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20 comments to "9 Battlefield Geniuses and What They Can Teach You About Warfare"
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Carruthers
September 29th, 2007 at
3:23 pm
It always strikes me as odd that Napoleon has a reputation as a great general. Genius, he may have been, but as a charismatic leader, not as a general. His defeats were embarrassing.
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ryo
September 29th, 2007 at
6:38 pm
I read before Sun Tzu art of war, it is really a good book. His strategy can be use on warfare and also on today’s business environment. One of his strategy is to know your enemy well, so you will win in hundred battles. Good book to recommend.
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Diamond
September 29th, 2007 at
7:20 pm
It is not Genghis Kahn….It is Chinghis Kahn. But sigh not even wiki has got it…so nevermind.
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Chris
September 30th, 2007 at
12:11 am
I read before Genghis Kahn art of war, it is really a good book. His strategy can be use on warfare and also on today’s business environment. One of his strategy is to crunch every competitor, steal from your shareholders, enslave your employees, cheat the SEC, FDA, FBI and whatnot, and be sure to sexually harrass your staff, so you will win hundred contracts.
Good book to recommend.jk
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a
September 30th, 2007 at
12:27 am
Diamond, it’s kHan, not kAhn…. but sigh, not even you got it right…so nevermind.
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ted
September 30th, 2007 at
6:45 am
I think “veni, vidi, vici” sums up Caesar’s philosophy to war more than “iacta alea est”.
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kolaguy
September 30th, 2007 at
7:20 am
for the last one i would like to add: “see also Soviet’s war with Finns”
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Don H
September 30th, 2007 at
2:13 pm
One does not have to look far for a better general than Alexander. Philip of Macedon, his father, for one.
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Anthony
September 30th, 2007 at
11:44 pm
Grant was a hack compared to Lee. I’m a northerner, but Lee was a genius and Grant was just barely competent.
Also, Sun Tzu’s book is just common sense. All modern warfare is based upon the Art of War, so if you have any tactical grasp of military action, you already know what’s in that book.
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Sean
October 1st, 2007 at
2:58 am
i agree, Lee was a superior strategist, and see war with finns is funny as hell.
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Sid Morrison
October 1st, 2007 at
8:36 am
A couple things:
1. Grant gets a bad rap frequently. His ultimate success on the battlefield where many others failed is undisputed. Lee was an excellent general as well and deserves much esteem, but every one of his mistakes gets pushed off on the shoulders of a subordinate like Longstreet or Pickett. Lee respected Grant quite well.
2. Grant’s drunkeness is greatly exaggerated. Early in his career there is some evidence of that, but it’s also widely believed to have been played up by his immediate superior in Washington (Henry Halleck) who was jealous of Grant’s success in the Western campaign.
3. There is no evidence of Grant being a drunk as president. He had a scandal plagued time in office, but was the result of Grant being a overly trusting person, who had put faith in the honesty of people working for him. Grant himself was honest beyond reproach. His over-trusting of others also bit him late in life when a financial partner swindled him. It was only the immense success of his memoirs (published after his death) that’s Grant’s family was saved from financial ruin.
4. Finally, it irks the hell out of me to see modern politically correct writers use the terms “BCE” and “CE”. OK, I understand you may be of a different faith or athiest or whatever. That is your perogative. It is also your perogative to use whatever calendar system you wish. If you choose to use the Gregorian calendar, though, regognize that the date numbering system is based on the traditional (early) reckoning for the birthdate of Christ. Renaming “B.C.” and “A.D.” into “Before the Common Era” and “Common Era” is disingenuous when your “Common Era” is still defined by the traditional birthdate of Christ! You are still being Christ-centric in the end, so why obfuscate? Use B.C. and A.D. as people have for 2 millenia or pick your own system with a different “time zero”!
Straight Talk from Sid.
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Chris
October 1st, 2007 at
9:14 am
Regarding the Genghis Kahn quote, in Conan the Barbarian, he says something similar:
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women. -
Neil
October 1st, 2007 at
12:20 pm
Everybody forgets Michael Collins, who refined modern guerilla tactics against the British in the Irish War of Independance. Absolute genius.
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Craig
October 1st, 2007 at
4:27 pm
Yeah, clearly Conan didn’t get his due when he was left off this list…
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cesar
October 1st, 2007 at
11:13 pm
La historia de Bolivar no es del todo cierta, Peru y Bolivia fueron libertados por Jose de San Martin, al igual que Chile y Argentina
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Matt
October 2nd, 2007 at
12:50 am
A couple of very important people are missing of this list. 1: Hannibal- Probably the greatest general in history. He not only turned little ol’ Carthage into a power during the peak of Rome, he terrorized them across most of Roman lands, including the famous march of elephants across the Alp’s. Many of Roman military tactics derived from learning first in defeat from Hannibal. 2: Attila the Hun- He conquered much of eastern Rome, from the city of Rome to the edge of middle Asia. He was called the “Scourage of God” for a reason. He absolutely demolished superior numbers of Roman soldiers with little more then nomatic horsemen and fantastic tactics. A list that doesn’t feature either of these two historic figures seems a bit thin to me.
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Fign
October 15th, 2007 at
6:04 am
Get your facts straight about Bolivar !! As #15 said, he did NOT “liberated” those countries and also did not ever put a foot in Panama ! Some more research besides Wikipedia is needed (sigh)
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Kat
November 16th, 2007 at
4:23 am
T.E. Lawrence. Belisarius. Shaka. Clausewitz. Gustav II Adolf. Wellington.
You’re always gonna miss somebody’s favorite. And every one has pros and cons.
Of course, you could always make another list of military leaders left off the first list. And then another list, and another. . . .
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akljdas
November 19th, 2007 at
8:10 pm
“It always strikes me as odd that Napoleon has a reputation as a great general. Genius, he may have been, but as a charismatic leader, not as a general. His defeats were embarrassing.”
So was Robert E Lee’s defeats and the same with the Romans being defeated against Hannibal. You should read up on the battles he won. Every battle he accomplished, opposing leaders and generals could not figure out how he did it. He made monkeys out of them.
“Attila the Hun- He conquered much of eastern Rome, from the city of Rome to the edge of middle Asia. He was called the “Scourage of God” for a reason. He absolutely demolished superior numbers of Roman soldiers with little more then nomatic horsemen and fantastic tactics. A list that doesn’t feature either of these two historic figures seems a bit thin to me.”
Attila was a great general, but, he suffered the worst loss in history; the pope told him that if he kept on invading he would go to hell, and he believed it. I mean, at least British Kings thought they were above the Pope for crying out loud and as good if not equal to Jesus.
Kahn was the greatest, hands down. He never lost a war. Subudei, his number one General lost maybe one battle out of something around 80+ battles. Kahn took the simplest and oldest ideology of survival and applied it to warfare; hunting. Most of the time he wouldn’t engage in hand to hand combat, but order his army to fire arrows until the opponent advanced, then retreat, and continue to fire arrows (read up on how he crushed the Europeans). He trained his army to fight on horse, use bows and arrows on horse while riding, and fight on the ground. His army was the fastest moving in the world traveling up to 120 km a day, which wouldn’t have been seen up until world war 2 or at least the use of steam engines. Khan also knew how primitive his culture was; when he defeated an empire, he would use their resources which he knew his culture couldn’t produce; one great example is the Chinese engineers to develop siege weapons to annihilate the middle east. The reason why the empire fell apart is because it was split into many nations, and like many siblings and relatives, decided to fight it out with each other.
Had Ogedei lived a few more years, Europe would’ve been annihilated as well. The Mongol warriors made fools of the Teutonic Knights, yet surprisingly the European nations didn’t learn; for centuries after you would still see a class system of archers, footman, knights, etc.
In the end, there will be no number one general, it’s all a mater of perception, taste, and also, who we think kicked the most ass, and whose ass the hardest.
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dfgt
January 10th, 2008 at
8:25 am
“Rommel, you magnificent bastard…I read your damn book”…
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