Greatest Commander of all time?

[juan_gigante]

Especially because Fitzgerald was one of the best writers in the history of the English language, and "A Farewell To Arms" is one of the most overrated pieces of crap in the history of the English language.

[Ardem]

Originally posted by Wisbech_lad:

Ataturk, OTOH, not only defeated the Allies at Gallipoli, he radically changed his country, from the Ottoman Empire to Turkey. For good or ill (ethnic cleansing out the Greeks, romanising the language, destroying the power of the imams)

ETHNIC CLEANSING! call it for what it is 'Genocide' he murdered 1.5 million Armenians, to rival what hitler did with the Jews. And still the little of the West know about it.

Beating the allies at gallipoli was not to hard, considering the bad turn of events and the selfishness and stubborness of Imperial Commaders

I still don't believe their are great commanders, I do believe that their are only bad ones. You win battles in war and politics by making the least mistakes.

[JasonC]

Ardem - Attaturk was not a saint, and was brutal enough to non-Turks in the continuing war after WW I until Turkish "independence". He did fight the Armenians in part of that, ones armed and supported by Russia. But the bulk of the genocide against the Armenians predated him, and was conducted by the prior Ottoman government during WW I proper, not by Attaturk's regime.

[Interlocutor]

This is a very interesting thread .

It seems to me that some definition of the attributes possessed by "great commanders" might benefit the discussion. I've seen folks mention tactical, operational & strategic ability, leadership skills, political acumen, an understanding of the logistical aspects of warfare, and moral fibre, along with many other attributes which might contribute to a definition of a Great Commander. Surely there are some among us with the skills and background necessary to subject this wealth of opinion to some process of quantification ? A typology of the characteristics of Great Commanders? It's been done before, but what does this group think?

It also seems to me that the estimable Count d'Ten raised an important point when he asked (I'm paraphrasing here, let me know if I got it wrong, Count ) "who would you emulate", and by extension, "why?" Answers to these questions would inform a discussion of what type of persona, which skill sets, might be most useful to a Great Commander.

I noticed that only JasonC & sgtgoody responded to the Count's question, citing Blucher & Grant as role models, to be valued, as I took it, for their perseverance . Now the "Lee versus Grant, who was the Greater Commander" debate is a storied one in the traditions of ACW historiography, and I am loathe to wade deeply into those troubled waters in this thread, beyond saying that my own inclinations lean toward Lee .

But in the spirit of my call for a typology of the attributes of Great Commanders, let me offer this, with a nod to JasonC, sgtgoody and US Grant. Sherman said of Grant "I tell you where he beats me, and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy does out of sight, but it scares me like hell..."

So I submit that one attribute of a Great Commander is the ability to focus upon designing and implementing his own plan, rather than reacting to the plans of his opponent. "Do not take counsel of your fears..."

[Krautman]

Originally posted by JasonC:

His first war in Gaul was spur of the moment and without a plan for its general conquest, which he was sucked into.

I think this again is an example why it is a difficult thing having your sole focus on the military aspects of history. To say Caesar had no plan for Gaul's general conquest, and to take this as a proof that Caesar did not plan ahead generally, is to entirely mix up the issue at hand. Please let me explain.

Fuller, I guess, looks at the way Caesar waged war in Gaul in highly sophisticated detail. No problem here. By judging Caesar like a staff officer concerned with military problems would, Fuller of course judges him by virtue of conquering Gaul as efficiently as possible.

This is a viewpoint I would expect from a military history book, and this is the question which Fuller poses with regard to the Gaul campaign (please correct me if I'm wrong): How efficient was Caesar as a military leader who wanted to conquer Gaul?

Fine so far. But then, either Fuller, or you, make a mistake: Being focused on military detail, you automatically assume that it was Caesar's initial primary goal to conquer Gaul entirely, which means preparatory operational planning would be expected from any sensible commander. But that was not the case. Caesar was not in Gaul to entirely conquer it at first. No please- don't stop reading, let me explain this a little further.

Don't forget that Caesar was first and foremost a politician. Right from his youth, his aim was to become Consul, in order to be one of the ~15 people that really met decisions in the Roman senate. The whole cursus honorum was directed towards that goal. Now, incredible as it was, Caesar became Consul in 59. During this year, he overstepped so many regulations of the mos maiorum that his political enemies would have devoured him if he held no officium right afterwards- after having served your year as a Consul during republican times, you usually had to retire for a certain period, during which you could be legally convicted for any possible violation you commited (or your enemies claimed you commited, Roman law was strange) which was not possible during your time in office. Caesar took preparations (!): The lex Vatinia confirmed that he would receive command of the Cisalpina and Illyricum for five years right after he was Consul, without time in between. Furthermore, he made sure that his followers were elected tribuni plebis, who could obstruct any decision the Senate met. Additionally, he made arrangements with Pompeius and Crassus.

Then, the person in command of the Narbonensis died. Caesar took hold of this province as well.

After his initial five years in Gaul, Caesar needed to be re-elected, otherwise he would perish. His political and physical existence was at stake. Since Roman officials were elected, they needed prestige. Most prestigious was a successful military campaign. Thus, Caesar needed one for himself. That is why he had selected Cisalpina and Illyricum for himself: They offered the opportunity for such a campaign, while it was still possible to keep contact to Rome for political plotting. Excellently planned.

This is what I'm trying to say: Caesar wanted a campaign, that's all. It was not his initial goal to conquer Gaul as a whole. It just turned out to be convenient to start the war there, since there was serious trouble at the time of Caesar's arrival. What luck for him he was in command of both the Narbonensis and the Cisalpina! It could just as well have been a campaign in Illyricum which was threatened by the Dacians. Caesar could not know in advance that this province would stay calm. And Caesar basically did not need a war of conquest: Q. Fabius Cunctator or Marius received great honours by defensive campaigns (vs Hannibal/Cimbri+Teutones respectively).

You see, in my opinion it is wrong to assume Caesar had planned to conquer Gaul from the very start, as you, only/mostly regarding military factors, obviously did. Caesar just exploited any opportunity, thus the "was sucked into" impression. It was a step-by-step thing, not a pre-planned grand campaign with pre-set final goals like an Archangelsk-Astrachan line.

Sorry for the lengthy explanation, but I thought it necessary to explain the motivation behind the war, which was personal political welfare -in Caesar's case, self-preservation- rather than expansive thinking. Focusing only on military issues might confuse the way you pose your questions to history, I would say. According to what his personal goals were, Caesar was extremely successful in Gaul. He had fame, a core of hardened veterans devoted to him, and money.

Furthermore, I was so shocked by your saying that Caesar didn't plan ahead that I decided to look up what Caesar's war in Gaul was like and turned my bookshelf upside down. I found my notes on the commentarii. From what Caesar says, (which needn't be true, I admit) it looks like a well-planned and conducted campaign. Caesar, as it seems, took great pains in securing the supply of his forces. Basic food (frumentum) was stacked in camps along the major travel routes. His units usually sent a recon detachment ahead of the main force, which would select a place for a fortified encampment and start constructing it. And this was not a row of tents: Surrounded by a ditch (fossa) and a wall (vallum), the latter, as the wording suggests, being made of the earth that was dug out to make the ditch (fossae faciendo [milites] vallum fecerunt). Caesar discovered that ranged weapons (tela. not sure if that means arrows, stones or throwing weapons) were most effective against Gauls and Germans, who sometimes went to battle "naked" (?). Thus, he took special care in providing enough of these tela.

The fact that he uses the term "Castra movere" (literally: to move the camp) as a synonym for "to start moving" suggests that a camp was built every time the Romans went to sleep at night (in the morning: Howdy boys! Let's castra movere!). I'm not sure if that was the general procedure of the Roman legion, (which would make a ten day march an awfully exhausting thing) but that looks to me like a very well planned and prepared (!) way of campaigning, although you surely have more knowledge on operational details.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Landing in Egypt with a tiny force was not just a political blunder, it was a military error of the first magnitude.

So why? He came as the victor of Pharsalos. You again presume he came in the role of a military commander who just comes to conquer. Caesar came to find Pompeius, who was a defeated (and, although Caesar didn't know then, a beheaded) man. The Egyptians were not willing to wage war on him in the first place. It was not until Caesar made his political blunders - behaving as if he were ruling the country, demanding money, supporting Cleopatra - that the Alexandrinian War began. As I emphasized repeadetly, Caesar blundered in Egypt like he did never before. But that doesn't mean he wasn't good as a strategist or as a politician all the way. He won at the Nile, he won at Zela, at Thapsus and at Munda. And the successful Gaul wars - which anyway were fought over a much longer period of time (58-51) than the wars in the east - inclined those historians I heard from to call him, if not outright a "genius", then an "exceptional commander" etc.

I guess we won't ever change our respective viewpoints. Probably your measuring parameters are far different from mine. I see Caesar achieved military goals which few were ever able to reach. You say others could have done better, had they done it differently. There were hundreds of others who did. But few ever came close to Caesar.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Audacity was Caesar's trademark and this was its downside - it could and did lead to unforced errors and failures of preparation. It was not calculated, it was a character trait. It had undeniable benefits in other cases but Caesar did not deploy it strategically and refrain when it was not called for, he simply always deployed it.

I think saying that inborn audacity and planning exclude one another is overly simplified. Think of the story with the Greek pirates.

Originally posted by JasonC:

But he [Goering] had all of them [means to achieve political power, in the broadest sense]. Using them poorly did not mean he did not have power, it meant he didn't make much of it.

That's rhetorical play. My point was that Goering lost influence over the course of the war. His available recources and how he used them were not touched upon. What is power if it lies dormant?

Greetings

Krautman

[ December 01, 2005, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[Krautman]

sorry, double post.

[chiavarm]

If he actually existed, Sun Tzu. Still used today even beyond the scope of military warfare.

The reason I don’t consider Grant and I guess for that matter Blucher “Great” because brute force only can work when you have it. Rommel performed well in N. Africa and the numbers were not in his favor. He could not use brute force. This would also apply to Lee.

I’ll stick with my original nominee Alex the Great. I don’t know enough about Genghis Kahn but from what I have read in this thread he is definitely a contender.

Something I just thought of: The operational aspect of war is a much larger task as warfare evolved into the modern age. The “Total War” did not come into play until WWI. So it might not be possible to make a valid comparison.

[juan_gigante]

Sherman's march through Georgia in the ACW definately qualified as "total war" in my mind. But perhaps we have different definations of "total war".

[-E]

Originally posted by juan_gigante:

"A Farewell To Arms" is one of the most overrated pieces of crap in the history of the English language.

Obviously, you've never been forced to read Steinbeck.

[juan_gigante]

Oh, "Mice And Men" is all right. Not close to "A Farewell To Arms". I was so happy when that bitch Caroline or whatever her name was died at the ended. I just thought "Finally I won't have to listen to her **** anymore! Yes!". And people talk like it is the best thing ever. Hemingway wrote two good books - "The Sun Also Rises" and "For Whom The Bell Tolls". The rest is crap.

Try William Faulkner on for size if you really want to dance with the devil. I only finshed "The Sound And The Fury" because I had a friend who gave up halfway through and I wanted to beat him.

Best book ever written? "All The King's Men", by Robert Penn Warren. Dirty politics and a poorly-disguised-Huey-Long in depression era Louisiana. Just the first page alone puts it in the best 1% of all books.

[JasonC]

Krautman - you think I must just assume that Caesar wanted to conquer Gaul from the outset. I explicitly said that he didn't, that he got sucked into doing so. And I fault him for it. He started a war thinking it would be a limited thing for his political benefit and would provide modest gains for the state and loot for his soldiers.

Duh. But was that a sensible thing to do? A general who prepares is ready for and plans on contingencies, including ones he would rather not see happen. He estimates the difficulty of tasks, the correlation of forces.

If Caesar wanted only a limited campaign and were able to maneuver to keep it that way, fine. He wasn't. He got sucked into a war that was conquer Gaul or lose army and Romanized provinces. If he got sucked into that, preferring the other, but was ready for the larger war that in fact transpired, fine. He wouldn't have steered perfectly but he would have been adequately prepared for a forseen contigency, and that is what good generals can be expected to do.

Caesar wasn't like that, he did not have that trait. He was a brilliant tactician and a fine campaigner as long as he was on the spot to see what was necessary. He was one of the best politicians of antiquity. But he was not a boy scout, and he was not prepared.

This is not because anyone who is audacious is by definition unprepared - there have been masters of preparedness who were audacious. But Caesar was audacious, without being a master of preparedness.

Not once, not twice, repeatedly. Not over trivial matters, over the largest decisions and grand strategy. As I said before, it took a general as brilliant as Caesar to have four (or five) extra chances to lose the civil war after beating Pompey, and to not lose it. I meant that quite literally. A sound professional would have wrapped it up without the risks. Anything but a genius at the parts he did well, would have lost one of the four or five, and the war with it. I also said half his brilliancies were attempts to retrieve situations his excess unprepared audacity had unnecessarily pitched him into in the first place. And I meant that literally too - they were brilliancies, many lesser commanders would not have pulled them off. And lots of merely competent professionals wouldn't have needed to.

Then there is the stuff about standard Roman practices for centuries, treated as supposed preparation on Caesar's personal part. Um no. It can be said he used the spade in Gaul more than even the Romans had previously, but that wasn't preparation, is was a tactic. A good one, at times decisive, but not George Marshall planning the invasion of Normandy in the spring of 1942 and designing from scratch an army to do it. Or anything remotely in the league.

Then you say, Caesar can't have been poor at strategy and lacking in preparation, because gosh golly he is one of the all time great captains. Non sequitor. I can grant one without granting the other. He won most of his battles because he had a good army and was a fine tactician (and inspiring leader, personally brave etc), and he campaigned well wherever he was, on the spot. But half his hard fights were unnecessary, in the specific sense that lesser commanders could have won from the prior situations, without brilliant gifts and without even risking many of them.

Caesar's gifts had to fight the headwind of his weaknesses. Those weaknesses were specifically on preparation and the largest questions of specifically military strategy. His strengths in audacity, politics, personal leadership, tactics, and on the spot campaigning, overcame those drawbacks. With considerable help at times from enemy mistakes, and from his own competent subordinates, to be sure.

[JasonC]

Inter and Chiv both noticed my comments about Grant and Blucher. And doubt how great they were. I did not advance them as greats but as those I emulate. I consider them "great slayers" or lion-tamers of great captains, and I admire them for that far more than I admire the great captains themselves (many of whom were utter rogues, tyrants, mass murderers, etc).

When I spoke of them as stubborn and stupid, it was in reference to their reputations with the worshippers of great captains (whom I in general despise - the worshippers that is, not the captains. Some of the captains I also despise but that is a different story). Not foo-foo enough. Didn't have anything to prove. Don't dance like butterflies. Not prima donnas for the hysterics to swoon for. Therefore, blackened.

What they were was professional. Brave absolutely. Principled smart rather than brilliancy geniuses. Sound. They played to win even if their opponent made no mistakes. They knew exactly what they had on their side and also their own and their armies' limitations, and had a healthy respect for their brilliant adversaries. But a healthier respect for reality, and their adversaries' mortality. They were in no way dazzled by the supposed godlike geniuses in front of them.

"Yes yes, that is all very well. But if I put enough brave men with guns right under his nose for as long as it takes and fire like the dickens, he goes down." While Blucher was as gallant as you please (leading repeated cavalry charges in person), neither was fooled by glamour or fame. War was to them a direct professional business, as dirty as you please but readily handled, and all the flitting about of their dazzling enemies never phased them in the slighest. They made a sound plan, sought battle, destroyed their enemies, paid what it cost in blood without flinching, and won.

That is the kind of general I can emulate. Most sitting at the feet of the great captains haven't a prayer of ever getting within miles of such professionalism, let alone the dizzy heights they imagine they are climbing.

[chiavarm]

Jason, My apologies I did infer that you placed them as great, not because you emulate them but because of the comment of the “maneuverist pantheon”.

It is history relived in the game, that draws my attention to CM. To simply replay history is of no value to me. If a game is army A did this and army B did that, so if you can end with the same result you win is a bit redundant. I think it is more entertaining to play the slight variation, the realistic “What if” of history. This of course can be taken to the absurd. (sometimes also entertaining) One of my favorites is Patton vs. Rommel. I regard these as very good commanders. The two never met on the battlefield. But “What if”. My belief is that Patton would has been victorious but not due to his skill set but due to the resources he had at his disposal. Air Power was the key to the Allied (less the Russians) victory in Europe. So to Qualify their ability as a commanders, another type of measure has to be use, not just being victorious.

And there in lies the rub. What if Rommel and Patton met on equal levels. The same could be said of Grant and Lee.

In the end brute force is an effective strategy if you have it and in Grant’s case you have to give him credit for recognizing he had the resources to use it unlike General G. Mc Clellan .

[JasonC]

I'm in a running debate with modern doctrines of maneuverism, at all times. It is out there, in the Zeitgeist, and I think it is largely unsound. So I point out places where I think it is wrong whenever other subjects bring them up.

Maneuverists try to tell us that skill is more important than numbers. Then when a Blucher or a Grant or the WW II Russians come up, they say, "but our prima donnas woulda done better if they had as much". Um, that is unproven, for starters. But the reputation of those prima donnas stems from all the lesser mortals they beat even while they, the prima donas, had less to work with. It is how they got reps in the first place. From Austrians to Hooker to French and early war Russians, somebody managed to take superior resources and lose to the blighters.

But not the guys I am talking about. They stop all that. Suddenly numbers matter again. The cheap victories that depend only on skill prove fleeting, lots of sound and light, no lasting result. Belatedly the prima dona believers get around to looking for some numbers. Belatedly they start noticing the need for a certain toughness about actual casualties which no, really can't be entirely avoided.

In other words, they start learning the rudiments of attrition doctrine, which says numbers always matter. And getting them to move your way. And that the biggest part of that is killing the other guy. Along with the toughness to stick to the task in the face of losses. Inexorable, not showy. Shutting down his outs. Not gambling, averages. Without promising glittering cheap victories for nothing by just being clever, which in the end do not last.

They are the standing refutation of the claims of maneuverism. That is a big part of why I admire them. They are also a solidly achievable standard for professionals. Everyone trying to be the next Napoleon is a recipe for military gambling and unsound risks. Napoleon might get away with it (though in fact he did not), but you-all are not Napoleon - that is my point.

[JasonC]

I'll put a finer point on it. Hooker thought he was the next Napoleon, wasn't, and got his tail kicked by a closer approximation. Grant knew he wasn't the next Napoleon, used the more pedestrian strengths he actually had, and won.

I am suggesting these facts are related. Don't play their game, play your own.

[chiavarm]

I still have dreams of performing a Double Envelopment.

I still think it would sweet, and if I were to do it against a numerically superior foe would be Piece de Resistance!

[Philippe]

I suspect that much of Bluecher's success was the result of good staff work by his subordinates. Being a little bit delusional probably never hurts when you're in command, but thinking that you're pregnant with an elephant by one of Napoleon's grenadiers is a bit over the top ("Je sens un elephant la").

Didn't Rommel and Patton cross swords briefly in North Africa ?

[Krautman]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Krautman - you think I must just assume that Caesar wanted to conquer Gaul from the outset. I explicitly said that he didn't, that he got sucked into doing so.

Well, from what I know, I'd say it was Caesar who made the Gauls be sucked into war... He grabbed any opportunity to continue the war and to increase his fame.

I finally looked that up and got me a book from the university library, which is considered a benchmark (as of 1997) on Caesar. Author and book will not be known to non-Germans, but anyway: Jehne, Martin, "Der Staat des Dictators Caesar".

In this book, it is explicitly said that Caesar won the war in Gaul due to superiour logistics. Jehne, a professor for ancient history, is specialised in the civil war period and its political mechanisms. No matter whether he's good or bad, he is surely not "frequently judging by impressive externals without entering into the actual logic of strategy" as you said "general historians" would do.

Originally posted by JasonC:

But Caesar was audacious, without being a master of preparedness.

I agree on that. I never said he was a master of preparedness. You previously made it sound as if Ceasar, as a general rule, dashed forward mindlessly into any situation like Rommel at Tobruk.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Then there is the stuff about standard Roman practices for centuries, treated as supposed preparation on Caesar's personal part. Um no. It can be said he used the spade in Gaul more than even the Romans had previously, but that wasn't preparation, is was a tactic.

Well, nice to know it was general practice among the Romans. By the way, "castra" is also, as I found out today, a synonym for "a day's march", which illustrates the practice to build a camp every night.

Again, I said I don't remotely know as much detail on the Gaul war as you. But the fact which you agree on yourself - he was careful in Gaul - at least indicates that Caesar did some planning.

Originally posted by JasonC:

A good one [tactic], at times decisive, but not George Marshall planning the invasion of Normandy in the spring of 1942 and designing from scratch an army to do it. Or anything remotely in the league.

Come on, that's ridiculous. We're in antiquity here. No maps. No previous knowledge of the country. No real infrastructure. No aerial reconnaissance. No arms industry on a comparable scale; no specialised forces, with the possible exception of the fabri. No need for hundreds of tons of daily supplies. No air-sea-land cooperation which was to be planned, no parachute droppings (would've been great though: Roman 101st AB = "Legio CI Volans"). No Wehrmacht, still fierce in 1944, and centrally controlled, but a multitude of savage tribes whose motivations were hard to comprehend. No résistance. No secret service, spies etc...

Originally posted by JasonC:

Then you say, Caesar can't have been poor at strategy and lacking in preparation, because gosh golly he is one of the all time great captains. Non sequitor. I can grant one without granting the other. He won most of his battles because he had a good army and was a fine tactician (and inspiring leader, personally brave etc), and he campaigned well wherever he was, on the spot. But half his hard fights were unnecessary, in the specific sense that lesser commanders could have won from the prior situations, without brilliant gifts and without even risking many of them.

So others could've done better, or done it more efficiently, from the same starting point?

Originally posted by JasonC:

Then when a Blucher or a Grant or the WW II Russians [or Caesar] come up, they say, "but our prima donnas [or: others, wich is: "lesser commanders"] woulda done better if they had as much". Um, that is unproven, for starters.

Being able to "campaign well on the spot", isn't this a part of being a great strategist? Saying that others would have done better from the same starting point is just - unproven. How do you know it was mostly impulsive what Caesar did, and how can you say another commander would've done some planning and then achieved the same goal with taking less risks? "Half his hard fights were unnecessary"? That is a very audacious assertion. You weren't there. You could say Fuller claims that. Others might disagree. Historians quarrel, that is their job (most recently in Germany, the holy pope of social history, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, is behaving like the king of quarrel, up to the point of being ridiculous). You are applying the measurement parameters of a modern professional soldier to Caesar. Let me ask you: Does Fuller concentrate on antiquity, or on military issues in general? If the latter is the case, I don't think it is appropiate to entirely discard the opinion of historians specifically concentrating on Roman history, which anyway is military history to a certain extent.

Greetings

Krautman

[Krautman]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Non sequitor.

Well, I didn't want to mention this at first, since it's not significant to the question at hand. However, if you want to say "I did not follow your line of argumentation", then it should be something containing "non sequor", or rather "non secutus sum". If you wanted to say "this does not automatically follow", which I suppose you did, then it should be "non sequitur" (-or, -ris, -tur, -mur, -mini, -ntur). Probably that was a typo.

Sorry for being so squeamish. What military history is to you, Latin is to me.

And the morale of the story? Ea ex re sequitur, ut lingua Latina difficile sit scriptu.

Multis cum salutibus,

Krautmanus

[Philippe]

I'm sure Jason's gaffe was a typo. Latin gives everyone a headache, including me.

I think we need to keep a couple of things in mind when discussing Caesar.

First and foremost, he won. Big time. And his legacy was Octavian and the Roman Imperial system and a two thousand year cultural and political hangover. Very hard to argue with. Unless your last name happens to be Syme.

Second, yes, he was very sloppy towards the end. Partially because he thought he had won, did some rash and foolish things, and almost didn't. But he still won, nevertheless.

Was he Alexander? No, and he used to cry about it (he also wasn't too happy about the age difference). They had comparable charisma factors (very important in antiquity), roughly comparable tactical ability, but I think Alexander was ahead of him on both counts. He also trumps him several times over in the legacy department -- you can imagine the creation of an imperial roman system without Caesar, but it's hard to imagine Alexandria and Hellenistic Egypt without Alexander. When the Parthians used Crassus' head as a stage prop during a performance of the Bacchae at Seleuceia (named after one of the Alexander's generals), it was because Alexander had so internationalized Hellenistic civilization that it never occured to the supposedly barbarian Parthians that staging a performance of Euripides in the original was incriminatingly civilized. And he'd only been dead a couple of hundred years...

We don't really know anything about ancient logistics. The main reason we don't know is that the ancients thought it was boring, made for bad literature, and didn't write about it. Every now and then something slips out that makes you realize that reality wasn't one of Livy's set piece battles. The fact is you couldn't move troops across great distances without some kind of advance planning because the troops would starve very quickly and then go home. And unless you were moving along a river line with good access to grain barges (lots of those in France), your pack animals would eat their loads almost as fast as they could carry them. Hence Xenophon's obsession with whether that next town three parasangs away will make a market.

Finally, things worked on a different scale back then. Today if you invaded France with a couple of divisions armies of clerks would be needed to clean up the administrative details. Back then all you needed was the fastest talker in the west dictating non-stop to a couple of slaves and freedmen while he crossed the Alps carried in a litter. It worked because he didn't have to send out hundreds of memos, though he would probably have killed for a modern laptop with a wireless connection.

And as for political and geographical knowldedge, don't confuse gaps in the modern picture with ignorance in antiquity. There's plenty of detail in Strabo, and it isn't regurgitated and translated Caesar. If Justin-Trogus and their sources had survived intact we'd probably have a very different picture. And don't forget that the Greeks had had colonies in the area for over five hundred years: there were plenty of people to talk to who could tell Caesar the name and political make-up of every minor hamlet between the mouth of the Rhone and the English Channel -- and do it in a civilized language. Central Gaul was Massilia's back yard, and Massilia was an important city and part of the Provincia Romana.

[Interlocutor]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Inter and Chiv both noticed my comments about Grant and Blucher. And doubt how great they were.

For my part, I was actually trying to sidestep the partisan comparisons debate, though I admit that my Parthian shot referencing Lee might have muddied the waters .

Rather, I was attempting to advocate for a definition of terms, an understanding of what might constitute "greatness" in a "Great Commander" (GC). It's my guess that different folks might value various "attributes of greatness" differently , thus contributing to the sometimes heated nature of exchanges like this . If we knew what folks valued in a GC, we could discuss these attributes rather than the GCs themselves, with perhaps less partisan results.

But in the ongoing exchange I must admit to some puzzlement over some of Jason's comments :confused: . And since I've always found this form of communication inherently prone to misinterpretation (that's why I use these foolish smilies a lot ), before I ask Jason to elaborate, please let me make the disclaimer that I have great respect for Jason, his intellect, and his contributions to this forum. I have only recently become a member, but I have already greatly benefited from Jason's posts. I am even now attempting to work my way through his new "Russian training scenarios", a great concept and a great service to those who play CMBB.

So Jason, if you read this, and I hope you will, please know that my questions are not intended to be combative, nor as an attack on your ideas. Rather, they are my attempt to understand the concepts and opinions you are presenting in this thread.

First, I am curious about your statement that you, in general, despise the worshippers of great captains. What constitutes worship of a great captain? If, as in this thread, various folks profess admiration for this or that GC, as indeed you have yourself for several, is that worship? Or is worship the advocacy for one GC over another?

I am also interested in your condemnation of "maneuverist doctrine", by which I understand you to mean the currently faddish conceptual formulas which are as you have described them . I agree with you on this point.

But you then seem to "retrofit" current maneuverist doctrine to long-dead GCs who likely never heard of the modern concept . Does any past GC who decided to try & outflank his superior-in-numbers opponent when faced with the necessity of attacking him merit condemnation as a "maneuverist"?

At any rate, I find your opinions thought provoking, but for my part I would benefit from further definition of terms...

[Count D'Ten]

The violence of some of the opinions on this topic alarms me. It's like being caught in a remote-control soccer riot. (Not that I've ever been caught in a remote-control soccer riot.)

I think it's very hard to objectively separate a Great Captain from his/her time. Actually impossible, even if you could go back in time and start sewing different brains into various heads.

That's why I tried to suggest "emulation." That's how we really vote. We find something that resonates in history and in us. Although intellectually I champion the Indirect Approach, what I love is making something out of nothing.

I admire Rommel, for example, less for his maneuvers than for his ability to put bits and pieces together on the fly (while some of those bits were crack troops, some of the pieces were crack-ed troops). My own experience is more of the "how can I lead if no one will follow" variety.

You can't judge a Captain apart from his context scientifically -- but we constantly do it emotionally. We react to, we flatter by imitation what we really admire. I admire much of Grant, but I find no excuse for Cold Harbor. His final win came from maneuver as much as attrition set it up. Sherman had only one Cold Harbor, Lee one, but Grant had real trouble finding the doorknob at that stage of his career. Hooker and Longstreet were good corps commanders with admirable strategic vision, yet neither succeeded when given independant command. Grant did. (Could Lee have succeeded as a Union commander would be a fun cross thread -- but not in this forum.)

The other factor I've noticed across the wargame table, is that we don't even understand what WE do right, never mind a Great Captain. I've played Interloc -- he's much better than I am and believes it's because of his tunnel vision. Well, he was fairly easy to fake out strategically. But

when the game started, he handled the basics with frightening effeciency. His talent wasn't in ignoring what we were up to, but in accepting the reality of the table and beating us with what little he had.

Many is the captain who's out maneuvered a foe, only to find that his tactics and his tools can't follow through. A club I share with McClennan, several Austrians, and the all-too clever in general.

Actually, that kind of cross thread is rather intriguing. Imagine Zhukov and Gudarian trading places? Or Patton and Manstein? How about DeGaul and Rommel? How much is the fisherman, and how much is the net? :eek:

[JasonC]

"I shall now tell the story of Zarathustra. The basic conception of this work, the idea of eternal recurrence, this highest formula of affirmation that can possibly be attained—, belongs to the August of the year 1881: it was jotted down on a sheet of paper with the inscription "6,000 feet beyond man and time." I was walking through the woods that day along the lake of Silvaplana; I stopped beside a mighty pyramidal boulder towering up not far from Surlei. Then this idea came to me... if I reckon forward from that day to the sudden birth that occurred in February 1883 under the most improbable circumstances—the final part from which I have quoted a few sentences in the Preface was finished exactly in that sacred hour in which Richard Wagner died in Venice—we get eighteen months for the pregnancy. This figure of precisely eighteen months might suggest, at least to Buddhists, that I am really a female elephant." - Nietzsche

What can one say besides lol. Perhaps it is contagious. Perhaps it is a saying. Perhaps it is merely a reference. Perhaps both were mad as march hares.

My own theory is that Blucher simply liked his gin and joked about his weight.

[JasonC]

Interlocuter is in search of definitions or to be more broadly charitable, refinements of meaning, and in particular wonders about attributes of greatness, in the case "great captains". Perhaps I can make myself even less understood if I proclaim that I am against greatness in captains. One of the attributes of greatness, then, is to be undesirable. This raises the need to slay the beasties, which is what brought me to Blucher and Grant.

He asks what I mean by worshippers of great captains. Thomas Carlyle may stand for the ideal type. In part, to be grossly political about it, I mean lickspittles flattering tyrants and toadies excusing the crimes of mass murderers, because they were so massive. I mean hysterics swooning for absolutism, prime ministers writing apologetic biographies of mass murderers past, whole intellectual classes defending tyrants of their own party. I mean every mindless rogue who ever looked around for a man on horseback hoping to get ahead, and every worse rogue who found himself when he did so. I mean the whole swashbuckling class of gambling adventurers with other men's lives, and the horse they rode in on, and anybody who doesn't long to shoot them down flat before they gets going.

I am saying with Lord Acton that great men are almost always bad men, and with Chesterton that they are to be slain like dragons not emulated. That much by way of merely political preface.

I also mean that they are mortals to be beaten by other mortals in entirely pedestrian mortal combat. I am stressing the commonalities of war against the excessive tendency to look there for differences in rank or ability. There are, undeniably, great differences in real ability in war. There are even greater differences in military fortune, for chance too plays an enourmous role in war. But they are both spannable by run of the mill human bravery, at least when directed with sufficient professionalism.

Just as the strongest men alive are weaker than any ten average men in a physical sense, the great commanders are entirely within reach of competent professionals with modest aids in organization, resources, numbers, brave followers, etc. They can appear otherwise when their opponents are not competent, or brave, or organized, or when fortune breaks one way rather than another. But generally not for long. A few die in their beds, but they are just as dead.

And to me this is a rather more important point about military command than the precise intellectual or psychological formula for brewing up additional ogres, who we do not want anyway. Knowing how to beat them does require studying them, and there are lessons for mere professionals in their campaigns - certainly. Every student of war, ones with real responsibilities especially, should study the great captains and their campaigns.

But without worshipping them. Without emulating them. Without wanting to be like them. You don't emulate cancer, you cut it out. To treat it you no doubt need to know how it acts, but in the end you cut it up with a knife and throw it away.

[Philippe]

One final comment on the Gallic war, done without benefit of consulting my notes (they're thirty years old, so I probably couldn't read them anyway).

I think Caesar was pretty much aware of what he was doing when he went into Gaul. He tries to make it look like an accident, but that was largely because he did some things which, on the surface, were pretty embarassing (e.g. attacking a Roman ally without provocation).

The way Caesar gives his strategic plan an accidental look is to not show the full context of his early moves. He doesn't hide anything, but he deliberately breaks up his description of the background of events in Gaul so that it isn't immediately obvious to the innocent reader what is going on. And to make it even more confusing, he tells it out of order. Most of this background can be found in two places: just after the fight with the Helvetii, and just after the fight with Ariovistus. If you read the two passages together you realize what the real picture was. Reading Caear's background discussion of the campaign against Ariovistus before you read the campaign against the Helvetii makes his invasion of Gaul appear in a wholly different light.

Caesar pretends he didn't know what was going on, and just happened to pick fights, one by one, with the top two power brokers in what was, in effect, a Gallic civil war. He gives his commentaries a contrived breathless quality of apparent discovery, a bit like noticing a pair of legs sticking out from under your house after the tornado plunks it down in non-antipodeal Oz. Only in Caesar's case, he made sure the house landed on exactly that particular spot -- by accident, of course. The Helvetii gave him an excuse to cross the border, and when he took them out he also happened to put himself in control of one of the two factions that was vying for mastery of Gaul. He then turned around and attacked a Roman ally, and in the process of wiping him out made the other faction his client as well. The net result was that with two well-aimed karate chops he took political control of about two-thirds of France, and did it in one extended campaign.

You don't get that kind of result if you're just some dumb Roman politician stumbling around blind in the barbarian hinterland. The history of the Roman wars with the Ligurians come to mind, where every year some no-name ex-consul would make the legions trudge north so he could scarf up enough plunder to pay off his election campaign debts.

The key ingredient in Caesar's style of Blitzkrieg was political analysis. He was something of a political genius, and knew exactly which joints to snip to make the whole thing fall into his hand. And this was done by careful advance planning and preparation -- maybe not the lumbering kind that we're used to since the twentieth century, but he knew exactly who to buy, who to flatter, and who to coerce. Much of his conquest was done in the first year, and the Gallic Wars is more about his fight to hang on to his conquest than to make it.

Where did he have trouble? Around the fringes, and deeper into the interior. The further he got from the Greek cities in Southern France the worse his intelligence became. Belgium was just at the edge of his radar screen, and that was where his system broke down: when he went up there he was actually ambushed, and the Nervii came very close to ending his career at the outset. That was one of the reasons why he always dug in at the end of a day's march. Fuller always thought the practise was wasteful -- it probably was on the Northwest Frontier, but first century Gaul wasn't nineteenth century India. England, of course, was off the edge of his intelligence radar, which is why his first attempt to invade was such a disaster. And while that bridge he built over the Rhine makes for an interesting vocabulary lesson, his invasion of Germany has always reminded me a bit of the invasion of Cambodia.

Caesar's genius (and his flaw) was the marrying up of his acute political insight with tactical muscle and the skill and daring to use them. The political analysis always governed, and like most good Roman generals he trusted a bit too much in his luck (Cicero on Pompey's luck makes for fascinating reading). But what is really impressive, given the number of seemingly hopeless situations he threw himself into, was how often he managed to pull a final rabbit out of the hat. And he didn't just do it once or twice. He wasn't invincible, but he could usually get people to do what he wanted. And he was probably the living embodiment of the dictum that war is politics by other means. He was always playing politics -- sometimes he would cajole, sometimes he would seduce, and sometimes he would use brute force. And he always made sure that he was the one who wrote the history books afterwards.