Im curious, who would you place as the Greatest Military General in history?

Don't have the requisite knowledge to legitimately opine on the topic. Only know about a small subset of military commenders.

Do you think Alexander could fit the category?

kgb i wonder why you love napoleon so much

He certainly good. What I know of him, anecdotal as it is, would place him in that tier.

But of course, there is the difficulty in such a discussion in determining whether leadership ability should be included in such a discussion. Obviously it is an integral aspect of being a good general but it is distinctly different from strategic concerns as your title focuses on (in my interpretation)

@IronHeart- I admire him.

@Richard- I would say so.

What would the qualities of A great General be, in your opinion?

Napoleon may have been a good military leader but he certainly wasnt the best.

Also, as Sharpe rightly points out, a french officer calling Napoleon the best light cavalry commander is completely bias and there fore meaningless.

No, I say Alexander The Great was the best.

Also When I posted that, I was referring to his Corps system.

I refute your saying the Alexander the Great was the best. He was the 2nd best by far; but Cyrus the Great comes first.

Cyrus The Great..... Certianly one of the Greatest... But Alexander was the Greatest. Why do you say Cyrus is better then Alexander, just curious?

Alexander wasn't all that great really. He had on his side a large quantity of well-trained and organized professional soldiers using military tactics that had been honed by constant infighting between the various states of ancient Greece. Opposing him was a long string of barbarian tribes, a Persian dynasty that was at the very end of its rope already, and the hundreds of tiny fractured states of Sindh and Hindh. He had no stated objectives, and thus couldn't actually fail. His army went on a 2000 mile journey of rapine and plunder (he didn't have to worry about a supply train because he just robbed whatever he wanted from the local populace) to what is today the coast of northwestern India, installing officers as governors of pieces his increasingly vast empire. It took no time at all after Alexander's death for the structure of that empire to collapse politically, at which point it basically merged with the scattered remnants of Persia and became a new Persian dynasty with Hellenistic influences. Essentially, calling him a military genius is like calling the Conquistadors military geniuses. Both of them met with success, but more because of the low technology state of their enemies than because of their own brilliance.

Napoleon was mediocre as a general. He tended to make good decisions in delegation, resulting in a highly competent officer core. He also showed flashes of brilliance in statesmanship, effectively neutralizing his German enemies by setting the spark to the pile of tinder that was the Germanic and Prussian states. He lent an air of moral superiority to his army by claiming that he was launching an invasion of liberation to free the hapless Poles from their nasty Russian overlords, which brought in more recruits for his army and the blessings of Eastern European powers that were eyeing Russia's imperialist ambitions warily. He tied his conquests together in an economic system that enabled him to exert control over various nominally autonomous nations without having to take the blame for conquering them militarily, basically a wide-scale extortion and protection racket. He did, however, launch a land war into Asia and allowed himself to get bogged down in the Russian winter.

Part of the problem was that he was on the cusp of a major sea change in military and political philosophy. For thousands of years, taking the enemy capital meant winning. The Russians turned that assumption back on him by burning down their own capital, taking all usuable supplies with them and burning what couldn't be taken. Napoleon, always grandiose in his plans, missed some critical logistics details, allowing his men to billet wherever they chose once they occupied the husk of Moscow but failing to organize adequate supply commisaries or a fire brigade. The result was that his soldiers started burning whatever they could find wherever they felt like it, and very soon a large portion of Moscow was devastated by a major conflagration, rendering it even less suitable for occupation. Napoleon's whole plan for Russia was centered on taking Moscow. Once he had it and the Russians didn't surrender (a point at which Napoleon was VERY surprised,) he had no idea what to do next, and in fact had overextended himself to the point that there was nothing else he COULD do other than turn tail and run, losing the majority of his remaining soldiers in the process. He subsequently attempted to reflesh his army by the use of the draft, but even with a hard core of veterans of his central and eastern campaigns, the remainder of the green untried army was no match for the professional soldiers of the British Empire - His Waterloo was destined from the moment he set foot in Russia. Greatest military genius of all time? No way.

I'll try to keep it short so we don't have a tl;dr situation.

1. Alexander gained his empire by defeating 1 empire [The Persians]. The Persians were a formidable force but were led by Darius III. An incompetent leader that could of crushed Alexander if he knew what he was doing.

2. Alexander looked up to Cyrus. He spent his military career trying to do things as Cyrus would of done them. That's not to say that Alexander copied Cyrus. No, he just used Cyrus' tactics as the backbone of his strategies.

3. Cyrus conquered 3 empires [The Median Empire, Lydian Empire, and Neo-Babylonian Empire]. All 3 had competent leaders who knew how to fight. Cyrus had a much more difficult time winning his 3 campaigns then Alexander had winning his 1 campaign.

There's a ton more reasons but I'll only post them as needed. IMO Cyrus will always be the greatest general of all time [until someone 1 ups him]. Alexander falls into a very close 2nd [If this was basketball it'd be 127 to 125].

Barbur and Timur the Lame (Tamberlane) both bear mentioning as well. Cyrus, I can buy :) He truly was a total badass...

10.Georgy Zhukov
9.Attila the Hun
8.William the Conqueror
7.Adolf Hitler (controversial)
6.Ghengis Khan
5.Hannibal Barca
4.Napoleon Bonaparte
3.Julius Caesar
2.Alexander the Great
1.Cyrus the Great

notable mentions: Douglas MacArthur, Ramses the Great, Robert E. Lee, Sargon the Great, Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Scipio Africanus, Mao Zedong

Bullshit Ironheart you just copied that list from the internet. Even your notable mentions. The only thing I despise is people who copy crap of the internet and call it their own. If you were just copying the list then you should of said so. Total bullshit.

http://listverse.com/2008/10/11/top-10-most-successful-military-commanders/

The question depends on times. It's hard to compare a commander of a tank unit(Patton), against a Roman Commander, like Julius Caesar.

Haha nice one Vapor.