Who is the most overrated general ever?

[Macilrille]

Macilrille, it's interesting that you speak of Fall Gelb, a candidate for the most overrated victory imho. The success of Fall Gelb was a matter of coincidence, luck, disobedience of some energetic excellent lower generals combined with some (but only a little bit) incompetence of the allied command. The Germans never used blitzkrieg strategy deliberately with success, instead they stumbled into it. If Fall Gelb would have been conducted as planned the forces of France, GB, Belgium and the Netherlands would have performed much better than they did. The blitzkrieg was however a comfortable concept for both sides, the Germans could dupe themselves that they were the best fighters with a superiour tactic (which led to the desaster in the east a year later), the allies could excuse themselves why they were beaten although they had had far stronger forces.

You misinterpret me. I said there is nothing wrong with Napoleonic tactics, I then pointed out that fall Gelb and Austerlitz were the same tactic (both brilliant) and said that in fact the nature of war never change it is just the tools we use to wage it.

In fact I definately beg to differ, Blitzkrieg was brilliant and it did decisively defeat an antequated doctrine that the Allies used. 7-8 years back I wrote extensively on the subject of French vs German doctrine and argued that even had Fall Gelb been carried out according to Halder's plan German tactical superiority because of Blitzkrieg and the general German doctrine the Germans would have won. The French were antequated in their doctrine and discouraged initiative, the Germans were innovative and encouraged initiative, they called it "Auftragstaktik".

The same thing happened in 1941 and 1942 on the Eastern front, the Red Army was stifled and killed initiative and innovation, while the German Blitzkrieg slized it to pieces, so we differ in opinion there as well. I encourage you to read some of Glantz' books, especially "The Initial period of War on The Eastern front" and "Stumbling Colosseus" as they deal with this matter in some detail and with access to Russian archival sources.

Sorry for the OT.

History is full of overrated Generals, but even more preponderant is armschair generals like us evaluating their results. I doubt many people could live up to the demands they measurem others with- including myself.

[desert]

What about Tukhachevsky? Did he actually do anything before his execution?

He seems to have been the first to come up with the theory of blitzkrieg though.

[Gaivs]

Caesar is certainly not overrated. Though he was not a top tactician, we was certainly a master strategist.
And the 'luck' that Caesar mostly had, was imo the result of actual hard work and planning more often than naught.

Hannibal was the opposite: a great tactician, one of the very best. But he seriously lacked on strategy.

@ Africanus:
The circumvallae of Alesia was nothing new. Though the scale, enormity, completeness and terrain it occured upon, are vastly different, there were atleast 2 other occassions the romans performed this trick.

One by Scipio Africanus in Africa, and I think someone did it to Capua aswel.

Anyway, this is not a discussion about who was the best, so enough of that.


I'd say Pompey was the most overrated classical general.
A great planner/organizer, but mediocre at best at the other categories.

He got trounced by Sertorius in Spain (another great tactician) and face it: got pwnd by Caesar who was outnumbered.
His campaign against the pirates was excellent, but concerned mostly planning and not actual generalship.
His campaign in the East against Mithradates and Tigraine was not more than a mop up of Lucullus' work.

I agree with...well everything you said about Pompey.

[Macilrille]

What about Tukhachevsky? Did he actually do anything before his execution?

He seems to have been the first to come up with the theory of blitzkrieg though.

Tukhachevsky and a clique of other innovative officers were in fact theorising about something very akin to Blitzkrieg, so did Liddel-Hart, Guderian implemented it and added the very important touch of Radio use for communication and integration of all arms.

Innovation and initiative = potential danger/subversive activity in Stalin's eyes = R.I.P., the Red Army was headless on the Eve of Barbarossa and those few intelligent officers who had not been killed or sent to Siberia kept a very low profile and tried not to think too much for themselves, for the purges did not end in 1937, they continues till the outbreak of war, and strictly speaking a bit into war as well.
Thus initiative and innovation was dead in the Red Army as well.

Needless to say I am no supporter of Viktor Rezun's nonsense.

Whether or not Tukhachevsky is overrated is hard to say, is he rated at all? Most Russians hail "Comrade Zhukov", and though not a bad general he was not the genius he is made out to be, and he probably caused more dead Soviet soldiers than most German Generals did.

[Cullhwch]

I don't know that anyone in the West really regards Marshal Zhukov that highly. I see him in the same vein as General Grant from the US Civil War. Not a military genius like Guderian or Lee, but good enough to win decisively when things went his way. I also don't buy the whole "butcher" argument regarding him either. Sure, his armies suffered heavy casualties, but that was a systemic problem of the Soviet Union. From the wiki...

"Zhukov's actual career is as diverse as those opinions. Brutal disregard for the lives of his soldiers often changes to the complete opposite. Zhukov spent more time than most Soviet commanders training his troops for battle, and preparing the battle plans, which often led to significantly lower casualty numbers compared to other Soviet commanders; for example at the Soviet counteroffensive during the Battle of Moscow in the winter of 1941 Zhukov lost 139,586 men[23], or 13.6% of his total strength - while a comparable operation under General Kozlov lost about 40% of his men (estimates ranging between 150,000 and 175,000 killed) near Kerch[24]. As the war went on, Zhukov's casualties became even lower. At the Battle of Berlin Zhukov lost only 4.1% of his men, while Konev's forces, who faced weaker German opposition, lost 5%[25] and at the same time Rodion Malinovsky lost almost 8% at the Battle of Budapest.[26]"

Sure, he was perhaps the prime examplar of the "victory at any cost" mentality, but none of his victories were truly Pyrrhic, as he had a knack for utterly destroying the enemy.

[Macilrille]

I don't know that anyone in the West really regards Marshal Zhukov that highly. I see him in the same vein as General Grant from the US Civil War. Not a military genius like Guderian or Lee, but good enough to win decisively when things went his way. I also don't buy the whole "butcher" argument regarding him either. Sure, his armies suffered heavy casualties, but that was a systemic problem of the Soviet Union. From the wiki...

"Zhukov's actual career is as diverse as those opinions. Brutal disregard for the lives of his soldiers often changes to the complete opposite. Zhukov spent more time than most Soviet commanders training his troops for battle, and preparing the battle plans, which often led to significantly lower casualty numbers compared to other Soviet commanders; for example at the Soviet counteroffensive during the Battle of Moscow in the winter of 1941 Zhukov lost 139,586 men[23], or 13.6% of his total strength - while a comparable operation under General Kozlov lost about 40% of his men (estimates ranging between 150,000 and 175,000 killed) near Kerch[24]. As the war went on, Zhukov's casualties became even lower. At the Battle of Berlin Zhukov lost only 4.1% of his men, while Konev's forces, who faced weaker German opposition, lost 5%[25] and at the same time Rodion Malinovsky lost almost 8% at the Battle of Budapest.[26]"

Sure, he was perhaps the prime examplar of the "victory at any cost" mentality, but none of his victories were truly Pyrrhic, as he had a knack for utterly destroying the enemy.

Have a look at the counteroffensives after Kursk, or his operations at Khalkhin Gol, Operation Mars or indeed the Moscow counteroffensive. Zhukov's tactic was as Monty's mass enough resources and keep hammering the enemy with them till he breaks or you run out. Yes he did achieve victory often, but how he did it... vatutin was about as brutal, but much more tactically sophisticated and the best of the Soviets were IMO Rokossovski.

[Cimon]

...the best of the Soviets were IMO Rokossovski.

Agreed. Rokossovski was the best Soviet general during WWII. It takes some kind of gall to stand up to superior officers, and even Stalin, multiple times in the middle of a war, especially after having been interrogated/tortured/purged-save-the-execution once already.

Your point about us armchair generals is also well-taken, but modern evaluation by non-military types is still a legitimate exercise in my view, as long as it's not taken too seriously. It's equivalent to sports fans: there's no way most of us could run that fast, catch that ball, score that goal, etc., but that doesn't stop us from praising the made shot or criticizing the missed one.

[Revoltie]

I would go for Pyrrhus, Barca, and Napoleon.

Their greatness is self explanative

[Beefy187]

Pyrrhus and Gaius Marius

[commander bitchslap]

completely unknow for most :Robert II of artois of france...

let me indtroduce a little story
1302 the county of flanders (nothern part of belgium) was a subject to the french powerfull kingdom, but they didn't like that because they were impressivly economical develloped and the frensh king ruled like an complete asshole.

on a night in june the flemmish people killed savagely several thousand of frensh noblemen who lived in the city of bruges to send the frensh king a clear message ( wich is a holiday in flanders , no joke)

the mighty king of course was outraged ike hell! how dare those peasant of the north provoce a mighty kingdom!!?
king philipII assembled a wickedly strong army to take revenge on the flammish.
around 10.000 strong professionals (a large number in that time) with no less then 6000 knights(!!!) in that time in warfare ,a knight was worth more then 10 footsoldiers! also the frensh heavy armoured cavalery was probably the best and most feared in whole of europe!

because it was serious bussiness for the french king he; assigned the campain to the best commander of that time of the whole mighty french kingdom:
sir(count) robertII of artois;
an super expierienced veteran. on his record: joined the 8th cruisade to tunis and gained a glorious victory against france arch nemesis: the english!! in the battle of aquitania. and many others

and so the frensh well trained, expirienced army marched north .pretty comfident and determent to punish ,wipe out and erradicate the flemish uprising pesant army.
who consisted of olso around 10.000 men BUT!!!!! they had only 400(!!!) knights the rest were untrained unexpierienced peasants.

battle results?
the frensh army fled back to france like a whipped dog complety battered and defeated ,...
if you want to know how the heck that peasant army dealt a crushing defeat to their much much stronger opponent, just let me know I will be happy to tell you :-)

[Berg-i-dum]

I know I will be crucified lol, but I always say Alexander The Great.

It is not so dificult to destroy a so ruined and decadent empire like the Persian one, then you have that big skeleton to create a new empire above the previous one, you only cut a head and then have all the body. And If prevoiously your father managed to create a exceptional army and discipline, it is even easier. I would like to imagine the macedonian fighting a stronger and united Persian Empire like the one in the old good days of Darius and Cyrus The Great (this one really was the great).

[A Very Super Market]

Well, I knew about Robert II

He isn't really overrated. Yes, he did not perform well, but it isn't as if people thought he was a good general.

Its a bit like putting Spartans as "Surprisingly Good".

[Mulceber]

I actually agree, Berg. Alexander was a really great general, I won't deny him that, but I think that people kind of don't (and didn't) realize how weak the persian empire really was. Thermopylae had proven that, as had Xenophon's march from Mesopotamia through Turkey. Light infantry wouldn't stand up to the Greek phalanx, and Alexander's true brilliance was in seeing through the facade of invincibility that the Persians had.

The one area in which I disagree with you is in your assessment that he wouldn't have faired so well against Darius or Cyrus. I disagree. It wasn't that the Persians were any weaker than they had always been, it was that their army was composed almost entirely of light troops which couldn't really stand up to Greek heavy infantry, particularly phalangitai. As stated above, there were numerous land battles against the persians where the Greeks demonstrated their superiority, partly due to their tactics, but also to a large degree due to their equipment. Marathon, Thermopylae, etc. -M

[Berg-i-dum]

I actually agree, Berg. Alexander was a really great general, I won't deny him that, but I think that people kind of don't (and didn't) realize how weak the persian empire really was. Thermopylae had proven that, as had Xenophon's march from Mesopotamia through Turkey. Light infantry wouldn't stand up to the Greek phalanx, and Alexander's true brilliance was in seeing through the facade of invincibility that the Persians had.

The one area in which I disagree with you is in your assessment that he wouldn't have faired so well against Darius or Cyrus. I disagree. It wasn't that the Persians were any weaker than they had always been, it was that their army was composed almost entirely of light troops which couldn't really stand up to Greek heavy infantry, particularly phalangitai. As stated above, there were numerous land battles against the persians where the Greeks demonstrated their superiority, partly due to their tactics, but also to a large degree due to their equipment. Marathon, Thermopylae, etc. -M

Yeah that is also true, but well at least with Darius the persian Empire was a powerful empire in the top of his development with a probably stronger army, treasury and administration. That was what I really mean. And of course phalanx -even hoplitai- were better than persian army with Darius or in the decadent time of the Alexanders come.

[Macilrille]

Welcome to the EB Forum Commander, now prepare for a dose of academic arrogance ;-)

This is the EB Forum- a forum for nerds (or we would play vanilla), people here have a fairly good grasp of military history, especially pre-modern military history. Some have degress in history or archeology, others are getting them. Thus most people here already know about Courtrai/Kortrijk and while The Battle of The Golden Spurs is interesting and symbolic enough, specialists will know that it was not the first time Heavy Cavalry was defeated by organised Heavy Infantry, and certainly not the last. The most significant thing about it is that it was the first time in the West that Commoners defeated Nobles after the fall of the Roman Empire.

And the Godendag is a particularly nasty weapon.

That, however, has not made anyone afterwards believe that Robert was a great general, quite the contrary, and if you look at people who were overestimated at their time, history is full of them. Loads of nobles from Res Publica Romana till modern times have been overrated by their time till they lost...

The question is about generals overrated by people after their career, as you will notice if you read through the long and longwinded posts in the thread. I can think of no Fleming commanders out of hand and thus no overrated ones. Perhaps William "The Silent" would qualify, but he was never lauded as a great commander. His son Wilhelm was more of one, but even he is not hailed as such anywhere AFAIK.

[Mulceber]

Yeah that is also true, but well at least with Darius the persian Empire was a powerful empire in the top of his development with a probably stronger army, treasury and administration. That was what I really mean. And of course phalanx -even hoplitai- were better than persian army with Darius or in the decadent time of the Alexanders come.

Very true. I think it's probably a little of both. I think Alexander would have still won even if he was fighting the Persians at their height though - The Athenians defeated the Persians at their height at Marathon, and they only had 1 city state. Alexander had the united Greek city states at his back. -M

[Dutchhoplite]

Hmm, that's not entirely true...

[Ravenfeeder]

The characteristics of a good general
1) Tactical competancy
2) Strategic competancy
3) Logistical competancy
4) Man motivation

All are equally important. Most of the people mentioned here have some or all of these qualities. Montgomery has 2,3 and 4 which is why Alan Brooke (the man who put the British army back together afer Dunkirk and kept it going afterwards with limited resources) rated him so highly. Monty got his men to fight and keep fighting.
Alexander had 1 and 4. 4 in spades, which allowed him to do great things.

What we need to find is a general who is rated highly who had none of these qualities.

Zhukov comes quite close (read the Glantz book on Operation Mars - although some of his points are questioned by Russian historians).

Charles the Bold (Rash) of Burgundy seems to be rated and has no redeeming qualities.

Charles XII of Sweden is rated very highly indeed but ultimately lost so badly that he condemned his nation to life on the fringes for centuries.

any more?

[Cimon]

That, however, has not made anyone afterwards believe that Robert was a great general, quite the contrary, and if you look at people who were overestimated at their time, history is full of them. Loads of nobles from Res Publica Romana till modern times have been overrated by their time till they lost...

Not only do people not consider Robert II a good general, but his father, Robert I, was a bad commander as well, leading a vanguard cavalry contingent to almost total annihilation, including his own death, at Al Mansourah in the Seventh Crusade (led by Louis IX of France). After an initially successful surprise charge/attack on the Egyptian camp, he pursued the defenders into the city of Mansourah, where his knights becamse separated, and their tactical advantage (i.e. the renowned Frankish cavalry charge) was rendered utterly useless. Further, he led this pursuit in contradiction of previously given direct orders to wait and reform from Louis IX. While Robert I is probably overly-blamed for the overall failure of the entire Crusade, the strategic result of his recklessness was an increasingly untenable situation for the Crusaders, leading to eventual retreat back towards Damietta.

Like father, like son.

[Haxamanis]

Interesting question, the most overrated general ever…

I like to add something different to the discussion.

I think the question has nothing to do with the strategical, motivational or tactical abilities of the general. It’s more about the perception (or misperception) of the acts of a historical general in our times. Only when today’s public opinion about a general differs from the historical acts of that general, than we can speak of overrated-ness.

So to answer the question about who is an overrated general you should first ask why public opinion about generals would be different from what history tells us.

There are several reasons for this that I can (quickly) think of.

1. Collective memory. This is what groups of people want to remember about their collective past. This taditionally and culturally inclined view of the past is a major reason for ahistorical views of the past. An example of this is the Dutch father of the fatherland, William of Orange, who was a terrible general, but nobody in the Netherlands wants to know that. Also Ambiorix of the Belgians or Washington for the Americans would qualify for this reason.

2. Fictional histories. Many books are written and movies are produced about the past. The goal of these artists is not to show actual history but to make a nice story about history. These ahistorical views of the past have great influence, I think, on public opinion. For example Edward Saïd argues that western (part-fictional) literature have even influenced the whole western view of oriental people. It’s easy to see why generals could be overrated for this reason. A few examples of overrated generals from movies are Spartacus or Balian of Ibelin.

3. Scientific errors. You might think that professional historians never make mistakes or are always unbiased, but that is not true. Sometimes bad (or just old) historical research has such a great influence that, although it is proven wrong, the influence remains. A good example for this is the book “Decline and fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon. Written in the 18th century it is still a major pillar of the history of the later Roman Empire. Its influence is still visible in every new book that’s written about this period of time. When analysed, it seems that Gibbon had not even read half of the sources that were available (even in his time) and that his book is full of mistakes. But his conclusions (based on bad research and identification with the British Empire) are still predominant today.

The beginning of historical scientific research was in the 19th century. Many research from these times have had a lasting influence on historians even until today. It is therefore good to remember that the origin of historical science was in a world of nationalism, romanticism and English supremacy. Therefore generals who are national hero’s, medieval generals like Charlemagne and El Cid and English generals in general tend to be a bit overrated, even by historians.

Sorry, got a bit carried away…

[commander bitchslap]

@ A Very Super Market
@ Macilrille
@ Cimon

well dudes i must say I'm pretty impressed.you folks actually know about it, this is definetly a nerdside and I do belong here :-) i don't hav a degree in history, but since the day i could read ,I read about historical battles and now 20 years later, nothing has ever changed:-)

last thing I have to say about sir robert is he realy was considdered a good commander. and france anno 1300 that ment something as they were almost in constant war.

at courtray however he realy realy messed up as a commander. very shamefull because he had an aunt living in courtray where he spend much time there in his childhood so he knew about the muddy and swampy terrain. with his expireince and majority of heavy cavalery he should hav outflanked the flemmish footsoldiers and crushed them in sted of charging blindly and over selfconfident head on, were they got stuck in the muddy terrain and maid the pride strong cavalery a sitting duck to the amateurish peasants!

further my haert bleeds if I see the names of barca , alexander an caesar in this topic as overrated,... yes they gambled and yes sometimes they had luck on their side, but sweet jezus, to say they're overrated after all what they'd accomplished and more HOW !!!???they definatly deserve grait praise in historical warfare!
napoleon,now that man is a little overrated, i will tell later why!

hav a nice weekend folks!

very nice forum you nerdies:-)

[The Persian Cataphract]

I actually agree, Berg. Alexander was a really great general, I won't deny him that, but I think that people kind of don't (and didn't) realize how weak the persian empire really was. Thermopylae had proven that, as had Xenophon's march from Mesopotamia through Turkey. Light infantry wouldn't stand up to the Greek phalanx, and Alexander's true brilliance was in seeing through the facade of invincibility that the Persians had.

The one area in which I disagree with you is in your assessment that he wouldn't have faired so well against Darius or Cyrus. I disagree. It wasn't that the Persians were any weaker than they had always been, it was that their army was composed almost entirely of light troops which couldn't really stand up to Greek heavy infantry, particularly phalangitai. As stated above, there were numerous land battles against the persians where the Greeks demonstrated their superiority, partly due to their tactics, but also to a large degree due to their equipment. Marathon, Thermopylae, etc. -M

This.

Is complete and utter rubbish, derived from wishy-washy reasoning, trivialization of historical fact, and shows complete ignorance on the structure, doctrine and historical merits of the Achaemenid military machine. Totally dismissive of several archaeological discoveries, this without a doubt a hotbed of fallacies focused on cherry-picking a few battles, isolating them from past and later Persian successes.

Let me put it this way: Even if I had the time and even if I had all the enthusiasm in the world to thoroughly pick this apart, one topic by the other, I wouldn't even know from where to start. This is so fundamentally flawed, I'd sincerely urge you to read up on the matter.

[Raygereio]

The characteristics of a good general
1) Tactical competancy
2) Strategic competancy
3) Logistical competancy
4) Man motivation

[snip]
Alexander had 1 and 4. 4 in spades, which allowed him to do great things.
[snip]

And I'll say one of the more impressive things about Alexander the Great was his logistical achievements.

Light infantry wouldn't stand up to the Greek phalanx, and Alexander's true brilliance was in seeing through the facade of invincibility that the Persians had.

I though the Greeks allready reckoned they could beat the Persians after Xenophon wrote his Anabasis. Also; a phalanx unsupported by other troops can and probably will be defeated by light infantry. One of the reasons the Macedonian army won was because it used combined armes tactics, both heavy and light infantry and cavalry working together.

[Aelius Maximus]

Well, the Catalaunian Fields were no crushing defeat, actually closer to a draw.

The Catalaunian Fields was a battle imposed to the retreating Huns, not very important to say the truth. Nevertheless, Aecius allowed the huns to escape cause he intended to use them aganist the goths (In his mind they were the real enemy of rome).

[Phalanx300]

I also think its Alexander, he was a great general but seeing him as the greatest general ever goes beyond me .

[Cullhwch]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Saladin yet. He is always held up as the pinnacle of Muslim medieval generals, but he could only win battles when he had an overwhelming numerical advantage. Even then, his success was far from guaranteed. He was absolutely embarrassed at Montgisard, and his subsequent defeats in the Third Crusade showed him to be a terrible tactician. If he were an EB general, he would probably combine the "understanding of strategy/logistics" traits with "terrible tactician" and "doubtful courage."

[Ludens]

Very true. I think it's probably a little of both. I think Alexander would have still won even if he was fighting the Persians at their height though - The Athenians defeated the Persians at their height at Marathon, and they only had 1 city state. Alexander had the united Greek city states at his back.

Your are really underestimating Alexander here. Firstly, Alexander didn't just fight the Persians. During his campaigns he encountered and defeated Thracians and Bactrian hill tribes, Greek hoplite armies, Persians, Scythian horse archers (I think Alexander is one of the few generals that successfully countered horse-archers while not employing them himself) and Indians. In other words, he faced every fighting-style of his day, bar the Chinese, and won.

Secondly, the "Persians can't fight" argument is just nonsense. You don't maintain, let alone conquer, a major empire without serious military skills. Yes, Persians fared badly while fighting the Greeks in the latter's home-territory, but equally the Greeks weren't very successful in Persian-held ground. The Athenian reinforcements sent to support the Ionian revolt were annihilated, and the invasion of Egypt, although it got of to a good start, eventually ended in defeat. Ionia remained a contested area until Alexander the Great, which hardly suggests a lack of confidence on the Persian's side.

The Persian weren't just light infantry either: their strike force was their cavalry, and they had some good infantry corpses. That said, they did realise the power of the hoplite phalanx, or else they wouldn't have hired large numbers of Greek mercenaries and formed their own elite hoplite corps.

[Ishmael]

Come on The Persian Cataphract, don't be nasty

Personally I feel that Douglas MacArthur, whilst probably not the most overrated, was still a pretty dodgy commander. From what i've read, he was incredibly arrogant and overconfident (not in the good sense), made decisions from HQ that were obviously counter-productive to those on the ground, and often made promises that were impractical eg: by promising the media he would retake Seoul by a certain date, he launched a criminally stupid naval assault that only suceeded because the defenders weredisorganised and couldn't counterattack. I will admit though, he did have a bit of intel there that the North Koreans were not heavily concentrated there. Finally, he relegated the ANZAC's after New Guinea to retaking obscure islands nobody cared about, and claimed all the glory in the main campaign for the US.

Anyway, i'm ranting a bit, but from what i've seen MacArthur only succeeded through a great deal of luck and a way with the media.

Of course, if i'm incorrect on one or more points, please feel free to correct me.

EDIT: I just realised that technically his rank was Supreme Commander in the Pacific campaign. Are we still counting this as a general?

[Cullhwch]

Well, if we're counting Kings of Kings in our discussion, then I'm sure that there's room for a mere Supreme Commander.

[Hax]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Saladin yet. He is always held up as the pinnacle of Muslim medieval generals, but he could only win battles when he had an overwhelming numerical advantage. Even then, his success was far from guaranteed. He was absolutely embarrassed at Montgisard, and his subsequent defeats in the Third Crusade showed him to be a terrible tactician. If he were an EB general, he would probably combine the "understanding of strategy/logistics" traits with "terrible tactician" and "doubtful courage."

Be that as it may, he was still an enlightened individual in a dark time. And that is where he got his admiration from.