Greatest Commander of all time?

[JasonC]

Caesar was not that good a strategist. He had audacity, but it frequently got him into trouble, and half his brilliancies were directed at retrieving a situation that was only bad to start with because of a previous unforced error. He also had good policy in the civil war, recognizing its political dimension and the vital importance of a moral high ground and of morale. But there are passages with Pompey where he got off by the skin of his teeth, others in Egypt that were pure folly, distractions pursued while the senate's army reformed, etc. Capable yes, but largely because he took two strengths, audacity and fine political sense, and played them for all they were worth. Covering failure of judgment and preparation thereby, but those were real failings.

As for the idea that Ghengis was the first truly successful steppe commander, it is false as a matter of mere history. The Huns and Alans had more limited successes but entirely similar ones. Nor did they invent articulate subdivisions - Alexander had them, the Romans had them and indeed gave us the ones we have today - nor the use of them in operational campaigning (see Caesar in Gaul or in Spain e.g.). Also, his enemies were weaker than many imagine (though the same can be said of Alexander). Big continuous colors on maps do not mean great generalship, often they just mean collapsing decrepitude and vaccum.

While Rommel was as I said a capable general, I see no reason to rank him above Patton. Patton had moments of pigheaded stupidity like Metz, but then so did Rommel. I don't think Patton was among the greats of history but he was a capable general in all respects. Ridgeway was another capable US leader. He created the US airborne from nothing, achieved remarkable things with it (including e.g. its role in the Bulge defense), and later also outplayed MacArthur's hand in Korea, retrieving a situation Mac considered lost.

On the German side, Manstein, Rundstadt, Model, Guderian, and Hoth were all solid generals. Easily in the same class as Rommel if not higher. Manstein and Guderian had occasional brilliance beyond the merely competent.

There were certainly capable generals in the US civil war. Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson were all capable, as were Grant and Sherman. Lee is beloved of maneuverists but was mostly blessed with dumb opponents. He did not fully understand the cause of his own successes, as affairs like Pickett's charge make abundantly clear. (Longstreet knew better and said so. He was also responsible for a number of the successes frequently "awarded" to Jackson or Lee).

Grant had less artistry than Lee - though the Vicksburg campaign was as maneuver-ee as you please - but better understood that actual conditions of war at the time. And largely invented continuous battle fronts with constant activity along them, as they became widespread in WW I and II eras. Sherman was brutal but entirely effective.

There were many talented generals in the Napoleonic wars, of which two of the best were Davout and Blucher. The latter has an unmerited reputation as dumb and stubborn; he was in fact remarkably effective and the two greatest battle defeats Napoleon himself suffered - Leipzig and Waterloo - were largely due to Blucher's operational actions.

Davout simply never lost - he was assigned other duties in both of the above. At a corps level he was hands down the best of the age. He also got his men to perform prodigies, and rarest of all for the losing French, he got through the entire period from revolution to second restoration without betraying a single master or staining his own honor. He isn't remembered among the great captains merely because he was understudy to Napoleon and never had the peak command because of it.

[Sergei]

The best commanders were those who were smart, had abundant resources (including industrial base, large army, good staff officers etc.) and were lucky. You can do quite well with just two of those qualities, but it is very unlikely if you can only rely on one of them.

[Cuirassier]

I stand by in saying that Jackson was the only military genius of the Civil War. His campaign in Charlotesville would have been a success and possibly would have one the war for the South if he hadn't died beforehand. Lee on the other hand can hardly be considered as being a great General. Remember this is the guy that launched fruitless frontal assaults with ridiculous repetitiveness. He was also the man behind Pickets Charge, the bloodiest and most disatrous battle of the war for the south.

Also, it is not untrue to blame the Atlantic Wall on Hitler. It was Hitler who insisted, and had control, for such a defence. Rommel, if he had his way, would have had a completely mobile defence.

[juan_gigante]

Cuirassier, you've got Hitler's and Rommel's plans switched. Hitler wanted to wait until the Allies landed, and then to hit them once they were off the beaches and didn't have the cover from naval guns (as well). Rommel, on the other hand, wanted tanks on the beaches themselves fighting the enemy as they landed. Debate the effectiveness of either plan, but Hitler and Rundstat's (I bet I spelled his name wrong, but I mean the C-in-C west) was more reliant on manuver and reaction than Rommel's much more static plan.

[JasonC]

Um, Rommel advocated stopping the invasion at the water's edge, and discounted as impossible the advice to defend with a mobile defense in the interior of France. Which the rest of the general staff thought more promising. Rommel thought western air - which he had experienced in Tunisia - made any idea of a mobile defense a delusion. He was probably wrong - France was not a desert. But he got his wish as to how the defense would be conducted, and it failed. Even the closest to a success it got - Omaha - saw the German regiments on the beach basically annililated on D-Day.

[JasonC]

On Jackson, he died after Chancellorsville, not "Charolte" anything. It was not his campaign, Lee was in command. He simply commanded the flanking corps. It got them a won battle but hardly a won campaign let alone a won war. Hooker made it a fight after Jackson got the drop on them, and the Union withdrew in good order the night Jackson was shot. There isn't the slightest evidence his death had any affect on the outcome of the war. The rebs invades the north afterward, successfully at first, but lost Gettysburg. Longstreet gave sound advice there but Lee didn't listen to it - Jackson could not have done anything more than Longstreet did.

[juan_gigante]

The a big reason for the difference between Hitler's plan and Rommel's plan was in what they were afraid of. Rommel knew what Allied airpower could do, and wanted to try and stop the invasion before Allied air supremacy could destroy his tanks. Hitler, on the other hand, was worried about the overwhelming direct fire support that the battleships and destroyers along the beach would be able to provide. As an example, look at Anzio. The Germans drove panzers down onto the beaches to stop the landing, and naval gunfire decimated them. All in all, though, which ever plan was adopted, the Germans would have a really rough time stopping a strong landing effort.

[stoat]

It's like the question that is always brought up:

"What would Jackson had done if he had been at Gettysburg?"

He would have smelled pretty bad because he would've been dead for a while already.

[stoat]

And as for Civil War generals, Sheridan was a good one. Not spectacular, but he had some success and denied the Confederates the Shenandoah from mid 1864 on.

[JasonC]

Um, I think you meant Salerno, not Anzio. The Germans didn't have anybody in the area at the time of the initial Anzio landing, whereas they instantly counterattacked the Salerno beachhead with a single battalion's worth of Pz IVs.

But it wasn't really naval gunfire that stopped those. It was lack of combined arms and a grab-bag of weapons ashore. Most of the German tanks were not KOed, they withdrew after shooting up the beaches and losing about a quarter. The losses came from a few 105s ashore firing direct, from cavalry vehicles firing 37mm, from foot 37mm ATGs with the infantry (not even 57mm yet), all acting as a gun-line. And from bazookas and rifle grenades and the like from US infantry, which took significant losses but waded into them in places. The Germans had essentially no infantry support at the time. No doubt naval shelling helped, but it was not the decisive factor.

The real fight for Salerno came later by several days, after the Germans had had time to bring a corps worth of full panzer divisions to the area. They broke in initially, overrunning 2 US infantry battalions - well off the beach. The US pulled back smartly and formed a battle line of all arms, and roughly a 45 degree angle to their orientation the previous day. The next day the Germans blundered forward with inadequate tactical recon, expecting the US to be where they had been the day before, and hitting air initially. And getting shot up from flanking angles.

The shooters included 105s direct and indirect, infantry ATGs, cavalry vehicles, some tanks, and especially M10 SP TDs. Plus naval gunfire, from 2 battleships and from cruisers. That is the episode from which the Germans got the impression, naval gunfire makes counterattacking beachheads futile. It certainly stripped infantry and along with the indirect arty undoubtedly KOed and M-killed tanks. But most of the kills - total German losses were around 50 AFV that day, not hundreds - came from the direct fire gunline, with one TD unit accounting for a quarter of them alone.

Then at Anzio, the allies got ashore clean but failed to exploit far enough, through a combo of unloading snafus on the beach itself and command indecision when they weren't opposed as strongly as they had expected. Some recon jeeps almost made it to Rome, but nobody followed them. The Germans got reserves around the beachhead before real combat power could move off it. The allies attacked but the Germans thickened with armor and held them pretty easily.

Then the Germans did try to counterattack the beachhead with armor, and did face naval fire, but as one component of a storm of HE from arty ashore, level bombers, etc. This was long after the actual invasion. The Germans had better tactics and the allies responded with logistical muscle. It ground up German infantry but they had plenty in the grand scheme of things, and threw more in. The Germans settled for defending and the Allies gave up on the beachhead, trying to crack the line farther south instead.

On D-Day, 21st PD counterattacked the British beaches much as had been tried at Salerno, with no success. They were stopped farther off the beach. The problem on all these occasions was more the very limited defender forces that reached the area in the first 24 hours, were always completely outnumbered by the allies already ashore. The allies were not logistically weak and did not come ashore in penny packets, they came ashore in whole divisions.

The counterattacks that did work even locally were not the instant ones, but the ones delivered a week or three after the landing, when defenders had had time to reach the area in sufficient numbers. They contained but did not crush beachheads. They never had real odds or real fire superiority, even with naval support. They frequently achieved tactical stalemate and contained the landings but never accomplished more. Making that last depended on attrition fighting to support the static lines thus formed, not on maneuver-ee anything. There was no prospect of any water's edge victory against the force the Allies could bring to bear.

[juan_gigante]

JasonC, we are simultaneuously agreeing and disageeing, and you are right on both. I did get the beach wrong, and I confess that I do not have the level of tactical knowledge regarding the engagement in question that you do. I will defer to you there. In indsight, I think the example I was thinking of was the Salerno counterattack. But we agree that the ideal plan for defending the Atlantic Wall would not be one wherein the invaders were stopped right on the beaches (Rommel's plan) but one where they were counterattacked after some forces had landed. The fact that too many forces where near Calais and not enough were in Normandy was that the German command had bet wrong, not because the idea of (land-then-counterattack) was flawed.

[FAI]

Originally posted by juan_gigante:

.. The fact that too many forces where near Calais and not enough were in Normandy was that the German command had bet wrong, not because the idea of (land-then-counterattack) was flawed.

But, what difference would it make had the German forces meant to defend Calais were in Normandy at the time of the landing? Maybe things would get more rough for the Allied side, but the sheer weight of the invasion alone would smash through the defences, albeit later and with more casualties.

[chiavarm]

In WWII, General Yamamoto, since he did understand the magnitude of the engagement and was reluctant to go to war. He was pretty accurate in his prewar assessment.

[WimpBastard]

I love these forums, so damn educational.

[FAI]

Originally posted by chiavarm:

In WWII, General Yamamoto, since he did understand the magnitude of the engagement and was reluctant to go to war. He was pretty accurate in his prewar assessment.

And the early IJN success. Kido Butai was the most fearsome battle group at the time, and had they managed to actually decimate the USN carrier groups (and occupy Pearl Harbour), things would turn out to be a lot different. Of course, it's also another can of worms to discuss....

[Erik Springelkamp]

Maybe the best commanders are not famous, because they didn't wage war.

[Philippe]

Since other lesser commanders have been mentioned, I think it is only fair to give Justinian's general Belisarius passing mention. Undefeated, he overcame ridiculous odds again and again on a shoestring. Procopius suggests that Justinian was afraid of him, but Belisarius was too loyal and honorable to revolt. He was probably the major component in Justinian's attempt to re-establish the Roman Empire.

I'm a big fan of Hannibal, but I don't think he was the greatest commander. First, he was soundly defeated twice, once when he worked for the Carthaginians, once when he worked for the Seleucids. And he lost his most important major battle, the one the Carthaginians really couldn't afford to lose. His invasion of Italy was brilliant, but fell apart on the follow-through. To break the Roman hold on Italy he would have needed to control thirty or forty fortified municipalities in Central and Southern Italy. Without active and enthusiastic participation of at least half of them he would have had to fritter away his army in small garrisons, which is one of the reason he was always so painfully short of troops. The Romans ultimately beat him in Italy by following a strategy similar to the one the Germans used against Napoleon in the Great War of Liberation. If Hannibal had been Alexander he would have wowed the Greek and Southern Italian city states with his god-like charisma, and not need so many reinforcements. And if Hannibal had been Alexander, he wouldn't have lost at Zama.

A more interesting question than who was the greatest commander is who would you want to have over for dinner. Temujin would be pretty challenging, especially when he would start calling for fermented mare's milk. Alexander would make a horrible guest -- he'd get stinking drunk, make passes at all the young boys, and probably pick a fight with one of the other guests. And he would keep twisting his head to one side and get this weird light in his eyes (tell-tale symptom of his famous pothos). Stonewall Jackson would be just as bad: he'd steal all the lemons from the kitchen and then stage a revival meeting just as you were trying to serve dinner. Napoleon would be awful -- completely self-absorbed, he was incontinent and would wolf down a multi-course dinner in under seven minutes. And get really offended if anyone wasn't working on the same course he was. Hannibal, on the other hand, would be delightful -- he'd stay sober, probably help out in the kitchen, and would keep the guests entertained with funny reminiscences of his travels in Spain, Turkey, and Italy.

[Grisha]

A strategic commander pretty much directs the path for war, then the conflict is decided by operational or tactical means. Some strategic commanders were politicians (20th, 21th century), others were primarily tactical commanders (ancients and pre-gunpowder), and others were operational as well (Mongols, 19th through 21th century).

The qualities for a tactical commander are not the same as for an operational commander. And, someone concerned primarily with strategic concerns is likely more focused on politics and logistics than anything else.

[ November 21, 2005, 09:12 PM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Grisha]

I think special mention should be made of the Mongol commanders, since they not only employed very good tactics against largely more numerous opponents, their conduct of operations was also impressive. They might not have seen it as operational, but what they did certainly falls into the category of operational practices. The use of spies to obtain intelligence and create deception within a feudal polity or among a group of polities certainly point to operational planning. The coordination of maneuvering forces along a front with the object of insuring a fragmented opponent is a key element of operational art. Even the consideration of weather for operational purposes is manifested in the Mongol campaign against the Russian Principalities. Finally, there was a calculation to their terror, and it was employed so as to reduce the need for tactical attrition. Spread the word of utterly sacking a city complete with a feigned retreat that only turns back to catch survivors, and you'll have an easier situation with the next enemy city encountered. I can't say the Mongols were necessarily humane, but neither were the times. Besides, as von Clausewitz says war is foremost about violence anyway.

So, my vote would be a number of Mongol commanders who were responsible for the subjugation of various peoples, kingdoms, dynasties, khanates, and sultanates. And, of course, the first one named would be Chingis Haan. But, really it was more a system that was employed by Mongol commanders rather than a flurry of 'genius' on the part of the Mongol leaders--sole exception possibly being Chingis. This system was the real 'kicker' to Mongol victory. Multiply their numbers by 10, teach them how to uses firearms, artillery, aircraft, and tanks, and the Mongols would've given the Wehrmacht a run for their deutchmarks, including, ironically enough, the terror part.

[Carl Puppchen]

George Washington. He led the war of independence against the British and held on during bleak hours, rallying his troops with the occasional victory, until finally (with the help of the French and some bad English tactics) he was able to win a convincing victory. Beyond just the military role, he set the stage for the first major functioning democracy since the early Greeks (although the British clearly had some elements of democracy).

If you add in the military, plus the political, plus the strategic, Washington stands tall among the leaders on this thread.

[Ardem]

BAH George washington, if the british allowed themself to send their full weight, they would of crushed the independence.

But the british had to make sure the french was kept at bay. So they employeed a lot of colonials and mercenaries (hessian) troops that couldn't even speak english.

It not that george washington won it more that the incompentent generals they sent and 2nd rate troops lost it.

The American history books don't point this out, you should check out the stats of what the british sent compared to what they had a home waiting for the next war with the French.

Where do you think the highland regiments were or the guard regiments or some of the better dragoon regiments. Not in the states

It would be like saying ho chi mihn is the greatest general over every one because won the war in vietnam, against the biggest nations in the world. The allies lost that war, cause they had no real reason at the time to truly commit to it.

The british the turn around 20 years later, and kick Napeleons arse in portugal spain and then france. Then fight them against a few year later and you think that if they send those troops instead george washington would of stood a chance.

Please...

[ November 23, 2005, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

[Philippe]

When determining whether someone is the greatest commander of all time the key criterion does not hinge on winning the only war they were in command of. You have to be a fantastic battlefield commander with strategic and operational brilliance. And some of your battles and campaigns have to be masterpieces.

We aren't talking about good or really good here, we're talking about best.

Belisarius isn't a serious contender for best, but he trumps Washington in spades. I can only think of one military action (the winter offensive against Princeton and Trenton) that really qualifies as brilliant. Most of his other successes were really the result of other people's work. And if the French hadn't stood up to a superior British fleet in the Chesapeake bay, Yorktown would have been a footnote to the history of successful amphibious withdrawals. On the other side of the ledger a lot of his military actions were merely ordinary, competant, or, sometimes, less than inspired. I fail to see why his disastrous defense of New York should be considered successful.

Great commanders, let alone the greatest, give more breathtaking performances than that. Alexander didn't lose battles. Frederick and Napoleon both did, from time to time, but could usually bounce back. But the greatest commanders had a habit of producing textbook classics. Monongaheela is a textbook classic, of a sort, but not one that one really wants to be remembered by. Compare that to Arbela, Gaugamela, or Blenheim.

In putting together the list of contenders for the greatest (aw, come on, we all know Muhammed Ali is the greatest), we really need to start with looking at who the Great Captains of history are. There are some really important names that aren't getting mentioned, and some of them are serious contenders for the other slot. Winnie's ancestor, immortalized in "Malraux s'en va t'en guerre", was really, really good and probably responsible for engineering the coup d'etat that made modern democracy in the anglophone world possible. And old Fritz of "Hats off, gentlemen, if old Fritz were alive today we wouldn't be here" fame was probably the greatest military mind of the Enlightenment. And I'm really dissapointed that nobody has mentioned Turenne (the theme song of Bizet's Arlesienne suite was based on "Monsieur de Turenne", a French folk song). Or the Marechal de Saxe, an Italian who conducted his staff meeting sitting on a portable toilet (but when the shooting started you really, really wanted him on your side). And it's hard to imagine Goethe writing Wallenstein if it weren't for his Swedish nemesis, Gustavus Adolfus, who revolutionized 17th century warfare (probably invented the modern battle maneuver) and who would probably have won greatest commander hands down if he hadn't stopped a bullet in the middle of one of his greatest victories. After he hit the Germans with leather canon and cavalry that actually charged at a gallop, warfare was never the same. I'm no fan of the Roundheads, but Cromwell and his New Model Army should be right up there. Which suggests that we probably need another category, one for people like Cromwell, Philip of Macedon, and Frederick the Great's homophobic father who created (or perfected) ground-breaking military systems.

I haven't mentioned Montrose because though he could work miracles on a shoestring he came to a bad end. But he's a useful touchstone. Imagine that Montrose had suddenly morphed into GW, and then try to imagine his career lasting half as long as it actually did.

I'm surprised JMM's crowd haven't come storming in here plugging for the Corsican Ogre. He may have lost in the end, but I think he may be the only serious contender to Alexander. He wasn't really that short (probably about 5' 7" if you do the conversion right -- eighteenth century units of measure were weird and confusing), and he showed, at one time or another, strategic, operational, and tactical genius. A little known fact about him is that he was also an administrative and financial genius, but, like slick Willy, just couldn't keep his pants on. If he hadn't blabbed everything in a letter to Marie Therese (who probably didn't care for him that much), Schwarzenburg never would have known that his last offensive in 1814 was a gigantic bluff. The Italian campaign of 1797-8 and the 1805 campaign (as well as parts of 1814) are probably some of the greatest masterpieces of military history. And Austerlitz was such a textbook classic that you probably can't learn anything from it. Napoleonic battles can be tough to evaluate, because he could have taught Carl Rove a thing or two about spin, but when you look at his little battles, he really shines (same holds true for Alexander, including the spin part).

There was an old Roman saying that one of the most important qualities of a battlefield commander was luck. Although you can make your own to a certain extent, at the end of the day you either have it or you don't. The Great Captains had luck oozing out their ears. And they knew how to use it.

[Krautman]

JasonC wrote "Caesar was not that good a strategist."

On Caesar/Hannibal:

It might be interesting that Jochen Bleicken, a German historian specialised in Roman + Greek ancient history, asserts that these two were "probably the greatest commanders [Feldherren] of antiquity", by virtue of the fact that they knew how to handle a battle on the tactical and a campaign on the strategical level, were men with character (untiring self-discipline, credibility, mercy, never giving up) and could thus influence people like few politicians could.

Greetings

Krautman

[Philippe]

Jochen Bleicken ? If you appeal to authority (Classical Trope # 227 you have to make it to someone other people have heard of, so that they can take your authority seriously, or not, as the case may be.

You would have been much better off appealing to Theordore Mommsen. Except that nobody has heard of him, either.

I'm not sure that I agree that Caesar was not that good a strategist. He made a few mistakes along the way, but always bounced back. And he always won in the end. He started as low-man on the Triumvirate totem pole, a milk sop to the Marian party. He ended up as the premier military leader of his day and de-facto ruler of the civilized world. And yes, what makes him very unusual is that he knew how to operate successfully at several levels at once: political (where he was an absolute master), strategic (where he was very good), operational, and tactical (and he knew exactly when it was necessary to risk his life in battle, and exactly what effect it would have on his troops if they saw him doing it).

And a damned good writer. The Gallic Wars is a masterpiece of propaganda and disinformation, and done all the more brilliantly because almost everything in it is probably true. It had to be, because back then everybody knew the facts, so he couldn't lie. But he could rearrange them to suit his purposes. What's astonishing is that even to this day most people swallow his presentation of the sequence of facts hook, line, and sinker and don't ask questions (probably because they're second year students and struggling with the Latin). If you read the entire text you'll notice that the embarassing political stuff is all in there, just scattered throughout later parts of the account so as not to call too much attention to itself. He had a daunting task -- explaining why he had invaded someone else's country and attacked an ally without provocation, and he manages to make it sound like self defense. And his writing style, by the way, is unique, original, and astonishingly good. He may not have been Rome's greatest orator, but he was certainly Rome's smartest writer.

[Wisbech_lad]

Some other recent decent:

Nelson

Giap

Slim

Wellington (not for Waterloo, but for Peninsular and Marattha campaigns)

Whoever destroyed the KMT 1945-1949 knew what they were doing too...

Churchill is maybe the most "forgotten" English captain.