Damnyankee
Honest Abe
Who do you guys think he is. I vote Robert E. Lee
The Best General in History
- Thread starter Damnyankee
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Americans will vote for an American or Roman general.
The Brits will vote a British general.
The Germans vote a German general.
Everyone else will either vote a famous general from their own country or vote for a Roman general, Alexander the Great, Hannibal or Genghis Khan.
The Brits will vote a British general.
The Germans vote a German general.
Everyone else will either vote a famous general from their own country or vote for a Roman general, Alexander the Great, Hannibal or Genghis Khan.
Ancient Grudge
Its all in this life
How wrong you are. Notice i live in Merry ol'England
My favourite General and thus the one i think is the best is Stonewall Jackson. So there
My favourite General and thus the one i think is the best is Stonewall Jackson. So there
North King
blech
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Napoleon. Note that I am American. 
Please say a few words about your candidate. Who was Stonewall Jackson and who was Prince Eugene?
I vote Alexander. He made up all these great strategies more or less from scratc. Later Generals could just read books about strategy, he had to invent the thing!
I vote Alexander. He made up all these great strategies more or less from scratc. Later Generals could just read books about strategy, he had to invent the thing!
Damnyankee
Honest Abe
Ancient Grudge said:How wrong you are. Notice i live in Merry ol'England
My favourite General and thus the one i think is the best is Stonewall Jackson. So there
Robert E. Lee was way better then Stonewall Jackson, and this is coming from a DamnYankee, as my name implies
storealex said:
all I need to say is one word....
............CANNAE
besides that.....
Hannibal was expected to do the impossible and he came close to doing it. A man, with a lack of support from his weak country, took on a Ancient Superpower. Nobody could have won in Hannibal's position, not Alexander, not Caesar, and definetly not Scipio. He was fighting the greatest army of all time, while recieving no aid from Carthage. The fact that he survived for half a generation in the enemy's homeland should place him first on any list of great generals. If I were to go on, I'd might as well write a book
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storealex said:
eugene was of french decent ( savoy ) who enter service of the austrian emperor @1683 a.d. at the seige of vienna he was so outstanding he was personally granted command of a regiment of dragoons by the emperor. within 4 years he was a field marshall and captured belgrade. in 1697 as supreme commander in hungary he destroyed an ottoman army several times his size at zenta, sucuring hungary for the empire. in 1701 at the outbreak of the war of spanish sucessions he went to italy and held the french back. he transfered to germany/netherlands were as joint commander with the duke of marlborough won victories at blemheim 1704, ramillies 1706, oudenarch 1708 and malplaquet 1709. after the war he went back to hungary to recapture territories lost to the turks during the spanish sucession war. at petrovardin 1716 he crushed another ottoman army and recaptured belgrade 1717.
So any loser can become a great general? I'm sure there are plenty of other incompetent idiots that managed to survive a while. Sure he massacred the Romans once but he lost quite often. They say he had bad troops, perhaps he was bad leader.BOTP said:
A general who lost can be great especially if the failure is out of his hands. It was not because of any mistake on Hannibal's part that he lost. He lost because he was up against the greatest force that the world has ever seen. There has never been a power like Rome. There is no general in history who could have defeated Rome at that time. Had Alexander gone up against Rome and lost, would he not be considered great? Would Caesar, even after his great victory in Gaul lost to Pompey in the Civil War, would he not still be considered great?
You cannot judge a general by by whether he won or lost. That is the stupidest criteria to use. If I were to use such criteria, then the vast majority of great commanders would be considered incompetent compared to their generally less-able opponents. Should Napoleon be judged solely by Waterloo? What about Rommel at El Alamein, or Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg? You cannot judge a general by by whether he won or lost. Especially in Ancient warfare, where there were so many factors that a general had no control of. You have to look at what their country did to support them. If they had all possible support and still lost, that may be a grounds of determining whether or not he was a strong or weak general. When he had no support and still lasted for so long an amount of time, he has to be judged strong, despite the final outcome of the war. Therefore, you cannot look at the outcome of a war or battle and tell who is a better general. You have to look at all the pieces that make up the defeat, such as troop type and number involved in the battle.
Study his campaigns before you make up your mind on him. When Hannibal descended from the Alps and recruited Gauls to his side, he had around 50,000 troops. Rome at same time could produce 750,000 troops if she had to. There is no way to explain how he was not crushed within the first year, except to say that he was the greatest of all generals. He routinely marched throughout Italy whenever he wished, always able to elude the numerous armies placed in his way. He never lost a pitched battle until Zama, which was not due to any fault of his own. Look at the battles Hannibal was involved in while in Italy. They are all masterpieces. No general has so varied battles that were always perfect, not even Alexander who is a close second. By those battles along he should be judged to be one of the greatest generals of all time. Whether sending in his hidden arm at the Trebia, his unconcealing his whole army at Trasimene, or his swinging his African wings around at Cannae to create the envelopment. He was cunning and used deception and trickery to win many engagements which was very innovative at the time. How frustrated Rome felt after sending everything at this man and everytime getting utterly destroyed. But that is not his greatest achievement. After those three crushing (Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae) he was finally faced with very capable if not great generals. Yet he was still able to march wherever he wished, was always able to feed his troops and never had a major defeat, just a few minor losses in skirmishes.In his defense, he could never have guessed that after thrashing the Romans so soundly in their own backyard AND marching around Italy for 17 years that the boys from Latium would not yield. He managed to get himself trapped in Italy, fighting like a lion but doomed to fail, and with such weak allies as the Macedonians and lack of support from Carthage, what can one expect but defeat?
Sun tzu best said it
"And so it is certain that a small country cannot contend with a great,that few cannot contend with many, and that the weak cannot contend with the strong"
It is my opinion on the matter at hand is that Hannibal didn't lose to Scipio or Rome; Carthage did. Had he been a king such as Alexander and the ruling class of Carthage could not interfere with him, he would have dictated terms to Rome soon after Cannae. The problem that he had though was the he had many political enemies who were able to talk the Carthaginian Senate into sending her troops to Spain and Sicily, which was a waste of troops. Had they all been sent to Hannibal, he would have had enough troops to march on Rome with hopes of victory. Greatness is circumstancial. That is the only way to decide who is greater than who. If you only look at victory or defeat, then you could say that U.S. Grant is the equal of Alexander of Caesar. I don't think that there is anybody in their right mind that would make that arguement. Every general that lost, such as Hannibal or Napolean, would be equally as bad as Montgomery or Custer. Do you believe that they are equally as great or bad, just because they won or lost? You have to look at the circumstances to make a serious arguement that anybody could possibly believe.
Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
I'm a Yank, and I'm going vote Rommel.blindside said:
@BTOP
Well said.
Napoleon and Hannibal share my top spot. I'm an American BTW.
Well said.
Napoleon and Hannibal share my top spot. I'm an American BTW.
Reno
The Studio Ghibli Fanatic
Marshal Mannerheim. He fought in 4 wars (Russo-Japanese War 1904-05, Finnish Civil War 1918, Winter War 1939-40, Continuation War 1941-44) and was commander of the Finnish army in 3 of them.
Gelion
Retired Captain
Suvorov - never lost a single battle and often fought against the odds.
Adler17
Prussian Feldmarschall
Frederic the Great of Prussia.
Blindside, I help you voting as German for a German
.
In my opinion Frederic fought against nearly all powers in Europe in the 7 years war and won the war. With his limited forces even in relation to others he is the greatest.
Why not Alexander? Well Alexander had conquered a huge empire with also only a few men, but he only fought at one front. He was never surrounded by enemies. So in relation Frederic is a touch in front.
Adler
Blindside, I help you voting as German for a German
.In my opinion Frederic fought against nearly all powers in Europe in the 7 years war and won the war. With his limited forces even in relation to others he is the greatest.
Why not Alexander? Well Alexander had conquered a huge empire with also only a few men, but he only fought at one front. He was never surrounded by enemies. So in relation Frederic is a touch in front.
Adler
HAND
Armchair Philosopher
Caesar... and I'm British
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