Yes Yes Yes

I think you might need to go back and read my post again.

I said he was underrated and your post pretty much proves my point. No-way I am implying that he is a top 25 GOAT candidate. A poster asked our opinion on where he stacks up and that is how became discussed in the thread.

Regardless he did lead one of the most impressive modern military campaigns in history at the start of WWII. The German Blitzkrieg and it use of "maneuver warfare" at the start of WWII was impressive by any standard of military history. How much credit Hitler deserves and how much should go to Guderian and other German commanders is where the debate belongs. The same could be said many leaders; for example should Stalin or one of his great Generals like Georgy Zhukov get credit for the Russian success against Germany on the Eastern Front?

I think the comparison of Hitler vs other candidates is skewed because of how recent he was and how much information we have on him. Like how important his generals were etc... Also all his mistakes, everything he was involved in basically. Instead the other GOATS history is written in a very skewed biased fashion.

If he had live in the times of most of the candidates he would, like them, get basically full credit for the accomplishments of the German army. Which were pretty amazing. They ran through Poland, France & most of Britain like they were nothing. Then nearly destroyed the Soviet Union while fighting on two fronts. If this had happened 200+ years ago there is no doubt in my mind Hitler would of been considered one of the GOATS today. And vice versa. If we had the type of unbiased record keeping and knowledge that we had during Hitlers time for many of the other GOATS, they wouldn't be looked upon as nearly as amazing as they are today.

Douglas MacArthur, George S. Patton, Ike and Zhukov should get some love here. I think another underrated figure of WWII is William Churchill not a military leader in the classic sense but very underrated and a very interesting figure.

The problem with WWII is you have so many strong candidates all on the same side no-one stands out enough to outshine individuals from other periods of history. Even though many the others from other periods of had able people deserving of much of the credit as well, but the way history was recorded their contributions and genius have been lost allowing the leader to shine.

I did a list a while ago based on a previously made list from the paradox and all empires forums. We had established some hard criteria's.

Evaluation of Generals
These are the primary facets to consider in evaluating generals’ skills:
1. Individual battlefield inspirational leadership—leadership of the soldier

a. Exemplary work/Personal bravery
b. Motivation
c. Discipline
d. Equipment (and hence innovation in equipment)
e. Logistics (small scale)

2. Tactical mastery—gaining success on the battlefield

a. Maneuver
b. Anticipation
c. Timing
d. Deception of intentions
e. Organization of army
f. Selection of ground for battle
g. Disposition of troops
h. Reconnaissance
i. Evaluating options
j. Audacity at proper times
k. Understanding the enemy

2.5. (Less important) Siege mastery—gaining success in sieges

a. Logistics
b. Engineering
c. Timing
d. Intelligence gathering
e. Motivation of troops

3. Strategic mastery—gaining success in campaign through maneuver or battle

a. Logistics
b. Maneuver on large scale
c. Understanding opportunities
d. Diplomacy with allied armies/generals
e. Forcing battle when necessary
f. Obtaining results from victories in battles
g. Limiting fallout from defeats in battles
h. Choosing when to siege and when to bypass strong points
i. Large-scale organization of army(s)
j. Audacity at proper times
k. Evaluating the enemy’s options
l. Defense—fortifications

4. Grand strategic mastery—gaining victory/the ends desired through the military campaigns (political victory/conquest)

a. Diplomacy with allies and foes
b. Intelligence gathering
c. Understanding when to go to war
d. Playing off rivalries
e. Properly using strategic victories
f. Choosing proper goals for campaigns
g. Peace negotiations
h. Pacification of inhabitants conquered

All of these must be considered in relation to:

1. The relative strength of each side in each of these 4 facets
2. The skill of opponents
3. The economy with which victory in each of these 4 facets was one (in money, destruction of property, and manpower).
4. Where the general was limited by influences out of his control (for instance, many generals had no opportunity to exhibit facet #4, grand strategy).
5. Where generals were stabbed in the back/not supported by their own nations—see Barca, Hannibal.
6. Whether the methods in which victories were gained were innovative or common practice (a small influence, but perhaps should be considered).
7. The time scale of victories

From there i had an uncompleted top 100, mainly due to my lack of knowledge in South Asian and Indian history, which bolstered some good generals and military commanders too often forgotten in history. Note that admirals have intentionally been kept out of these - the navy is an another ball game. Ok lets go... Top 100 keeper league draft. Note that this list is still very much in progress. Theres still some stuff to fix, in particular the asian generals which tend to always be absolutely underrated. Sometimes i go through the list and i realize some guys are much too high.

If you wish to comment or note some points, you are welcomed to do so, however please know what your talking about. Very often people will try to argue how some general(particularly the world war 2 generals) are ''better then all these unknowns''. While i respect Zhukov, Patton, Rommel, Robert Lee and the superstar generals, please research Khalid ibn walid, Alexander Suvorov, Han Xin before jumping to conclusion. Believe me, when i started this, i though that too, and i was in for a shock.

Nevertheless, still a work in progress...

1 Temujin (Genghis Khan) 1167 1227
2 Alexander the Great 356 BC 323 BC
3 Timur 1336 1405
4 Gaius Julius Caesar 100 BC 44 BC
5 Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 1821
6 Aleksandr Suvorov 1729 1800
7 Hán Xìn 196 BC
8 Khalid ibn al-Walid 584 642
9 Jan Žižka 1370 1424
10 Belisarius 505 565
11 John Churchill (Duke of Marlborough) 1650 1722
12 Subotai 1176 1248
13 Gustav II Adolf 1594 1632
14 Scipio Africanus the Older 237 BC 183 BC
15 Sir Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) 1769 1852
16 Eugene of Savoy 1663 1736
17 Yue Fei 1103 1142
18 Selim I 1470 1520
19 Hannibal Barca 241 BC 183 BC
20 Raimondo Montecuccoli 1608 1680
21 Maurice, comte de Saxe 1696 1750
22 George Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) 1405 1468
23 Stefan cel Mare (Stephen III) 1433 1504
24 Frederick II of Prussia 1712 1786
25 Philip II of Macedon 382 BC 336 BC
26 Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne de Turenne 1611 1675
27 Chandragupta Maurya 298 BC
28 Robert Clive 1725 1774
29 Erich von Manstein 1887 1973
30 Nadir Shah 1688 1747
31 Emperor Taizong of Tang (Li ShìMín) 599 649
32 Gaius Marius 157 BC 86 BC
33 Gonzalo de Córdoba (El Gran Capitán) 1453 1515
34 Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke 1800 1891
35 Maurice of Nassau 1567 1625
36 Heinz Wilhelm Guderian 1888 1954
37 Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson 1824 1863
38 Heraclius 575 641
39 Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé 1621 1686
40 Tiglath-Pileser III 727 BC
41 Thutmose III 1540 BC
42 Tran Hung dao 1228 1300
43 Toyotomi Hideyoshi 1536 1598
44 Lucius Cornelius Sulla 138 BC 78 BC
45 Babur 1483 1530
46 Shapur I 272
47 Louis Nicholas Davout 1770 1823
48 Janos Hunyadi 1387 1456
49 Duke of Parma (Alessandro Farnese) 1545 1592
50 Leo III the Isaurian 685 741
51 Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck 1870 1964
52 Simeon I the Great 864 927
53 Hamilcar Barca 270 BC 228 BC
54 Nurhaci 1558 1626
55 Winfield Scott 1786 1866
56 Charles XII 1682 1718
57 Oda Nobunaga 1534 1582
58 Shivaji Bhosle 1627 1680
59 Francesco I Sforza 1401 1466
60 Stanislaw Koniecpolski 1590 1646
61 Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars 1653 1734
62 Louis Joseph de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme 1654 1712
63 Georgy Zhukov 1896 1974
64 Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus) 214 275
65 Epaminondas 418 BC 362 BC
66 Jan III Sobieski 1629 1696
67 Alp Arslan 1029 1072
68 Constantine I the Great 272 337
69 Murad IV 1612 1640
70 Baibars 1223 1277
71 'Amr ibn al-'As 583 664
72 Sargon of Akkad
73 Suleiman I 1494 1566
74 Shaka Zulu 1787 1828
75 Charles Martel 688 741
76 François de Montmorency-Bouteville 1628 1695
77 Carl Gustav Mannerheim 1867 1951
78 Aleksandr Vasilevsky 1895 1977
79 Jebe 1225
80 Rommel 1891 1944
81 Lautaro (toqui) 1557
82 Flavius Stilicho 359 408
83 Lucullus 117BC 56BC
84 Mahmud of Ghazni 971 1030
85 Robert E. Lee 1807 1870
86 Ulysses Simpson Grant 1822 1885
87 Uqba ibn Nafi 622 683
88 Muhammad of Ghor 1162 1206
89 Gazi Evrenos 1417
90 Robert the Bruce 1274 1329
91 Mustafa Kemal 1881 1938
92 Albrecht Wallenstein 1583 1634
93 Takeda Shingen 1521 1573
94 James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose 1612 1650
95 Gwanggaeto the Great 391 413
96 Ranjit Singh 1780 1839
97 Samudragupta 335 380
98 Michael the Brave 1558 1601
99 Ahmad Shah Durrani 1723 1773
100 Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby 1861 1936

You said he was underrated. It's very hard to under rate a guy who on a scale of 1-10 is a -7. Literally everything he touched about the German war effort went badly. Everything. You called a guy who believed he could will his army to victory on the Eastern front 'on my top 100'. You realize that he basically snatched defeat from the jaws of victory right? He wasn't a military man at all but rather a rabble rousing politician with far too much confidence in his own military ability which was effectively zero.

Germany has been an incredibly powerful country since the Holy Roman Empire broke up. German nationalism is a powerful force. A great starting location is a mark against someone on this list not a mark in their favor. Your argument is kind of like watching some ****** drive a ferrari off a cliff and then saying 'he was a good driver... look how far he flew before the car fell onto the rocks and turned into a fireball'. The fact that the car is fast doesn't give you any bonus points.

I like your list adaption. I would probably put suvorov and Belisarius much higher. I would also put Napoleon much lower. I would definitely put Hannibal before Scipio. I'm actually really impressed at how hard it is to find a name that isn't on the list. Obviously there's a ton of intangibles here and there are seriously legit arguments to be made for all of them.

Indeed it is obvious that i will never get a full conscensus on this list, with everyone's bias, opinions, specific knowledge and lack of sources. Heck when i first did this list i had to consider King David and Solomon but the lack of sources stopped me.

As far as your comment, Suvorov is as high as i can put him, although over time i think i will drop Napoleon a bit. Belisarius, Walid and Zizka are interchangable for what i know, but a review of the battle campaigns would be needed for the ranks 6 to 10.

Both Suvorov and Belisarius have massive sample sizes of absolute brilliance in service of their respective empires. They commanded in bad situations, good situations, and lots of neutral situations. And neither made hardly any mistakes. I've studied both a fair bit I actually think both are in easy contention for the top spot and easily in the top 5. Yes I know who they would have to displace to make that happen.

As for Napoleon he's lucky to crack the top 25. It's kind of like Hitler... He ran incredibly well on the Nation he led at the time he led them. I will admit I don' tknow enough about Walid or Zizka to comment.

In particular there aren't enough superlatives to describe Belisarius's Roman campaign. It might be the most masterful military campaign in human history. The man took a token force and took Italy. It was something special.

"More Germans died trying to take Pavlov's house than died taking Paris". Yeah it was a pretty ugly scene. I would actually expand that to "More Germans died trying to take Pavlov's house than died taking France". Probably true since the Germans very likely lost more than a thousand men trying to take that apartment building.

Brilliant list adaption. Even Lucullus made the list. Very impressive. As you indicate it's easy to debate order but that is the of the fun of the thread.

Did you consider Mithridates for the list. I clearly would have had him in my top 100. Surly not a top 50 but think deserves some consideration.

Zhuge Liang



You have to evaluate leaders based on their value over replacement general. Would an average general have won the battles that he won? Was the military leader ever an underdog to emerge victorious based on their circumstances? If a general was repeatedly expected to lose, yet repeatedly emerged victorious, you have to give more respect to those generals than ones who merely won a lot of battles because the odds were stacked in their favor (kind of like comparing quarterbacks on bad teams with quarterbacks on loaded teams).

Did I miss Attila the Hun? Another worthy of your consideration.

What about Saladin? I didn't see him either.

Attila's track record isn't that great when taking the whole picture in account. Struggled in Peninsula, got bought off in the east, lost in France, desintegrated in his late years. While his assembling of the steppe people in eastern europe, he got smashed when he hit the civilized world.

As for Saladin, he is under review but the main reason is that he has a good amount of defeats to crusader undermanned crusader armies. He certainly was very charismatic, but his track record is on and off. Nevertheless the final picture is somewhat good, so he might crack the top 100 in the lower tiers.

Im reviewing my list, and a lot of the french guys will drop certainly. Turenne, Condé, Napoleon, Comte de Saxe will all get a drop. While tactically they are great, strategically a lot of these guys made mistakes. If you see any omissions from the list(Zhuge liang and Saladin are under review), let me know.

What

To add to the criticism of Napoleon, he really struggled in Spain where Guerrilla warfare style tactics were used against his armies. He never really seemed to grasp the concept and address it properly.

To me its a toss up between Khan and Alexander the Great. I do however think that Alexander the Great could beat any of the others ass in a one on one.

I get the love for Alexander the Great and think he is clearly top 10 worthy...... that said only top 25 for his father in your ranking Adaption??????

I am willing to make a strong case for an adjustment to your list. If Philip II had not been the father of Alexander the Great, he would be more widely known as a first-rate military innovator, tactician, strategist and skilled politician. The conquests of Alexander would have been impossible without the army his father created. I also believe that if it wasn't for his fathers military skill we would have never heard of Alexander the Great. Philip II from Macedonia literally set the table for his son and if he wasn't killed under suspicious circumstances might have had the same type of success as his son.

Philip made the military a way of life for the Macedonian men like the Spartans. It became a professional occupation that paid well enough that the soldiers could afford to do it year-round, unlike in the past when the soldiering had only been a part-time job, something the men would do during the off peak times of farming. This allowed him to to have what we would call a professional army today.

Philip ascended on the Macedonian throne in very difficult times; the country was virtually at the brink of collapse, its neighbors ready to pounce and take control. The Macedonian state was further weakened by internal turmoil, foreign powers were a serious threat to Philip and his city state.

Despite the difficult situation, the 21-year-old king demonstrated his diplomatic skills. He bought off the Thracian king, and persuaded him to put to death the first Macedonian pretender to the throne who had found a refuge at the Thracian court. Then he defeated in battle a second pretender who was supported by the Greek power of Athens. Careful not to upset the Athenians, he made a treaty with them, ceding the city of Amphipolis on the Macedonian coast to them. Thus in little more then a year he removed the internal treats and secured the safety of his kingdom by firmly establishing himself on the throne.

Why re-invent the wheel this was taken from the link below........

"Philip was now determined to free north-western Macedonia from the Illyrians. In 358 BC he met them in battle with his reorganized Macedonian phalanx, and utterly defeated them. The Illyrians fled in panic, leaving 7,000 dead (3/4 of their whole force) on the battleground. North-western Macedonia was free, and all of the Upper Macedonia cantons, including Lyncestia, the birthplace of Philip’s mother, were now firmly under Macedonian control, loyal to their liberator. The Macedonian army grew in size overnight and invaded Illyria itself, conquering all Illyrian tribes deep into the country, stopping short near the Adriatic coast.

Reorganization of the Macedonian Army

Philip provided his Macedonian solders in the phalanx with sarissa, a spear which was long 6 meters, about 18 feet. The sarissa, when held upright by the rear rows of the phalanx (there were usually eight rows), helped hide maneuvers behind the phalanx from the view of the enemy. When held horizontal by the front rows of the phalanx, it was a brutal weapon for people could be run through from 20 feet away."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonian_army

Rather then write an essay and re-invent the wheel for a full list of all his military accomplishments and brief Bio see.....

http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/An...ofMacedon.html

Clearly Philip belongs on anyones Top 100 list and I have him in my top 20. It will be interesting to see your thoughts on Philip's 25 GOAT status.

I want to follow up by saying one of the primary reasons Alexander is not my GOAT because he was handed a military machine primed and ready to go without his father setting the table he would have had little chance of accomplishing most of his success.

What about Stonewall jackson ,his victorys in 62 leading up too his last battle chancelerville was pretty solid

Well I worded that badly, but I'm referring to Germany smashing most of Britain's land forces in the invasion of France. Britain was extremely limited after that. Hence " Most of "

Any opinion on Leon Trotsky?

Best wishes,
Mason

Leon Trotsky’s leadership is frequently citied as one of the main causes for Bolshevik victory during this civil war. Trotsky was an extremely good military leader who was appointed War Commissar by Lenin and soon began to control and form the Red Army out of Bolshevik supporters and the ashes of the Tsarist army. Within nearly six months of the establishment of the Red Army, conscription was introduced to further increase the number of troops at the army’s disposal. He also introduced a system where ex-Tsarist officers were told to join the Red Army under the threat that their family’s lives would be in danger. A Political Commisar, a loyalty-proven Bolshevik, then led them to make sure they would not turn against the Red Army. This was a very smart move, as not only did it begin to reunite the people of Russia, but also it meant less time was needed to train more soldiers up to officer level. Trotsky himself also began to tour the front in the war by use of an armoured train to check up on his units and deliver political speeches to boost the morale of his troops. All of these factors combined meant that the Red Army became a recognizable army very quickly.

I think he was a talented leader like Mao Zedong. Both effective leaders, but not in the military tactical sense like a Hannibal or Rommel. So they won't make the top 100 here but still worthy of discussion in my opinion. If Trotsky had assumed the leadership after Lenin instead of Joseph Stalin it would have been interesting to see how the alternate reality would have turned out.

It was the British expeditionary force and at the time it made up only around 10% of the defending allied forces. Britain historically never really kept a large army like some other European nations. Being an island nation it wasn't needed. I'm not sure how you can say Britain was extremely limited after that as even if the expeditionary force had stayed in the UK it would still never have been enough for an invasion of mainland Europe on it's own.