer

CerebralCortex wrote:

You really want read more about Hitler's endeavours before you say something like. If Hitler was as good a military leader as you claim him to be how do you explain the mess at Stalingrad or the Kursk battle. He never listened to his Generals and he didn't know how to make up his mind or pull of a good strategic retreat.
He was so crap that in just one battle he managed to loose all his initiative for good on the eastern front(see the Battle of the Kursk).
Don't even get me started on D-day he slept through the whole thing the clown.

I'm glad he was crap or we'd be speakin the Kaiser's German right now.

He had Rommel killed and he was General of General's imho.

Actually Rommel Killed himself by option first.

But yes Hitler was a poor military leader. Especially on the Eastern front, where the Germans could have easily held a shorter line for years against the Russian army. He frequently changed his objectives and most of the time refused to allow even tactially sound and often totally neccessary withdrawals which resulted in thousands upon thousands of killed and captured soldiers and equipment.

As for the west, even on D-Day he refused to allow panzer divisions to be released from poland until late in the day, when they were unable to push back the allies as they could have done earlier. This was due to the fact that he disagreed with all this top generals on the necessary course of action.

These are only 2 things among many. He made literally hundreds of mistakes out of stubbornness and faith in himself as the ultimate leader.

Had the war been left to the actual German high command, the war would have taken a vastly different direction.

tim3115

This was due to the fact that he disagreed with all this top generals on the necessary course of action.

What I said in the previous page :

...and that he didn't listen to his Generals enough. However, there were documents kept after every decision was made - Hitler ordered someone to take note of every detail so that in the future the people would see that it was the incompetence of his Generals that resulted in failure for the German people. The Allies burned these documents during the invasion. So who knows...

Who do you believe?

Capt'n Midnight

supersheep wrote:

Like holding back Guderian's Panzers when they could have swooped on Dunkirk, and basically annihilated the BEF. That could have won the war...
Or switching from attacking RAF bases to the Blitz... Or not holding off on Barbarossa (or going too late)... Or Stalingrad... And so on.
The Battle of the Bulge was pretty inspired though...

Aiding Italy instead of trying to make them Neutral or letting the Italian/Balkan conflict be a separate parallel war - look at Finland/Russia war or even the China/Japan one - germany could have sorted out a peace agreement down there.


. if Italy hadn't been in WWII then there would only have been a small meditarian coast to defend and no getting bogged down in the Balkans - again had those countries (greece/yugoslavia/romania - hungry / bulgaria probably would not have stayed so.) been able to stay neutral then there would have been another buffer zone , though Russia probably would have survived, napolean took moscow but didn't win either. Also by not aiding Italy there would have been no north africa which was a moral booster for the allies.

and the Bulge was lost because of focus on super weapons, the tanks were too large and a lot of time was lost getting them ready and trying to get them across bridges - the bulge was resources squandered on a final dice throw.
Academic anyway - most of the german army was on the Eastern front, only a small portion was in the west.

TerrorFirmer

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Aiding Italy instead of trying to make them Neutral or letting the Italian/Balkan conflict be a separate parallel war - look at Finland/Russia war or even the China/Japan one - germany could have sorted out a peace agreement down there.


. if Italy hadn't been in WWII then there would only have been a small meditarian coast to defend and no getting bogged down in the Balkans - again had those countries (greece/yugoslavia/romania - hungry / bulgaria probably would not have stayed so.) been able to stay neutral then there would have been another buffer zone , though Russia probably would have survived, napolean took moscow but didn't win either. Also by not aiding Italy there would have been no north africa which was a moral booster for the allies.

and the Bulge was lost because of focus on super weapons, the tanks were too large and a lot of time was lost getting them ready and trying to get them across bridges - the bulge was resources squandered on a final dice throw.
Academic anyway - most of the german army was on the Eastern front, only a small portion was in the west.

The North African and Eastern European theatres became tangled in each other and became respective hinderences. On Rommels side, he made advances that could not be sustained without supply and adequate reinforcement, which were duly on their way solely to the Eastern Front en masse by late 1942. On the Eastern Front, times became stretched in which the troops tied down in Africa would have provided additional strength.

Hitler was a great man for committing to actions before finishing others. This was a huge part in his many defeats.

The Battle of the Bulge was even lucky to get properly off the ground. As it was, the Germans came within reasonable distance of their target Antwerp. A victory in this senario would have bolstered Germanys flagging western forces but only for a short time before they would have been overrun again.

Only for the dense fog and terrible weather did the Ardennes offensive create any momentum with the allied air forces grounded. When the weather finally cleared up the advance was stopped absolutely and decisively.

Noting the Eastern Front, for every German soldier fighting in Normandy at the time of D-Day, there were 3 fighting on the Eastern front. So one can imagine the D-Day landings wouldn't have been even considerable had the Germans had 4 times as many troops at their disposal.

Too many theaters of war. By 1943, there was for Germanys sole coverage against numerous allied enemies:

North Africa
Eastern Front (draining two thirds of all military resources)
Southern Front
Threat of Invasion

Had there been a slightly more solidified and concentrated front, things might have just been just a tad easier...

ISAW

As regards who is missing I agree with the Gengis Kahn comment. He had the largest single block land Empire ever and all done in his military lifetime.

I note admirals are included but many of the people mentioned are not just MILITARY.
Political leadership has a lot to do with the issue. Nore Churchill was considered a great war leader only to be thrown out in peacetime!
I would rate Napeoleon and Alexander as the greatest combination of both. They had to create an administration for an Empire and leave garrisons handle places they would never get to again. Similar to strategic direction of troops but different.

Bonaparte suffered from what might be called the engagement ring problem. He wouldnt commit. then again he committed a whole army to the the grave in Russia. But you cant blame just him for that. There was the weather and there was the Sean Mc Bride strategy "it is not those who inflict the most but those that suffer the most who will triumph". Who would expect the Russians to scorch the earth and wipe out their own people?


Then there are people like George Washington left out. He was far better on the political side but an excellent military commander. Erwin Rommel though also excellent was a bit of a glory hunter. If Alexander took personal risk it was to envigour morale, not so for Rommel who stood on banks under sniper fire to egg his troops on. But why? was it to empower them or to cross the river before other rival units did so?

When it comes to ambush Hannibal gets my vote. He had what I call the "unexpected egg" ability. Thats when I as a completly honest and logical person give you ten boxes and tell you to open them one by one. In one you will find an unexpected egg.
You then reason:
Well he is logical and honest so:
It cant be box ten because if I open nine and only box number ten is left then I will expect the egg to be in ten.
If ten is out then so is nine for the same reason. I would expect it because it cant be in ten.
So it cant be in eight ...and so on.

So there is no egg in any of them!

Then you start opening the boxes. Guess what you find in box number three?
Hannibal was like that. You knew he was a master of ambush. You outnumber him and advance onto him. Then what does he do? Bloody ambush you! and I mean 80,000 troops lying on a field of blood bloody.

Didnt Patton think he was a reincarnation of one of them ancient generals?