Greatest Warrior and Greatest Military Genius before 1900

[sarakoth]

Sun Tzu was the inventor of military strategy as a science.

[thaddeus6th]

Actually, Genghis' empire was only the largest ever land empire. If you go by the largest ever sea empire, then we win, hurrah.

[woodsman]

Yay for us!

We accumulated though and it lasted some time.
Genghis expaned swiftly and declined swiftly! Which is the greater achievement?

[thaddeus6th]

Ours. And yes, I may well be biased.

Look at it this way, things that grow quickly tend to die quickly. Oak trees take bloody ages to reach full size, whereas buckler fern is much swifter, and grass quicker still. But the oak lives the longest.

Mind you, Rome did pretty well too. (Although that's complicated because of the various political systems and the division of the empire).

Back to greatest general: I think the criteria shouldn't just be success, but capability. That's why Hannibal wins. He did the most with the least means. I know Alexander faced far more Persians than Hannibal did Romans, but the Persians were largely rubbish compared to the Romans who were hard as nails. In addition, the Romans learnt from their mistakes.

[GOLLUM]

I go for Alexander the Great.

[sarakoth]

Originally Posted by thaddeus6th

Ours. And yes, I may well be biased.

Look at it this way, things that grow quickly tend to die quickly. Oak trees take bloody ages to reach full size, whereas buckler fern is much swifter, and grass quicker still. But the oak lives the longest.

Mind you, Rome did pretty well too. (Although that's complicated because of the various political systems and the division of the empire).

Back to greatest general: I think the criteria shouldn't just be success, but capability. That's why Hannibal wins. He did the most with the least means. I know Alexander faced far more Persians than Hannibal did Romans, but the Persians were largely rubbish compared to the Romans who were hard as nails. In addition, the Romans learnt from their mistakes.

The Persians weren't "largely rubbish". It's just that the movie 300 makes it seem that way. If the Persians were "largely rubbish", then they wouldn't have conquered everyone from Thrace to the Indus Valley. It's just that Alexander's bold tactics stopped the Persians from utilizing their numerical superiority and defeated them at a key battle.

[thaddeus6th]

I've never seen 300, though the mindless violence does look fun.

Alexander gave them a thrashing at various battles. He won passage over the Granicus (where, as someone else pointed out, Memnon could well've stopped him) then won at Arbela and, er, another place whose name eludes me. The Persians also failed to occupy and defend numerous key mountain forts, and when they did (when Darius was fleeing for his life) Alexander managed to defeat them anyway.

[sarakoth]

Originally Posted by thaddeus6th

I've never seen 300, though the mindless violence does look fun.

Alexander gave them a thrashing at various battles. He won passage over the Granicus (where, as someone else pointed out, Memnon could well've stopped him) then won at Arbela and, er, another place whose name eludes me. The Persians also failed to occupy and defend numerous key mountain forts, and when they did (when Darius was fleeing for his life) Alexander managed to defeat them anyway.

The key battle in which Alexander crushed the Persians while being outnumbered 3:1. His forces suffered 4000 casualties, while the Persians suffered 40000.

The key reason in Alexander's victory is how he positioned his troops in a curve, diminishing the numerical superiority of his enemies and to prevent his men from being surrounded. His phalanx formation was very hard to break as they were packed together. The Persians threw infantry, calvary, and chariots at them but all Alexander's men did was hold out their spears.

[thaddeus6th]

So he only won by well-trained troops being deployed in the tactically superior position? Sounds like a good general to me

[Vladd67]

Ivan the Terrible had his moments before he lost it completly

[sarakoth]

Originally Posted by woodsman

Yay for us!

We accumulated though and it lasted some time.
Genghis expaned swiftly and declined swiftly! Which is the greater achievement?

The British Empire didn't last that long either. At its height, after the scramble for Africa, it lasted about a century.

[thaddeus6th]

A century's not too bad. I don't think (not sure) that any of the other empires of the time (French, Austro-Hungarian etc) lasted even that long. Plus we had the biggest

Makes it even sadder that certain elements now want the UK to split up, but I suppose that's a debate for another board.

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by woodsman

Yay for us!

We accumulated though and it lasted some time.
Genghis expaned swiftly and declined swiftly! Which is the greater achievement?

You have to be really biased to compare Ghengis great empire to a sea empire specially since he beated nations with an army that was smaller in number than the population in a avreage big british city


That is the real impressive thing with Ghengis and his Mongols. They never were that many and still conquered a huge part of the world.

If they had the number of people The Romans had, they would have an empire that lasted for centuries.

[sarakoth]

Originally Posted by Connavar of Rigante

You have to be really biased to compare Ghengis great empire to a sea empire specially since he beated nations with an army that was smaller in number than the population in a avreage big british city


That is the real impressive thing with Ghengis and his Mongols. They never were that many and still conquered a huge part of the world.

If they had the number of people The Romans had, they would have an empire that lasted for centuries.

Dude, the British made up about 3% of the population they controlled.

[Connavar]

Im not saying otherwise.

Just saying you cant compare it to The Mongol Empire at its high. Cause of the different situations and cause of the times.