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Originally Posted by Adaptation
Something like that. I do want to put slightly more emphasis on tactics(actual battles) because military leaders tend to be judge by battles and less on the campaign - however i do consider the strategics crucial.
This is indisputably true. But what you have to ask yourself is why it is usually done this way and if there is a better way.
For my part, I believe that the military history tradition of focusing on the conduct of individual battles is nothing more than a convention that allows the historian to dig deeply into a particular battle and study it using the traditional case study method, a method which is ill-suited to studying a campaign.
So examining a leader by battle is a sound methodology for studying military history. But it doesn't follow from that that it should be the primary method by which we rank military leaders.
Here is an example of why I think ranking by battle gives us an inherently skewed result:
Alexander v. George Washington (I picked Washington because I am more familiar with his history than I am with the histories of the others I could just as easily have named here, but also because I think his success was more significant than that of the other guerrilla leaders I mentioned).
I'm not an expert on Alexander, but I am somewhat familiar with the basics. He won a bunch of battles, conquered as far east as India and as far south as Egypt, kicked ass and took names over the length and breadth of the entirety of the known world. Never lost a battle. Genuine bad ass.
On a by-battle basis, it's pretty hard to challenge his claim to GOAT. But look at all the mistakes he made--he spent almost no effort on security of his rear area by consolidating his conquests. Most importantly, personally, he was basically a scum bag, and inculcated no value system in his subordinates other than might makes right, and, as a result primarily of these two failures, it all fell apart fairly immediately after he died.
Compare that to Washington. Washington (somewhat unfairly) is seen by many historians as almost a battlefield bumbler, and there is no doubt that he left the British in possession of the field in the majority of battles he fought. But it is also the case that:
1. He selected--in fact, probably invented--the perfect Grand Strategy for a revolution, that has been copied innumerable times: That a revolutionary force wins by not losing, that simply having a force in being sustains the revolution.
2. He was masterful in retreat.
3. By the standards of the revolutionary, although not by the prevailing conventions of the day, he had several battlefield victories.
4. By the standards of the day, he was one of the best ever at gathering and using intelligence.
5. He was absolutely masterful at choosing subordinate commanders when left to his own devices.
6. His moral and physical courage were inspirational, and were directly responsible for maintaining the colonial army as a force in being on two separate occasions.
7. His self-sacrificing value system was widely emulated by his subordinates, and their leadership helped ensure the survival of the United States after Washington was gone.
8. Trenton was a legitimate masterstroke by any standard.
9. He won the most decisive war in the history of the world, ainec.
So you see the difference? Alexander was a brilliant flash in the pan, who had unparalleled battlefield success. But so what? He didn't achieve lasting success for his side's policy aims with anything like Washington's extraordinary success. There are maybe 3 or 4 people in the history of the world whose conduct of a war did as much to change the world as significantly and as lastingly as Washington. By that measure, Alexander is not even top 25, most likely.
So, in my opinion, it is only a conventional preference for studying individual battles that has military historians rating Alexander as the better general. Washington was equally successful in achieving ultimate victory, and more successful at the Grand Strategic objective of consolidating and retaining his battlefield victory.
If you look at things like Strategy and Grand Strategy, Alexander is the one we look at and wonder whether he should be on the list at all, and Washington is one of those top few with a serious claim to GOAT.
Fun stuff.