Do you think I'm the greatest general who ever lived?

Question

And if you don't, who do you think is?

Hail Caesar!

Answer 1

If you are going to assess the military worth of a Roman General you have to consider the scope of his victories and the calibre of his opponents. This is very brief assessment with lots of gaps!

Pompey was recognised as rome's wonderkid-general in the years before the first triumvirate, bearing in mind his thrashing of the pirates and victories in Africa against jugurtha (I think). But during the Sulla v Marian conflict several attempts were made to defeat Sertorius in Spain, by vastly larger armies commanded by a couple of Roman Generals, one of which was Pompey?

Plus, he had one eye. I think that deserves mention.

Pompey was a great organiser, but not tactically sound. His victories were great at the time, but his opponents were never remembered in history for their greatness and the resources at his disposal were vast.

Caesar conquered Gaul & Britainnia, but he did this by a combination of politics and warfare against an enemy who thought war should be conducted either nude or certainly armourless, and that combat should be 1 on 1 with slashing weapons. Against Roman military technology there was only ever one outcome. You can slash armour all you want, but when someone jabs a few inches of a pointed short sword in your face from behind a big shield, you're going to lose, irrespective of how much battlefury you have. Anyway, Caesar would have been one of the worst generals in history had he failed to conquer Gaul with the resources at his disposal. I concede that the barbarian Vercingetorix was a challenge, but if you actually analyse the battle Ceaser was outmanourvered badly by the Gaul! I think Ceasar can be better measured by his victories during the Civil war and over the aged Pompey. However, even there he had a battle hardened army and he fought a vastly more inexperienced force, with some terrible tactical decisions being made by Caesar's enemies.

Crassus lost in Parthia, but was it not he who crushed spartacus? Of course, the escaped army of gladiators and slaves is no fit comparison, but its worth rememering that he was not that bad a general.

Scipio Africanus was the general who defeated Hannibal. Arguably, Hannibal was, along with Phyruss of Epirus, mithrodates and possibly Jugurtha, one of the greatest generals since Alexander. You cant argue with that pedigree but my knowledge of the Punic Wars is limited.

Vespasian was effective in the invasion of Britain, although his enemies were the disorganised British tribes.

To end, I have always thought Sertorius was the greatest Roman General but the one least interested in politics and therefore the one least mentioned in history. However, like Memnon vs Alexander, his contemporary's obviously repsected him enough to rarely have a bad word said against him, and it is not often that you have a man so unknown by the public who, and I'm going from memory here, plutarch felt could have, and should have, been the greatest Roman General of his time.....

If you're talking of greatest general of all time, i'd have to go with either Ghengis Khan, Alexander, Patton or TJ Jackson.

Answer 2

Patton was a good general. From my perspective and that of many historians Robert E. Lee was the greatest general who ever lived. He was a graduate of West Point and a classmate of Grant. He commanded the Marines at Harper's Ferry and was the first to be offered the command of the Union troops. He had enough courage and integrity to turn down the Union command in favor of his state. At the time the state was more important than the union. The results of the Civil War greatly increased the power of the federal government and ended American democracy as people of that time knew it. The one battle that has always puzzled me is Gettysburg. Lee was not the cautious general he had always been. He was missing Stonewall Jackson and this may have been part of the reason he charged forward against good reason. Then his battle plans for Antietam were compromised when a Confederate general lost his battle plans in Va and the yankees recovered them. Still they fought to a draw against an industrialized nation whose troops outnumbered them. One of the things that made Lee remarkable was his insistence that the confederates not engage in guerrilla warfare. This could have subjected the country to another decade or two of war. Lee, always the gentleman, asked his troops to go home and forget the war. He was respected by friend and foe. He was a great American.

Answer 3

Easy the best military strategic leader was

#1 George Washington

Why? He led an assembly of citizen soldiers who had little or no military training, little food, & had substandard equipment against the greatest army in the world. He also kept a very diverse Continental Congess & population satified while running an extensive spy network & trying to garner allies from Europe. He kept his forces in the field, was never trounced, & gave America its only chance to win independence.

Now, if you are talking best tactical general the choices are a bit harder.

However, my two top choices are

Benedict Arnold - widely acclaimed as the best tactical general on both sides by both sides of the Revolutionary War.

Alexander the Great - never lost a battle

Answer 4

No, because you were not purely a general. Red-cloaked and brave, I grant you. But your invasion of Britain was an embarrassing failure. Determination gave you victory in Gaul. But all was to a political end as your planned route to absolute power.
A true general who cared more for the welfare of his troops and his duty to his country than you was the Duke of Wellington. He never lost an army or a battle (except for one seige). Surely his skill and modesty as a gentleman made him a better general, and a better man, than all whom he opposed, and all who lived before or after him?

Answer 5

Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Hannibal,

Answer 6

Hard to say.

Not Patton. His 3rd Army advance was condemned by the US Military.
He just didnt know how to use tanks.

-its all in the offical US report on 3rd Army before anyone slags me.

Best General of WW2, Field Marshall Slim.

Answer 7

MajGen. Chesty Puller U.S.M.C. Joined the Corps at age fourteen. Received comission in WW I.
Once ordered Chaplians to get their a**es up on the front lines where they belonged.
Led Marines out of Frozen Chosin in Korean war down one mountain road against 8th Chinese Communist field Army. Effectively destroying 8th Chinese Communist Field army as fighting force.
He lost more men to frost bite and freezing to death than killed in action.
The Marines were having to urinate on their rifles to unfreeze them.

All this after the Marines at the Frozen Chosin had been written off as all killed or captured and the high command stopped resupplying them by air.

In fact when the Marines reached American lines they were held up and not allowed to cross the line because of the field commanders thinking Russia must have entered the war and they were Russians or Chinese who had disguised themselves as Marines by wearing the Marines' uniforms. Everyone thought Chesty's Marines had been wiped out at the Frozen Chosin.
He is reputed to have said when the officer in charge of a unit of 82nd Airbourne, that managed to fight their way to the Chosin, asked Chesty Puller what was their line of retreat? Chesty replied, "Retreat Hell. I have them just where I want them. I can attack in any direction. We are not retreating we are attacking.

Reason Marines were cut off by the Chinese Communist:
Another of Gen Dougles (dugout Doug) MacArthur's screw up's:
The Marines were spear heading the attack or the foot race to the Chinese and Korean border after the North Korean Army Collapsed. They mission was to take and hold the Chosin to stop the retreating North Koreans from blowing the damn and Hydro electric plant until the army could get there there. They had already consolidated their positions when the Chinese Communist army attacked in a surprise attack catching the U.S. Army strung out not expecting it. How strung out they were? The cooks and portable kitchens were leap frogging ahead of the advancing infanrty to set up and have hot meals waiting for the infantry.
Reason MacArthur didn't listen to his intelligence reports about the Chinese
Communist Army massing and crossing the river into North Korea.
The result was a total route of the American Army and U.N. armies leaving the Marines at the Chosin surrounded and cut off.

Answer 8

Hannibal, Scipio, Zukhov, Alexander of Macedonia, Ghengis Khan, all rank above you old boy.

Answer 9

Hannibal.

Answer 10

Among those currently alive - Petraeus is awesome!