Summer Campaign-Medieval Bracket

[Orb]

Seriously lacking:

Robert Guiscard and Roger of Sicily, both, in my opinion, much better generals and politicians than William the 'Conqueror', who was defeated by his own son (Curthose) in Normandy. Alexius (Byzantine emperor) was 'terrified of the Duke (Guiscard)' and even payed the Holy Roman Emperor to invade Rome to try and take Guiscard out of the war (Guiscard did, in fact, defeat the Holy Roman Emperor, but his son, after several victories, was eventually defeated by Alexius).

Duqaq of Damascus for a leader? Where is Alfred the Great? Where is Bohemond, who essentially forced through the First Crusade (and also inflicted the aforementioned defeats on Alexius before one error)?

How about the first 'Norman' leader (is it Rollo), who managed to get the French king to give away a large amount of his territory?

:(

Too much movie-choice :(

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I agree. William of Normandy was never a serious contender for me. He had the advantage of taking on Harold when Harold was in the midst of a dynastic squabble/viking invasion. Harold then turned around and got back down to the South in time to come within an ace of besting (or forcing a draw and possible retreat on) William at Hastings.

That represents good strategic planning on William's part -- he had the timing almost perfect -- but tactically it was not so much of a much.

[Marshal Murat]

Were the asked for?

Ah, I see them now.

Sorry to those who were hoping for El Cid, a Grevious error on my part. Next round some more generals will be thrown into the mix.

[Furious Mental]

Well aside from the fact that winning at Hastings took intelligent leadership even in spite of Harold Godwinson having made the mistake of marching south too fast, during his lifetime William the Bastard went from being a duke with negligible authority, to a duke with extremely strong authority, to being king of the most advanced state in Latin Christendom. He didn't achieve this by luck- it was only possible because he excelled at the style of warfare which was typical in that era, especially of private conflict.

[AggonyDuck]

Gah! How come one of Khalud ibn al-Walid, one of the best generals of this bracket is actually losing to the likes of Barbarossa and Richard the Lionheart? Please do show me anything that they did that would rival the battle of Walaja or the conquest of Iraq and Syria in three years.

[Orb]

Gah! How come one of Khalud ibn al-Walid, one of the best generals of this bracket is actually losing to the likes of Barbarossa and Richard the Lionheart? Please do show me anything that they did that would rival the battle of Walaja or the conquest of Iraq and Syria in three years.

They managed to get better press in the Western World later.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well aside from the fact that winning at Hastings took intelligent leadership even in spite of Harold Godwinson having made the mistake of marching south too fast, during his lifetime William the Bastard went from being a duke with negligible authority, to a duke with extremely strong authority, to being king of the most advanced state in Latin Christendom. He didn't achieve this by luck- it was only possible because he excelled at the style of warfare which was typical in that era, especially of private conflict.

True enough, but my read of the histories doesn't show much in the way of tactical brilliance on his part at all. Competent probably, but not the artist some of the others on the list are.

To his credit, he was a wonderful politician and excellent strategist. He created conditions where he had the advantage going in -- a not unimportant skill. His pacification of England was stolidly effective and almost unstoppable once set into motion. I just don't know that I'd rate it as good Generaling.

[Furious Mental]

Well I don't see how these qualities can really be separated. It seems that modern observers often assess medieval leaders out of context. Nowadays we have a clear division between political leaders, strategic leaders and tactical leaders. Simple fact is that that division did not exist in William I's time. A leader was either good at war or bad at it. William I was exceptionally good at it although not in the same sense as others. The same thing can be said about other leaders on there. Why was Bertrand du Guesclin so effective? In large part because as an ex-routier he knew how best to assemble the free companies into a fighting force for the French crown or its allies rather than against it. To take the example of another famous figure in English history, one can equally well point out that for all his tactical successes the Black Prince was, in the final analysis, essentially a failure in terms of war leadership. He threw away the fruits of numerous brilliantly executed English victories, including his own at Poitiers and Najera, because he was a poor diplomat, a poor judge of other men, and in general had a very narrow and simple conception of geopolitics.
- Thanks, it would seem, to a personal dislike of the man, he did nothing to help his Castilian ally Pedro the Cruel resist the Franco-Aragonese effort to install the pretender Henry Trastamara, being so lazy as to not even bother making a token effort to stop English and Gascon captains join du Guesclin's proxy army, the Gente Blanca.
- As a consequence when he did help Pedro the Cruel he had no choice but to raise another large army at enormous cost to himself, in the very much false belief that Pedro intended to ultimately pay for the war.
- This left him in a mountain of debt which made him totally unable (and unwilling) to stop Henry Trastamara invading Castile yet again and putting Pedro's reign (and life) very much to an end.
- More importantly, in conjunction with his refusal to substantially cut down the costs of his extravagant household, it forced him to levy harsh taxes on Aquitaine in contradiction of ancient charters and liberties, which precipitated the appeal of numerous nobles and communities in territories ceded under the Treaty of Bretigny to Charles V, i.e. provided the casus belli for the French reoccupation of much of English Aquitaine, which being bankrupt and invalid he was unable to seriously resist.
- Unlike his father (who was still far too lazy in dealing with them) the Black Prince had absolutely no conception of the damage which the free companies were doing to the interests of Edward III and himself, that is, that by wreaking havoc in France they prevented the French crown raising the money to pay for John II's ransom, made the French political community implacably opposed to fulfilling the Treaty of Bretigny generally, created lasting hatred of the Anglo-Gascons in many areas ceded to him (which were the first to rebel against him when hostilities recommenced), and provided the impetus for the French diverting the taille to military expenditure (which was the financial basis for their successful invasion of Aquitaine in the 1370's).

In these respects he was not unique. All the other English leaders of his time had a limited strategy, that is, they marched all over France destroying as much as they could in the hope of terrorising the French body politic into handing over the French crown, or at least submitting to a favourable political settlement. This method could have been successful since it did ultimately gain them the extremely favourable Treaty of Bretigny. Unfortunately for them their limited strategic vision left them unable to really understand how seriously their own subjects, subordinates or even they themselves were sabotaging the treaty, and when it did become a dead letter they showed themselves incapable of coming up with a strategy to replace the chevauchee, which had already been showing its age in 1359. However the Black Prince was clearly the most inept of them- Edward III, John Chandos and Henry de Grosmont at least made some (totally inadequate) efforts to make the treaty function. I guess this all depends on whether or not we are measuring success in terms of how many people a leader killed or how well they advanced the interests of their state. Personally I view William I as a better war leader than the Black Prince because both of them essentially determined their fate through war, but when William I died he had gained the English crown and left it in a stronger position than when he took it, whereas when the Black Prince died he was bankrupt and much of his domain would soon be French, and much of the blame for that can be laid squarely at his own doorstep. Yet clearly I am in the minority and I suspect it is because most people concentrate on how the Black Prince succeeded at Poitiers and Najera rather than how he (although by no means single-handedly) rendered them both totally futile.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Bit of a judgement call Furious.

The Black Prince, and much of the leadership of the English in that stretch, were -- at best -- a bit limited in strategic vision.

I guess the point of departure is where you draw the line between military strategy and political leadership. I choose to draw it by placing the large scale movements/training/logistics/theme of a campaign as "strategy," while viewing diplomatic negotiations & manipulation/trade agreements/cultural conversion efforts as "political" leadership (and not in consideration for me in this contest). If you draw that line differently, you could end up with an entirely different POV.

I didn't vote for Edward either, seeing in him some of the limitations I also ascribe to Hannibal Barca.