So I saw a blog post or video or something somewhere recently calling Marlborough hands-down the best general of his generation.
AFAIK, this is mostly the Anglophonic thingy. In the list of the "best generals ever" composed by the French in the late XIX or early XX he was not present at all; needless to say that the list was "French-heavy" (neither was Marlborough on the similar Russian list of "...ever..." composed slightly later: they just added Suvorov to the French list). Marlborough himself told Charles XII that for his military education to be complete he needs to fight a campaign under Charles' command but this, of course, was not a very subtle flattery during their failed attempt of a diplomacy.
However, in the French (and Russian) culture he was "immortalized" in a song "marlborough s'en va-t'en guerre" which you can listen on
the French, English and Russian versions of the text can be found on
http://war-only.com/v-poxod-malbruk-sobralsya-iz-istorii-odnoj-pesni.html including Russian "soldiers' version" which was popular in 1812.
IMO, his career as an army commander was
mostly a single war (in the 9 Years War he was mostly in a subirdinate position) which, of course, not a problem by itself; Charles XII also was a"general of a single war". What's probably is more important, is that in most of his famous battles he had Euegne as a very cooperative second-in-command (which one of Eugene's biographers rightly considered to be a BIG bonus). Of course, the fact that he was definitely a great general is undeniable.
While he was certainly an excellent commander, I did think that saying he had no competition for that title would be...inaccurate and decided to start a poll/discussion. Turenne would be a bit too early to qualify, and Frederick a bit too late--I'd say Spanish Succession or Great Northern War for the most part would be where I'd think "same generation" would be found. So who do you all think was the most proficient general of that generation?
Eugene makes into any Euro-centric list and it seems that on a continent he was considered a more important military figure than Marlborough because he participated in more wars and his actions brought more tangible results but here we are going to the issue "
what makes one's the best"? The French definition was along the great achievement with the inferior forces which should remove Napoleon from their list because his formulated principle was "God is on the side of the big battalions" (and the whole notion is rather "romantic"). "Bonus point" for Eugene was that most of the time he had inferior numbers of the ill-paid and inadequately supplied troops hold together by his personal influence.
Charles XII was clearly over-rated. Of course, he was a great tactician (and did a lot to further increase quality of his troops) but as a strategist he clearly failed (perhaps because as a king he stuck to the "principles"). He was also greatly helped by the fact that most of his opponents clearly were of a low quality (in that regard Marlborough and Eugene are getting "points" for defeating the reputedly the best army in Europe, even if routinely badly led). OTOH, his tactics with a stress on a bayonet charge and full speed cavalry attack was rather unique for his time (one can see clear parallels with Suvorov's methods which became famous close to the end of the century, including the same neglect of artillery fire) and worked all the way to Poltava and the later engagements where bayonet was eventually "defeated" by a fire power.
IMO, the list is missing Villars.
Maurice de Saxe is probably closer to the middle of the XVIII century (became marshal in 1743 but his career started earlier).