Who is the most overrated general ever?

[Cullhwch]

Oh I fully agree on that, Hax. He was a great leader, but an unusually shitty general. I'm amazed that he held onto power after Montgisard.

[Mulceber]

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.

I'm not selling Alexander short as a general - I think that he was a brilliant tactician. I'm just saying that nowadays (and in antiquity) he is portrayed as some sort of tactical god, a superman when the defeat of the Persian Empire was well within the realm of human achievement. What he achieved was remarkable, but not quite as much as people like to believe.

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.

I didn't say they can't fight. I said that their force was primarily comprised of light infantry, which are fine when you're fighting lightly armored foes, but don't hold up very well when you're up against heavier infantry. As a (slightly exaggerated) example, think of the Incas - they built an Empire which spanned nearly half of South America. Clearly, these people knew how to fight. Yet when the Spanish arrived with guns, horses and steel armor (not to mention disease) they folded like a house of cards. I'm not saying the Persians couldn't fight, just that they had devised a type of infantry and a style of fighting that was adapted for the hills and steppes of their homeland but wasn't particularly effective against the Greek style.

As for the claim that the Greeks tended to fair just as badly on Persian soil as the Persians did on Greek soil, that's not always true: Xenophon managed to march through close to a thousand miles of Persian held territory on his return to Greece without being destroyed. The fact that the Persians didn't mount a more serious attempt to destroy this enemy force within their own borders heavily suggests that for whatever reason, they didn't think it would be to their benefit. Likely they knew that they would sustain ridiculous casualties and might even be defeated by a force which was leaving anyway.

The Persian weren't just light infantry either: their strike force was their cavalry, and they had some good infantry corps. 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.

I wasn't aware of that, but it doesn't surprise me. I wasn't trying to claim that the Persians *only* had light infantry, just that it was the majority of their force. If they had good cavalry and some heavier infantry, that helped them, but they clearly didn't use it to the same effect as Alexander did. -M

[Ludens]

I'm not selling Alexander short as a general - I think that he was a brilliant tactician. I'm just saying that nowadays (and in antiquity) he is portrayed as some sort of tactical god, a superman when the defeat of the Persian Empire was well within the realm of human achievement. What he achieved was remarkable, but not quite as much as people like to believe.

It's within the realm of human achievement, but to do it in such short time, taking the empire completely, then to march on to campaign in Bactria (just as the British/Soviets/Americans on just how difficult that is) and India. Oh, and holding together Greece and defeat the Scythians on the way. And all that in dozen or so years. That is special.

As for the claim that the Greeks tended to fair just as badly on Persian soil as the Persians did on Greek soil, that's not always true: Xenophon managed to march through close to a thousand miles of Persian held territory on his return to Greece without being destroyed. The fact that the Persians didn't mount a more serious attempt to destroy this enemy force within their own borders heavily suggests that for whatever reason, they didn't think it would be to their benefit. Likely they knew that they would sustain ridiculous casualties and might even be defeated by a force which was leaving anyway.

You've just countered your own argument. Xenophon's army was leaving. There is little point in risking battle if the enemy is already withdrawing, and the Persian king may have had more pressing concerns. Civil wars do tend to encourage all sorts of rebellion on the borders. I still maintain that the inability of the Greeks to permanently expel the Persians from Greek Ionia indicates that the Persian military was quite capable of dealing with hoplites when fighting on home-ground.

[Mulceber]

It's within the realm of human achievement, but to do it in such short time, taking the empire completely, then to march on to campaign in Bactria (just as the British/Soviets/Americans on just how difficult that is) and India.

Have you ever tried blitzing in EB? It's actually more easy to defeat them in a short amount of time because doing so prevents them from gathering their resources and rebuilding their forces.

There is little point in risking battle if the enemy is already withdrawing

Normally, you'd be correct, but when the enemy is withdrawing through your own territory, refusing to attack them makes you look weak (as it did the persians). The fact that they chose not to press the retreating Greek mercenaries indicates that they thought the loss of face was the lesser of two evils - meaning that most likely, they thought there was a pretty good chance they'd lose. -M

[Ludens]

Have you ever tried blitzing in EB? It's actually more easy to defeat them in a short amount of time because doing so prevents them from gathering their resources and rebuilding their forces.

Indeed it is, but EB is not reality. Logistics and loyalty are simplified, for one.

Normally, you'd be correct, but when the enemy is withdrawing through your own territory, refusing to attack them makes you look weak (as it did the persians). The fact that they chose not to press the retreating Greek mercenaries indicates that they thought the loss of face was the lesser of two evils - meaning that most likely, they thought there was a pretty good chance they'd lose.

Not necessarily. Like I said: a civil war would have stirred up other rebellions on the Persian border, so Artaxerxes could not waste strength. Even a successful battle will come at significant costs. Furthermore, wouldn't the Greeks retreat through Cyrus' former territory? The damage done by the retreating Greeks would be mostly to Cyrus' supporters, and that would have served Artaxerxes just fine.

Yes, I agree, it wasn't a sign of strength, but it need not necessarily mean the Persians would have lost. They may have decided it was too much risk for too little benefit: the Greeks were no serious threat anymore, Artaxerxes needed his army intact and loss of face would be small.

[Apázlinemjó]

The Greek mercenaries withdrew through Lesser Armenia and North Turkey, while Cyrus' satrapias were Lydia and Phrygia. Also, Egypt revolted against Artaxerxes, so he needed his army to try to reconquer it.

[kekailoa]

I didn't say they can't fight. I said that their force was primarily comprised of light infantry, which are fine when you're fighting lightly armored foes, but don't hold up very well when you're up against heavier infantry. As a (slightly exaggerated) example, think of the Incas - they built an Empire which spanned nearly half of South America. Clearly, these people knew how to fight. Yet when the Spanish arrived with guns, horses and steel armor (not to mention disease) they folded like a house of cards.
-M

In actuality, much of the Incas defeat to the Spanish was due more to the fact that four-fifth of their population was decimated by disease and that the Spanish, like every other successful conqueror in history, used a majority of native allies to do the fighting and only used his armored conquistadors as an elite force. And they didn't fold like a house of cards. Much of the empire, even after disease and assault, was intact and merely accepted the Spanish as their overlords.

[Vilkku92]

Spanish also betrayed most of the treaties signed with the Incas, but still the last Incas managed to survive until 18th century, and actually caused some defeats to the Spanish.

[Celtic_Punk]

Monty. His market garden fiasco butchered the red devils. He tooted his own horn constantly. Rommel was the greatest general of WW2