Great military leaders and commanders in history
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JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Oh, I know of another CFCer who is currently attending it, and I owe to that my knowledge of Sir John. 
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Because I knew you'd come for it. 
Really, I wasnt gonna pick any due to my great ignorance of the period, but I thought I may lurk you into the thread by picking one of these hellenic generals :3
Really, I wasnt gonna pick any due to my great ignorance of the period, but I thought I may lurk you into the thread by picking one of these hellenic generals :3
didn't want to come into this thread, but.
wrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy
Alright, perhaps Demitrius I doesn't really rate as a 'statesman', but as a military leader he effected the great victory of Salamis, and as a military 'thinker' he came up with several quite impressive contraptions - including the famous helepolis - for siege warfare. Maybe not one of the greatest soldiers of antiquity, but I'm curious as to why you don't think he rates in a list which seems to be aimed at most notably-able military commanders.
i wouldn't say i cameBecause I knew you'd come for it.
this thread isn't the statesmen thread, chief; jeez, stay on topic
anyway
demetrios poliorketes is one of the most frustrating people in military history because of his inconsistency
he was by no means an awful general, and he did do some things extremely well
as you noted, the battle of salamis-in-kypros in 306 bc was an impressive victory, arguably the most important engagement of the decade before ipsos, and it eventuated because of an unusual tactical choice on demetrios' part that demonstrated his ability to improvise solutions to difficult problems
his engineering corps was consistently excellent and his 'siege fleet', compared by one modern author to a modern carrier battle group in its military/political significance, was a truly innovative thing that allowed him to sustain his cause's relevance for a very long time
at the same time, demetrios was notoriously prone to distraction at serious tactical cost, and on multiple occasions it ended up biting him in the ass
for instance, he singlehandedly lost control of the levant due to his inept management of the nabataian campaign and of the battle of gaza, the latter of which also led to the eventual defeat of the antigonid forces in the upper satrapies and mesopotamia
he repeatedly won and lost fortunes in greece, largely through his own military eptitude and then ineptitude
during the campaign of ipsos, he first scored a dramatic success by wiping out allied control of ionia preparatory to the battle, but then in the battle itself he famously rode off into the sunset with antigonos' victorious cavalry, leaving his father and the phalanx unable to do anything about the allies' light infantry, leading to the destruction of the phalanx and the death of his father
richard billows, noted classicist, openly stated in his book that antigonos' failures can almost completely be attributed to demetrios (except for the defection of polemaios but that is an entirely separate topic)
when demetrios gained control of makedonia in the 290s, he amassed an even greater armament than had any hellenistic ruler thus far, excepting possibly his father, and prepared an invasion force of 90,000 men to take on lysimachos and seleukos, but he promptly lost much of his fleet, found problems in managing his men, and frittered this army away until he lost makedonia and was forced to take to the sea again
it's just incredibly strange to highlight the generalship of demetrios as opposed to any other of the famous generals of the diadochoi, like antigonos or eumenes or seleukos, all of whom displayed a much higher - and more consistent - level of military ability than did demetrios, and, in the cases of seleukos and antigonos, other qualities like administration and the construction of a lasting empire, that further distinguished them from a guy like demetrios, who was incapable of exercising political authority sensibly
