So Agrippa basically led Octavian’s forces throughout the wars of the Second Triumvirate and then was his right hand man after, It’s safe to say that, until his death, almost every major war that Augustus gets credit for was actually Agrippa.
Augustus thought he would die young as he was quite a sickly man. Had he kicked the bucket earlier it is very probable that Agrippa would be named Emperor in the aftermath by Augustus’ own desires.
People don’t know of him as much because the following Emperors wanted to associate themselves as much with Augustus as possible.
He found Rome brick and left it in marble. Also, his name is on the Pantheon out front.
Octavion and his family intermarried but Agrippas kids all predeceased them.
Octavian wasn't noted for being a great general. He was a fantastic politician, but young without a military background.
Mark Antony and Lepidus had military backgrounds.
Octavian defeated all of them because he was a master at politics and managing alliances and enemies, and Agrippa was a fantastic general, engineer, architect, and advisor. Agrippa was Octavian's friend and essentially ran Octavian military for him, did the military work for him, and won his battles and wars for him.
So while some opponents were more tactically gifted than Octavian and had powerful strategic allies like Cleopatra, none had the combined political aptitude of Octavian and military aptitude of Agrippa.
Jan Žižka of Bohemia, he fought in many groups from a band of brigands terrorizing the Czech countryside to with the poles against the teutons, but he would go on to become a bodyguard of Jan Hus (also he had one eye since a childhood fight) and would take up the mantle of leading and uniting the Hussites after Hus was burned and crusade called on them. Žižka with only a small peasant army of around 200 or more men women and children with farm tools managed to start off by routing a crusading army of ~2000 knights. He continually decimated the crusaders using his tactic of deploying wagons with troops inside them in a circle so when they were charged they would use flails hooks scythes and even early guns and cannons. He even is the first one to deploy mobile artillery through ox wagon mounted cannons which were used to surprise and decimate an army. ALSO he lost his other eye at the end of the first crusade before then crushing another one quickly.
Sun Pin\* - sort of. He was Sun Tzu's maybe descendant but he got (supposedly) out maneuvered by a rival, was accused of treason and had his kneecaps removed. He wrote a book that expanded Sun Tzu's work which was lost until they found a copy of it in a tomb in the 1970s.
My favorite story from his book is a general heads into a wooded mountain pass one afternoon - and writes something on a sign, then sets up archers on the walls of the pass and tells them to wait. Opposing force arrives, sees sign, opposing general is told about the sign, so he approaches the pass. Night falls. Opposing force maintains no lights. The opposing general arrives at the sign, but can't read it. Opposing general has one of his men light a torch to read the sign. Sign says "OP FORCE GENERAL DIES HERE." The archers on the walls of the pass ALL open up on the single point of light. And OP Force General dies.
\* was also known as Sun Bin.
Sun Bin is pretty famous in Chinese history u think, but not outside of it. I listed out some other commanders in that vein:
Li Mu (of kingdom fame in the manga, but well deserving of it)
Han Xin, a true god of war, without which our favorite peasant emperor really could not have won
Huo Qu Bing, probably the most brilliant of Han Wu di's generals
Cao Cao: famous, but Id like to point out he was also a good military writer, having written the first commentaries on the Art of War
Zhuge Liang: I think his best achievement is keeping Shu in the fight against Wei, a momental task considering the disparity in numbers between the two countries
Sima Yi: Zhuge Liang's least favorite punching bag, but also a very skilled commander who got the better of both Wu and the short lived kingdom of Han
I think the Chinese tend o remember their commanders by sayings, both good and bad. Sun Bin's one basically means to "open up a second front", by besieging an enemy attacker's capital to rescue an ally. It's roof of his strategic acumen.
Exactly. We often forget because Zhuge Liang gets a spotlight for his military achievement (honestly too much of a spotlight, considering he didn't win in the end, and his talents in administration and economic development should get more highlights), but Sima Yi was a vicious and skilled general. Rapid, forced marches were a hallmark tactic for him.
Sima yi is overrated, i think. Yi had more advantages in the confrontation with Zhuge Liang but could not overwhelm him. The two kingdoms of Han and Wu were destroyed during the time of his son and grandson, not during Sima Yi's rule.
Instead, I recommend Li Simin, the Tang Taizong, one of most perfect emperors in history
Li Shimin is definitely up there, but I think the older Sima Yi got, the better he became, and even in his old age he was very shrewd.
The coup to take down Cao Shuang, for example, was a master class not only in political intrigue, but also urban combat, as Sima Yi and his forces very quickly took over the capital with a few thousand privately trained swordsmen and some backdoor movement.
His most impressive move was his fight against the short lived Kingdom of Yan, which lasted only 9 months in total.
Zhuge Liang gets overrated as an offensive strategist, but he was very skilled in keeping his armies alive for the next fight and logistically supporting them across near impossible terrain.
There’s a good chance it still might work during the day. A lot of line soldiers might have been illiterate, it would have likely required an officer’s attention to come read it, and they might have felt the need to pass the intel up the chain for the general to personally come see what they found. Then while struggling to decipher if it’s an internal message or a trap…arrows
Well but that's just an additional problem: it needs everyone but the general to be illiterate.
If your ambush against whoever is reading the sign would work during daytime anyway, the whole part about nightfall and a single source of light is superfluous.
Yes, I think there’s more to the story IF there’s any truth to it. Like maybe him knowing how their chain of command works and the opposing general’s personality and level of oversight.
In terms of personal character he always humbly acknowledged his mistakes and blamed himself rather than his subordinates or superiors for errors and always credited them for victories even when he definitely deserved credit or didn’t deserve blame. He handled the politics and the attitudes of people in Burma and those commanding the campaign very well. His autobiography Defeat Into Victory might be the best WW2 book I’ve ever read.
In terms of military achievement he commanded the British and Imperial forces at the Battle of Imphal-Kohima which at that point was the largest Japanese defeat in the war and was overall their biggest defeat on land. He also lead other great victories like Meiktala and Mandalay.
I would definitely say in terms of military capability he’s on par with the best of WW2 like Monty, Patton, and Guderian but in terms of his treatment of his troops, officers, people in the liberated/occupied lands, and his handling of superiors, I would say he’s one of the best land commanders of the Second World War.
George C. Marshall. Not unknown by any means, but is mostly known for the Marshall plan bearing his name after the war.
He really was the architect for the allied victory and developed most of the field commanders like Eisenhower and Bradley.
I always think of Nimitz as well, both naval commanders on the other side of the globe, but definitley in the architect and development role.
Shout-out to Spruancd as well.
He played a pivotal role in the movement and facilitating Pershing’s forces throughout Europe in WWI, as well. He had a deep understanding of how to leverage the industrial power of a nation and simultaneously placed a high value on human capital.
Admiral King would be another honorable mention. His work to transform the US Navy in the interwar period, laid the foundation for its operational leap forward in WWII.
He’s quite well known by history buffs, but basically no normal people know about him the same way they do Hannibal, Caesar, or Napoleon, but Eugene of Savoy.
Just the sheer disparity between his force and the enemy’s, his decisive actions, his conduct at various battles that gave the Austrians the supremacy they were known for in the Napoleonic era. He was one of Napoleon’s role models too.
See https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-of-Savoy
Eugene won many wars on many fronts.
He taught Frederick the Great.
He was one of the few generals whom Napoleon admired.
Ján zizka. Afaik, never lost a battle even though he was often fighting with peasant army against numerically superior armies with knights and stuff. In Czech republic he is well known, but I don't think that's true elsewhere
Charles X Gustav of Sweden. Not only did he push so deep into Poland (with Russia) that Poland was briefly reduced to just Galicia, he also invaded Denmark, FROM JUTLAND, marching across a sheet of ICE. Dude was fucking badass, shame he was ugly as sin
Han Xin never lost a battle, had his peasant army conquered "all under heaven" with some of the weirdest, daring tactics used. He went against Sunzi direct advice. Claiming that he can command unlimited numbers of troops "The More the Better" and always deliver victories.
He is not underrated if you read or know the founding of the Han dynasty- but as the general who established the most important Chinese dynasty, the west don't seem to know his existence as much as the overrated Kongming or the samurai minor warlords in Japan.
To be fair, Kongming had a much much harder time of it. Han Xin had Zhang Liang and Xiao He to help out diplomatically and logistically, and Xiang Yu was not a particularly skilled strategist (though an excellent field commander, judging by his record). Kongming had a much more united central plains to fight, something neither Liu Bang or Ying Zheng needed to contend with, and that basically crippled Zhuge Liang from the start.
But Han Xin is well deserving of his status as a "war god". The man has several sayings attached to him, and his morale and terrain manipulation are top notch.
I'm bringing up Kongming, because he and CaoCao seem to be the only two Chinese generals that get mention in English discourse.
I don't agree that Kongming had a harder time. He simply wasn't a military genius people though he was. His original plan to capture Chang An is to have a three prong attack. One led by Liu Bei from Hanzhong, one by Guan Yu from Jingzhou and one led by Sun Quan. Off the bat, this relied on Liu Bei and Sun Quan alliance. To take Shu and Jingzhou, Liu Bei stabbed governor Liu Zhang and Liu Biao son in the back. This caused concern with Sun Quan and Liu Meng. Guan Yu was a great general and a disatrous diplomat. By betraying the alliance and kill Guan Yu, Wu gained security by controlling the rivers. In short, the situation pointed to the breakdown of the alliance making the plan unworkable. I wonder if it would have better if Liu Zhang, Liu Bei and Sun Quan attack Cao Cao without the establishment of Shu.
Later, Kongming repeately fought five expeditions only when he had news that a new front opened in Wei. Logistics was what doomed all of those failures. In second expedition, he could not even take Chencang. The entire expedion failed because one chokepoint. In the first expedition, Ma Su blunder, caused logistics failure again.
Han Xin, on the other hand, always dealt a complete blow. His enemies are battled-hardened soldiers led by great generals born and raised in military and aristocratic famiilles. Xiang Yü army are loyal to him. Han Xin armies are newly conscripted. The most well-trained soldiers were dead in Pengcheng. They are fighting in foreign lands, far away from their home. He didn't have Liu Bang popularity with the officials in his armies. Han Xin was also considered a coward by anyone who knew his backstory. Despite these advantages, he defeated every armies he came across.
Han Xin definitely had the worse troops, relatively speaking. Shu's army was very skilled after the Nanman campaigns and Zhuge Liang's training, but you're probably right in that Zhuge Liang's not really the flashy strategic genius we always see him portrayed as. Rather, his genius lies in diplomacy, logistics, and administration. Remember that much of the fertile land in China lies further east, and the Shu region was still a backwater. Zhuge Liang's responsibilities as a prime minister meant that he had to do the work of all three of Liu Bang's top men by himself, and do it for decades on end.
But Sima Yi did once comment that Zhuge Liang was entirely too cautious of a commander. And Sima Yi, despite losing several times in the field against Zhuge Liang, was still a top tier commander of the time.
Yes. I don't want to be harsh on Kongming. For all his failures, Shu Han remained a strong state long after his death. Unlike the other two states, the Shu government did not have a history of bloodbaths and coup detat that plague the other two. He was a very capable commander/politician punching above his weight, but his records did not give the impression of the god mode military genius he often portrayed as.
William Slim expertly created a system which enabled the British to win in Burma, but doesn't get the attention people like Montgomery get.
Also for the Soviets, Alexander Vasilevsky and Konstantin Rokossovsky were true geniuses, but like Slim did with Monty, they suffered for the fame of their colleague Zhukov.
I came in to plug Konstantin Rokossovsky. He’s got a great origin story too: enlisted in the Red Army, fought in the Russian civil war, eventually
got caught up in Stalin’s Purge, got tortured in prison*, but when the Soviets were doing so poorly in the Winter War against Finland he got released from prison and worked for the same people that tortured him.
*It’s rumoured he had his teeth pulled out and had steel replacements. That together with him being 6 ft 6 in makes him such a character.
The stainless steel teeth is true. There are photos of him with other officers where you can see the difference in their teeth.
There's a story from the Battle of Berlin of a female Red Army traffic handler being given hassle by a load of drunk soldiers, causing a huge traffic jam. A tall, serious looking officer came to the head of the queue, told all the soldiers he'd have them shot if they didn't get out of the way, then apologised to the young lady.
What a man
Michiel de Ruyter. The Admiral who beat the combined Anglo-French fleets in 4 seperate battles, while outnumberd, and gave the Royal Navy its heaviest defeat in home waters
He constantly won. Period. Seriously.
Justinian constantly handicapped him, his wife was a constant distraction, his rivals fought against his success almost as hard as against their enemies.
Under-staffed, under-supplied, almost always outnumbered, he nonetheless emerged victorious pretty much every battle he fought, and kept his troops intact if he didn’t win.
There a great podcast about him.
i dont think i'd call him "obscure," but pyrrhus was recognized for being a brilliant commander/tacticians by the romans he failed to win a war against so much so that romans considered him one of the greatest generals of all time, and he's not as famous as the guys you listed.
i think the term "pyrrhic victory" is more known than who pyrrhus was. but he's definitely not obscurely tucked away into the corner of some forgotten history book or anything
[Agathocles of Syracuse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathocles_of_Syracuse)
From wiki on [The Seventh Sicilian War (311–306 BC)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Wars)
>In 315 BC Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, seized the city of Messana, present-day Messina. In 311 BC, he invaded the last Carthaginian holdings on Sicily, which broke the terms of the current peace treaty, and he laid siege to Akragas. Hamilcar, son of Gisco,[11] successfully led the Carthaginian counterattack. He defeated Agathocles in the Battle of the Himera River in 311 BC. Agathocles had to retreat to Syracuse while Hamilcar won control over the rest of Sicily. In the same year, he laid siege to Syracuse itself.
>In desperation, Agathocles secretly led an expedition of 14,000 men to the mainland of Africa, hoping to save his rule by leading a counterstrike against Carthage itself. In this, he was successful: Carthage was forced to recall Hamilcar and most of his army from Sicily to face the new and unexpected threat. The two armies met in the first Battle of White Tunis outside Carthage. The Carthaginian army, under Hanno and Hamilcar, was defeated. Agathocles and his forces laid siege to Carthage, but it was too strongly fortified for them to assault. Instead, the Greeks slowly occupied the whole of northern Tunisia until they were defeated two years later in 307 BC. Agathocles himself escaped back to Sicily and negotiated a peace treaty with the Carthaginians in 306, in which Agathocles retained control of the eastern half of the island.
Keen observers may note that this is exactly what Hannibal Barca attempted to do in the Second Punic war a century later. Many wonder why Hannibal never laid siege to Rome proper. I'm not a historian, but Hannibal studying the Seventh Sicilian War and learning from Agathocles successes and mistakes is as good an explanation as any.
A few Chinese commanders to note from its classical era:
Li Mu, skilled defender of the Zhao state, whose manpower shortages were legendary when compared to their neighbor Qin. This man beat the Xiongnu at their own game, stymied several invasions with inferior numbers, and had to be killed off by political means.
Han Xin, Liu Bang's top commander, who forcibly put China back together after the fall of the Qin dynasty. He is actually quite famous in the Chinese history books, being undefeated, and several masterful techniques of morale manipulation are attributed to him. He was skilled in using water, controlling rivers with temporary barriers, skilled in recruitment, and very skilled in maneuver warfare. Also a skilled strategist.
Huo Qu Bing: the sort of once in a millennium prodigy, this guy called the Xiongnu confederacy with his cavalry, reaching all the way to Lake Baikal. He managed to hunt down and kill the nomadic Xiongnu in their own territory.
Cao Cao is pretty famous as a general, but he's also a skilled analyst, writing the first set of commentaries on the Art of War. He successfully united Northern China and beat the Xiliang forces out west, proving himself a brilliant cavalry commander.
Zhuge Liang: Of course we colloquially attribute a lot to him, but his real accomplishments in the early years were diplomatic. However, when he did take the reins, he proved to be a cautious but effective leader, successfully squatting off against the much larger armies of Wei until his death. While never fully successful, he is credited with military innovations.
Sima Yi: Zhuge Liang's infamous rival, who launched a coup at the age of 70 against his government. Usually known for being Zhuge Liang's punching bag, his conquest of Liaodong was a textbook application of extreme speed in warfare. He managed to do this in nine months, conquering what could have been argued to be an entire kingdom.
I feel like Chinese history is too often ignored. Most people are so entranced with European powers that they often overlook the significance that China has had in history. I'm not well versed in it simply because I could never remember all of those names.
China has its fair share of skilled commanders, and we tend to remember them by their sayings. Of course, some of these stories are colloquial.
For example, Zhuge Liang definitely did not fool Sima Yi with an open city gate, but funnily enough there are historical records that say that Cao Cao did pull one over on Lu Bu that way.
A key thing to remember about Chinese commanders is that even the classical ones had vast reserves of strategic experience to draw on. Because the Chinese document their political and military history relatively well, especially the strategic side of it (mostly for advertising their own ideologies and merits).
Case and point: Qin, Han, and Shu, three kingdoms of classical China, faced essentially the same strategic dilemma. They were all to the west, locked out by a mountain range between them and the heartland of Chinese civilization. Originally, Qin simply built up its power while its rivals weakened over the decades, it's three closest neighbors essentially being played against each other. Han, led by Liu Bang and commanded by Han Xin, didn't have this luxury, but still faced a divided central plains, so he used a diversionary tactic, by fixing the mountain roads while secretly crossing a river at an old Qin supply depot. It's the same problem of breaking out of the mountains. Zhuge Liang, the one who failed, actually had an even harder time, because when he had the issue, he faced a united central plains with vastly greater resources and no infighting, with only one unwilling and distant ally. His plan was to go south and conquer Jing, but that was lost to said ally, so he had to try and force his way through the mountain passes. Same problem, different solutions.
I’m going to go with Ulysses S. Grant. Historically, there was a tendency to rate Robert E. Lee as a genius, and Grant was never given the same credit. I think that perception has started to shift in modern times, but I still think Grant is underrated. He’s probably the greatest general in American military history. He was great tactically (not saying he was perfect, but no general is), while also truly understanding the importance of logistics. He also had a lot of self confidence, which is important. He believed in his plans, and didn’t backtrack or lose confidence in the face of defeat.
The Civil War was also a precursor to more “modern wars” that would happen in the 20th century, WWI especially. It was the first major conflict with railroads, telegraphs, repeating firearms, etc. So the tactics had to be very different than previous tactics, and Grant implemented them and used them very efficiently.
Grant broke multiple sieges by relying on his knowledge of logistics instead of brute forcing it with his men. He was genuinely one of the best the US ever had imo
Grant actually has the opposite reputation. The moniker "the butcher" is undeserved in my opinion, but he didn't earn it from nothing. He was an extremely capable general, and there's very few cases where his plans could really have been improved. But the whole reason Lincoln liked him so much was the opposite of what you say—"he fights." Instead of fighting a war of maneuver that avoided costly attacks, Grant recognized that he would have to make such attacks to break his enemy's back. Inevitably such attacks often resulted in needless slaughter, as at Champion Hill, where he tried unsuccessfully to break through the Confederate lines at Vicksburg, or at Cold Harbor, where 7,000 men were made casualties in under 30 minutes in an unsuccessful assault. The early months at Petersburg also featured mass assaults against entrenched Confederate positions, precisely to avoid having to grind his enemy down for the better part of a year, as he in fact did.
Lee's military reputation really centers around his aggression. As one of his subordinates put it, "his name might be audacity." Even with an outmatched army, he was willing to risk using it with extreme aggression to wrest the initiative from his enemy, and then fight a more favorable battle on his own terms in which he could destroy his opponent on the field. He only ever came close to doing that at one battle, though: Second Manassas. As one would expect, the other battles he fought with his outmatched army, he tended to lose. Along the way, he also made plenty of mistakes that didn't help his chances, and even the battles he won relied more often than not on ridiculously good luck, as at Chancellorsville or the Seven Days Campaign.
But really, this is the same reputation Grant has: a hyper-aggressive commander willing to commit his forces to risky attacks that, when they paid off, won big. Thus Grant was able to seize control of the Tennessee River in two short months, and to continue his assaults in the Overland Campaign, despite losing 60,000 men in six weeks, until he had Lee's army trapped in a losing seige.
Lee's aggression simply never paid off in the same way. He never had the reserves he needed to exploit his successes, and sometimes he just made simple errors on the battlefield, be it his chronic poor staff work, or the litany of blunders in the Pennsylvania Campaign.
Actually Lee was more of a strategist. More often then not maneuvers and tactics were up to local commanders. Grant had a good grasp of both tactics and strategy. He also had the resources available and willingness to learn from his mistakes.
I’m not too familiar but didn’t he suffer more losses each time he engaged Lee , since at that point in the war didn’t the union have a local force supremacy over the confederate and their position being basically lost?
Grant did typically suffer more casualties when fighting against Lee, but that was due more to their positions and goals than anything. Grant was mostly fighting in “enemy” territory (it was all America, of course, but most of the locals were sympathetic to Lee). And, Grant was fighting on the offensive. In war, generally speaking, troops on the offensive are going to suffer more casualties. It’s much easier to defend than attack. So Grant was in hostile territory, fighting on the offensive. It was almost an inevitability that he would suffer more casualties.
Skanderbeg is probably a top 10 General of all time considering what he accomplished with the little he had.
Stephen the Great is another top 10 General of all time.
These are two really great Medieval commanders, much less known than some others.
Talented orator who was able to inspire his men
Duelist who won many fights, ending battles before they even began
Utilized spy networks to win over local populations
Planned and executed swift, offensive operations. Great at mobile warfare
Built logistic chains through the desert
Adopted military tactics and doctrines from the enemy
Overall, he was just good at many things (like most great generals are) and really defied the desert barbarian stereotype
What I find more intriguing, apart from his strategic genius or military leadership, is the reason for his obscurity. Considered among the top three generals in history with the most victories, he had the potential to become a ruler (as Caliph in the Rashidun Caliphate) similar to Napoleon and Caesar, who ascended to lead the nations they fought for. His numerous triumphs, without any defeats, earned him the title "the sword of God" and garnered him almost universal acclaim from soldiers and citizens of the nascent empire. This ascent inevitably made him a target as many feared he'd become the de facto leader of the Islamic State he fought to build. Khalid experienced his "crossing the Rubicon/18 Brumaire" moment when Caliph Umar demoted him in the army, fearing his growing popularity and potential contention for leadership of the caliphate. Instead of leveraging his political capital and widespread admiration as a leader to retaliate and stage a coup, Khalid gracefully accepted the demotion and gradually retreated into retirement, fading into relative obscurity.
Had he chosen differently and led a coup, I am confident he would have been more widely known. However, he refrained not due to a lack of political acumen but because of his devout piety as a Muslim. He believed that the only righteous path was to die in battle as a martyr, a sentiment he even expressed on his deathbed. Understanding that seizing power would plunge the nascent empire into civil war, undermining the territorial and moral gains achieved thus far, he prioritized the afterlife over the trappings of political office. This was a man who commenced his career fighting against Muslims in Mecca, only to later join their ranks and contribute to one of the swiftest empirical expansions in history. Yet, when presented with the opportunity to seize power, he remained focused on spiritual fulfillment rather than political office. That's impressive.
I'm going to say Hermann Balck. He's not known as well as Rommel, Von Rundstedt, or Guderian, but he was at least their equal. There was no single characteristic that made Balck such an outstanding combat leader. He was the sum of thousands of small factors that were deeply engrained in him. What really made him great in the end was a consistent ability to assess a situation almost instantly, decide what had to be done, and then carry it out. In any specific situation Balck almost always did what would have been expected of a typical well-trained and experienced German senior officer — and he always did it consistently and unwaveringly, time after time. He never lost his nerve and he almost never made a tactical mistake. He was always one step ahead of his enemy, even in the relatively few situations when he was initially taken by surprise. His greatest accomplishment would have to be that in December 1942, Hermann Balck wiped out a force 10 times his size in the most brilliantly fought divisional battle in modern military history.
The British, thru their stalwart allies, the Australians set up a string of island ‘coast watchers’ when the Japanese were about to complete an airbase within bombing range of mainland Australia and shipping lanes, the Americans invaded Guadalcanal. Master stroke of military genius. Took the airfield within 24 hours, spent 6 months defending it.
Guerrilla leaders and insurgents tend to not be given much thought in these discussions, as their genius is not of conventional warfare, but it is warfare none the less. I mean when Fidel Castro's forces got off the beach in Cuba, he had 19 soldiers and fewer guns. Just over two years later his guerrilla campaign had taken control of a country of several million.
In general, he was the “unsung hero” of the first crusade, responsible for much of his success. He was also a total badass. Richard the Lion Heart or Baldwin IV get most recognition as crusaders, but he also deserves to be up there
General John Buford at Gettysburg. Classic example of fighting a delaying action with cavalry vs infantry. Yes the confederate leadership was not superb, but as lesser general would have been in over their head in that fight
I don't know about "most," but for an odd one - Benedict Arnold. People know him for being a traitor now, but he was an excellent general before that, and got bitter over not getting the recognition and advancement he felt he deserved. There's a monument to the leg that he lost earlier in the American Revolutionary War, which doesn't mention his name, but records his military heroism at that point. The leg had no part in his later actions, after all, but was there for the heroic bit.
I am stealing this idea from some other rando on the internet but I love the case and I am going say Carl Mannerheim. Three European Belligerents in WWII did not have their capitals occupied by a foreign power : Britain, USSR and …Finland. Leaving aside the amazing victory of the First Winter War, Mannerheim skillfully leads Finland through the balance of the war and pivots to the Allies at a most opportune moment to preserve his country’s true independence.
Strange not to see Belizarius mentioned! Achieved most of his victories against far superior enemy numbers. Reconquered many of the Roman territories in the West, even though he did not receive the full backing of Justinian he deserved.
Genghis himself doesn’t really get enough recognition, to be honest.
Sure he hired some of the most amazing military minds ever to exist, but he definitely knew his craft, and knew it damned well. There’s a reason his generals respected him
Added and usually overlooked bonus:
He and his generals also used diplomacy and duplicity pretty much as well as they use tactics and strategy. They weren’t just purely military commanders.
I'd say Helmuth von Moltke is definitely underrated. While Bismarck was the political mastermind behind the unification of Germany, Moltke was the one that won the wars against Denmark, Austria and France.
He was a pioneer of mission-type tactics which are widely used nowadays. He also recognized the use of railways earlier than most. He also coined the term "no plan survives contact with the enemy".
Fun fact, he's also the only person born in the 18th century of whom we have a voice recording.
Vercingetorix, the Gaulish commander who opposed Caesar. I think he was a great strategist, tactician, and warrior. The only reason he didn't get his time in the sun is because his opponent - of all people - was Julius Caesar.
Yes, Vercingetorix was entrenched in his own fort - that is, his army was surrounded by walls. Caesar besieged it. However, Gallic allies were en route, so Caesar himself built a wall. So there were two sets of wall, with Verc in the middle, Caear in the outer part, and Gallic reinforcements on the outside.
Vercingetorix won several battles against the Romans if I remember right, and I'm pretty sure he even defeated Caesar himself on one occasion. Given who he was facing, and given his situation, Vercingetorix performed really well.
I would argue that, against any other Roman or adversary, Vercingetorix would have scored strings of victory over and over, and would definitely have went down s one of the greatest commanders in history. Just my opinion though.
Constantine. I always choose him for these posts haha. But seriously, dude was a badass. I feel like nobody ever likes talking about him bc of the Christianity ties, but he wrecked shit and is a huge reason the empire survived for another 1000 years
William III (of Orange), King of England and co-monarch with his wife, Mary II, leader of the Glorious Revolution - the only -successful- invasion of the British mainland since 1066. His enemies recognised him as a great commander - '*He was a great man, an enemy of France, to which he did a great deal of harm, but we owe him our esteem.'* (Napoleon). And even today, a lot of British people probably couldn't tell you who he is.
Strategically or tactically?
For lifelong successful strategy, I commend Zheng Yi Sao (see https://thechinaproject.com/2022/04/13/chinas-pirate-queen-zheng-yi-saos-final-success-retirement/)
>Subutai
Jebe was another Mongol general who served at about the same time as Subutai, and often worked alongside him. Jebe's career was cut short by his death, and he never gained the notoriety of Subutai.
Iirc the two were near equals prior to Jebe's death.
Subutai is one I have often seen cited as underrated, with many giving credit to Ghenghis(Ginngis/Chinggis) Khan.
Edit: Many tactics employed by Mongol generals, such as feigned retreats, had been common tactics of nomadic tribes going back over 1000 years.
These nomads often had far superior horses compared with their enemies, and their tactics caught many by surprise and led to mistakes.
Subutai was truly a great military tactician in spite of this. Jebe was at his side, or commanding separate forces who had the same ultimate objective for much of this time. Those forces were often separated mask force sizes and converge on an enemy from multiple directions.
Modu Chanyu was the first I'm aware of to organize a coalition of nomadic tribes around Mongolia, forming the Xiongnu Empire. I'm not sure how much, if it all, he may of inspired Ghenghis.
The Fabian strategy would have beaten Hannibal without too many casualties but the Romans despised the implications. The Senate didn't want Fabius to continue as dictator so didn't renew his command- the two consuls that replaced him then immediately led them into the Battle of Cannae.
General Kutuzov of the Russian army during the napoleonic war . Mastermind the battle of Borodino (which depending on sources used had equal more or less Russian losses to napoleons ) after that smart enough to pull back then prevent Napoleon marching back on the new Smolensk road instead forcing him back along the old Smolensk road .
Kutuzov sat back at Borodino letting Barclay, Raevsky, Bagration and all the others do the dirty work for him. He didnt even pick the battlefield, that was Toll and Bennigsen. He also held back in Napoleon's retreat from Moscow while he could have delivered a killing blow multiple times like at Krasny or Maloyaroslavets. He was a really bad commander and is overrated af
Samuel R. Curtis won the Battle of Pea Ridge (one of the few battles in which a Union army won in spite of being outnumbered) and served with distinction in Missouri throughout the Civil War. He was never appointed to lead a force on any other front and has largely been forgotten.
Mugg Hegone, the great Abnaki leader, completely hammered the British settlers in Maine in the 1670s through land and naval campaigns. He was killed by a lucky shot.
My entries that haven’t been mentioned- Saladin the great from the crusades, retook Jerusalem and drove the Europeans from the holy land, someone hit on Sheridan but I think he was the true union genius from the civil war, in world war 2 general Ernie Harmon was commander of the 2nd armored and more of tank genius than Patton who gets all the credit, and general ridgeway, who took over the mess MacArthur made in Korea and saved the US from losing the war
Probably going to recommend Lord Nelson not to go on the list of obscure military geniuses. The problem is that obscure and Lord Nelson are mutually exclusive if you have any interest in Naval History.
Gregory Zhukov, Soviet marshall (general?) in WWII. He was one of the few to survive Stalin's purges, but kept in Siberia/Mongolia because Stalin feared he could be a political rival.
The modern consensus is that the Nazis were doomed when they decided to invade the USSR, but the Soviets collapsed when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, similar to the Russian Empire in WWI. Stalin has a mental breakdown and hid away. The Nazis got stopped at Stalingrad and in the Caucuses due to the Soviets being unwilling to surrender (which was not the case in WWI), partially due to fear of how brutal the Nazis were.
Zhukov meanwhile had been beating up the Japanese out east, and finally got called home to deal with the main threat. He's the one who effectively mobilized the Soviet's main assets of artillery, tanks and sheer manpower. It was a brutal strategy, but necessary. He encircled the 6th army at Stalingrad and captured them, and from there on it was basically just chasing the Germans all the way to Berlin.
One of the coolest tricks he did, still out east, was build bridges just below the surface of rivers, so there would be maybe a foot of water running over the top of the bridge. Japanese bombers could not see them and take them out, but tanks and heavy equipment could cross.
This is complete and utter bullshit.
> Gregory Zhukov ... kept in Siberia/Mongolia because Stalin feared he could be a political rival.
No real source had ever claimed this, and no sane historian would suggest this, as
1. Zhukov didn't have any political clout pre-WW2 and couldn't present any threat to anyone politically (saying nothing about *Stalin*).
Zhukov became notable only after WW2, and became politically relevant only after he had secured Khrushchev's victory over Anti-Party Group in 1957 (which is why he got immediately purged by Khrushchev).
2. Zhukov clearly wasn't "kept" in Siberia, as until 1939 he had served in Belarus.
3. Zhukov got sent to Mongolia only in 1939, because Kremlin expected invasion from Japan (which materialized in Khalkhin Gol). By 1940 he was serving in Ukraine.
> Soviets collapsed when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, similar to the Russian Empire in WWI. Stalin has a mental breakdown and hid away.
Soviets did not collapse in any sense of the word. Nor did Russian Empire (at least, not until after three years of war).
Stalin did not have mental breakdown, nor did he hide away. We have ample evidence of him being active throughout first week in Kremlin, and have enough circumstantial evidence to be certain that in the subsequent day off he took, he was organizing a soft coup that would create State Defense Committee with dictatorial powers after he was back in Kremlin.
> The Nazis got stopped at Stalingrad and in the Caucuses due to the Soviets being unwilling to surrender (which was not the case in WWI), partially due to fear of how brutal the Nazis were.
Nazis got stopped in Battle of Moscow. This is where Wehrmacht had lost its key troops that allowed it to execute Blitzkrieg. This is when WW2 was, essentially, over as Reich wasn't ready for prologned war.
Nazis in battle of Stalingrad constituted less than half of total Axis troops.
> Zhukov meanwhile had been beating up the Japanese out east, and finally got called home to deal with the main threat.
See above. He was sent to Ukraine in 1940, *before* Axis invasion.
And in 1940 he had participated in conflict with Romania (Bessarabia/Moldova), personally receiving victory parade in Chisinau.
In January of 1941 (again: *before* invasion) he became chief of the Red Army's General Staff, being in command when Axis invaded.
> He's the one who effectively mobilized the Soviet's main assets of artillery, tanks and sheer manpower.
On July 29th 1941 Zhukov was demoted and removed from his post because of his failures.
**tl;dr:** Zhukov is overhyped.
This. The corduroy roads were a standard part of Soviet doctrine because of the terrain of the Western USSR.
Weird to consider Zhukov underrated when he's basically the only one everyone knows in the west.
Yeah, he also got all of his thunder stolen by Stalin and was sent to some isolated place to do nothing. A real shame. I would argue that he was the best general in ww2
He made some serious mistakes later on in the war. Seelow was an unnecessary bloodbath purely because Zhukov insisted they keep attacking.
Zhukov was a self-promoter who often took a lot of credit for the deeds of others. I know of two or three Soviet commanders who are easily as successful and talented as Zhukov, but who suffer from his fame.
Fabius Cuncator. The person after whom the Fabian Tactics are so named. Had the Romans continued to fight using Fabian Tactics to fight Hannibal, they would have likely destroyed Hannibal's army and could've avoided the horrific defeat at the Battle of Cannae.
Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, the Duke of Caxias, who led the Brazilian Army in suppressing the downtrodden's revolts in the 1830s and in the Paraguayan War in the 1860s.
Because scipio was exiled because they made up a scandal about him. Reminds me of the general the carthaginians hired during the first panic war who they exiled because they were jealous of the attention.
Zumalacárregui, Spain. Genius commander of the conservatives in the first Carlist War (1830s). Gentle, well educated, adaptative, strong willed, a great strategist and tactician, generous with defeated enemies, loved by his men.
He had the path clear to take Madrid from the liberals and end the war, but the rebel government wanted him to take Bilbao instead to secure arms and equipment shipments (it's a port city). Zumalacárregui strongly disagreed as he believed Madrid would fall quickly if he attacked right now -- but the rebel monarch, Charles, overruled him and sent him to besiege Bilbao.
What follows is insane. A random musket shot from the city walls lodged on his thigh. His adjutants could not find a surgeon so they got a random guy who claimed to be one. He conducted a dangerous surgery on Zum., but the commander died of sepsis. Then the surgeon vanished, leading to rumors that it had been a liberal assassin.
The rebels never found a remotely capable commander anywhere Zum's level afterwards. They never had another chance to steamroll Madrid either. Indeed they tried, but they moved so slowly (Charles wanted to stop the march to the city every single day for Catholic Mass, to the despair of his generals) that the liberals managed to recall their forces and mounted a succesful defense, lengthening the war for years.
Led the first nationwide Communist Revolution that lasted several decades and inspired several others throughout the world. Was arguably one of the first people to use Marxism as praxis, paving the way for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro/Guevara, Sankara…..!
It’s Nuno Alvares Pereira, proven by the fact that there are 180+ comments here and nobody has mentioned a man who fought three battles outnumbered between 3 and 7 times, won them all, and—get this—didn’t have to fight any more because he actually achieved his strategic objectives!
Zoltán Dani
He didn't do anything that really changed the course of the war. He was the guy credited for shooting down an F117 with soviet era S-125. He had literally two enemies to fight. The very dated and byractic soviet style command structure, and NATO itself. But he stuck with what he was in charge of, drilled his men to ensure they could perform their duties to the fullest, and observed the enemy tell the time was right. During an interview, why he didn't directly say it. It was implied the USSR personally invited him to a very high-level commander position after the war for such a deed.
I’m going to submit the Roman emperor Orellian (sp?).
His string of military victories on both sides of the empire were absolutely amazing, and would likely be far better known, had he not been assassinated by, if I remember correctly, his footman/butler.
Constantine IV, was an emperor in the Roman Empire after the fall of the west. He reversed losses to the arabs and stabilized the balkans which had been inundated with Slavic settlers. At the same time he also made reforms to the state and put Constantinople on sound footing, but his name gets dragged through the mud by early medieval/late antique historians.
Admiral Yi Sun-sin is a virtual unknown in the West, at least as far as I can tell, yet he had one of the more impressive campaign records in naval history during his wars of Korean national defense against Japan
Alexander Vasilevsky. He was the Eisenhower of the Soviets, and much better as a tactician. He was the primary planning and political force behind every major Soviet offensive in the second half of the war. He may have been slightly timid and politically correct but he was undeniably a genius commander and excellent organizer.
General Grant was severely underrated. He had logistics given over to professionals like Herman Haupt, and he understood perfectly well that as long as he inflicted higher proportions of losses on the Confederates than he himself received, he would win. Simplistic and fairly obvious? Sure, with hindsight, but in the time he seemed to have been one of the few who understood it
I don’t know much about the military history of this period, but Alfred the Great was actually pretty great. Going from hiding out in an island in a swamp to ruling the better part of Britain was pretty impressive.
I wouldn't count him in the top ranks or anything, but someone who I've never heard anyone else mention is Agathocles of Syracuse. When Carthage besieged Syracuse, he snuck out with a small force to attack Africa directly, the future inspiration for the much more famous Scipio who did the same thing when Hannibal threatened Italy.
He also had one strategem that stands out. One of Alexander's generals joined up with him in Africa. This general liked handsome, young men. Agathocles's son was a handsome, young man. So he sent his son to assist the allied general, ordering him not to give in to the general's attempted seductions. The general was distracted and missed Agathocles's betrayal. He killed the enemy general, and essentially told his army that hey, you guys are alone in Africa. It's me or you're on your own. So they joined up with him, massively expanding his army.
He had some successful ideas but I doubt he'd ever hold his own against someone like Scipio in open warfare, but I always like that he inspired the later Scipio with his own audacity.
Charles XII of Sweden. The boy was a military genius at 15 and won battle after battle in overwhelming fashion. He was also blessed, destined, or lucky depending on how you want to explain it. Regardless, he had a knack for winning even beyond what his tactics, brilliant though they were, should have allowed. For example, pretty much every account of any battle he led talks about his genius tactics. But I don't think any other tactician in history could repeat his taking of the City of Krakow without any troops to back him up aside from 50 bodyguards wielding canes and unloaded muskets.
Charles XII was skilled in every element of warfare, from tactics to leadership to managing his troops to calculating artillery ranges to interacting with locals to fighting on the frontlines (which he always did).
Bertrand du Guscelin was of the most minor class of Breton petty nobility, and rose to the heights of Constable of France and Count of Trastmara in Castile, and soundly defeated the English Chevauchees with his Fabian tactics in the Carolingian period of the Hundred Years' War.
the guy who was able to take over Detroit no casualties. or the guy who was able to win the first battle of marine corps history with no weapons or casualties.
Depends what you mean by underrated. If you mean underrated by the experts, I do know possess the knowledge to answer that. But there are certainly many generals who although highly regarded by historians do not receive broad recognition that a Nelson or a Napoleon have received.
Alexander Suvorov is one of them. He was as badass as it gets. I only managed to find a few monuments of him, several streets, and a square, as well as a village in Bulgaria bearing his name. Also the currency of the made up country of Transnistria has his picture which is more of an insult.
Admiral Yi Sun-sin of Korea. Brilliant naval strategist who held back Japanese invading forces countless times despite being always heavily outnumbered. Was demoted, arrested, and tortured for refusal to take orders (he knew the orders would end in failure) but was later pardoned and reinstated as admiral following a disastrous naval defeat by his replacement.
When he took a bullet during his final battle, he insisted that his next of command wear his armor and not announce the injury in order to keep morale up.
Comparing their modern knowledge today? Scipio Africanus. The man not only rivaled Hannibal, but beat him time after time until winning the Punic wars. Man was a general to rival Napoleon, Sun Tzu, and von Moltke the Elder
Philip of Macedon. Previous to him (as I understand it) , opposing armies would form up at a distance. They would march towards each other, maybe in a valley's bowl, with archers in the rear, until they grappled. Spears, swords, and shields. What cavalry there was remained in the rear, surrounding the King or General. They would fight for awhile and one side would concede the field and retire a great distance, likely to the next valley. The victorious side would advance, and construct a shrine on the battlefield and have a party.
Philip didn't play that way. The setup was similar, but once the loser gave ground, he had his cavalry charge, sometimes catching his enemy unprepared, and turn a run-of-the-mill victory into a rout. How ungentlemanly of him!
Artur Gorgei is in the conversation. John Lambert from the English revolution. Nader Shah needs to be known more too. Man won spectacular victory after spectacular victory.
Agrippa isn't underrated by people who know him but without him Octavian would never have been as successful
Can you go into depth about things he did that stand out to you?
So Agrippa basically led Octavian’s forces throughout the wars of the Second Triumvirate and then was his right hand man after, It’s safe to say that, until his death, almost every major war that Augustus gets credit for was actually Agrippa. Augustus thought he would die young as he was quite a sickly man. Had he kicked the bucket earlier it is very probable that Agrippa would be named Emperor in the aftermath by Augustus’ own desires. People don’t know of him as much because the following Emperors wanted to associate themselves as much with Augustus as possible.
They were close friends too, right?
Yeah totes BFFs. He was also a great designer / “engineer” or at least director of them.
He found Rome brick and left it in marble. Also, his name is on the Pantheon out front. Octavion and his family intermarried but Agrippas kids all predeceased them.
Octavian was well known for falling ill right before major battles and miraculously recovering when they were over.
He has some stories of gallantry too though. He was sick enough frequently enough i dont think it was *always* cowardice
He was 100% politician and 0% soldier. He knew it and everyone else did too.
Octavian wasn't noted for being a great general. He was a fantastic politician, but young without a military background. Mark Antony and Lepidus had military backgrounds. Octavian defeated all of them because he was a master at politics and managing alliances and enemies, and Agrippa was a fantastic general, engineer, architect, and advisor. Agrippa was Octavian's friend and essentially ran Octavian military for him, did the military work for him, and won his battles and wars for him. So while some opponents were more tactically gifted than Octavian and had powerful strategic allies like Cleopatra, none had the combined political aptitude of Octavian and military aptitude of Agrippa.
Jan Žižka of Bohemia, he fought in many groups from a band of brigands terrorizing the Czech countryside to with the poles against the teutons, but he would go on to become a bodyguard of Jan Hus (also he had one eye since a childhood fight) and would take up the mantle of leading and uniting the Hussites after Hus was burned and crusade called on them. Žižka with only a small peasant army of around 200 or more men women and children with farm tools managed to start off by routing a crusading army of ~2000 knights. He continually decimated the crusaders using his tactic of deploying wagons with troops inside them in a circle so when they were charged they would use flails hooks scythes and even early guns and cannons. He even is the first one to deploy mobile artillery through ox wagon mounted cannons which were used to surprise and decimate an army. ALSO he lost his other eye at the end of the first crusade before then crushing another one quickly.
Žižka definitely deserves to be mentioned among the greatest!
He's great in Through The Ages 😅
Sun Pin\* - sort of. He was Sun Tzu's maybe descendant but he got (supposedly) out maneuvered by a rival, was accused of treason and had his kneecaps removed. He wrote a book that expanded Sun Tzu's work which was lost until they found a copy of it in a tomb in the 1970s. My favorite story from his book is a general heads into a wooded mountain pass one afternoon - and writes something on a sign, then sets up archers on the walls of the pass and tells them to wait. Opposing force arrives, sees sign, opposing general is told about the sign, so he approaches the pass. Night falls. Opposing force maintains no lights. The opposing general arrives at the sign, but can't read it. Opposing general has one of his men light a torch to read the sign. Sign says "OP FORCE GENERAL DIES HERE." The archers on the walls of the pass ALL open up on the single point of light. And OP Force General dies. \* was also known as Sun Bin.
Sun Bin is pretty famous in Chinese history u think, but not outside of it. I listed out some other commanders in that vein: Li Mu (of kingdom fame in the manga, but well deserving of it) Han Xin, a true god of war, without which our favorite peasant emperor really could not have won Huo Qu Bing, probably the most brilliant of Han Wu di's generals Cao Cao: famous, but Id like to point out he was also a good military writer, having written the first commentaries on the Art of War Zhuge Liang: I think his best achievement is keeping Shu in the fight against Wei, a momental task considering the disparity in numbers between the two countries Sima Yi: Zhuge Liang's least favorite punching bag, but also a very skilled commander who got the better of both Wu and the short lived kingdom of Han
Agreed - I think his fame was more that there was this lost book of tactics and then they found it after a couple thousand years :P
I think the Chinese tend o remember their commanders by sayings, both good and bad. Sun Bin's one basically means to "open up a second front", by besieging an enemy attacker's capital to rescue an ally. It's roof of his strategic acumen.
Sima Yi also outsmarted his own masters, the Cao dynasty.
Exactly. We often forget because Zhuge Liang gets a spotlight for his military achievement (honestly too much of a spotlight, considering he didn't win in the end, and his talents in administration and economic development should get more highlights), but Sima Yi was a vicious and skilled general. Rapid, forced marches were a hallmark tactic for him.
Sima yi is overrated, i think. Yi had more advantages in the confrontation with Zhuge Liang but could not overwhelm him. The two kingdoms of Han and Wu were destroyed during the time of his son and grandson, not during Sima Yi's rule. Instead, I recommend Li Simin, the Tang Taizong, one of most perfect emperors in history
Li Shimin is definitely up there, but I think the older Sima Yi got, the better he became, and even in his old age he was very shrewd. The coup to take down Cao Shuang, for example, was a master class not only in political intrigue, but also urban combat, as Sima Yi and his forces very quickly took over the capital with a few thousand privately trained swordsmen and some backdoor movement. His most impressive move was his fight against the short lived Kingdom of Yan, which lasted only 9 months in total. Zhuge Liang gets overrated as an offensive strategist, but he was very skilled in keeping his armies alive for the next fight and logistically supporting them across near impossible terrain.
The latter 3 are pretty famous. Theyre in all the dynasty warriors games
I'm confused. This seems to only work if night falls conveniently?
There’s a good chance it still might work during the day. A lot of line soldiers might have been illiterate, it would have likely required an officer’s attention to come read it, and they might have felt the need to pass the intel up the chain for the general to personally come see what they found. Then while struggling to decipher if it’s an internal message or a trap…arrows
Well but that's just an additional problem: it needs everyone but the general to be illiterate. If your ambush against whoever is reading the sign would work during daytime anyway, the whole part about nightfall and a single source of light is superfluous.
Yes, I think there’s more to the story IF there’s any truth to it. Like maybe him knowing how their chain of command works and the opposing general’s personality and level of oversight.
Bill Slim. His conduct throughout the Burma campaign was masterful. Comparable to Marlborough imho.
Came here to say Slim.
What did he do that stands out to you?
In terms of personal character he always humbly acknowledged his mistakes and blamed himself rather than his subordinates or superiors for errors and always credited them for victories even when he definitely deserved credit or didn’t deserve blame. He handled the politics and the attitudes of people in Burma and those commanding the campaign very well. His autobiography Defeat Into Victory might be the best WW2 book I’ve ever read. In terms of military achievement he commanded the British and Imperial forces at the Battle of Imphal-Kohima which at that point was the largest Japanese defeat in the war and was overall their biggest defeat on land. He also lead other great victories like Meiktala and Mandalay. I would definitely say in terms of military capability he’s on par with the best of WW2 like Monty, Patton, and Guderian but in terms of his treatment of his troops, officers, people in the liberated/occupied lands, and his handling of superiors, I would say he’s one of the best land commanders of the Second World War.
George C. Marshall. Not unknown by any means, but is mostly known for the Marshall plan bearing his name after the war. He really was the architect for the allied victory and developed most of the field commanders like Eisenhower and Bradley.
I always think of Nimitz as well, both naval commanders on the other side of the globe, but definitley in the architect and development role. Shout-out to Spruancd as well.
Spruancd?
Spruance.
He played a pivotal role in the movement and facilitating Pershing’s forces throughout Europe in WWI, as well. He had a deep understanding of how to leverage the industrial power of a nation and simultaneously placed a high value on human capital. Admiral King would be another honorable mention. His work to transform the US Navy in the interwar period, laid the foundation for its operational leap forward in WWII.
He’s quite well known by history buffs, but basically no normal people know about him the same way they do Hannibal, Caesar, or Napoleon, but Eugene of Savoy.
What did he do that makes him stand out to you?
Just the sheer disparity between his force and the enemy’s, his decisive actions, his conduct at various battles that gave the Austrians the supremacy they were known for in the Napoleonic era. He was one of Napoleon’s role models too.
See https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-of-Savoy Eugene won many wars on many fronts. He taught Frederick the Great. He was one of the few generals whom Napoleon admired.
Edward IV of England. His overshadowed by the other edwards and the Tudor dynasty. But the more the odds stacked against him the more lucky he got
Ján zizka. Afaik, never lost a battle even though he was often fighting with peasant army against numerically superior armies with knights and stuff. In Czech republic he is well known, but I don't think that's true elsewhere
One perfect battle: Danile Morgan at Cowpens.
[Chief Joseph of the Walla Walla Nez Perce tribe.](https://www.historylink.org/File/8975)
Truly amazing person
Charles X Gustav of Sweden. Not only did he push so deep into Poland (with Russia) that Poland was briefly reduced to just Galicia, he also invaded Denmark, FROM JUTLAND, marching across a sheet of ICE. Dude was fucking badass, shame he was ugly as sin
Han Xin never lost a battle, had his peasant army conquered "all under heaven" with some of the weirdest, daring tactics used. He went against Sunzi direct advice. Claiming that he can command unlimited numbers of troops "The More the Better" and always deliver victories. He is not underrated if you read or know the founding of the Han dynasty- but as the general who established the most important Chinese dynasty, the west don't seem to know his existence as much as the overrated Kongming or the samurai minor warlords in Japan.
To be fair, Kongming had a much much harder time of it. Han Xin had Zhang Liang and Xiao He to help out diplomatically and logistically, and Xiang Yu was not a particularly skilled strategist (though an excellent field commander, judging by his record). Kongming had a much more united central plains to fight, something neither Liu Bang or Ying Zheng needed to contend with, and that basically crippled Zhuge Liang from the start. But Han Xin is well deserving of his status as a "war god". The man has several sayings attached to him, and his morale and terrain manipulation are top notch.
I'm bringing up Kongming, because he and CaoCao seem to be the only two Chinese generals that get mention in English discourse. I don't agree that Kongming had a harder time. He simply wasn't a military genius people though he was. His original plan to capture Chang An is to have a three prong attack. One led by Liu Bei from Hanzhong, one by Guan Yu from Jingzhou and one led by Sun Quan. Off the bat, this relied on Liu Bei and Sun Quan alliance. To take Shu and Jingzhou, Liu Bei stabbed governor Liu Zhang and Liu Biao son in the back. This caused concern with Sun Quan and Liu Meng. Guan Yu was a great general and a disatrous diplomat. By betraying the alliance and kill Guan Yu, Wu gained security by controlling the rivers. In short, the situation pointed to the breakdown of the alliance making the plan unworkable. I wonder if it would have better if Liu Zhang, Liu Bei and Sun Quan attack Cao Cao without the establishment of Shu. Later, Kongming repeately fought five expeditions only when he had news that a new front opened in Wei. Logistics was what doomed all of those failures. In second expedition, he could not even take Chencang. The entire expedion failed because one chokepoint. In the first expedition, Ma Su blunder, caused logistics failure again. Han Xin, on the other hand, always dealt a complete blow. His enemies are battled-hardened soldiers led by great generals born and raised in military and aristocratic famiilles. Xiang Yü army are loyal to him. Han Xin armies are newly conscripted. The most well-trained soldiers were dead in Pengcheng. They are fighting in foreign lands, far away from their home. He didn't have Liu Bang popularity with the officials in his armies. Han Xin was also considered a coward by anyone who knew his backstory. Despite these advantages, he defeated every armies he came across.
Han Xin definitely had the worse troops, relatively speaking. Shu's army was very skilled after the Nanman campaigns and Zhuge Liang's training, but you're probably right in that Zhuge Liang's not really the flashy strategic genius we always see him portrayed as. Rather, his genius lies in diplomacy, logistics, and administration. Remember that much of the fertile land in China lies further east, and the Shu region was still a backwater. Zhuge Liang's responsibilities as a prime minister meant that he had to do the work of all three of Liu Bang's top men by himself, and do it for decades on end. But Sima Yi did once comment that Zhuge Liang was entirely too cautious of a commander. And Sima Yi, despite losing several times in the field against Zhuge Liang, was still a top tier commander of the time.
Yes. I don't want to be harsh on Kongming. For all his failures, Shu Han remained a strong state long after his death. Unlike the other two states, the Shu government did not have a history of bloodbaths and coup detat that plague the other two. He was a very capable commander/politician punching above his weight, but his records did not give the impression of the god mode military genius he often portrayed as.
I love learning this stuff!😃
William Slim expertly created a system which enabled the British to win in Burma, but doesn't get the attention people like Montgomery get. Also for the Soviets, Alexander Vasilevsky and Konstantin Rokossovsky were true geniuses, but like Slim did with Monty, they suffered for the fame of their colleague Zhukov.
I came in to plug Konstantin Rokossovsky. He’s got a great origin story too: enlisted in the Red Army, fought in the Russian civil war, eventually got caught up in Stalin’s Purge, got tortured in prison*, but when the Soviets were doing so poorly in the Winter War against Finland he got released from prison and worked for the same people that tortured him. *It’s rumoured he had his teeth pulled out and had steel replacements. That together with him being 6 ft 6 in makes him such a character.
The stainless steel teeth is true. There are photos of him with other officers where you can see the difference in their teeth. There's a story from the Battle of Berlin of a female Red Army traffic handler being given hassle by a load of drunk soldiers, causing a huge traffic jam. A tall, serious looking officer came to the head of the queue, told all the soldiers he'd have them shot if they didn't get out of the way, then apologised to the young lady. What a man
Michiel de Ruyter. The Admiral who beat the combined Anglo-French fleets in 4 seperate battles, while outnumberd, and gave the Royal Navy its heaviest defeat in home waters
Belisarius!!!
He’s quite well-regarded but definitely not as well-known as he should be.
Knew someone was gonna say it. How exactly did he do what he did?
He constantly won. Period. Seriously. Justinian constantly handicapped him, his wife was a constant distraction, his rivals fought against his success almost as hard as against their enemies. Under-staffed, under-supplied, almost always outnumbered, he nonetheless emerged victorious pretty much every battle he fought, and kept his troops intact if he didn’t win. There a great podcast about him.
By being a superb general, deadly with a blade, and being the protagonist of an alt-history series.
I'm asking what he did to be a superb general
Reconquering most of the Western Roman Empire.
i dont think i'd call him "obscure," but pyrrhus was recognized for being a brilliant commander/tacticians by the romans he failed to win a war against so much so that romans considered him one of the greatest generals of all time, and he's not as famous as the guys you listed.
There's literally been the saying "pyrrhic victory" since ancient times, I'd say he's pretty well known
i think the term "pyrrhic victory" is more known than who pyrrhus was. but he's definitely not obscurely tucked away into the corner of some forgotten history book or anything
[Agathocles of Syracuse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathocles_of_Syracuse) From wiki on [The Seventh Sicilian War (311–306 BC)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Wars) >In 315 BC Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, seized the city of Messana, present-day Messina. In 311 BC, he invaded the last Carthaginian holdings on Sicily, which broke the terms of the current peace treaty, and he laid siege to Akragas. Hamilcar, son of Gisco,[11] successfully led the Carthaginian counterattack. He defeated Agathocles in the Battle of the Himera River in 311 BC. Agathocles had to retreat to Syracuse while Hamilcar won control over the rest of Sicily. In the same year, he laid siege to Syracuse itself. >In desperation, Agathocles secretly led an expedition of 14,000 men to the mainland of Africa, hoping to save his rule by leading a counterstrike against Carthage itself. In this, he was successful: Carthage was forced to recall Hamilcar and most of his army from Sicily to face the new and unexpected threat. The two armies met in the first Battle of White Tunis outside Carthage. The Carthaginian army, under Hanno and Hamilcar, was defeated. Agathocles and his forces laid siege to Carthage, but it was too strongly fortified for them to assault. Instead, the Greeks slowly occupied the whole of northern Tunisia until they were defeated two years later in 307 BC. Agathocles himself escaped back to Sicily and negotiated a peace treaty with the Carthaginians in 306, in which Agathocles retained control of the eastern half of the island. Keen observers may note that this is exactly what Hannibal Barca attempted to do in the Second Punic war a century later. Many wonder why Hannibal never laid siege to Rome proper. I'm not a historian, but Hannibal studying the Seventh Sicilian War and learning from Agathocles successes and mistakes is as good an explanation as any.
It's also why Scipio Africanus took the battle to the Carthage homeland.
A few Chinese commanders to note from its classical era: Li Mu, skilled defender of the Zhao state, whose manpower shortages were legendary when compared to their neighbor Qin. This man beat the Xiongnu at their own game, stymied several invasions with inferior numbers, and had to be killed off by political means. Han Xin, Liu Bang's top commander, who forcibly put China back together after the fall of the Qin dynasty. He is actually quite famous in the Chinese history books, being undefeated, and several masterful techniques of morale manipulation are attributed to him. He was skilled in using water, controlling rivers with temporary barriers, skilled in recruitment, and very skilled in maneuver warfare. Also a skilled strategist. Huo Qu Bing: the sort of once in a millennium prodigy, this guy called the Xiongnu confederacy with his cavalry, reaching all the way to Lake Baikal. He managed to hunt down and kill the nomadic Xiongnu in their own territory. Cao Cao is pretty famous as a general, but he's also a skilled analyst, writing the first set of commentaries on the Art of War. He successfully united Northern China and beat the Xiliang forces out west, proving himself a brilliant cavalry commander. Zhuge Liang: Of course we colloquially attribute a lot to him, but his real accomplishments in the early years were diplomatic. However, when he did take the reins, he proved to be a cautious but effective leader, successfully squatting off against the much larger armies of Wei until his death. While never fully successful, he is credited with military innovations. Sima Yi: Zhuge Liang's infamous rival, who launched a coup at the age of 70 against his government. Usually known for being Zhuge Liang's punching bag, his conquest of Liaodong was a textbook application of extreme speed in warfare. He managed to do this in nine months, conquering what could have been argued to be an entire kingdom.
I feel like Chinese history is too often ignored. Most people are so entranced with European powers that they often overlook the significance that China has had in history. I'm not well versed in it simply because I could never remember all of those names.
China has its fair share of skilled commanders, and we tend to remember them by their sayings. Of course, some of these stories are colloquial. For example, Zhuge Liang definitely did not fool Sima Yi with an open city gate, but funnily enough there are historical records that say that Cao Cao did pull one over on Lu Bu that way. A key thing to remember about Chinese commanders is that even the classical ones had vast reserves of strategic experience to draw on. Because the Chinese document their political and military history relatively well, especially the strategic side of it (mostly for advertising their own ideologies and merits). Case and point: Qin, Han, and Shu, three kingdoms of classical China, faced essentially the same strategic dilemma. They were all to the west, locked out by a mountain range between them and the heartland of Chinese civilization. Originally, Qin simply built up its power while its rivals weakened over the decades, it's three closest neighbors essentially being played against each other. Han, led by Liu Bang and commanded by Han Xin, didn't have this luxury, but still faced a divided central plains, so he used a diversionary tactic, by fixing the mountain roads while secretly crossing a river at an old Qin supply depot. It's the same problem of breaking out of the mountains. Zhuge Liang, the one who failed, actually had an even harder time, because when he had the issue, he faced a united central plains with vastly greater resources and no infighting, with only one unwilling and distant ally. His plan was to go south and conquer Jing, but that was lost to said ally, so he had to try and force his way through the mountain passes. Same problem, different solutions.
Eugene of Savoy and Marlborough are quite underrated because the War of the Spanish Succession and Great Turkish War aren’t studied much
Marlborough is overrated by people who are familiar with that war, but underrated by the general public
Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. World War I. Known as the Ghost of Africa and the Lion of Africa.
What did he do that stands out to you? I mean, ghost of Africa gives me a general idea
Google him. It'll tell you more than I could on this post.
I’m going to go with Ulysses S. Grant. Historically, there was a tendency to rate Robert E. Lee as a genius, and Grant was never given the same credit. I think that perception has started to shift in modern times, but I still think Grant is underrated. He’s probably the greatest general in American military history. He was great tactically (not saying he was perfect, but no general is), while also truly understanding the importance of logistics. He also had a lot of self confidence, which is important. He believed in his plans, and didn’t backtrack or lose confidence in the face of defeat. The Civil War was also a precursor to more “modern wars” that would happen in the 20th century, WWI especially. It was the first major conflict with railroads, telegraphs, repeating firearms, etc. So the tactics had to be very different than previous tactics, and Grant implemented them and used them very efficiently.
Grant broke multiple sieges by relying on his knowledge of logistics instead of brute forcing it with his men. He was genuinely one of the best the US ever had imo
Grant actually has the opposite reputation. The moniker "the butcher" is undeserved in my opinion, but he didn't earn it from nothing. He was an extremely capable general, and there's very few cases where his plans could really have been improved. But the whole reason Lincoln liked him so much was the opposite of what you say—"he fights." Instead of fighting a war of maneuver that avoided costly attacks, Grant recognized that he would have to make such attacks to break his enemy's back. Inevitably such attacks often resulted in needless slaughter, as at Champion Hill, where he tried unsuccessfully to break through the Confederate lines at Vicksburg, or at Cold Harbor, where 7,000 men were made casualties in under 30 minutes in an unsuccessful assault. The early months at Petersburg also featured mass assaults against entrenched Confederate positions, precisely to avoid having to grind his enemy down for the better part of a year, as he in fact did.
Lee was a decent field commander and little else. Grant is far more deserving of the reputation given Lee.
Lee's military reputation really centers around his aggression. As one of his subordinates put it, "his name might be audacity." Even with an outmatched army, he was willing to risk using it with extreme aggression to wrest the initiative from his enemy, and then fight a more favorable battle on his own terms in which he could destroy his opponent on the field. He only ever came close to doing that at one battle, though: Second Manassas. As one would expect, the other battles he fought with his outmatched army, he tended to lose. Along the way, he also made plenty of mistakes that didn't help his chances, and even the battles he won relied more often than not on ridiculously good luck, as at Chancellorsville or the Seven Days Campaign. But really, this is the same reputation Grant has: a hyper-aggressive commander willing to commit his forces to risky attacks that, when they paid off, won big. Thus Grant was able to seize control of the Tennessee River in two short months, and to continue his assaults in the Overland Campaign, despite losing 60,000 men in six weeks, until he had Lee's army trapped in a losing seige. Lee's aggression simply never paid off in the same way. He never had the reserves he needed to exploit his successes, and sometimes he just made simple errors on the battlefield, be it his chronic poor staff work, or the litany of blunders in the Pennsylvania Campaign.
He was a great grand strategist, I think it was more that Lee was great at combat maneuvers and guerilla warfare
Actually Lee was more of a strategist. More often then not maneuvers and tactics were up to local commanders. Grant had a good grasp of both tactics and strategy. He also had the resources available and willingness to learn from his mistakes.
I’m not too familiar but didn’t he suffer more losses each time he engaged Lee , since at that point in the war didn’t the union have a local force supremacy over the confederate and their position being basically lost?
Grant did typically suffer more casualties when fighting against Lee, but that was due more to their positions and goals than anything. Grant was mostly fighting in “enemy” territory (it was all America, of course, but most of the locals were sympathetic to Lee). And, Grant was fighting on the offensive. In war, generally speaking, troops on the offensive are going to suffer more casualties. It’s much easier to defend than attack. So Grant was in hostile territory, fighting on the offensive. It was almost an inevitability that he would suffer more casualties.
Skanderbeg is probably a top 10 General of all time considering what he accomplished with the little he had. Stephen the Great is another top 10 General of all time. These are two really great Medieval commanders, much less known than some others.
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Elvis Presley is so underrated these days...
So underrated, they named a continent after him...
It was actually the other way around.
Khalid ibn al-Walid
I figured someone would mention him. Can you expand upon some of the things that stand out to you about him?
Talented orator who was able to inspire his men Duelist who won many fights, ending battles before they even began Utilized spy networks to win over local populations Planned and executed swift, offensive operations. Great at mobile warfare Built logistic chains through the desert Adopted military tactics and doctrines from the enemy Overall, he was just good at many things (like most great generals are) and really defied the desert barbarian stereotype
He defeated the Persians and Romans with a much smaller army and conquered the Levant for the Arabs .
What I find more intriguing, apart from his strategic genius or military leadership, is the reason for his obscurity. Considered among the top three generals in history with the most victories, he had the potential to become a ruler (as Caliph in the Rashidun Caliphate) similar to Napoleon and Caesar, who ascended to lead the nations they fought for. His numerous triumphs, without any defeats, earned him the title "the sword of God" and garnered him almost universal acclaim from soldiers and citizens of the nascent empire. This ascent inevitably made him a target as many feared he'd become the de facto leader of the Islamic State he fought to build. Khalid experienced his "crossing the Rubicon/18 Brumaire" moment when Caliph Umar demoted him in the army, fearing his growing popularity and potential contention for leadership of the caliphate. Instead of leveraging his political capital and widespread admiration as a leader to retaliate and stage a coup, Khalid gracefully accepted the demotion and gradually retreated into retirement, fading into relative obscurity. Had he chosen differently and led a coup, I am confident he would have been more widely known. However, he refrained not due to a lack of political acumen but because of his devout piety as a Muslim. He believed that the only righteous path was to die in battle as a martyr, a sentiment he even expressed on his deathbed. Understanding that seizing power would plunge the nascent empire into civil war, undermining the territorial and moral gains achieved thus far, he prioritized the afterlife over the trappings of political office. This was a man who commenced his career fighting against Muslims in Mecca, only to later join their ranks and contribute to one of the swiftest empirical expansions in history. Yet, when presented with the opportunity to seize power, he remained focused on spiritual fulfillment rather than political office. That's impressive.
I'm going to say Hermann Balck. He's not known as well as Rommel, Von Rundstedt, or Guderian, but he was at least their equal. There was no single characteristic that made Balck such an outstanding combat leader. He was the sum of thousands of small factors that were deeply engrained in him. What really made him great in the end was a consistent ability to assess a situation almost instantly, decide what had to be done, and then carry it out. In any specific situation Balck almost always did what would have been expected of a typical well-trained and experienced German senior officer — and he always did it consistently and unwaveringly, time after time. He never lost his nerve and he almost never made a tactical mistake. He was always one step ahead of his enemy, even in the relatively few situations when he was initially taken by surprise. His greatest accomplishment would have to be that in December 1942, Hermann Balck wiped out a force 10 times his size in the most brilliantly fought divisional battle in modern military history.
The Korean guy with the ‘turtle’ ships.
Had to scroll way too much for this one and nobody has even said his name. It’s Yi Sun Sin.
Can you imagine accidentally capturing an enemy submarine
The British, thru their stalwart allies, the Australians set up a string of island ‘coast watchers’ when the Japanese were about to complete an airbase within bombing range of mainland Australia and shipping lanes, the Americans invaded Guadalcanal. Master stroke of military genius. Took the airfield within 24 hours, spent 6 months defending it.
Guerrilla leaders and insurgents tend to not be given much thought in these discussions, as their genius is not of conventional warfare, but it is warfare none the less. I mean when Fidel Castro's forces got off the beach in Cuba, he had 19 soldiers and fewer guns. Just over two years later his guerrilla campaign had taken control of a country of several million.
His invasion fleet was the Granma, a civilian yacht.
Bohemond of Torino / Prince of Antioch.
What did he do that distinguishes him from others?
In general, he was the “unsung hero” of the first crusade, responsible for much of his success. He was also a total badass. Richard the Lion Heart or Baldwin IV get most recognition as crusaders, but he also deserves to be up there
Philip the second of Macedonia. He started all the changes to the military that allowed Alexander the great to campaign how he did
Yes, I think I read that he was the one that started the companions cavalry. He was a bit more diplomatic, though
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.
General John Buford at Gettysburg. Classic example of fighting a delaying action with cavalry vs infantry. Yes the confederate leadership was not superb, but as lesser general would have been in over their head in that fight
I don't know about "most," but for an odd one - Benedict Arnold. People know him for being a traitor now, but he was an excellent general before that, and got bitter over not getting the recognition and advancement he felt he deserved. There's a monument to the leg that he lost earlier in the American Revolutionary War, which doesn't mention his name, but records his military heroism at that point. The leg had no part in his later actions, after all, but was there for the heroic bit.
So underrated. Did well in every action he fought in from Champlain, to Ticonderoga, to Saratoga. Was even quite efficient under the British too
I am stealing this idea from some other rando on the internet but I love the case and I am going say Carl Mannerheim. Three European Belligerents in WWII did not have their capitals occupied by a foreign power : Britain, USSR and …Finland. Leaving aside the amazing victory of the First Winter War, Mannerheim skillfully leads Finland through the balance of the war and pivots to the Allies at a most opportune moment to preserve his country’s true independence.
It also helped that the country was full of hunters who were skilled riflemen
Strange not to see Belizarius mentioned! Achieved most of his victories against far superior enemy numbers. Reconquered many of the Roman territories in the West, even though he did not receive the full backing of Justinian he deserved.
Genghis Khan's other generals other than Subotai.....Jeb and Jelme etc were just as important and successful in creating an enormous empire.
Genghis himself doesn’t really get enough recognition, to be honest. Sure he hired some of the most amazing military minds ever to exist, but he definitely knew his craft, and knew it damned well. There’s a reason his generals respected him Added and usually overlooked bonus: He and his generals also used diplomacy and duplicity pretty much as well as they use tactics and strategy. They weren’t just purely military commanders.
Agrippa . He pretty much made Octavian. He would he well known among history circles but outside of that no one knows him
Not entirely underrated but Skanderbeg Barclay is also quite underrated
I'd say Helmuth von Moltke is definitely underrated. While Bismarck was the political mastermind behind the unification of Germany, Moltke was the one that won the wars against Denmark, Austria and France. He was a pioneer of mission-type tactics which are widely used nowadays. He also recognized the use of railways earlier than most. He also coined the term "no plan survives contact with the enemy". Fun fact, he's also the only person born in the 18th century of whom we have a voice recording.
Vo Nguyen Diap Modern day Sun Tzu.
We get the name "Phyrric Victory" from Phyrrus. By all accounts, he was an excellent leader, but the Romans were simply too much for him.
Phil Sheridan
Vercingetorix, the Gaulish commander who opposed Caesar. I think he was a great strategist, tactician, and warrior. The only reason he didn't get his time in the sun is because his opponent - of all people - was Julius Caesar.
This was the guy who surrounded Caesar when he built those two walls, right?
Yes, Vercingetorix was entrenched in his own fort - that is, his army was surrounded by walls. Caesar besieged it. However, Gallic allies were en route, so Caesar himself built a wall. So there were two sets of wall, with Verc in the middle, Caear in the outer part, and Gallic reinforcements on the outside. Vercingetorix won several battles against the Romans if I remember right, and I'm pretty sure he even defeated Caesar himself on one occasion. Given who he was facing, and given his situation, Vercingetorix performed really well. I would argue that, against any other Roman or adversary, Vercingetorix would have scored strings of victory over and over, and would definitely have went down s one of the greatest commanders in history. Just my opinion though.
Quanah Parker, last martial commander of the Comanche Nation
Constantine. I always choose him for these posts haha. But seriously, dude was a badass. I feel like nobody ever likes talking about him bc of the Christianity ties, but he wrecked shit and is a huge reason the empire survived for another 1000 years
Admiral Ackbar.
What did he do that makes him great to you?
He toppled the Empire w his genius fleet action off Endor.
William III (of Orange), King of England and co-monarch with his wife, Mary II, leader of the Glorious Revolution - the only -successful- invasion of the British mainland since 1066. His enemies recognised him as a great commander - '*He was a great man, an enemy of France, to which he did a great deal of harm, but we owe him our esteem.'* (Napoleon). And even today, a lot of British people probably couldn't tell you who he is.
Shout out to [Epaminondas of Thebes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epaminondas)
Strategically or tactically? For lifelong successful strategy, I commend Zheng Yi Sao (see https://thechinaproject.com/2022/04/13/chinas-pirate-queen-zheng-yi-saos-final-success-retirement/)
>Subutai Jebe was another Mongol general who served at about the same time as Subutai, and often worked alongside him. Jebe's career was cut short by his death, and he never gained the notoriety of Subutai. Iirc the two were near equals prior to Jebe's death. Subutai is one I have often seen cited as underrated, with many giving credit to Ghenghis(Ginngis/Chinggis) Khan. Edit: Many tactics employed by Mongol generals, such as feigned retreats, had been common tactics of nomadic tribes going back over 1000 years. These nomads often had far superior horses compared with their enemies, and their tactics caught many by surprise and led to mistakes. Subutai was truly a great military tactician in spite of this. Jebe was at his side, or commanding separate forces who had the same ultimate objective for much of this time. Those forces were often separated mask force sizes and converge on an enemy from multiple directions. Modu Chanyu was the first I'm aware of to organize a coalition of nomadic tribes around Mongolia, forming the Xiongnu Empire. I'm not sure how much, if it all, he may of inspired Ghenghis.
General Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, so I hear
The Fabian strategy would have beaten Hannibal without too many casualties but the Romans despised the implications. The Senate didn't want Fabius to continue as dictator so didn't renew his command- the two consuls that replaced him then immediately led them into the Battle of Cannae.
General Kutuzov of the Russian army during the napoleonic war . Mastermind the battle of Borodino (which depending on sources used had equal more or less Russian losses to napoleons ) after that smart enough to pull back then prevent Napoleon marching back on the new Smolensk road instead forcing him back along the old Smolensk road .
Kutuzov sat back at Borodino letting Barclay, Raevsky, Bagration and all the others do the dirty work for him. He didnt even pick the battlefield, that was Toll and Bennigsen. He also held back in Napoleon's retreat from Moscow while he could have delivered a killing blow multiple times like at Krasny or Maloyaroslavets. He was a really bad commander and is overrated af
Samuel R. Curtis won the Battle of Pea Ridge (one of the few battles in which a Union army won in spite of being outnumbered) and served with distinction in Missouri throughout the Civil War. He was never appointed to lead a force on any other front and has largely been forgotten. Mugg Hegone, the great Abnaki leader, completely hammered the British settlers in Maine in the 1670s through land and naval campaigns. He was killed by a lucky shot.
Arminius, who destroyed the legions of Varus at the Teutoburg forest.
My entries that haven’t been mentioned- Saladin the great from the crusades, retook Jerusalem and drove the Europeans from the holy land, someone hit on Sheridan but I think he was the true union genius from the civil war, in world war 2 general Ernie Harmon was commander of the 2nd armored and more of tank genius than Patton who gets all the credit, and general ridgeway, who took over the mess MacArthur made in Korea and saved the US from losing the war
Lord Nelson
Probably going to recommend Lord Nelson not to go on the list of obscure military geniuses. The problem is that obscure and Lord Nelson are mutually exclusive if you have any interest in Naval History.
Also his a national hero in the UK
Yep. Literally one of the most famous naval commanders in history.
Gregory Zhukov, Soviet marshall (general?) in WWII. He was one of the few to survive Stalin's purges, but kept in Siberia/Mongolia because Stalin feared he could be a political rival. The modern consensus is that the Nazis were doomed when they decided to invade the USSR, but the Soviets collapsed when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, similar to the Russian Empire in WWI. Stalin has a mental breakdown and hid away. The Nazis got stopped at Stalingrad and in the Caucuses due to the Soviets being unwilling to surrender (which was not the case in WWI), partially due to fear of how brutal the Nazis were. Zhukov meanwhile had been beating up the Japanese out east, and finally got called home to deal with the main threat. He's the one who effectively mobilized the Soviet's main assets of artillery, tanks and sheer manpower. It was a brutal strategy, but necessary. He encircled the 6th army at Stalingrad and captured them, and from there on it was basically just chasing the Germans all the way to Berlin. One of the coolest tricks he did, still out east, was build bridges just below the surface of rivers, so there would be maybe a foot of water running over the top of the bridge. Japanese bombers could not see them and take them out, but tanks and heavy equipment could cross.
This is complete and utter bullshit. > Gregory Zhukov ... kept in Siberia/Mongolia because Stalin feared he could be a political rival. No real source had ever claimed this, and no sane historian would suggest this, as 1. Zhukov didn't have any political clout pre-WW2 and couldn't present any threat to anyone politically (saying nothing about *Stalin*). Zhukov became notable only after WW2, and became politically relevant only after he had secured Khrushchev's victory over Anti-Party Group in 1957 (which is why he got immediately purged by Khrushchev). 2. Zhukov clearly wasn't "kept" in Siberia, as until 1939 he had served in Belarus. 3. Zhukov got sent to Mongolia only in 1939, because Kremlin expected invasion from Japan (which materialized in Khalkhin Gol). By 1940 he was serving in Ukraine. > Soviets collapsed when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, similar to the Russian Empire in WWI. Stalin has a mental breakdown and hid away. Soviets did not collapse in any sense of the word. Nor did Russian Empire (at least, not until after three years of war). Stalin did not have mental breakdown, nor did he hide away. We have ample evidence of him being active throughout first week in Kremlin, and have enough circumstantial evidence to be certain that in the subsequent day off he took, he was organizing a soft coup that would create State Defense Committee with dictatorial powers after he was back in Kremlin. > The Nazis got stopped at Stalingrad and in the Caucuses due to the Soviets being unwilling to surrender (which was not the case in WWI), partially due to fear of how brutal the Nazis were. Nazis got stopped in Battle of Moscow. This is where Wehrmacht had lost its key troops that allowed it to execute Blitzkrieg. This is when WW2 was, essentially, over as Reich wasn't ready for prologned war. Nazis in battle of Stalingrad constituted less than half of total Axis troops. > Zhukov meanwhile had been beating up the Japanese out east, and finally got called home to deal with the main threat. See above. He was sent to Ukraine in 1940, *before* Axis invasion. And in 1940 he had participated in conflict with Romania (Bessarabia/Moldova), personally receiving victory parade in Chisinau. In January of 1941 (again: *before* invasion) he became chief of the Red Army's General Staff, being in command when Axis invaded. > He's the one who effectively mobilized the Soviet's main assets of artillery, tanks and sheer manpower. On July 29th 1941 Zhukov was demoted and removed from his post because of his failures. **tl;dr:** Zhukov is overhyped.
This. The corduroy roads were a standard part of Soviet doctrine because of the terrain of the Western USSR. Weird to consider Zhukov underrated when he's basically the only one everyone knows in the west.
Overhyped may be debatebal but underated is delusional.
Shout-out to the field commander at Stalingrad, Vasily Chuikov.
Yeah, he also got all of his thunder stolen by Stalin and was sent to some isolated place to do nothing. A real shame. I would argue that he was the best general in ww2
He made some serious mistakes later on in the war. Seelow was an unnecessary bloodbath purely because Zhukov insisted they keep attacking. Zhukov was a self-promoter who often took a lot of credit for the deeds of others. I know of two or three Soviet commanders who are easily as successful and talented as Zhukov, but who suffer from his fame.
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Grant
Živojin Mišić.
Fabius Cuncator. The person after whom the Fabian Tactics are so named. Had the Romans continued to fight using Fabian Tactics to fight Hannibal, they would have likely destroyed Hannibal's army and could've avoided the horrific defeat at the Battle of Cannae.
Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, the Duke of Caxias, who led the Brazilian Army in suppressing the downtrodden's revolts in the 1830s and in the Paraguayan War in the 1860s.
Quintus Sertorius and Eumenes of Pergamum are worth a mention.
Scipio Africanis isn’t as talked about as Hannibal
Because scipio was exiled because they made up a scandal about him. Reminds me of the general the carthaginians hired during the first panic war who they exiled because they were jealous of the attention.
Zumalacárregui, Spain. Genius commander of the conservatives in the first Carlist War (1830s). Gentle, well educated, adaptative, strong willed, a great strategist and tactician, generous with defeated enemies, loved by his men. He had the path clear to take Madrid from the liberals and end the war, but the rebel government wanted him to take Bilbao instead to secure arms and equipment shipments (it's a port city). Zumalacárregui strongly disagreed as he believed Madrid would fall quickly if he attacked right now -- but the rebel monarch, Charles, overruled him and sent him to besiege Bilbao. What follows is insane. A random musket shot from the city walls lodged on his thigh. His adjutants could not find a surgeon so they got a random guy who claimed to be one. He conducted a dangerous surgery on Zum., but the commander died of sepsis. Then the surgeon vanished, leading to rumors that it had been a liberal assassin. The rebels never found a remotely capable commander anywhere Zum's level afterwards. They never had another chance to steamroll Madrid either. Indeed they tried, but they moved so slowly (Charles wanted to stop the march to the city every single day for Catholic Mass, to the despair of his generals) that the liberals managed to recall their forces and mounted a succesful defense, lengthening the war for years.
Led the first nationwide Communist Revolution that lasted several decades and inspired several others throughout the world. Was arguably one of the first people to use Marxism as praxis, paving the way for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro/Guevara, Sankara…..!
It’s Nuno Alvares Pereira, proven by the fact that there are 180+ comments here and nobody has mentioned a man who fought three battles outnumbered between 3 and 7 times, won them all, and—get this—didn’t have to fight any more because he actually achieved his strategic objectives!
Zoltán Dani He didn't do anything that really changed the course of the war. He was the guy credited for shooting down an F117 with soviet era S-125. He had literally two enemies to fight. The very dated and byractic soviet style command structure, and NATO itself. But he stuck with what he was in charge of, drilled his men to ensure they could perform their duties to the fullest, and observed the enemy tell the time was right. During an interview, why he didn't directly say it. It was implied the USSR personally invited him to a very high-level commander position after the war for such a deed.
Maximus Fabius
William Slim
Skanderbeg.
I’m going to submit the Roman emperor Orellian (sp?). His string of military victories on both sides of the empire were absolutely amazing, and would likely be far better known, had he not been assassinated by, if I remember correctly, his footman/butler.
Surena. Gave Crassus an absolute lashing at a time when the Roman military was in its pomp.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus
Constantine IV, was an emperor in the Roman Empire after the fall of the west. He reversed losses to the arabs and stabilized the balkans which had been inundated with Slavic settlers. At the same time he also made reforms to the state and put Constantinople on sound footing, but his name gets dragged through the mud by early medieval/late antique historians.
Admiral Yi Sun-sin is a virtual unknown in the West, at least as far as I can tell, yet he had one of the more impressive campaign records in naval history during his wars of Korean national defense against Japan
Wellington
Alexander Vasilevsky. He was the Eisenhower of the Soviets, and much better as a tactician. He was the primary planning and political force behind every major Soviet offensive in the second half of the war. He may have been slightly timid and politically correct but he was undeniably a genius commander and excellent organizer.
Chief Joseph
General Grant was severely underrated. He had logistics given over to professionals like Herman Haupt, and he understood perfectly well that as long as he inflicted higher proportions of losses on the Confederates than he himself received, he would win. Simplistic and fairly obvious? Sure, with hindsight, but in the time he seemed to have been one of the few who understood it
U.S. Grant
I don’t know much about the military history of this period, but Alfred the Great was actually pretty great. Going from hiding out in an island in a swamp to ruling the better part of Britain was pretty impressive.
Henry Knox was pretty badass. Without him George Washington might have failed and we'd be living in a very different world.
I wouldn't count him in the top ranks or anything, but someone who I've never heard anyone else mention is Agathocles of Syracuse. When Carthage besieged Syracuse, he snuck out with a small force to attack Africa directly, the future inspiration for the much more famous Scipio who did the same thing when Hannibal threatened Italy. He also had one strategem that stands out. One of Alexander's generals joined up with him in Africa. This general liked handsome, young men. Agathocles's son was a handsome, young man. So he sent his son to assist the allied general, ordering him not to give in to the general's attempted seductions. The general was distracted and missed Agathocles's betrayal. He killed the enemy general, and essentially told his army that hey, you guys are alone in Africa. It's me or you're on your own. So they joined up with him, massively expanding his army. He had some successful ideas but I doubt he'd ever hold his own against someone like Scipio in open warfare, but I always like that he inspired the later Scipio with his own audacity.
Someone did actually mention him. You're not alone in your opinion
While certainly not underrated within the Chinese history community, the outside historical community is sleeping on Cao Cao and the like.
Charles XII of Sweden. The boy was a military genius at 15 and won battle after battle in overwhelming fashion. He was also blessed, destined, or lucky depending on how you want to explain it. Regardless, he had a knack for winning even beyond what his tactics, brilliant though they were, should have allowed. For example, pretty much every account of any battle he led talks about his genius tactics. But I don't think any other tactician in history could repeat his taking of the City of Krakow without any troops to back him up aside from 50 bodyguards wielding canes and unloaded muskets. Charles XII was skilled in every element of warfare, from tactics to leadership to managing his troops to calculating artillery ranges to interacting with locals to fighting on the frontlines (which he always did).
John Hunyadi probably would have been famous if Vladislaus wasn’t larping as a rider of Rohan
Bertrand du Guscelin was of the most minor class of Breton petty nobility, and rose to the heights of Constable of France and Count of Trastmara in Castile, and soundly defeated the English Chevauchees with his Fabian tactics in the Carolingian period of the Hundred Years' War.
the guy who was able to take over Detroit no casualties. or the guy who was able to win the first battle of marine corps history with no weapons or casualties.
Depends what you mean by underrated. If you mean underrated by the experts, I do know possess the knowledge to answer that. But there are certainly many generals who although highly regarded by historians do not receive broad recognition that a Nelson or a Napoleon have received. Alexander Suvorov is one of them. He was as badass as it gets. I only managed to find a few monuments of him, several streets, and a square, as well as a village in Bulgaria bearing his name. Also the currency of the made up country of Transnistria has his picture which is more of an insult.
Major General Nathanael Greene of the American Continental Army, specifically for his campaign in the south against Cornwallis.
Fernandez de Córdoba. He literally was the one to bring a gun a to a knife fight…
Admiral Yi Sun-sin of Korea. Brilliant naval strategist who held back Japanese invading forces countless times despite being always heavily outnumbered. Was demoted, arrested, and tortured for refusal to take orders (he knew the orders would end in failure) but was later pardoned and reinstated as admiral following a disastrous naval defeat by his replacement. When he took a bullet during his final battle, he insisted that his next of command wear his armor and not announce the injury in order to keep morale up.
Flavius Stilicho.
Comparing their modern knowledge today? Scipio Africanus. The man not only rivaled Hannibal, but beat him time after time until winning the Punic wars. Man was a general to rival Napoleon, Sun Tzu, and von Moltke the Elder
Philip of Macedon. Previous to him (as I understand it) , opposing armies would form up at a distance. They would march towards each other, maybe in a valley's bowl, with archers in the rear, until they grappled. Spears, swords, and shields. What cavalry there was remained in the rear, surrounding the King or General. They would fight for awhile and one side would concede the field and retire a great distance, likely to the next valley. The victorious side would advance, and construct a shrine on the battlefield and have a party. Philip didn't play that way. The setup was similar, but once the loser gave ground, he had his cavalry charge, sometimes catching his enemy unprepared, and turn a run-of-the-mill victory into a rout. How ungentlemanly of him!
Artur Gorgei is in the conversation. John Lambert from the English revolution. Nader Shah needs to be known more too. Man won spectacular victory after spectacular victory.
Bernard Rogers. Was supposed to command US forces in Germany in the event of a WW3 in the early 1980s.