Overrated or Underrated: Military Commanders

[Барбоса]

Given the success of Overrated or Underrated in the wrestling section and the demonstrations of historical interest by the Cigar Lounge, I think applying it to famous military commanders could arouse some good debate.

As an ancient historian, I feel obliged to open such a debate with a figure from the ancient world. To that end, I have chosen to look at the military career of perhaps the most famous Roman of all…

Gaius Julius Caesar

Famed for his conquest of Gaul, his brief foray to southern England and immortalised by his own writings, Julius Caesar was the man most responsible for bringing an end to the Roman Republic. The bloody civil wars he initiated by crossing the tiny Rubicon river into Italy with his army eventually left Rome under the military leadership of a single individual – first Caesar himself as dictator and slightly over a decade later his adopted son, Gaius Octavius, as imperator – the precursor of ‘emperor.’

There can be no disputing Caesar’s impact on the Roman Empire and history in general. Renderings of his cognomen would be used as imperial titles across Europe. The Romans themselves had Caesares, the Slavs had Czars, the Russians had Tsars and the Germans had Kaisers. Indeed until 1946 with the deposition of Simeon II of Bulgaria, there had been a Caesar ruling as a head of state for nearly 2,000 years after his assassination.

An even more long-lasting legacy from Caesar was his introduction of the 365 day year with the contingency for a leap year in 45BCE. While the Julian calendar was gradually superseded by the Gregorian calendar after 1582, the lay-out remained largely the same. The month of July is named after Caesar.

However, in my opinion, despite this lasting impact, Caesar does not deserve the accolades he gets as one of history’s greatest military commanders. This may seem surprising declaration given that Caesar conquered an area equivalent to modern day France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Rhineland of Germany as well as winning victories against Egyptians, Pontics (Greeks from Black Sea) and several engagements with other Romans. It is said that in Gaul, Caesar faced three million opponents or whom he killed one third, enslaved another third and conquered the rest. Clearly numbers were against him.

However, these numbers disguise the fractious nature of Gallic society, which was made up of a scattered and mostly leaderless array of uncivilised and technologically inferior tribesmen. Caesar was able to play these tribes off against one another, limiting his number of enemies at any one time while bolstering his own forces. This was a long-established Roman tactic and would continue to be for the next fifteen centuries so Caesar cannot take credit for any innovation.

Caesar also had at his disposal the most potent weapon available to any contemporary commander in Europe – the Roman legion. While it may have lost some of its flexibility following the reforms of Marius half a century earlier, the heavy infantry that comprised the legion was at its most formidable when facing the infantry based armies of the Gauls. Once the Romans committed a sizeable force to Gaul, the legions would rebuff the headlong charge of the tribesmen and before gradually chewing them up. It did not take a great commander to successfully wield such an obviously superior force.

A decade of warfare, no matter how weak the opposition, moulded Caesar’s men into a battle-hardened unit while the forces that he would face in the Roman civil war were made up of recalled veterans and inexperienced raw recruits. The difference was to be vital. Had Pompeius Magnus commanded a stronger army that he could be more confident in, the civil war could have been ended at Dyrrhachium when Caesar tried to cross to Greece. Only the discipline of his legions saved him.

Perhaps only at Pharsalus when he faced Pompeius’ much larger force, did Caesar have to show any innovation. Facing a force with twice the amount of infantry and a large advantage in cavalry, Caesar intermingled some of his infantry with his cavalry so to disrupt Pompeius’ cavalry charge but again even this innovation was reliant upon the flexibility and discipline of the legion.

I do not take away from Caesar’s achievements. He clearly was a man with a sound grasp of how to lead an army, maintain discipline and inspire loyalty. However, the Romans positively demanded such attributes in their commanders. For Caesar to be applauded for demonstrating a high standard of the basics of Roman warfare is to forget those Romans who not only applied the basics but who were truly innovative in how they led the army.

The originality of generalship Caesar had to show does not approach that of Quintus Fabius Maximus in Italy, Scipio Africanus in Spain or Aemilius Paulus in Greece, all of whom fought against far superior opponent than Caesar ever had to. He certainly does not even come close to that of Hannibal at Cannae or Napoleon at Austerlitz (in my opinion, the two greatest displays of battlefield generalship). His most famous victories at Alesia and Pharsalus were due to the strength of his battle-hardened legions and the weakness of his opponents, not from any out-of-the-ordinary leadership on his part.

Given command of an army of equal quality to Caesar’s, I believe that Vercingetorix could have won at Alesia and Pompeius Magnus would have won at Pharsalus. Of course, the fact that Caesar did have such a well-drilled core of Roman legionaries is a testament to his ability to instil discipline. However, such discipline had been the cornerstone of the Roman army’s successes all around the Mediterranean for over two centuries before Caesar was born so he should not receive any real credit for that. If anything, Pompeius Magnus and his Senatorial allies should be ridiculed for allowing the quality of their forces to diminish. The inadequacy of his opponents was not Caesar’s fault but I think that it should takeaway from his reputation. A general is only as good as those he defeats.

So why is Caesar so well remembered?

Due to the strength of the legion, the rigidity of the Republic and the dictatorship of the Empire, it was very difficult for a Roman commander to make a name for himself. Those who we remember are those who managed to break the mould by breaking the rules. Scipio Africanus was promoted beyond his age and experience. Marius was illegally elected consul on six occasions and Pompeius Magnus simply usurper his authority by raising an army on his own initiative. Caesar is no different. Had he not taken offence at being told to disband his army and stand trial for his political crimes and declared war on the Senate, he would still be remembered as the man who conquered Gaul but in my opinion would not have achieved the inflated reputation that he has.

In my opinion, the reasons for his fame lie not in Caesar’s military capacities but in the mystique of his assassination and his often misquoted final words. (His exact words are not known but it certainly was not “Et tu, Brute?” which is a line from Shakespeare; it is suggested that he may have uttered the Greek phrase “καὶ σύ, τέκνον,” meaning “You too, child?” although two of the main sources, Plutarch and Suetonius, claim that he said nothing).

At the time of his assassination, he was planning a campaign of Alexandrian proportions against the Parthian Empire of Iran before moving north into the Caucasus before advancing along the north coast of the Black Sea to crush the Dacians along the Danube and attacking the Germans from the east. Such a campaign will have stretched the resources of the Roman Empire and may well have given Caesar the chance to display some more dynamic generalship.

The other main reason for his lofty place in history is that he had two of the best publicists in history. One was his adopted son, Gaius Octavius, remembered to history as the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who made sure that Caesar was honoured with a place in the Roman pantheon of gods. Of course, such a lofty position enhanced Augustus’ own position as the ‘son of a god’ so it is possible that love and admiration for his adopted father did not play the main role in his deification.

The other great publicist of Julius Caesar was Julius Caesar himself. His war diaries from the Gallic and civil war campaign reveal him to be a learned man of great editorial skill. If anyone was going to play up Caesar’s achievements it would be himself.

Caesar may have been on a par with if not slightly ahead of Pompeius Magnus but was inferior to his uncle Gaius Marius and the emperor Trajan and not even in the same league as Scipio Africanus.

Perhaps provided with a greater challenge than scattered Gallic tribesmen, regional client states or inexperienced and ill-led Romans, we might have seen a more tactically innovative and dynamic side to Caesar’s military leadership. The horse archers of the Parthian Empire and the Ukrainian steppes would have provided a stern test. However, because he did not survive long enough to face that test, we can only speculate on how well he would have gotten on from what tests he did face and for me overcoming the foes he did was not overly impressive.

Julius Caesar – good, but not great, and therefore, overrated.



So what you think? Do you agree with my thoughts on Caesar or is these some over military commander whose achievements you feel are overinflated or under-appreciated?

EDIT - I cannot take full credit for this thread. It was Shadowmancer who suggested that I do something of this nature and specifically mentioned Julius Caesar as a prime candidate

 

[Shadowmancer]

Good to see the thing I mentioned to you being put into practice. I am also of the opinion that Julius Caesar is overrated as a military commander, and for slightly different reasons than you. I haven't read the Gallic Wars in about a year, but it is where the problem comes in as there is a strong intonation within the work about Caesar relying more upon Titus Labienus and taking credit from him because he had imperium. You can tell this in the way that Caesar's victories in the Civil War are less all encompassing than those in the Gallic Wars, and that can be inferred to be a result of Labienus defecting to Pompey's side of the war.

I don't doubt that Caesar was a great leader of men, or a "great" politician but the extent that he is praised is ridiculous, both of the major Scipio's; Africanus and Aemilianus. Pompey was known as a butcher during the Civil War between Sulla and Marius. Caesar was talented with a blade and I do not doubt that the death toll that was generated by the Roman's on the Gauls was high, not as high as is stated by Caesar within the Gallic wars.

I find it interesting that people believed and some still do believe every word that comes out of the Gallic Wars and the Civil War. While yes Caesar is perhaps the most credible source about those campaigns it doesn't mean that everything in there is true on any level.

There is more to Caesar than meets the eye but he is Rome's third greatest politician rather than Rome's greatest General.

 

[Барбоса]

“The Swedish Meteor”

Many historians, whether they are professional or armchair, when asked to name a leader connected with the integration of infantry, cavalry and artillery, will mention Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington or one of the many American Civil War generals. Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden would not feature on many lists, however, it may surprise many that this Scandinavian is known as the “Father of Modern Warfare” and the combined arms and musketry tactics he produced in the middle of the seventeenth century would be used for the next century and a half throughout the world until the invention of rapid fire weapons and the armoured tank.

Born in Stockholm on 9 December 1594, Gustavus was groomed for military leadership from a young age. By the time he was sixteen he was leading his father’s, Charles IX, armies in East Gotland, where he defeated several Danish invaders. When Charles dies in 1611, the Swedish parliament was so impressed by the youngster that they waived the age requirement for taking the throne. Immediately, the new king was forced to prove his mettle in conflicts with the Danes, the Poles and the Russians. A bold lightning invasion of Denmark brought peace with Sweden’s most threatening foe and between 1613 and 1621, Gustavus earned the cognomen “ Lion of the North” by first denying the Russians access to the Baltic and then pushing the Poles back from the coast. With these acquisitions, Sweden and her empire became the dominant power of northern Europe and a major player in continental politics.

It was this Sweden that entered the Thirty Year’s War in 1630 but how had the king transformed the Swedish army? The first major change he introduced was to make war a profession instead of just an obligation. He conscripted 40,000 Swedes between the ages of eighteen and thirty and although Gustavus’ army would later be supplemented by Scottish, Saxons and Swiss mercenaries, the core of the force created what was essentially the first national army since the days of Philip of Macedon. These Swedish soldiers were trained in a similar way to the legions of ancient Rome and through a systematic indoctrination Gustavus established a cohesion that even the most experienced continental veterans lacked.

The similarities between Gustavus’ brigades and the Roman legion did not end with training and discipline. The new Swedish army was heavily subdivided to aid mobility and flexibility. A brigade contained 2-4 regiments, a regiment, 8 battalions, a battalion, 4 companies and each company 126 men. Because of this subdivision, officers were given a lot of responsibility and Gustavus, while intolerant of inefficiency, was ready to promote his men on merit and ability instead of status. With this flexibility and Gustavus’ demands for quick manoeuvre and effective firepower, discipline and drill became of the utmost importance. The empowered officers were ordered to practise throughout the year so the tactics became second nature.

Into the hands of most of these highly trained 18-30’s, Gustavus placed a modernised musket that was shorter and faster to load. To achieve higher rates of fire the Swedish King reduced the ranks from ten to three and invented ‘fire by introduction’. While musketeers retired to reload, in Gustavus’ army once the first line had fired, the second, already loaded, moved forward to fire. This meant that the Swedish infantry could advance behind a continuous roll of fire. However, the musket was not the only infantry weapon. Under Gustavus, the pike again became an offensive weapon and was widely used. In fact, 54 out of the 126 men in a company were pikemen with the rest being musketeers. Despite the number of pikemen, their main raison d’être was to cover the musketeers from attacks. To aid this, an efficient and flexible T-shaped formation was devised for the infantry brigades. As well as protecting the flanks of the musketeers, the pikemen were also used as an offensive spearhead while the musketeers could pour on grapeshot in a murderous crossfire.

To complete Gustavus’ new combined arms tactical force, he employed two more forms of shock attack - artillery and cavalry. His field artillery, led by the immensely capable Torstensson, was smaller than other armies but because of this, they were quicker around the battlefield and achieved higher rates of fire. This meant that Torstensson could quickly supplement the shock of musket fire any where on the battlefield. To take further advantage of the damage this firepower did, the cavalryman once again became a shock troop. A charge with sabres and swords drawn replaced an exchange of pistol fire and each cavalry unit had its own small compliment of small and mobile artillery. Lastly, in case any of his units were under strain Gustavus reintroduced the tactical reserve.

Adolphus got his chance to display his new martial system when he was forced to enter the Thirty Years War to aid Protestants in Germany. After spending the better part of a year securing his position along the southern coast of the Baltic, the Swedish King was ready for battle, but the odds were heavily stacked against him. The Catholic Imperialist forces of Albrecht von Wallenstein and Graf von Tilly amounted to over 100,000 men whereas Gustavus had no more than 30,000. However, the fractious nature of the Imperial command came to the Swedes rescue. Beguiled by Cardinal Richelieu of France and wary of his best general’s growing power and status, the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II dismissed Wallenstein and all of a sudden the forces facing Gustavus halved in size. To make matters even better, the Swedes were able to recruit and hire many of the out-of-work soldiers from the disbanded Imperial army.

The stage was set for a confrontation between the old and the new - the massed infantry squares of Graf von Tilly verses the linear T-shaped formations of Gustavus II of Sweden. The inevitable battle took place on 17th September 1631 near Breitenfeld. Adolphus had 47,000 men including 10,000 Saxons of doubtable quality, while Tilly had 40,000. The Saxons were deployed on Gustavus’ left while the Swedes were arrayed in three lines of infantry with the cavalry on each wing and Torstensson’s artillery positioned in front. Tilly opted for his tried and tested long line of infantry squares with his cavalry on each wing and artillery in front, however, this time he and his formations had met their match. Several later historians would compare this meeting to the confrontation when the Greek phalanx, slow and cumbersome, was challenged by the flexible and mobile Roman legion.

The battle commenced with a small skirmish between Tilly’s cavalry and Gustavus’ Scottish mercenaries and then a prolonged exchange of fire. Torstensson quickly gained the upper hand for the Swedes with his superior rate of fire. Eventually, the Imperial left under Graf zu Pappenheim could not hold back any longer and charged the Swedish right flank without orders. The flexible Swedish cavalry, along with small detachments of infantry, were easily able to resist the seven charges and finally Pappenheim’s men began to break up. A swift counter-attack by the Swedish cavalry annihilated the entire Imperialist left flank. However, Gustavus did not have it all his own way. While Pappenheim was being chased from the field on his right, the other Imperial cavalry wing, under Graf von Fürstenberg, had attacked and routed the Saxons in less than half an hour. All of a sudden, the Swedes were outnumbered and in danger of being encircled by Tilly’s infantry and cavalry. This is when Gustavus proved to the world that his new formation was undoubtedly superior to any other.

The Swedish brigades of the second line moved quickly to create a new front to combat Fürstenberg’s flank attack while the Swedish left shifted across to face Tilly’s approaching centre. With the battle at this pivotal stage, Gustavus decided to risk everything in one final shock attack. Since the defeat of Pappenheim, the King’s right flank had been secure and now he himself led those cavalry units in an attack that swept across the Imperial artillery and further into Tilly’s left flank. Torstensson then led his men across the field and took control of the Imperial cannon, turning them against the Imperial lines. Assailed from the front and the left by the combined forces of infantry, cavalry and artillery, Tilly’s infantry squares fought on bravely but eventually broke, losing 13,000 men, all its artillery and its entire baggage train.

Click the link below for a better look at the Battle of Breitenfield
Initial Dispositions - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Battle_of_Breitenfeld_-_Initial_dispositions%2C_17_September_1631.gif

Opening Moves - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Battle_of_Breitenfeld_-_Opening_moves%2C_17_September_1631.gif

Stopping the Attack - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Battle_of_Breitenfeld_-_Stopping_the_attack%2C_17_September_1631.gif

Annihilation - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Battle_of_Breitenfeld_-_Annihilation%2C_17_September_1631.gif

The new Swedish system had proved a great success and would prove itself again the following spring when Gustavus again defeated Tilly, who was mortally wounded. This second victory left the King of Sweden as the most powerful man in northern Europe. However, like most meteoric rises, the success was not to last. Desperate to regain the advantage, Ferdinand II recalled Wallenstein and although at the subsequent battle of Lützen in 1632, the Swedes were again victorious, the gloss was taken off when, again leading one of his cavalry charges, Gustavus was isolated and killed. He was just 38. His career began at the same age as Alexander the Great and did not last much longer. The comparisons do not end there. Both regularly commanded cavalry attacks and both commanded the model army of their generation. Both also owed a lot to others for their armies – the force that Alexander conquered the east with was as much his father, Philip II’s army as it was his; Adolphus used the ancient Roman techniques of the officer hierarchy, battle drill and subdivision and the ideas of the military Renaissance coming out of war zones such as the Netherlands to create combined arms, integrated armies and therefore establishing modern warfare.

Perhaps the greatest comparison between Alexander and Gustavus is their legacy and the powerful men that their advances produced. Without Alexander, there would not have been a Pyrrhus, a Hannibal, a Scipio Africanus or a Julius Caesar and without Gustavus Adolphus, there would have been no George Washington, no Duke of Wellington and no Napoleon Bonaparte. Having such an impressive résumé as well as such an impact on modern warfare means that King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden is almost certainly underrated.

 

[Барбоса]

Overrated or Underrated: Military Commanders of the 20th Century

Recently I rediscovered a book I own called “Military Commanders: The 100 Greatest Throughout History.”

I had not read it in a few years and was interested to see if my thoughts on military commanders had changed any in that period. No attempt was made to put them in any order other than chronologically which was fair enough. However, I was pretty shocked by the line-up. Roman emperors such as Augustus and Claudius were claimed as great commanders despite neither ever leading an army successfully. If such men are considered great commanders because of the successes of the campaigns ordered by them then leaders like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and FDR should be too.

The treatment of Middle Eastern history was particularly unacceptable. No mention of Cyrus the Great who built the Persian Empire, the first superpower of the ancient world or of Shapur II. The Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries are omitted in their entirety, leaving out such brilliant commanders such as Khalid ibn al-Walid and 'Amr ibn al-'As. Ottoman Sultans such as Bayezit the Thunderbolt, Mehmet the Conqueror and Suleiman the Magnificent are also conspicuous by their absences.

However, before this turns into an out and out book review, I will get to my point. Of the 100 men mentioned in this book, 33 of them served part of or their entire career in the 20th century. Now I understand that that century saw the two largest wars fought so far by mankind in the First and Second World Wars but even given the truly global scale of these conflicts, I have a very hard time accepting that such a sizeable portion of history’s ‘greatest’ commanders lived during the last 100 years.

Perhaps it is my ancient history bias shining through but the major advances in technology during the course of the 20th century gradually removed any opportunity for strategic, tactical or battlefield innovation.

The First World War was a gigantic clusterfuck of strategic idiocy and callous attrition tactics. Colossal yet slow armies blundered into each in the Low Countries before settling into the mutual slaughter of trench warfare. No commander on either side decorated himself in any glory to any lasting effect. Victory went to the Allies because they could recruit and maintain a larger army long enough to outlast the German economy.

The one thing that did come out of the ‘Great’ War to have a major effect on how war was fought was the British invention of the tank. Mechanised cavalry and motorised infantry gradually became the core of every army. The Germans got off to just a good start during the Second World War because part of their military command realised the potential for swift envelopment and conquest that the tanks gave them. For that, I think Heinz Guderian, Erich von Manstein and Erwin Rommel are rightfully recognised amongst the great commanders.

Heinz Guderian

Erich von Manstein

Erwin Rommel

However, I find it very difficult to rate anyone else from the Second World War as ‘great.’ There were numerous successful commanders but why should Russians like Zhukov, Konev and Chuikov and Allies such as Montgomery, Patton and Eisenhower gain fame just for being able to find forward gear in their tanks when they had numerical, strategic, tactical, technological and supply superiority?

Someone like Orde Wingate should receive far more praise than he does. He led irregular and native forces on two separate continents. In Africa, he commanded an Ethiopian rebellion that ejected the Italians from Abyssinia. More famously, he organised a unit called Windgate’s Raiders, or the ‘Chindits,’ an under-supplied, irregular force, that harassed superior Japanese forces in the forests of Burma for two years before his death. He also invented the “long range penetration group” that would disrupt enemy lines, communicate by radio and be supplied by air. So impressed with his ideas on jungle and guerrilla warfare was President Roosevelt and the US military that Windgate was given an American unit to train, known as Merril’s Marauders.

That men like Windgate do not receive that attention they deserve is due to the glamour afforded to men like Patton, Montgomery and Zhukov by the ground they could cover in their tanks. These tanks commanders did very little of the fighting. They punched holes in enemy lines for the infantry to exploit while they drove off into the distance. Now I am not belittling the importance of these men and their accomplishments. Without Zhukov, the Russians may have had to negotiate with Hitler, without Montgomery, Rommel might have been able to reach the Suez canal and without Patton’s drive east, the Iron Curtain may have take in more of Europe. However, I feel that they get far more appreciation as ‘great’ commanders than they deserve.

Since the end of the Second World War, truly ‘great’ commanders have become even rarer, almost to the extent of being non-existent. Warfare has become solely about the technology you can bring to bare on your opponent – virtually impenetrable tanks, personal rocket-launchers and a whole array of push-button missiles have made war more like a videogame rather than a struggle between life and death.

In my opinion, only those who have successfully fought against the technology gradient, such as Vietminh commanders like Vo Nguyen Giap and Van Tien Dung against the French and Americans or the leaders of the Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, deserve to be even vaguely remembered.

Vo Nguyen Giap

Van Tien Dung

Therefore, I feel that the 20th century is drastically overrated as an era of ‘great’ commanders.