List of 100 Greatest Generals of All Time

[Adler17]

Okay, verbose, we should start it. Not mentioned until now is Hellmuth von Moltke BTW.

Adler

 

[jeriko one]

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Mao
Attila the Hun
Alexander Nevskiy
Saladin
I.Kilijarslan



Quintillus Varus
Crassus

 

[Johann MacLeod]

what about Ibram Hannable, Peter the Greats best General, who was originally an african slave?

 

[Atlas14]

Gustavus Adolphus
Alexander the Great
Hannibal Barca
Napoleon Bonaparte
Rommel
Leonidas
Caesar
Richard I of England
Saladin

 

[shortguy]

Epaminondas comes to mind.

 

[fing0lfin]

V. Vazov
Suvorov
Rommel
Hanibal

 

[Elta]

We make a looong list, and then debate the merits for inclusion of our candidates?

That's the idea here, right?

Right Iam in mexico right now in a web cafe ...b ut when I get home I'll make a big edit
P.S. you gotta mention which cesar and ..... hanible (spl?) has been mentioned in the first post (only mentioning it cuz to more people mentioned him I think)

 

[Royal]

Federick the Great during the Seven Years War? Or who was the Prussian that fought off all those Russians and Austrians and Swedens and French

 

[pawpaw]

Federick the Great during the Seven Years War? Or who was the Prussian that fought off all those Russians and Austrians and Swedens and French

It was Fred

 

[Point]

Heinz Guderian, more for his forward thinking in seeing the value of tanks as being beyond the simple replacement for cavalry, a theory shared by most western nations. Being the father of blitzkrieg, and therefor all wafare since

 

[Steph]

Heinz Guderian, more for his forward thinking in seeing the value of tanks as being beyond the simple replacement for cavalry, a theory shared by most western nations. Being the father of blitzkrieg, and therefor all wafare since

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/charles_de_gaulle.htm

Always regarded as a thinker, de Gaulle became a lecturer at the French Staff College in 1923 and it was here that he developed his ideas of a mobile war using tanks and planes. He had experienced the horrors of static war in World War One but also the success of a mobile campaign, as he witnessed in Poland, and his ideas in the 1920’s were obviously formulated around these experiences. Ironically, Heinz Guderian is usually credited with creating what was to be known as Blitzkrieg in World War Two. However, the ideas of men such as Charles de Gaulle and Britain’s Captain Liddell-Hart tend to be overlooked when looking at the background to Blitzkrieg. Whereas Guderian was given Hitler’s full support once he got to power in 1933, de Gaulle found that his ideas were not seized on by the French High Command – a similar experience to Liddell-Hart.

Blitzkrieg was invented by D Gaulle (French) and Liddel-Hart (English). Unfortunately, their respective high command were dumb guys who refused to see the potential. So De Gaulle wrote a book. It was read by Guderian... Who put it in practice.

 

[Dark Khan]

Don't forget Tarıq bin Ziyad.

 

[Plotinus]

Why has Jan Zizka not been mentioned yet?

 

[privatehudson]

Steph: Another prominent name in that field who influenced such thinking was Fuller

 

[Point]

Blitzkrieg was invented by D Gaulle (French) and Liddel-Hart (English). Unfortunately, their respective high command were dumb guys who refused to see the potential. So De Gaulle wrote a book. It was read by Guderian... Who put it in practice.

Liddel-Hart was the writer, and he didnt go into any detail about support elements, eg: dive bombers/rapid deplyment artillery, and later SP artillery. De-Gaulle is given far too much credit than he's worth. Commanding the 4th French armour division in the battle of France and hardly displaying the qualities of a fine tank general

Guderian put his own ideas into his own book Achtung Panzer which caught the attention of Hitler, and led to the formation of the first Panzer division

 

[Steph]

http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=295

Vers l'armée de métier, Berger-Levrault, 1934

Il développe la théorie de la nécessité d'un corps de blindés, alliant le feu et le mouvement, qui nécessite la création d'une armée professionnelle aux côtés de la conscription.

Ce livre étonnant n'eut en France qu'un bref succès de curiosité, mais inspira, de son propre aveu, le général Guderian, créateur de la force mécanique allemande.

Translation by me:
The Army of the future, 1934

De Gaulle developped the theory of the necessity of an armored corps, combining firepower and mobility, that requires the creation of a professional army beside the conscription army.
This surprising book had little succes in France, but inspired (from his own confession), General Guderian, creator of the German mechanized force.


Guderian wrote Achtung Panzer in 1936-1937. So you can hardly accuse De Gaulle of copying his ideas in a book written 2 years before, can you?

De Gaulle did registered some success against the German in 1940, but he had few tanks, no air support, and very few support for the rest of the army, and so these successes had little impact on the war. I don't really see how you can deduce from that he was a bad tank general.

The main achievement of Guderian was indeed to caught the attention of Hilter, while De Gaulle was unable to get the attention of the French high command.

 

[Verbose]

De Gaulle did registered some success against the German in 1940, but he had few tanks, no air support, and very few support for the rest of the army, and so these successes had little impact on the war. I don't really see how you can deduce from that he was a bad tank general.

I agree.

The way it looked from the perspective of the officers and men in De Gaulles units:
They ran into the Germans, defeated them, pushed on, ran into some more, were thrown back, counterattacked, won again, ran out of fuel, retreated to refuel and rearm, were relieved by some other units and then suddenly learnt that the sector they had been fighting over had been given up.

At no time was there any impression among them that they had been outfought or defeated by the Germans opposing them. Instead their impression was that had there only been an unlimited amount of fuel and ammo, spare parts and replacement tanks, they could have rolled into Berlin eventually. But lacking these their efforts would turn out to be futile of course.

De Gaulle and his tanks didn't fail in 1940 because of issues of either the technical or tactial quality of the men, machines or commander, but because of lack of resources/infrastructure, while being deployed within a larger framework where whatever good they did couldn't quite be exploited.

 

[Squonk]

It's Stefan Czarnecki, not Czarniecki.
Hm, in Polish history I'd like to mention
Boleslaw Chrobry - he reunited Poland, conquered Lusatia up to Elbe defeating Holy Roman Empire in thre wars, conquered Slovakia, Moravia nd briefly Czechs, defeated Kievan Ruthenia, captured Kiev and put his men on its throne etc.
Chodkiewicz - for his wars against Russia and Turkey. Stefan Batory - for Livonia war aginst Russia. Sobieski - for Turkey, Bem - for November Uprising and Hungarian one; Pilsudski - for defeating SU. Czarnecki perhaps, after all the situation seemed hopeless, all what was left of Poland in this war in some point were several villages in the mountains, one besieged monastery and three besieged forts or cities. Rokossowski - for the same as Zhukow.

Of world history
Mitrydates - for wars aginst Rome and creating a short-living empire
Qutuz & Baybars - for stoping Mongol conquest in Middle East. Baybars alone for further victories over Mongols, Franks, Nubians etc.
Saldin was already mentioned
John Tzimiskes and Nikefor Fokas - for their victories over muslims
Basilios Bulgaroktonos - for his victories over Bulgarians and muslims
John Vatazes & Michael VIII - for reviving Byzantine Empire despite great number of enemies.
Belisarios & Narses - for restoring byzantine rule in Africa and Italy
Alexios Komnenos - for restoring Byzantine rule in much of Anatolia
etc

 

[Richard Cribb]

It's Stefan Czarnecki, not Czarniecki.

I think you can use both forms. Googling on only Polish sites, for instance, actually gave me more hits for "Czarniecki", this including the Polish version of Wikipedia.

 

[El_Tigre]

Instead their impression was that had there only been an unlimited amount of fuel and ammo, spare parts and replacement tanks, they could have rolled into Berlin eventually.

Under these circumstances anyone would have been able to roll into Berlin, even a French general...