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.

I try I try.

@ Delvinus Youre right about alexander the great. Persia was an outer shell with a soft inside.

Anyways, if you want to look at a greatest overall*and I hate this guy,too but you gotta admit* ** Hitler on a large scale made the cleverest of all attempts to conquer the world,** He got millions to his cause, and brainwashed them into thinking some of them werent true Germans and were unfit to live, and Jews should be exterminated, as well as Germany was made to rule, inhabit , ethnic cleanse, and enslave Europe and the world. Do you think **anyone in their right minds would think that this was true** ? He also took great scientists and capability that Germany (and most countries have the ability too) had to make the best weapons in the world. He turned a country in ruins into the countr that one on one could take anyone on in the world.

** The thing that made the Theird Reich so significant is not only that is had more people and better potential and productivity that if used to conquer empires, but also military generals most with brains, and majorly A POPULATION PERSUADED that germanies time was then, that they could rule the world, and were superior humands who were willing to die for themselves.**

Finally, I would like to give credit though ** ADOLF HITLER SHOULDNT BE ON THE LIST, BUT EVERY OTHER GENERAL BESIDES HIMMLER (a coward) SHOULD BE because they were smart, but hitler screwed them up

Hitler certainly made his mark - he had a special flair for incendiary speeches, like Jim Jones. One thing he clearly was not, however, is a military genius.

I'd generally agree with Devil... was a brilliant politician and leader but not so on the military genius.

Yeah, I was thinking about it and i remembered, Germany was a war machine, not a single led military general. However the majority of German generals got screwed up byhitler, had the odds against them, or werent good at all. And Rommel couldnt beat Patton in the first place. So that leaves thw other WW2 generals out.

I dont think we can thikn of our greatest military generals as the greatest though, because when we look at the situation many of our " Great leaders" really fought the enemy at the right time, or made a mistake showing strategic flaw. Most of our " Great leader's" goals were to conqer the world, so must of them all had war machines behind them, and decepted other powers to avoid too much conflict. **When all of our greatest military generals tried to conquer the world, they always tried to keep some powers neutral to defeat them later 1 on 1 , the problem was inner decline or the interception of these generals intentions to the neutral countries brought war on many fronts they couldnt fight at full efficiency** For example in World war 1, Russia had just surrendered, and all fronts but italy and ottoman were going good for the central powers. When America intercepted the Zimmerman Telegraph, which asked the Mexicans to defeat america (how funny) in the case of america declaring war on them, Mexico declined under American mobilization, and the Fresh troops went to the western front putting a halt to Germanies 1918 Offensive.
For Napoleon, once Europes great powers saw the might of the French army, and realized it was there to conquer Europe, not defeatthe Russian menace, they turned the tables on Napoleon.
Now for Julius Caesar, he just got lucky there was no watchdog governments at the time besides cowardly Roman generals

I am by no means diminishing the abilities of other great generals, but I put my vote in for Genghis Khan, and his son Ogedai as the greatest generals as they created the largest empire ever in their generations alone.

But honourable mentions should also go to Napoleon (who despite his flaws was a brilliant artillery commander), Rommel, Caesar, Hannibal, Saladin, Han Xin, Charlemagne, and Guillaume le Conquéreur.

What a bunch of crap devilns. History should rename Alexander the great into Alexander the mediocre and lucky and call you Devilns the great instead, for giving us that marvellous inside into Alexander the puny.

Alexander wasn't all that great really.
- no he wasnt, he just accidentally had the best teachers that classical greece could offer and with that the supreme teachers of the world. Being trained by the best fighters of possibly all time, fighters of a culture whos deeds and discoveries, directly shaped the whole western world and influenced the rest. Fighting scenes depicted on aerchological findings of the greek aera show moves that are almost the same as moves done by martial artists in nowadays MMA. His mentor had been no lesser but Aristoteles himself a lighthouse of philosophy, one of the fathers of rational thought. At an age of 17, while you were scratching your balls in highschool, he already commanded the cavalary of his father to great success, among his enemies, armies of greek citystates, who as you say yourself :

(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,

- barbarian tribes?? are you serious? the persian empire? I would laugh if i wouldnt feel insulted by your ignorance. Have you ever even looked at a map of the Achaemenid Empire? Within its territory lie all the greatest civilization of mankind, the first to ever exist on earth. Among them the Assyrians, the egyptians, the Babylonians and the Hethiters. Mesopotamia and egypt ... the womb of human civilization a long string of barbarian tribes. What joke will you tell us next?

a Persian dynasty that was at the very end of its rope already,

- ah yes it goes on. Sure the same Persian Empire that only a decade before Alexanders Campaign subdued Egypt. The biggest empire worldpopulationwise to ever exist on earth, with roughly 45% of the worlds population living in it. With the two agriculturally most fertile regions on earth (Euphrat/Tigris=Mesopatamia and Egypt with the river nile; for reverence, even now more people live besides the banks and from the river nile, than within the European Union). This agricultural abundance translated directly into immense wealth in ancient times, since in that time roughly seven people in agriculture were needed to feed eight. In those regions, the riverfloodings practically did the work for the farmers.

and the hundreds of tiny fractured states of Sindh and Hindh.
- your tiny fractured states of the indus valley had at that time no longer been part of persian empire, its importance for the empire as such was also negligible.

He had no stated objectives, and thus couldn't actually fail.
- he had clear stated objectives. Which actually were Phillip`s (his fathers plans, even though his reasons might have been merely domestic political) To stop the persian threat once and for all and to revenge burned Athens. As a side note:
On one occasion after the battle of Issos, Alexander was offered half the kingdom and the King`s daughter as wife. Parmenion , stepfather, trusted friend and general of Alexander said to Alexander: "Half the persian Empire and the princess as wife?!? I would take it!" to which Alexander replied: "If I were Parmenion, I would also take it"
A man destined for greatness from early age on. Of course he could fail. Not achieving it all, was considered a failure by him.

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)

- his army was not a bunch of unenducated christian crusaders, maurading its way to jerusalem. He had intensions of taking over the Empire. And if you think that is possible without a supply train, then your naivity is greater than your lack of knowledge.

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,

-Alexander died unexpectedly at the very young age of 33. Naturally he was not able to secure his succession and his death has caused his diadoches (people that take something over from someone) to fight a bloody long war of succession. But every single Diadoch Empire , be it of Lyssandros, Seulokos, Ptolemaeus or Antigonos was stronger than any other power in the antique world. Their constant infighting for more than 200 years was the only reason that gave Rome the opportunity to rise and conquer them all.

at which point it basically merged with the scattered remnants of Persia and became a new Persian dynasty with Hellenistic influences.

- They became hellenestic dynasties with local influences not the other way around. Greek language was introduced, theatres build, greek coin minting, philosophy etc.


Essentially, calling him a military genius is like calling the Conquistadors military geniuses.

-Conquistators were no idiots. Moraly falible yes, but masters of intrigue. They masterfully used the animosity of the conquered tribes against their sovereigns, manipulating everyone to their goals.

Both of them met with success, but more because of the low technology state

- their success is achieved in totally different ways. What are you trying to do? Show off knowledge you dont have? As already said before, the technology state of the Persian Empire was at least equal to the greek, if not in some fields even superior.
The success of the conquistators has many reasons (animosities of tribes, mistaking the conquistators for gods, above all deseases) but the least important was the lower technological state of the ancient american civilizations.

of their enemies than because of their own brilliance.

-So reread history instead of rewriting it, because thats no sign of your own brilliance either.

Alexander the Alright and Napoleon the So-So. lol

myhand is on fire, but my hands are lazy. too many projected half-truths and too much causality confusion...

@Richelieu I didnt even read until napoleon haha
I was so disgusted i had to write something. But you are right it gets even more hilarious.
This thread is spammed by knownothings and wannabes. Stop X-Boxing each other kids and pick up a book for once to read.

And devilns your post was the only one worth clarifying.
Kar98k and all the others are muppets for entertainment only.