Best General of the Early 18th Century

Who was the "best" General?

  • John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough

    Votes: 26 29.2%
  • Prince Eugene of Savoy

    Votes: 46 51.7%
  • Carolus Rex

    Votes: 12 13.5%
  • Someone else (who?)

    Votes: 4 4.5%
  • Claude Louis Hector de Villars, Duc de Villars

    Votes: 1 1.1%

  • Total voters
    89
Lewenhaupt did not carry supplies and artillery for the main army

Well, AFAIK, this is a generally accepted point of view and for a column of 12 - 16,000 7,000 wagons is a little bit excessive.

- the main army lived off the land.

Living off the land has its limitations in the devastated area and Charles expected that Lewenhaput's convoy will help to deal with the problem. BTW, living off the land does not help with the gunpowder.


Lewenhaupt was to move from Livonia through some pretty devastated lands that were low-density population from the start. The supply he brought with him
was for his own force, not for the main army and would have been completely inadequate for the main army. Peter Englund makes it pretty clear in his book on Poltava that the reason Karl XII did not stick around and wait for Lewenhaupt was the lack of supplies, which would not have been resoved by acquiring whatever Lewenhaupt brought with him.

Did he also mentioned that Lewenhaupt was approximately a month behind the schedule, which forced Charles to move from a pre-arranged rendezvous point? As for the rest, nobody (AFAIK) was saying that supplies would last forever (the whole campaign was simply ill-conceived) but OTOH claim that thousands wagons of supplies were just a trifle is not very convincing.
 
Well, the war ended with a Bourbon on the throne of Spain, so in that sense you could argue that the Allies lost.

You can also argue that each of the Allies had its own interest and was not necessarily ready to give other alliance members everything they wanted regardless the cost (Whigs were seemingly close to this idea but they eventually removed from the power). As I understand, the British main interest were in prevention of both Franco-Spanish and HRE-Spanish union so in this area they got what the best deal possible. Then there was French support of the Stuarts, right of the slave trade in the Spanish colonies and some territorial adjustments. They got pretty much everything. The Dutch wanted security from France and they got border fortresses. The Hapsburgs did not end up with an emperor who was also a king of Spain but they got territories in Italy and Belgium. Not too shabby.


Then again, they did manage to prevent a Franco-Spanish union, and the British at least certainly came out of the war in a better situation than they'd gone in, so I'd say that the UK won the peace regardless of whether you think the Allies or French won the war.

Exactly. And the same goes for the Dutch and Hapsburgs. OTOH, France ended with a Bourbon Spain which was not too bad either.

Of course, most of these results could be achieved without a fighting if Louis was not such a prick (and perhaps the same goes for some other personages).
 
@alexmilman

I would propose that we try to limit the discussion at least to independent commanders, if not supreme commanders/commanders of main armies, on the grounds that their efforts produce the most important results, and that the criteria for best be their ability to produce results in the context of their situation.

This is of course a valid approach but it still leaves the PR factor. Some personages of that rank got more or it than another just by the cultural/political/religious reasons. Just a few examples:

"Everybody" knows that Turenne was a great general: besides the fact that he really was one, an important thing is that he was French and European culture was greatly influenced by the French with the resulting promotion of everything French. However, his contemporary, Montecuccoli, is much less known even if he won the 1st field battle against the Ottomans and in 1673 completely outmaneuvered Turenne.

Gustav Adolph was a great military reformer and a capable tactician but his reputation was blown out of proportion by the Protestant writers (German and British) while Wallenstein was routinely vilified, mostly because he was on the "wrong side". Needless to say that behavior of GA's troops in Germany was not better than one of their opponents and that nobody (including his own Chancellor) could say for sure what are his political goals.

For a while Charles XII was everybody's darling (why the Dutch had been so happy about his victory at Narva is anybody's guess) and ended up as a somewhat romantic figure.


On one extreme ends of the spectrum, Alexander the Great achieved extraordinary results despite remarkable inferiority of strength.

This issue of a disparity had been questioned at least since the time of Delbruck and it seems more or less accepted that at Granicus he had at least 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry against 10,000 cavalry while estimates of the Persian force are varying wildly: 5,000–20,000 Greek hoplite and 10,000–20,000 cavalry. So in the worst (for him) case scenario he had almost a parity (with a big advantage in a disciplined heavy infantry) while in the best case he had almost 2:1 numeric advantage. However, the "tradition" supports an idea of the countless "barbarian" armies (of course the Persian empire with its ancient culture ended up on a barbarian side just because the history was written by the Greeks :cool:).

I'd say that the Mongols were a better example of the "extreme case".

On the other end, the fact that England, a small state in comparison to France, was able to defy and even humiliate its larger, more powerful rival in the Edwardian phase in the Hundred Years War reflects very poorly on the generalship of Philip VI and John II.

Well, AFAIK, military ineptitude of these kings never was in doubt but you also should keep in mind that England started the 100YW with a much better military system against which the French simply did not have a remedy.

Just so I'm not misunderstood, inferiority of forces is never a good thing; the duty of the statesman and the general is to set themselves up for the greatest success, and the best way to do this is by employing the greatest possible force. Inferiority in this respect can only be a necessary evil in war, and can only be justified by success. Nevertheless, for us as analysts, we recognize that certain talents are best displayed in adversity of one kind or another, and great generals enable their states to win greater successes than they otherwise would, allowing small states to punch above their weight and large ones to contemplate supremacy.

As far as I can tell, this "inferiority of forces" thing is a part of the European cultural tradition and I'm not sure that it works the same way elsewhere. Anyway, we do know that to make his successes more spectacular for the general public Napoleon routinely played with the numbers for both sides to show that he was winning with inferior forces even if his own principle was "God is on the side of the big battalions".

OTOH, sometimes inferiority of the numbers can't be helped as was the case with Mongolian conquest of the Northern China. Then, of course, we can talk about the talents of generals who managed to compensate for this problem by a greater mobility, better discipline, etc. But then, again, the issue is not going to be simple because Genghis was a great military reformer, a great strategist but not a very good field general (at the beginning of his career he was routinely beaten in the battles). On a 2nd level everybody knows Subotai (mostly because of his role in European campaign) but Mukhali (a person who was officially Genghis' #2 with a hereditary vice-royal title) is much less known because he was conquering China.
 
There was also a rather bizarre episode when Peter tried to bribe Marlborough in expectation that he'll convince Charles to switch from the "Eastern theater" to the main European one (don't ask me about the logic) offering for the services granted a princely title, a big ruby and monetary "compensation". Nothing got out of it but it gives an indication that Marlborough did have a reputation as a diplomat.

Plus he managed to keep the Allied army in Flanders together, which judging by the biographies I've read was no easy task.
 
One thing I will add is that, had Karl XII been in personal command, I think there's a very real chance the Swedes could have won at Poltava. IOTL, they were hindered by poor communications and a lack of a clear chain-of-command; the latter problem, at least, could have been averted had the King been in charge. Furthermore, there are several opportunities for the Swedes to take important positions had they not delayed in attacking various redoubts and had managed to keep the advantage of surprise. It's not as if they'll necessarily win if Karl is in command, but it's likelier than OTL.

Now, whether this changes the fact that Karl XII was a mediocre strategist at best in people's assessments is another thing. It might go down similar to Borodino, with the tactical victory not mattering in the long run. However, I think it's at least possible for Karl to incite a broad revolt in the Ukraine if the Tsar's power completely breaks down, so it's a possibility that the war goes better...
 
One thing I will add is that, had Karl XII been in personal command, I think there's a very real chance the Swedes could have won at Poltava. IOTL, they were hindered by poor communications and a lack of a clear chain-of-command; the latter problem, at least, could have been averted had the King been in charge. Furthermore, there are several opportunities for the Swedes to take important positions had they not delayed in attacking various redoubts and had managed to keep the advantage of surprise. It's not as if they'll necessarily win if Karl is in command, but it's likelier than OTL.

Charles' ability to win no matter what is more than a little bit overestimated. Of course, Swedes would do better if the opponent was less prepared so the whole argument about not attacking the redoubts is neither here nor there: they were built with an explicit purpose of blunting the Swedish attack. Charles or no Charles, Swedes were pretty much doomed in this battle because their strong point, the bayonet charge, failed to produce the expected results: Russian troops in a field (and there were numerous reserves in the fortified camp) were too numerous and their fire was too strong so that even the initial success in the main point of attack ended up with a disaster.


Now, whether this changes the fact that Karl XII was a mediocre strategist at best in people's assessments is another thing. It might go down similar to Borodino, with the tactical victory not mattering in the long run. However, I think it's at least possible for Karl to incite a broad revolt in the Ukraine if the Tsar's power completely breaks down, so it's a possibility that the war goes better...

No, it was impossible for Charles to "incite a broad revolt in the Ukraine" because Swedes, who had been looting it for quite a while, produced a little of a sympathy and because even in the best case scenario Charles would be lucky just to get away in a reasonably orderly fashion.
 

longsword14

Banned
Napoleon routinely played with the numbers for both sides
There used to exist two versions of each battle, one for the public pamphlets and other for more serious work. I doubt dandan_noodles is using propaganda numbers for Napoleon's last campaigns, we have Leggiere's work as an exhaustive source in English.
 
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What exactly do you think was disappointing about the War of the Spanish Succession from the Allied perspective? I mean, sure, they didn't keep Philip from the Spanish throne, but they did manage to prevent a Franco-Spanish union, which had been the big fear

This was never actually Louis XIV's objective. He wanted the Petit Dauphin Louis to inherit in France, and his brother Philippe d'Anjou in Spain.

Louis declared that Philippe could not forfeit his place in the French succession for the same philosophical reason he believed James II was the rightful king of England - he saw this as a matter of divine will, which couldn't be altered. But he didn't think Philippe would ever be close to succeed in France, which was why he proposed him as a candidate for Spain. It was only at the end of the war, after several surprise deaths, that he suddenly was next in line (behind the future Louis XV) and by that point Louis XIV wanted peace anyway.

Britain did made some gains overseas (and in the Mediterranean) though, so from their perspective it was a decent outcome.
 
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