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Napoleon is normaly considered one of the "great captains" the gereral consensus is that the great captains are Ceaser, Hannibal Alexander, Churcill (John no

Napoleon is normaly considered one of the "great captains" the gereral consensus is that the great captains are Ceaser, Hannibal Alexander, Churcill (John not Winston) Wellington and Napoleon.

msh 12y ago
that consensus seem to miss any candidates from outside europe except for hannibal.
- spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
  Yep I dont have my reference works at work as one of the early musilm gererals probaly should be in the list but he got written out of history some what. BTW Carthage was a Colony so not realy non european in that sense.
  - restalis 12y ago
    Cartage was a colony of Phoenicians (before it become a thing of its own), so not European in any case.
    - lazyant 12y ago
      I'm no historian or geographer but I never thought of considering the north African cultures of the time as not European, since Mediterranean at a time seemed a uniting force and not a dividing one like now. Perhaps my European-centric vision talking.
  - dragop 12y ago
    Khalid ibn al-Walid Some others, often overlooked from a Western viewpoint, would be Subutai, Timur the Lame (Tamerlane), Belisarius, Zhukov, and Suleiman I. There are more. Arguably Marius and Sulla were the equal, if not better than, Caesar. And Pompey was no slouch either. And another great Roman general was Scipio. Some more modern generals not mentioned are Fredrick the Great and Gustavus Adolphus, plus Rommel.
    - spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
      That was the guy however to be a great captain you need to be a bit more than a brilliant general in a one or two campaigns which rules peopel liek rommel, monty and patton out
      - dragop 12y ago
        That's a little unfair to later generals as the nature of warfare has changed. No longer is the general the king, emperor, consul, tribal leader, etc. One of Hitler's mistakes* was to believe he was a good general. Stalin at least had the good sense to let his generals get on with it. * Thankfully.
        oblio 12y ago
        After killing dozens of them and losing 1/5th of the Soviet Union in just 9 months... :)
    - plesner 12y ago
      Speaking of which are the greatest generals, according to Livy Hannibal and Scipio Africanus met at a dinner 10 years after Scipio definitively beat Hannibal and that's what their conversation was about. Scipio asked Hannibal, who are the greatest generals of all time? Hannibal said, Alexander, Pyrrhus and myself. Annoyed that he wasn't on the list Scipio said okay, what then if I hadn't beat you at Zama? Hannibal said, I'd have put myself ahead of both Alexander and Pyrrhus. Unlikely to actually be true but a cute story.
demallien 12y ago
Yeah, that list rather sucks. At a minimum you need to add in Robert Lee and Ulysses Grant. Also Genghis Khan was no slouch on the battlefield, and most people feel like Sun Tzu knew a thing or two about fighting battles...
- lsc 12y ago
  huh. If we're talking about the "general consensus" You are perhaps the only person I've heard of who would put both lee and grant on the list. Some would add Lee (though personally, I think that is for political/tribal reasons more than anything else... but I do acknowledge than many have a high opinion of the man, especially when it came to cavalry.) - but even those of us who sympathize with the north generally don't rate Grant much above 'competent enough' - he got the job done, but nobody is going to compare him to Caesar or Napoleon.
  - spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
    yep as important to America as the ACW is it was only a single short war.
    - kazagistar 12y ago
      It was short because the north had massive manpower and industrial production advantages. AFAIK the northern leadership made it much harder then it should have been, if anything (or Lee made it harder, or both).
- Marazan 12y ago
  Cold Harbour alone disqualifies Grant. Frankly the entire wilderness campaign disqualifies Grant.
  - demallien 12y ago
    Grant won that campaign. A campaign that had been attempted and lost by three of his predecessors. Tactically the guy was no genius, but strategically he was brilliant.
tormeh 12y ago
No love for Zhukov and Ghengis Khan?
- spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
  Zhukov's only tactic was charge at the german lines backed up by the threat of NKVD submchine guns ;-(

Napoleon is normaly considered one of the "great captains" the gereral consensus is that the great captains are Ceaser, Hannibal Alexander, Churcill (John not Winston) Wellington and Napoleon.

msh 12y ago

that consensus seem to miss any candidates from outside europe except for hannibal.

spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
Yep I dont have my reference works at work as one of the early musilm gererals probaly should be in the list but he got written out of history some what. BTW Carthage was a Colony so not realy non european in that sense.
- restalis 12y ago
  Cartage was a colony of Phoenicians (before it become a thing of its own), so not European in any case.
  - lazyant 12y ago
    I'm no historian or geographer but I never thought of considering the north African cultures of the time as not European, since Mediterranean at a time seemed a uniting force and not a dividing one like now. Perhaps my European-centric vision talking.
- dragop 12y ago
  Khalid ibn al-Walid Some others, often overlooked from a Western viewpoint, would be Subutai, Timur the Lame (Tamerlane), Belisarius, Zhukov, and Suleiman I. There are more. Arguably Marius and Sulla were the equal, if not better than, Caesar. And Pompey was no slouch either. And another great Roman general was Scipio. Some more modern generals not mentioned are Fredrick the Great and Gustavus Adolphus, plus Rommel.
  - spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
    That was the guy however to be a great captain you need to be a bit more than a brilliant general in a one or two campaigns which rules peopel liek rommel, monty and patton out
    - dragop 12y ago
      That's a little unfair to later generals as the nature of warfare has changed. No longer is the general the king, emperor, consul, tribal leader, etc. One of Hitler's mistakes* was to believe he was a good general. Stalin at least had the good sense to let his generals get on with it. * Thankfully.
      - oblio 12y ago
        After killing dozens of them and losing 1/5th of the Soviet Union in just 9 months... :)
  - plesner 12y ago
    Speaking of which are the greatest generals, according to Livy Hannibal and Scipio Africanus met at a dinner 10 years after Scipio definitively beat Hannibal and that's what their conversation was about. Scipio asked Hannibal, who are the greatest generals of all time? Hannibal said, Alexander, Pyrrhus and myself. Annoyed that he wasn't on the list Scipio said okay, what then if I hadn't beat you at Zama? Hannibal said, I'd have put myself ahead of both Alexander and Pyrrhus. Unlikely to actually be true but a cute story.

demallien 12y ago

Yeah, that list rather sucks. At a minimum you need to add in Robert Lee and Ulysses Grant. Also Genghis Khan was no slouch on the battlefield, and most people feel like Sun Tzu knew a thing or two about fighting battles...

lsc 12y ago
huh. If we're talking about the "general consensus" You are perhaps the only person I've heard of who would put both lee and grant on the list. Some would add Lee (though personally, I think that is for political/tribal reasons more than anything else... but I do acknowledge than many have a high opinion of the man, especially when it came to cavalry.) - but even those of us who sympathize with the north generally don't rate Grant much above 'competent enough' - he got the job done, but nobody is going to compare him to Caesar or Napoleon.
- spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
  yep as important to America as the ACW is it was only a single short war.
  - kazagistar 12y ago
    It was short because the north had massive manpower and industrial production advantages. AFAIK the northern leadership made it much harder then it should have been, if anything (or Lee made it harder, or both).
Marazan 12y ago
Cold Harbour alone disqualifies Grant. Frankly the entire wilderness campaign disqualifies Grant.
- demallien 12y ago
  Grant won that campaign. A campaign that had been attempted and lost by three of his predecessors. Tactically the guy was no genius, but strategically he was brilliant.

tormeh 12y ago

No love for Zhukov and Ghengis Khan?

spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
Zhukov's only tactic was charge at the german lines backed up by the threat of NKVD submchine guns ;-(