Who is the greatest military leader of all-time?

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Keygen

The true is than during the first 10 years of Chengis Khan's rule his empire was significantly smaller than Alexander's while I think the Mongol lands before the expantion was also larger than Macedonia was before Alexander's expantion (not sure though about the latter).

The Mongol lands probably were larger, but it's rather hard to compare. Greece was a rather urbanised society, while the Mongols were nomads. And the Mongols weren't a united tribe from the start. There were several influental ones, and a whole bunch of others.

Before the Mongols under Genghis Khan broke out and conquered the world, he first wiped out a few tribes and united the others.

[Keygen]

Originally posted by Mercator


The Mongol lands probably were larger, but it's rather hard to compare. Greece was a rather urbanised society, while the Mongols were nomads. And the Mongols weren't a united tribe from the start. There were several influental ones, and a whole bunch of others.

Before the Mongols under Genghis Khan broke out and conquered the world, he first wiped out a few tribes and united the others.

Well, in 1206 all tribes of Mongolia were under his rule. Sortly after he started his conquests. I've read somewhere that due to recruitment policies Mongols managed to build one of the largest armies of their time.

Alexander never had the rule of all Greek cities and had to keep guards fearing revolts.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
The greatest leader of all times is Adolf Hitler (self-declared).

May we never ever see the like of this paper hangar from Austria!

[Ned]

Keygen, The bit about "thousands" of elephant's says it all. Alexander's troops were indeed traumatized by their engagement with Porus. The fact that Alexander and Porus made a deal where Porus could keep his kingdom is also consistent with a draw, not a complete Macedonian victory.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Keygen
I've read somewhere that due to recruitment policies Mongols managed to build one of the largest armies of their time.

The Mongols were pretty much always vastly outnumbered. Their armies were usually comprised of one or a few tumens (units of 10,000) I believe.
IIRC, they only recruited foreigners for specialised tasks, such as the Chinese for engineering.

[Keygen]

Originally posted by Ned
Keygen, The bit about "thousands" of elephant's says it all. Alexander's troops were indeed traumatized by their engagement with Porus. The fact that Alexander and Porus made a deal where Porus could keep his kingdom is also consistent with a draw, not a complete Macedonian victory.

If Porus had the ability to defeat Alexander then all the above mentioned cities wouldn't give up their independence without fight, would they?

And traumatized or not Alexander's infantry managed to kill lot of those elaphants and their crue and cumulative with the cavalry trashed out the entire army of Porus with few casualties compared with the large casualties of Porus. Now do you really beleive that an army would trash out another army with relatively ease and then give up just like that? I don't think so.

And it doesn't explain why Alexander continued his campain to the east covering a distance of 1500 Km and conquering Indian cities the one after the other only to gift them to Porus while according to your theory Porus had practically won the war? Wouldn't be stupidity such an action?

Besides there is no sign during his career that any of his opponents ever managed to resist his pation and persistence sometimes even obsession to fight and win. He spent a year in Afghanistan giving some of his hardest battles with the dozens of tribes and fortified mountain cities and won all just to aid the king of Taxila against Porus. Does this indicate a person that would give up?

Alexander was not only an ingenius general but a very clever leader as well. He knew that he would have to return back home in the future so what better than have a loyal and capable leader guarding the distant northern India?

That was not something new to Alexander. His rule is full of paradigms like that.

[Ned]

Yeah, and the Mongols cheated! They shot rockets into Eurpoean and ME armies. (This is almost as bad as the ancient Romans firing canisters of burning oil into German ranks.)

[Ned]

Keygen, You win. It doesn't make sense for Alexander to give Porus all those cities if Porus was had not "surrendered" ala Alpha Centauri. I think Alexander must have been impressed with Porus personally leading an elephant charge.

However, I still think his troops wanted no more encounters like they one they had with Porus. The mere thought of engaging an enemy with thousands of elephants was appalling.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Ned
Keygen, The bit about "thousands" of elephant's says it all. Alexander's troops were indeed traumatized by their engagement with Porus. The fact that Alexander and Porus made a deal where Porus could keep his kingdom is also consistent with a draw, not a complete Macedonian victory.

Well as Keygen pointed out, Alexander was not a just a tactical general but a strategist. He made alliances with many cities and Kings during his conquests for strategic reasons, including those he had defeated where they were considered worthy or useful.

The war wearyness of his army at the time was understandable and its kind of a miracle he had got them to follow him that far. He was hugely charismatic.

But what gets me is Alexander is the original Captain Kirk - when he crosses through the Khyber Pass he might as well have crossed through a portal and been on another planet. It would have been understandable if they had turned tail when they came up against Porus. But for his army when they find new worlds and strange enemies with new weapons and tactics its just another day at the office for them and they win again and again.

I note also that the Mongols were on the rampage over 1500 years after Alexander had died and passed into legend.

[Ecthy]

all those guys just had good luck there was anarchy in their time-.

[Provost Harrison]

Yes, they didn't have a great deal of resistance relative to other times...could you imagine someone trying to pull something like that off now?

And Hitler ranks very poorly in my book. He was impulsive and thought he and his military were superior and invincible. If anything he took a potent advantage and pissed it away.

[loinburger]

My vote goes for either Burnsides or Pyrrhus.

[Capt Dizle]

Hitler's military was superior at the start of the war. I don't know what he pissed away. He could have won.

Of course he was a madman.

[Ned]

If the same criteria is to determine that Hitler was a madman are applied to Alexander, then Alexander was a madman.

[Alexander's Horse]

The term I would use for Alexander is psychopath.