Your top military general in history?

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Mine would be Subutai. He was a son of a blacksmith and thus came from a low family in a nomadic society but raised to be the greatest general in the Mongol Empire. Our equivalent of a Gabooye/Tumaal/Midgan.

:yacadiim:

He directed more than twenty campaigns in which he conquered thirty-two nations and won sixty-five pitched battles, during which he conquered or overran more territory than any other commander in history. He gained victory by means of imaginative and sophisticated strategies and routinely coordinated movements of armies that were hundreds of kilometers away from each other. He is also remembered for devising the campaign that destroyed the armies of Hungary and Poland within two days of each other, by forces over five hundred kilometers apart.

Having devastated the various Russian principalities, he sent spies as far as Poland, Hungary, and Austria in preparation for an attack into the heartland of Europe. Having a clear picture of the European kingdoms, he brilliantly prepared an attack nominally commanded by Batu Khan and two other princes of the blood. While Batu Khan, son of Jochi, was the overall leader, Subutai was the actual commander in the field, and as such was present in both the northern and southern campaigns against Kievan Rus'. He also commanded the central column that moved against the Kingdom of Hungary. While Kadan's northern force won the Battle of Legnica and Güyük's army triumphed in Transylvania, Subutai was waiting for them on the Hungarian plain.

King Béla IV of Hungary had summoned a council of war at Esztergom, a large and important settlement upriver from Buda and Pest. As Batu was advancing on Hungary from the northeast, the Hungarian leadership decided to concentrate their strength at Pest and then head north to confront the Mongol army. When news of the Hungarian battle strategy reached the Mongol commanders, they slowly withdrew to the Sajo River, drawing their enemies on. This was a classic Mongol strategy, ultimately perfected by Subutai. He prepared a battlefield suitable to his tactics, and waited for his enemies to blunder in. It was a strong position, because woods prevented their ranks from being clearly scouted or seen, while across the river on the plain of Mohi, the Hungarian army was widely exposed.

Only one day after the smaller Mongol army in Poland had won the Battle of Legnica, Subutai launched his attack, thus beginning the Battle of Mohi during the night of April 10, 1241. At Mohi, a single division crossed the river in secret to advance on the Hungarian camp from the southern flank. The main body began to cross the Sajo by the bridge at Mohi, and continued to attack the following day. This was met with fierce resistance, so catapults were used to clear the opposite bank of crossbowmen, as was noted earlier. When the crossing was completed, the second contingent attacked from the south.

The result was complete panic, and, to ensure that the Hungarians did not fight to the last man, the Mongols left an obvious gap in their encirclement. This was one of Subutai's classic tricks, to create a tactical situation which appeared to be favourable to the enemy, but which was anything but. The Mongols had already incurred heavier than usual casualties as the Hungarian crossbowmen had done considerable damage to the Mongol cavalry. Subutai did not want a battle where the massed crossbowmen, supported by mounted knights, stood firm and fought to the death against his army. He far preferred to let them flee and be slaughtered individually. The gap in the Mongol lines was an invitation to retreat, which would leave the knights and crossbowmen spread out all over the countryside, easy pickings for the disciplined Mongols. As Subutai had planned, the Hungarians poured through this apparent hole in the Mongol lines, which led to a swampy area, poor footing for horses and hard going for infantry. When the Hungarian knights split up, the Mongol archers picked them off at will. It was later noted that corpses littered the countryside over the space of a two-day journey. Two archbishops and three bishops were killed at the Sajo, plus 40,000 fighting men. At one stroke, the bulk of Hungarian fighting men were totally destroyed, with relatively minimal casualties to the Mongols, reportedly less than 1,000 men.

:liberaltears:
 

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The legacy of this great strategist:

Though unknown to the west for many centuries, Subutai's exploits were first featured by the British Military theorist B.H. Liddell Hart in his book "Great Captains Unveiled" after World War I. Liddell Hart used the example of the Mongols under Genghis and Subutai to demonstrate how a new mechanized army could ideally fight using the principles of mobility, dispersion, surprise, and indirect means. Though he gained little support in Britain, Liddell Hart's books were read in Germany, whose armies during the initial 1940-1 invasions of France and Russia bore an astonishing similarity to the campaigns of Subutai, 700 years later. In particular, Erwin Rommel and George Patton were avid students of Mongol campaigns.[10]
 

Merchant of Mogadishu

From Pella to Pattala, then back to Babylon
1. Khalid ibn al Walid (RA)
2. Alexander the Great
3. Salah ad-Din
4. Hannibal Barca
5. Napoleon
6. Genghis Khan
7. Suleiman the Magnificent
8. Julius Caesar
9. Belisarius
10. Marcus Aurelius
11. Subutai
12. Selecus I Nicator
13. Cyrus the Great
14. Mehmed the Conqueror
15. Frederick II of Prussia
16. Pyrrhus of Epirus
17. Nader Shah
18. Gustavus Adolphus
19. Oda Nobunaga
 

Merchant of Mogadishu

From Pella to Pattala, then back to Babylon
Honourable mentions: Ahmed Gurey, Baibars, Tokugawa Ieyasu, John Churchill Duke of Marlborough, Tariq ibn Ziyad, Al Mansur, Antigonos Monophthalmos, Tigranes the Great, Mithradates of Pontus and Helmuth von Moltke.
 
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1. Khalid ibn al Walid (RA)
2. Alexander the Great
3. Salah ad-Din
4. Hannibal Barca
5. Napoleon
6. Genghis Khan
7. Suleiman the Magnificent
8. Julius Caesar
9. Belisarius
10. Marcus Aurelius
11. Subutai
12. Selecus I Nicator
13. Cyrus the Great
14. Mehmed the Conqueror
15. Frederick II of Prussia
16. Pyrrhus of Epirus
17. Nader Shah
18. Gustavus Adolphus
19. Oda Nobunaga

i would put subotai and chepe noyon before khalid bin waliid, followed by alexander , then hanibal.
 
Saladin. Just watch kingdom of heaven.
salh el din was a competent leader, not a great general.
The ones i mentioned were geniuses , Khalid al waleed created an improvised tactics that were used by the muslims for the next 200 years completely unchanged, its like they had a playbook and they just followed instructions. This was till the late 800's to early 900's when they switched to a combination of byzantine and persian tactics.
Subotai and chepe noyon raised mongol strategy and tactics to levels unseen before in history.
Alexander kept doing the impossible , in nearly every battle he was outnumbered , the enemy better equipped and in his greatest victory Guagamela/arbella the persians learnt from their previous defeats.
They outnumbered him 3 to 1 and they studied his tactics and countered them, and they had 10,000 greek mercenaries that fought just like him and were just as experienced. They also got to the battleground and prepared it. They covered every possibility they could think of, victory should have been assured.
Alexander instead of looking at this as impossible and retreating to fight another day, decided to change the rules completely and decisively won. When the enemy has covered every angle, when the rules are against you, even logic is against you, you either give up or just f*ck the rules and change the entire game like Alexander.

He did it again in an entirely different situation when faced with guerilla warfare in the afghan mountains.
He invented new tactics on the fly, and led them into a series of traps and defeated them.
The mongols didnt bother, when faced with guerilla warfare they simply drained the pond by killing every living thing in the area.

in 1200Ad western afghanistan was the richest and most sophisticated society on earth, after the mongols went through it , it was a disaster zone.

Now Hanibal barca is the closest to alexander, he was inspired by him, and his achievments are pretty spectacular if you consider that his army was never united, and full of mercenaries and tribes that hated each other and difficult to control, 2/3 of his troops were shit.
With shit troops he created miracles.
 

Merchant of Mogadishu

From Pella to Pattala, then back to Babylon
i would put subotai and chepe noyon before khalid bin waliid, followed by alexander , then hanibal.

Subutai is good, he's really good, but he's got nothing on the Sword of Allah.

Khalid Ibn Al Walid, he fought against the odds so many times, against the two most powerful empires in the world at that time. He pushed the Romans all the way back to Anatolia and his victories against the Persians led to their subsequent conquest. Just look at the battle of Yarmouk or the battle of Walaja. His superior tactics defeated numerically superior forces.
 

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Subutai is good, he's really good, but he's got nothing on the Sword of Allah.

Khalid Ibn Al Walid, he fought against the odds so many times, against the two most powerful empires in the world at that time. He pushed the Romans all the way back to Anatolia and his victories against the Persians led to their subsequent conquest. Just look at the battle of Yarmouk or the battle of Walaja. His superior tactics defeated numerically superior forces.
The Mongols who had a population of 800,000 or less in the 13th century conquered the entire China which had a population of over 150 million. The Chinese would raise 1 million man armies against the Mongols. Subutai was one of the main reason for these successes. Not to belittle the Sahaba who were the best of all generations, but the Persians and Romans were fractured and had just came out of a deadly 30 year war.

0960CC8F-933B-4713-833D-61E8FC0A6EF9.jpg


All of that conquered just by nomads who would raise sheep, goats, camels and horses.
 
Subutai is good, he's really good, but he's got nothing on the Sword of Allah.

Khalid Ibn Al Walid, he fought against the odds so many times, against the two most powerful empires in the world at that time. He pushed the Romans all the way back to Anatolia and his victories against the Persians led to their subsequent conquest. Just look at the battle of Yarmouk or the battle of Walaja. His superior tactics defeated numerically superior forces.
Not only were they numerically superior(persians & Romans) but they had better weapons, armor and defence. Also more experience, wealth and skill, etc..
Khalid bin walid had to face off today's equivalent of the US and Russia.
 
Ive read extensivly on this subject, military history is one of my hobbies,
but ive never fully understood how yarmouk, nihavand and qaddisiya were won.
Not many historians touch this subject and most find it surprising as well.

Yes both the Persians and the Byzantines were exhausted after fighting a series of wars, but they still had well oiled military machines that were veterans.
The worst equiped Byzantine or Persian soldier was equal to the best equiped muslim soldier.
Most of the muslim army wore no armour, practically naked.
Khalid al walids strange new tactics best explained as "skirmishing to death" cannot fully explain how and why they won. The strategic mobility of the muslim armies due to use of camels does not negate the tactical mobility of both the Byzantines and the Persians who had half their armies made up of cavalry while the muslims early on were on foot and used camels mostly for transport.
I could never understand how unarmoured muslim foot soldiers armed with spears and swords and primitive bows even survived a charge by the Cataphract or the Dehegan and Azadan armoured cavalry,
along with the continues shower of arrows.

it doesnt make sense at all..
even the decisions of the persian generals and the byzantines doesnt make sense, its like someone sneaked into their tents at night and gave them all mercury poisoning and reducing their IQ to near retard levels just before the battle.

yes i think some form of temporary insanity afflicted the leadership because 50 years later the bani ummuya invaded anatlia and took the war to the gates of Byzantium. This time around the Muslims were just as well equipped as the byzantines and outnumbered them 2 to 3 times in number.
The byzantines inflicted a series of defeats using standard millitary tactics from 100 years back.
Even in Persia when the empire collapsed and most of persia conquered their were hold outs in some areas notably in khorazem. The vastly outnumbered Khorasan dehagan easily defeated muslim armies 3 ties thier size. In the end the bani ummuya simplied bribed them to the muslim side, they kept their lands and titles and armies and were even allowed to fight alongside muslims without converting to islam.
 
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Merchant of Mogadishu

From Pella to Pattala, then back to Babylon
The Mongols who had a population of 800,000 or less in the 13th century conquered the entire China which had a population of over 150 million. The Chinese would raise 1 million man armies against the Mongols. Subutai was one of the main reason for these successes. Not to belittle the Sahaba who were the best of all generations, but the Persians and Romans were fractured and had just came out of a deadly 30 year war.

0960CC8F-933B-4713-833D-61E8FC0A6EF9.jpg


All of that conquered just by nomads who would raise sheep, goats, camels and horses.

So who would be your top 10?
 
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