military geniuses?

Question

who were the best military geniuses in history?
Maybe they were out manned or out gunned.
I think Robert E. Lee and George Washington.both were out manned and out gunned.

anyone else?
give examples of why they should fit in this category.

Answer 1

When you say military genius that may not mean best battlefield commander. I'd say the writings of Carl von Clausewitz and Hans Guderian are my favorites, the most insightful. T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom is also excellent.

Answer 2

Astute military leaders have always known that superior alternatives to attrition existed. When confronted with numerically superior forces of the great Persian king, Darius, at the Battle of Arbela in 331 BC, Alexander the Great led his cavalry in a daring assault on the king’s command position in the rear of his military formations. When the king and his entourage fled, the Persian-led troops lost heart and were quickly vanquished. Even the forward-thinking airmen who in AWPD-1 outlined the logic of strategic precision daylight bombing were thinking about effects. Unfortunately, their effects-based strategy confronted the technological innovation of radar that turned the war in the air into an attrition contest. Airmen learned that only through the establishment of air superiority could we achieve true effects-based operations.

One can find many other examples in history, but in most cases, effects-based strategies and tactics were employed by what were later called military geniuses. Thus, they were a rare occurrence. Especially in the two dimensional, highly frictional world of surface operations, it remains very difficult to gain a positive political outcome without confronting the enemy’s strength directly. Things have changed, however. The consistent increase in the importance of aerospace and other technologies to US national security policy has accelerated in the last couple decades particularly with the advent of stealth, precision, and global surveillance. These new capabilities provide a more consistent platform from which the strategist can employ an effects-based approach. Given our own overwhelming asymmetric advantage in these areas, we cannot afford to wait until a genius presents us with an effects-based option. We must institutionalize genius by teaching an effects-based approach throughout the Department of Defense, to include civilians.

The key to turning what Alexander the Great and the writers of AWPD-1 knew into a routine way of thinking is through effects-based operations education. No longer must the achievement of an effects-based approach be the purview of geniuses or random chance. Our recent lessons in asymmetric warfare have made it an imperative to realize that all the gains in capability realized now and in the future can be squandered by retaining an attrition-based mindset. We can now systematically pursue the maximum strategic effect with a minimum of risk in American lives, time, and treasure. There remains much work to be done in this area, but EBO is the key to translating capability into victory in the twenty-first century.

Answer 3

No one, no one, no one has matched Alexander the Great. Stonewall Jackson was brilliant, as were Patton, Rommel, Benedict Arnold was a hell of a General before Continental Army politics sent him screaming in the wrong direction. Cochise, Victoria, Nana, Mangas Colorado at various times led the Apache Nation as they wore the entire southwestern department of the U.S. Army to a frazzle for almost thirty years. Oh yeah, right ;Geronimo. General Giap, who led the North Vietnamese Army for thirty five years(47-82) I could go on, but you'll enjoy the reading.

Answer 4

Zhang Wu, first man to conquer and rule all of China. He founded the Han Dynasty that transformed China into the greatest country at that time and for many years after that.

Also Sun Tzu, the writer of Art Of War, a military tactician book we stiill base many strategies on today.

Answer 5

Henry the 5th was outnumbered 10 to 1. His army was beaten, cold, starving, and exhausted from years of fighting and being chased back to England. "oh we few, we precious few"

He lost 500 men in the battle of Agincourt (most lost in a raid on his baggage train), but killed 10,000 Frenchmen. These Frenchmen were well fed and fresh...mostly well armed especially the knights and other nobles. the French scorned the ragged Englishmen...but read up on it...i think 500 French nobles were killed, thousands of knights and well armed men of arms. In order to kill that many people the bodies would have been in huge piles of men and horses...the English had few horses. I think the English just didn't give a crap anymore whether they lived or died...they were miserable and just said screw it. Henry wasn't about dancing around, he took high ground and defended it. The English had their bows and controlled the access, but the slaughter happened when the scrawny, starving, armorless English archers butchered the French in the bog with knives as the French floundered...they were merciless...but I think Henry knew his men and chose the ground.

Answer 6

Napoleon Bonaparte, Charlamagne, Julius Ceasar

Answer 7

Julius Ceaser, Alexander the Great, Atilla the Hun, Napolean Bonaparte,

Answer 8

Genghis Kahn.

I ain't giving any examples because all I remember is his funky system of communication (Towers set fire signals that could be seen long distances, so people miles and miles and miles away would know what's going on without waiting for a messenger on horseback).
But when I read up on him, he seemed impressive as heck, and probably like he had way more potential than his time period allowed him to use.

Answer 9

Without any doubt, Sun Tzu and any of the other chineese warrior-philosophers.

Sun Tzu's Art of War was written over 2000 years ago, and still it is studied in military academies around the world. It is so successful a text that its lessons apply to every possible facet of daily life, and that if one applies his teachings, one will prevail.

Answer 10

David Ben Gurion & Moshe Dayan.

1948 war for independence and 1967 Six Day War