Round 1 Napoleon vs. Alexander the Great

[Marshal Murat]

Start it off with the two heavy hitters.

I'm sure you guys can discuss this topic intelligently.
Vote.

[CountArach]

Alexander without a doubt. He went his entire life without losing a battle, Napoleon on the other hand lost plenty of them.

Also we must look at the fact that Alexander was more conservative with his men's lives.

[Tran]

Agreed with CountArach

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I've never thought as highly of Alexander as many do. Too much heroic idiot for my tastes (and yes, I realize that playacting such was part of his repetoire as a leader). His tactical leadership -- at least until he lost himself in the swordplay -- was very shrewd and he was a powerfully charismatic leader.

Napoleon proved himself not only on the battlefield, but in promulgating a useful and effective system of justice/laws and his command of engineering and logistics. His version of the attack on Russia came closer than the Wermacht to succeeding -- which was close indeed -- and was stopped by an even worse winter (the army he created to fight that campaign was stunnning).

Now, if Napoleon was the emperor and strategist and had Alexander as his strike group commander, now THAT would have been something.

[CountArach]

You know that is a good point. Napoleon did not have too many competent Marshals, whereas Alexander had tons of them.

[Louis VI the Fat]

By a slight margin, I'll have to go for Napoleon.

I think that Alexander wins as a strategist, by a narrow margin. But Napoleon has two accomplishments that give him the edge: from the son of lower nobility of little significance on a remote island, he made it to emperor of the greatest European realm since the Romans. As a self-made man he clearly trumps spoiled princeling Alexander.

And secondly: as a law-maker, he is second only to Justinian. Twice Napoleon forged himself a realm. A territorial one first, and through the Code Napoleon, a judicial one second .

[Lord Winter]

Alexander without a doubt. He went his entire life without losing a battle, Napoleon on the other hand lost plenty of them.

Also we must look at the fact that Alexander was more conservative with his men's lives

I'm not sure if this is exactly a fair commperison. Both tended to favor breaking the center in a kind of causilltys be ****ed as long as we gain a breakthrough sort of way. Nepolen lived in a era were gunpowder and canister had driven the causillities rates way up compared to the age of sowrd and spear. Both tended to used mobillity and artillary to a devestaing effect and each had thier own masterpeaces (Auslwitz for Napolean and Jumba and Gaugamela for Alexander) and each had thier failures (russia and waterlou for Nepolian and India for Alexander.) Over all I would have to say nepolean, he forged the greatest power since rome. Furthermore he did this against an alliance of first rate armies were alexander fought his enemys mostly one at a time. It is also amazing to think that neopolen forged his empire out of a choaos sickened and bankrupt france were Alexander had his army, and state in excellent order from Philliup.

[Kagemusha]

I would go with Napoleon.While both were brilliant field commanders and Alexander may have been even the better of the two.What is constantly forgotten is how great organisator Napoleon was.While Alexander was using the Macedonian army created by Philip to Glorious achievements.Napoleon created the French military machine that could challenge the whole of the Europe.

[TevashSzat]

India was not much of a failure as that his troops refused to go any further. If they did who knows how much more land Alexander could've conquered. They had been fighting for quite a time at India and everyone just wanted to settle down. Alexander's father did leave him an empire that was in a pretty good condition, but the Persian Empire was much more powerful than the Macedonians at that time.

[Kralizec]

Also we must look at the fact that Alexander was more conservative with his men's lives.

...wha? Alexander ordered his troops to march across the Arabian desert, causing more deaths than all his battles combined. And that for no other reason than that Alex was a spitefull prick.

I would go with Napoleon.While both were brilliant field commanders and Alexander may have been even the better of the two.What is constantly forgotten is how great organisator Napoleon was.While Alexander was using the Macedonian army created by Philip to Glorious achievements.Napoleon created the French military machine that could challenge the whole of the Europe.

The whole levee en masse structure was in place long before Napoleon took the reins, if it weren't the Republic would have been stomped into the ground by the Prussians after they had the insolence to decapitate Louis XVI. Napoleon was surely the most innovative general of his time, but he didn't build a military machine from scratch, and in that respect he isn't comparable to Philip II of Macedon.

Since this poll seems to be about military genius, I'll have to disregard Napoleons statemanship, but I still chose him because he went against armies fighting in a manner largely similar to his own (and more disciplined) and often led by reputable generals. I don't mean to imply that Darius was an imbicile in any respect, but he fell short of Alexanders stature by a significant margin and he didn't have a large body of well-drilled troops that the Macedonians did.

[Stig]

Can't really compare the two, different times, different armies, different ways of battling.


But Napoleon would have won, guns beat phalanx

[Rodion Romanovich]

Difficult choice between two great offensive generals who - in the end - achieved almost nothing except for turning huge regions into pure political mess after their deaths. Both also had many of their advantages for free: Napoleon had a strong economy, a large population and his troops were soldiers with excellent morale and confidence gained from the French revolution and its ideologies. Alexander had a flexible yet amazingly strong infantry introduced by his father, and a still strong casus belli against the Persian invasion, and good timing in that the Persian empire was already in decline when he attacked. I vote Alexander, because unlike Napoleon he didn't overextend dramatically. Alexander instead made the mistake of conquering Babylon and gaining the curse of Marduk mwahahaha

[ShadesWolf]

Alexander the Great for me,
just look at what he achieved and the size of the empire he created.

[Conradus]

Thiw was the hardest choice in the polls. Napoleon and Alexander are both generals I admire and arguably the best of their time.

I went for Alexander because his Persian Empire conquering campaign was still more epic than Napoleons wars imo. And I can't forget Napoleon senseless invasion of Egypt and the loss of his Grande Armée

[MilesGregarius]

You know that is a good point. Napoleon did not have too many competent Marshals, whereas Alexander had tons of them.

Huh?

Davout, Lannes, and Massena compare well to just about any of Alexander's subordinates, and even the likes of Ney and Murat, for all their faults, were capable and worthy lieutenants. And lesser lights like Soult, Suchet, and MacDonald may not have been geniuses, but they were certainly competent.

[Mount Suribachi]

What was it Dostoevsky said? "Napoleon can storm Toulon, stage a massacre in Paris, forget about an army in Egypt, throw away half a million men in the Moscow expidition and then get away with a witty phrase in Vilna"

Alexander.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Alexander had the advantage of the phalanx formations, whereas Napoleon had no technological advantage over his enemies. Napoleon was also better at managing an empire.

CR

[Kavhan Isbul]

We are voting for generals, not rulers, so my vote goes to Alexander.

[Marquis of Roland]

Alexander without a doubt. He went his entire life without losing a battle, Napoleon on the other hand lost plenty of them.

Also we must look at the fact that Alexander was more conservative with his men's lives.

I want to point out that before Napoleon became emperor, and consequently given a blank check on French manpower, he was just as conservative with his men as Alexander was (example: Napoleon's first campaign as commander of the Army of Italy). So when both generals had the constraint of limited manpower to consider, they were both conservative.

Napoleon's tactics during the Italian campaign was also different than the tactics he used later on in that he emphasized more maneuver and surprise rather than pure shock offensive power.

[Conradus]

I want to point out that before Napoleon became emperor, and consequently given a blank check on French manpower, he was just as conservative with his men as Alexander was (example: Napoleon's first campaign as commander of the Army of Italy). So when both generals had the constraint of limited manpower to consider, they were both conservative.

Though Napoleon was pretty conservative with his men in his Italian campaigns, he threw away an entire expedition force in Egypt, before he even became first consul. Not that Alexander regarded his men better when leading them into India or through the desert, but he didn't abandon them alltogether.

[Lorenzo_H]

Even though Napoleon won more battles than Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Julius Caeser his character disgusts me. I voted Alexander.

[IrishArmenian]

I vote for the diminutive Corsican. If it weren't for Alexander, however, Napoleon wouldn't have gotten the fame he now has.
Alexander showed the world that disciplined troops, who follow the orders of intelligent (that is a big if, mind you) and adaptable commander can rarely be defeated. This was proven by the Spartan soldiers earlier, the Roman Empire and the Swiss pike blocks, who defeated their technologically and numerically superior invaders with nay but sharp sticks.
Napoleon based his campaign off of discipline. The only thing that could defeat discipline was the inability to enforce it, which was why the Russian strategy to defeat him was so ingenious (although seemingly inhumane).

[CountArach]

...wha? Alexander ordered his troops to march across the Arabian desert, causing more deaths than all his battles combined. And that for no other reason than that Alex was a spitefull prick.

I meant on a tactical level.

Though this just matches up with Napoleon's march on Russia, so no one gains points there.

Napoleon's tactics during the Italian campaign was also different than the tactics he used later on in that he emphasized more maneuver and surprise rather than pure shock offensive power.

Can't remember the battle (May look it up later), but during that campaign he wasted several thousand lives just to keep his enemy in place whilst he waited for his surprise army. A better general would have found some other way.

[Spino]

Speaking in terms of strategic and operational level abilities the advantage goes to Napoleon whose stunning victories were won mainly because of his extraordinary grasp of the 'bigger picture' and its effects on the events leading up to and including the battle itself. Napoleon's ability to maintain the initiative even when reacting to his enemies' movements speaks volumes about his talent for anticipating and discovering his opponents' intentions and examining any and all avenues which would allow their exploitation. True, there were times when Napoleon's ego and stubborness exceeded his genius and clouded his vision and the results were positively disastrous (i.e. Spain & Russia). However when Napoleon was unfettered by concerns of ego or state he was devilishly difficult to beat. Alexander's strategic abilities were certainly top notch but he also had his fair share of missteps and to my knowledge, never once won a major battle by forcing his enemy into fighting from an unfavorable position or surrendering outright (i.e. Napoleon's dramatic drive behind Mack's positon during the Ulm campaign of 1804/05).

Tactically speaking I have to give the advantage to Alexander. Alexander's ability to 'think outside the box' on matters concerning battles and sieges was one of his greatest strengths. His incredibly unorthodox oblique formation and accompanying cavalry feint at Gaugamela was about as revolutionary as it gets. Furthermore Alexander was one of the few generals in history to utilize the pike phalanx to its fullest and treat it as a complimentary arm to heavy cavalry and not the decisive arm. Napoleon was certainly no dim bulb when it came to tactical matters but his performance and leadership in this arena varied a great deal from battle to battle (contrast Austerlitz to Waterloo or worse, Borodino). Napoleon also did little to improve upon the existing column, line & square formations of the day, let alone revolutionize the battlefield in the same way Alexander did. Napoleon simply accepted the methods of warfare of his era and did little to circumvent its limitations. When presented with the same tactical scenarios Napoleon faced at Borodino or even Waterloo I seriously doubt Alexander would have allowed his ego and/or stubborness to cloud his judgment and waste his troops using the same meatgrinder tactics.

Looking purely at their respective records Alexander never knew defeat, a point the pro-Alexander crowd always brings up when drawing comparisons to other great generals throughout history. This is a valid point but we must keep in mind that Alexander had a crack military machine that he used effectively against numerically superior opponents whose military cultures generally emphasized quantity over quality and lacked any kind of meaningful or effective command control (i.e. effective & reliable officers). This is not meant as a slight against Alexander but only once did he face an opponent whose 'unique' forces (i.e. Porus) seriously challenged his genius and experienced army, and even then he managed to acheive yet another lopsided victory. Napoleon also possessed a crack military machine... which had the great misfortune of facing similarly armed and trained opponents whose respective military cultures mirrored France's in that they also emphasized quality over quantity. Whatever the strengths of Napoleon and France's post-revolutionary meritocratic military machine he rarely ever fought from a position of absolute qualitative (or numerical) supremacy. When combined France's enemies possessed far greater wealth, manpower and materials than her own, a reality made painfully apparent especially when one factors in the constant attrition in Spain and the massive losses sustained during the Russian campaign. So despite the incredible odds Alexander faced I think the odds facing Napoleon were, when adjusted for those factors I mentioned, slightly more difficult. Yes, Alexander won and Napoleon lost but it took the combined forces of the latter's arrogance, ego and the combined forces of his European rivals to bring him down.

Overall I'd have to grant the advantage to Napoleon, perhaps in no small part due to the fact that he repeatedly demonstrated he was the more complete general of the two. Napoleon's inability to control his ego may have been his undoing but his proven talent for securing strategic victories as well as his contributions to government, law, etc. give him the edge over Alexander. One thing for certain is that Napoleon's legacy in those areas was far more 'personalized' than Alexander's in that his actions directly molded post-revolution France and Europe. Alexander was a proven commodity on the battlefield but spread Hellenism simply by nature of his conquests. Everywhere Alexander travelled he did little to add his own creative spin to the Hellenic equation. Although in fairness to Alexander we'll never know how good a ruler he would have been since he spent virtually all of his adult life fighting from a saddle.

[Suraknar]

I would say equal. (there is no equal choice for the vote - so no vote).

I say equal from two angles, first is of cource the angle of context, within their respective context they both display equal talent for the type of war they had to do and with the means avalable to do it.

Second from a tactical point of view they were both masters of timing and execution. They knew what to commit and when to commit it, wither it was in offensive, defensive or reactionary maneuvers they both kept the initiative on their side.

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

I voted Alexander, because i think that LUCK is part of a men`s destiny....
Alexander had plenty of luck...

Napoleon did not have at all.

[Suraknar]

I voted Alexander, because i think that LUCK is part of a men`s destiny....
Alexander had plenty of luck...

Napoleon did not have at all.

That is true, luck is part of it all aswell.

[Slug For A Butt]

@CountArach. Does this make Alexander unique?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefea...s#Eastern_Asia

My heart goes with Alexander, but my head goes with Boney. I just feel that Alexander was a one trick pony really... hammer and anvil with great cavalry and phalanx that he inherited. Although both were similar commanders I feel, I think that Napoleon was more flexible.
But Boney is going to struggle when he comes up against one of the big guns like Caesar, Hannibal or Genghis.