The companion thread to the one in the Pre-1900 forum. As in the other, my Top 15 follow. Who would you pick, O fellow Nerds of AH.com?
1) Vo Nyguen Giap. Defeated France by one of the all-time great maneuvers, also defeated the USA, a full-fledged superpower, spanked the Hell out of China, and defeated Democratic Kampuchea. Badass.
2) Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov-not the world's greatest field commander, as he relied rather too much on overpowering frontal assaults. All the same perhaps the single most important general to the Allied victory in WWII.
3) Nikolai Vatutin-the great Soviet maneuver general of WWII, his career had an ending with an unfortunate case of untimely death. He IMHO perhaps qualifies as the greatest overall Soviet general of the war but his death in 1944 kind of spoils his listing here.
4) Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky-another of the all-time Soviet greats. His role in the decisive Soviet victories in the southern front is much more clear-cut in the actual field command than was Zhukov's and he had rather more concern for his men's lives.
5) Fyodor Tolbukhin-the man that made the Warsaw Pact by overrunning a good-sized chunk of the Balkans and unlike his Axis counterparts got there and stayed there.
6) Erich von Falkenhayn-All of Germany's greatest successes in WWI were the brain farts of this man. He, in a war where people had enough problems getting basic tactics right, overran entire countries. Enough said.
7) August von Mackensen-Falkenhayn's protege and collaborator. Enough said.
8) Walter Model-The great Axis defensive commander of WWII, his victory against Operation Mars and his Operations in the Panther Line over-qualify him for this list.
9) Erich von Manstein-Model's offensive counterpart, single-handedly derailing the second Soviet attempt to win the entire war in one go at Third Kharkov, and his campaigns in the Crimea were exceptionally brilliant.
10) Dwight D. Eisenhower-a man that made the prima donnas and attention whores on the Western Front work as an actually functional team, each one's strengths playing off each other. For the Western Front of WWII what Zhukov was for the Eastern.
11) Lin Biao-directed and won the largest campaigns after WWII, consolidating the PRC in a conventional war nobody at the time, including the PLA's own leadership, expected the PLA to win.
12) Edmund Allenby-The Great Allied maneuver general of WWI, directly invented a precursor to combined-arms operations.
13) Ferdinand Foch, the man that won WWI when it pretty much looked like the Allied cause was a Lost Cause.
14) Tomoyuki Yamashita-the man whose campaign collapsed the British Empire. Enough said.
15) Josip Broz-Tito was a man who managed to take over Yugoslavia from the Nazis *without* the Red Army's help, and then managed to keep Yugoslavia independent for the rest of his lifetime. Badass.
Your picks?