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Thread: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

  1. #1

    Default Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    I realize your list may be from personal preference of history studied, games played, cultural affinity and many other factors. I do think it is interesting to see the many different opinions on histories top ten.

    All right all of you historians, wargamers and Total War fanatics - state your case.

    Here is my list and feel free to poke fun or disagree. However if you agree with my assessment you are considered an astute judge of character and historical methodology


    1. Alexander the Great
    2. Frederick the Great
    3. Napoleon Bonaparte
    4. Erich Von Manstein
    5. Genghis Khan
    6. Hannibal Barka
    7. Robert E Lee
    8. Attila the Hun
    9. Trajan of Rome
    10. Georgy Zhukov

  2. #2
    Clint_Eastwood's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    1. Julius Cesear
    2. Hannibal Barca
    3. General patton
    4. Ariel Sharon
    5. Scipio Africanus
    6. Alexander the Great
    7. Sun Tzu
    8. Marcus Agrippa
    9. Marcus Ulpius Traianus
    10. Ahmad Shah Massoud

    In no particular order but would probably place all Roman generals at the top!

  3. #3

    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Bai Qi the "Human Butcher" of Qin is rather under appreciated IMO. He was an absolute bastard but a brilliant leader of the Qin Army for more than 30 years, and the one who paved the way for Qin domination of China. He conquered dozens of cities for Qin and he has no recorded defeat in battle.

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    Clint_Eastwood's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Quote Originally Posted by captainkrunch View Post
    Bai Qi the "Human Butcher" of Qin is rather under appreciated IMO. He was an absolute bastard but a brilliant leader of the Qin Army for more than 30 years, and the one who paved the way for Qin domination of China. He conquered dozens of cities for Qin and he has no recorded defeat in battle.
    So what about the other 9 generals you are supposed to list.....one is not enough here?

  5. #5

    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Quote Originally Posted by Clint_Eastwood View Post
    1. Julius Cesear
    2. Hannibal Barca
    3. General patton
    4. Ariel Sharon
    5. Scipio Africanus
    6. Alexander the Great
    7. Sun Tzu
    8. Marcus Agrippa
    9. Marcus Ulpius Traianus
    10. Ahmad Shah Massoud

    In no particular order but would probably place all Roman generals at the top!
    Interesting list and thanks for taking the time to respond.

    More of a couple of curiosity questions than anything, why did you include Patton and Sharon?

  6. #6

    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Quote Originally Posted by captainkrunch View Post
    Bai Qi the "Human Butcher" of Qin is rather under appreciated IMO. He was an absolute bastard but a brilliant leader of the Qin Army for more than 30 years, and the one who paved the way for Qin domination of China. He conquered dozens of cities for Qin and he has no recorded defeat in battle.
    I find it interesting that we usually regard who we have studied the most in our list.

  7. #7
    HigoChumbo's Avatar Definitely not Jom.
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    I don't want to make a top 10 because I'm rather ignorant about many key figures who usually appear in these ranks (Eugen of Saboy, Frederick the Great, Julius Caesar...) and because these lists tend to be nostalgic, inevitably subjective, unreliable due to the lack of information (my case) and tainted by a huge western bias... but still, in no particular order, a few notes I'd add:

    • Philipp II of Macedon (I keep getting the impression that Alexander just gets the credit for what essentially were his father's innovations and planned campaigns, and just took his place due to Philipp's assassination)
    • Alexander the Great (I guess he still deserves the credit)
    • Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, "The Great Captain" (put together what can be consider the first Modern Era Military formation, which would dominate the battlefields of Europe for almost 2 centuries, put an end to medieval heavy cavalry prevalence, had a big hand in ending centuries of heavy armor, and enabled the rise to power of Spain as a superpower even before America had an impact).
    • Gustavus Adolphus (undid The Great Captain's doctrine and set in motion the dominant fighting style of the following centuries stretching almost to the 20th. Century)
    • Napoleon Bonaparte (pretty self-explanatory)
    • Hannibal Barca (few people have had in their hand to change the world's history as drastically as this dude had).



    The few that come to mind.
    Last edited by HigoChumbo; September 12, 2018 at 09:42 AM.

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    Clint_Eastwood's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Quote Originally Posted by Marmaduke View Post
    Interesting list and thanks for taking the time to respond.

    More of a couple of curiosity questions than anything, why did you include Patton and Sharon?
    Well Patton for me changed the War in Europe during World War II as without his command the Battle of The Bulge would have been a disaster and we may all be "Sprechen du Deutsch" now!! He personally turned this around for the Allies at this tough time. Ariel Sharon I read books on him and his involvement in the Six Day War how he swung what looked like a defeat to the IDF to a complete Victory. Just read his accounts when he lead the 38th Armoured division against Egyptian forces and destroyed them. Also he was a key figure in the Yom Kippur and War of Attrition.

    And before anyone asks.....no I am not Jewish I just respect more the underdogs who in a Military sense changed the ways of strategy and I seen Israel back in the day surrounded by Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt and they put all three countries in there place.

  9. #9
    Diocle's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Ten are few .. but the OP says 10, so ..

    1 - Alexander
    2 - Hannibal
    3 - Julius Caesar
    4 - Oda Nobunaga
    5 - Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
    6 - John Churchill Duke of Malborough
    7 - Frederick the Great
    8 - Napoleon Bonaparte
    9 - Arthur Wellesley
    10 - Erwin Rommel
    Last edited by Diocle; September 17, 2018 at 09:26 PM.

  10. #10
    AnthoniusII's Avatar Μέγαc Δομέστικοc
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    I wont make a list...because there is too much nationalism in the prefers.
    But i wonder how all of the previus posters , that supposed played Attila Total War, excluded Belisarius. Just wonder.
    TGC in order to continue its development seak one or more desicated scripters to put our campaign scripts mess to an order plus to create new events and create the finall missing factions recruitment system. In return TGC will give permision to those that will help to use its material stepe by step. The result will be a fully released TGC plus many mods that will benefit TGC's material.
    Despite the mod is dead does not mean that anyone can use its material
    read this to avoid misunderstandings.

    IWTE tool master and world txt one like this, needed inorder to release TGC 1.0 official to help TWC to survive.
    Adding MARKA HORSES in your mod and create new varietions of them. Tutorial RESTORED.


  11. #11
    Diocle's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Quote Originally Posted by AnthoniusII View Post
    I wont make a list...because there is too much nationalism in the prefers.
    But i wonder how all of the previus posters , that supposed played Attila Total War, excluded Belisarius. Just wonder.

    My dear friend, if you find even a thin, little shadow of nationalism in my 10 choices, I'm ready to kill myself on the spot!

    I quoted: 1 Macedonian (Greek), 2 Germans, 2 British, 1 North African Semite (the greatest general of human history), 1 Swedish, 1 French, 1 Japanese warlord and finally the old chap: Julius Caesar, but were Italian the Romans? Strictly speaking, I doubt! So, no nationalism just history seen from my viewpoint, of course.

    About Belisarius, then .. why not Narses, the great Byzantine eunuch?

    Last edited by Diocle; September 18, 2018 at 08:39 AM.

  12. #12
    Anna_Gein's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Because he is an eunuch. He is lacks the virility required to be worthy of the title

    Only 10 names is tough. We need more conditions to propose interesting lists.
    Last edited by Anna_Gein; September 18, 2018 at 01:02 PM.

  13. #13
    Diocle's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Another (unofficial) list of ten, by Diocle:

    1 -Germanicus Julius Caesar (24 May 15 b.C. - Antioch of Syria, 10 October 19 a.D.)
    2 - Attila the Hun (circa 406 – March 453)
    3 - Flavius Aetius (Durosturum, 390 circa – Ravenna, 21 September 454)
    4 - Geiseric the Vandal (Balaton, 25 January 400 – Carthage, 477)
    5 - Karl der Große (2 April 742 – Aachen, 28 January 814)
    6 - John Hawkwood (Sible Hedingham, 1320 circa – Florence, 14 March 1394)
    7 - Ambrogio Spinola (Genoa, 1569 - 25 September 1630)
    8 - Prince Eugene of Savoy Carignano (Paris, 18 October 1663 – Wien, 21 April 1736)
    9 - Aleksandr Vasil‘evich Suvorov (Moscow, 24 November 1729 - St. Petersburg, 18 May 1800)
    10 - Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Franz Karl Graf Radetzky von Radetz (Sedlčany, 2 November 1766 - Milan, 5 January 1858)
    .. just to avoid being accused of nationalism.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    I don't see how you wouldn't put Genghis Khan #1. Subotai should be probably be #2 because he did most of the actual conquering, but Khan defeated him and spared his life so he has to be higher.

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    Clint_Eastwood's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    Quote Originally Posted by AnthoniusII View Post
    I wont make a list...because there is too much nationalism in the prefers.
    But i wonder how all of the previus posters , that supposed played Attila Total War, excluded Belisarius. Just wonder.
    I could list a lot more and again already mentioned the OP stated 10 only!

  16. #16

    Default Re: Top 10 Generals of All Time - Your list is valuable

    There's a lot of great military leaders, as this thread shows. The academic in me says that the best way to decide the top ten would be to come up with categorical and quantifiable metrics that apply to almost all eligible candidates, in such a way that the majority of viewers and posters would agree that the metrics are relatively unbiased from a national, and more importantly (and maybe impossibly) from a chronological perspective.

    Among other questions, I have to ask: Where do you draw the line between generals, and statesmen who lead armies? Statesmen who lead armies (mostly a thing before the modern era with some notable exceptions like Napoleon, Frederick the Great, and Tzar Alexander I.) often had extreme powers over the state that simple generals couldn't have.

    Even comparing contemporaries can be baffling - for instance @Clint Eastwood - how would you decide that Patton is a better general than Eisenhower (or vice versa I suppose)?

    Another question @Clint Eastwood - I thought Marcus Agrippa was Octavian's admiral that won the battle of Actium. Is this correct? If so, are we comparing generals to admirals on this thread too? If that is the case, I'd encourage you to read about about Korean admiral Yi Sun-Sin. His accomplishments and the struggles he had to overcome, while almost certainly hyperbolized over the ages, are nonetheless awe-inspiring. In my completely subjective opinion he's more awesome than the Agrippa I'm thinking of, but I'm also glad you mentioned him because I feel like he often doesn't get enough rep. I'll also need to read about Ahmad Shah Massoud - I've never heard of him and I'm fascinated to find out what he's about.

    Because I haven't established a criteria for ranking military rulers, I just want to add some honorable mentions that no one has talked about yet. Personally I'm a big fan of:

    Asshurbanipal - the last great warrior-emperor of the mighty Neo-Assyrian Empire.
    Cyrus II The Great - Famously established the mighty Achaemenid Persian Empire.
    Mehmet II "The Conquer" - The great Emperor who made the Ottoman Empire the greatest empire in Europe.

    Ignoring my previous advice and bring up a person with strong ethnic overtones, I'll mention Albania's Skanderbeg, Mehmet II's contemporary who was able to defeat several turkish armies much larger than his own. Only after his death did Albania get conquered by the Ottoman Empire.

    Focusing back on the west, I would add Iphicrates of Athens for his major victories in the Peloponnesian war and his reforms of the military.
    Another significant western general is Helmuth von Molke the Elder, who brilliantly defeated Napoleon III's 2nd French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War when most observers had their money on France due to its advantaged in manpower.
    My extremely biased English speaking American perspective wants to mention the Black Prince, for his incredible victory at the Battle of Poissons in the 100 Years war.


    You'll notice that all of the folks I mentioned here at the end come from pre-modern days. I haven't studied modern history as much, and that definitely colors my point of view. I'm also not educated enough on Indian and East Asian military history, with the exception of Japanese history.

    I do want to point out that there are some WW2 general fans in this thread, but nobody has mentioned any commanders from WW1. I'll mention some below:

    Erich von Falkenhayn - 2nd German General Chief of Staff of the German high command succeeding Helmuth von Molke the Younger. Under his leadership, the Germans on the Western front dealt the Allies massive casualties despite being generally outnumbered.
    Erich von Ludendorf - great German general of the Eastern front. Under his command, the Russian Army that massively outnumbered Germany's forces was defeated time and time again, suffering mind-blowing casualties that contributed significantly to the discontent that cause the fall of the Tsar and Russia's eventual withdrawal from the war after the Bolshevik's October Revolution. Once he functionally became the Germany's commander-in-chief after Falkenhayn was fired by Wilhelm II he launched massive offensives on the Western front that nearly scared the Allies into capitulation. However, these were stopped due significantly to logistical and supply problems that caused many of the attacking Germans to collapse from exhaustion due to overuse and starvation, as well as the careful allocation of Allied reinforcements by General Foch.
    Joseph Joffre - The French Commander-in-Chief at the beginning of WW1's indefatigably calm leadership proved instrumental in the 1st Battle of the Marne, which saw France and Great Britain go from being on the back foot and nearing total destruction to finally stopping the German advance and putting them on the defensive.
    Ferdinand Foch - The Eisenhower of WW1's careful allocation of manpower had the result that when Ludendorf's 1918 offensives were stopped, the Allies had fresh forces to counter-attack and put the German lines on the run, a significant contributing factor to Germany's call for armistice in late 1918.
    Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - I don't know that I would put him on a top-ten list, but his courageous and skillfully executed defense of Gallipoli was probably the Ottoman Empire's greatest victory over the Allies in the war.

    I also feel that the when people talk about generals of the Napoleonic wars the big 2 you see are Napoleon and Arthur Wellesley. While both obviously great generals, there are some other ones I feel should be mentioned. This might be contentious, but I believe that Barclay de Tolly, for his execution of the strategy that defeated the Grande Armee, the greatest army the world had ever seen, deserves critical acclaim. My admiration mostly stems from the fact that when everyone around him despised what he was doing, he stuck to his guns. When Alexander I eventually demoted him for not being aggressive enough (and possibly for not being Russian, which makes sense on Alexander's part because he had to do something to stem the discontent in the army and government) his successor Mikhail Kutusov refused to be goaded into a foolish engagement until Borodino, which fortunately was not a complete disaster for the Russian Army. After this, Kutusov expertly handled the maneuvers that made Napoleons retreat as destructive as possible, earning himself a legendary reputation in the process.

    There's a lot of folks I'm missing obviously, but that's what I got, again in no particular order for the most part due to my firm belief that without metrics a proper ranking can't be established. I do think that if proper metrics were established, many of the names I mentioned would still probably not be on many top 10 lists, but these people and their contributions to military history are fun to talk about.

    Thanks for reading.

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