American... Irish and French heritage, thus my joke that I should hate Britain but I adore Cornwell's writings (Warlord Trilogy is my favorite) and was listening to the Sharpe books again, thus the name. The author does live in my state though.

Cromwell is a pretty good british general, although more because of his role in creating a professional british army.
Richard the Lionheart was a great general aswell, although not a paticularly good king.
Edward, the black prince and other English kings in the hundred years war are also pretty noticeable.


In terms of other leaders:
Cyrus the Great
Alexander the Great (and his father)
Julius Ceasar
Hannibal

Alexander The Great was the best military mind in history. He was undefeated and always faced with overwhelming odds. Napoleon was almost always faced with odds. The battle of Austria he was vastly outnumbered but used his Military Genius to defeat them.

Napoleon's Empire was impressive, because of that time France was one of the weakest states in Europe, but Napoleon turned his country around and the kicked asses of the Spanish (not a big accomplishment), The Prussians (very big accomplishment), The Russians, (Eh) , the Austrians, (Big accomplishment) and even the British, when they choose to get out of their ships and dared to fight Napoleon on land. Napoleon's "divide and conquer" was a brillant strategy and many military schools still teach his methods. He supply lines were at least one-hundred years ahead and his use of artillery was amazing. The French soldiers had training equal or better then The British. You cannot deny he was a superb general and should be classified as one of the best generals in history.



Would anybody like to debate Alexander's case as The Greatest Military General of History?

@kgb yes but if he was so great how come he was banished by his own people and@ richard you are right

@Actually, the French adored Napoleon (not counting royalists) and he was banished by the Countries of the Coalition.

KGB, where are you getting this from?

Napoleon's supply lines? His armies lived off the lands... he refused to provide them food or money to buy food and so they had to scavenge and take food by force. This led to the Spanish guerilla war being extremely nasty, moreso than it would have been had food supplies been provided by France. It also is the reason his Russian retreat was so disastrous... on the way in he picked the land clean of food and then returned by the same route and there was no food left.

Napoleon's training? His soldiers were typically conscripts and as such were poorly trained and had low morale. The British training was far superior and their discipline was exemplary. It is why the British were able to utilize a 2-man deep line while every other contemporary army had 3-man deep lines. The column, as I stated above, were horrid tactics that allowed for poorly trained men to still be of some use.

France one of the weakest states? Their population was more than double that of Britain's. Britain's military also had to handle the US (War of 1812) thanks to some smart diplomacy from Napoleon as well as the frequent Irish rebellions.

What, exactly, does being adored and detested by your people have to do with being a military genius?

@Richard, I was answering IronHeart.

And he did use Supply lines, In The Italian Campaigns and other Campaigns close to France. I got my information from countless books I have read On Napoleon.

Napoleon actually trained his soldiers very well, and installed in them a very high Morale.

Yes, France was one of the weakest states thanks from the French Revoulition, Constant war with British.

Yes Britian had to deal with USA in War of 1812, but Napoleon had to deal with British and the REST OF EUROPE

I know you were answering Ironheart... and I was pointing out to both of you that the subject is meaningless in the context of the discussion.

Exactly what source do you have for the high morale and training? And just how would an army of 3 MILLION men be very well trained? Still haven't heard you refute my criticism of his column strategy which arguably led to his demise.

Note that conscripts very rarely have high morale... it's why the method is so rarely used by successful armies, especially not in modern times.

Napoleon installed a High Morale in his soldiers.
I have read many Napoleon biographies, and other military stratgies books.

Okay, if his column strategy was so horrid why did it beat the Prussians, Russians, ect. countless times? No, what led to his demise was his invasion of Russia, and the Spanish War.

They were poorly disciplined soldiers. It failed miserably against the British and yet the strategy never changed.

I like how you simply repeat statements as if that somehow makes them fact.

"The superb officer corps that existed in the army suffered increasingly higher casualties in the later years, especially after 1808, as the quality of the rank and file decreased, necessitating more sacrifices from the officers to inspire the men to great deeds or even to hold their morale together. As the years of warfare dragged on the officer corps was filled with every available means, such as promotion from the ranks or commissions granted to newly entered cadets, often with adverse effects on performance. The same acquitted itself with the rank and file who were made up more and more of partial or untrained conscripts during the later years ."
http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/napoleon/c_genius.html

There goes the highly trained, high morale troops...

As for the column, while it may have worked against the lesser armies it failed against the British. A great tactician recognizes this failure and changes tactics to combat the deficiency, not simply repeats the same mistake ad nauseam.

You know what, Ill give you the Columns.

"This system of army corps gave Napoleon a great advantage over his opponents during the consulate and early empire.

During the campaign of 1796 in Italy, General Bonaparte introduced the reorganization of his cavalry and artillery forces that he would adapt later universally throughout the French army. Napoleon streamlined the existing system, distributing a cavalry division to each army corps and forming the remainder, principally the heavy cavalry, into a virtual corps of its own as a part of the army reserve. This corps was held exclusively under his command for commitment at the decisive point on the day of battle. These changes greatly improved the cavalry's efficiency. One of the most famous of French cavalry officers of the period, General Marbot, regarded Napoleon as the "...best light cavalry officer in any European army...Both in irregular warfare and major operations he was a most remarkable officer." Like the cavalry Napoleon also organized an artillery reserve under his personnel command for the commitment at the decisive moment on the battle field."

What about this eh?

A subordinate claiming he is the best... that's certainly objective and unbiased...

That quote came from the link of the website you posted.

And we both seem very biased ourselves

it's interesting to see that when you can't come up with a good comeback, you scoop to calling it biased. Very nice <3

It is biased. It was a friend of Napoleon's. Had it been a British or Russian cavalry officer making the claim THEN it would hold weight. Surely you can see the lack of objectivity in that situation.

Napoleon was respected by his enemies.

Next you will be telling me Alexander Great was a horrid military leader because of his phalanxes were "to deep". I mean you have to admit Napoleon was a great military leader.

I never said otherwise. I even said he was good but not the best due to his glaring errors and failures.