Who is the most overrated general ever?

[Africanvs]

What are we using as the criteria to define what constitutes a general? I'm not disagreeing with your assessment of Hannibal as the most overrated, or even Caesar in the original post, however, it seems that the largest arguments against those two are in the political realm and not so much those associated with military prowess. Granted, in antiquity, political and military roles are often blurred and carried on by one person, but to say a general is overrated because of their lack of political prowess seems to be broadening the discussion to a very wide degree. For instance, most people would tend to agree Eisenhower was a superior general (at least that is how I perceive the perception of him to be), but do we discount his ability as a general because he did not shine as a president? Simply food for thought.

On Montgomery, I agree that he is overrated and think Patton summed him up well when he said, "He is more interested in not losing a war than he is in winning one." (I will disclaim the quote as probably not being verbatim)

I think the problem here is that there are no clear guide-lines to limit this conversation. I assumed that because we're in the EB forum, we are discussing commanders within the EB timeframe. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to discuss leaders such as Patton here. While some things have not changed much from antiquity to modern times, many things have.


If I had to assign a list of traits that I feel creates a complete general in antiquity, I would propose the following:

Leadership: The ability to inspire and lead men with charisma and both physical and morale courage.

Tactics: The ability to perform sound and intelligent tactical maneuvers on the field of battle.

Strategy: The ability to use terrain and complicated field maneuvers in the persuit of a given strategem, outside of battle, to present ones forces on the battlefield in a state of readiness and in a proper, and preferably superior position.

Planning The ability to develope a clear, attainable, and realistic objective and plan of attack for meeting that objective. This includes overcoming the issues of supply, and logistics as well as the ability to gain allies and remove allies from the enemy, in order to divide and conquer.




For example if we measure Alexander the Great with the previous list of traits we get the following:

Leadership: YES. Alexander posessed excellent charisma and excelled in motivating his men to fight. He had both morale and physical courage expecting no more from his men than he did from himself, oftentimes sharing every hardship with them and leading by example.

Tactics: YES. Alexander demonstrated a profound knowledge of tactics, using his army to full effect and never suffering a defeat. His knowledge of tactics can be seen clearly when he maneuvered his army off of the prepared field, removing Darius' advantage and opening gaps in his line.

Strategy: NO. Alexander was often outmaneuvered in the field by Darius, who managed to fight Alexander on his terms. Alexander's ability to overcome Darius anyway can be attributed more to his superior army and battlefield tactics, than to his field strategy.

Planning YES. Alexander had a clear plan to defeat the Persian empire. He first denied Darius the ability to receive Greek mercenary heavy infantry by siezing all of his port cities. This forced Darius to beat him in the field with inferior persian light troops, where the previous Persian wars in Greece had shown them to be inneffective against the hoplite phalanx, let alone the makedonian sarrissa phalanx. Furthermore, Alexander knew that if he could kill Darius in battle, he could claim his empire. This was a clear, attainable, and correct objective. Alexander also understood the necessity of winning the hearts and minds of the Persians he meant to rule, and the intricacies of gaining new soldiers and allies. The only problem was that due to the fact that he died with no heir, his generals fell to squabbling over the scraps of his empire, and it didn't survive his death.


Better than Yes and No, would probably be 1-10 because all Generals posess each skill to a degree but if they don't excel at it, they get a No. There are surely other traits that could be added to the list like Innovation, such as Marius's army reforms, and Scipio's anti-elephant tactics. I think a general can still do well without 1 or 2 of those traits, but they will not be what I consider a complete general. It's really sort of a pointless discussion if you think about it because all generals have to overcome unique challenges. Hannibal had to manage a diverse force that spoke many different languages and had many different fighting styles, Alexander had the benefit of being a King with absolute authority giving him an advantage, Scipio had to obey the Roman Senate and wasn't as free to make his own decisions as say Alexander and then was given permission to invade Africa, but no money. It's really an impossible question to answer. I think ultimately it comes down to who was successful and who wasn't? They all do some things very well and other things not so well, but the question of who was the most complete general will most likely never be answered.