Reopened Best Medieval Commander Poll

Who is the greatest commander of the Medieval Era?

  • Robert Guiscard

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Bohemond of Antioch

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Hereward the Wake

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Heraklios

    Votes: 3 3.3%
  • Sigurd Magnusson

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Skanderbeg

    Votes: 7 7.8%
  • Joan of Arc

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • Philip I Capet

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Richard I Plantenagent

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Belisarius

    Votes: 20 22.2%
  • Raymond de Toulouse

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Alexios Philanthropenos

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • Saladin

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Genghis Khan

    Votes: 18 20.0%
  • Malik Shah

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • William the Conqueror

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 5 5.6%
  • Subotai

    Votes: 11 12.2%
  • Khalid ibn al-Walid

    Votes: 19 21.1%
  • Bencomo

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    90
Honorable mention goes to Dmitry Donskoi.

Please, not that one! To start with, he was not even in charge of a single significant battle he is credited with and, AFAIK, there are serious doubts about that battle even being fought, or being fought in an alleged site, or involving alleged numbers of people, or having any significance at all.x'D

The 2nd big Russian national hero of that type also has significant problems. (a) it had been claimed that the Swedish chronicles have no record of the alleged expedition of Jarl Birger of 1240 against Novgorod, not to mention any kind of a battle with a related injury, (b) it was said that initially nickname "Nevsky" was attributed to a different Alexander, (c) famous battle on Lake Peipus seems to be blown out of proportion both in the terms of the forces involved and casualties (20 Livonian knights dead, 6 captured, nothing about those drowning; in Russian chronicle total 50 "Germans" captured) and the popular "reconstruction" of the battle is based on a pure ignorance: those doing "interpretation" were unaware of the rules of the Russian art of the period and mistook a preliminary stage of a campaign (marching troops) for a battlefield reserve. Actually, his sainthood had been granted not for the military activities but for an active collaboration with Batu and Berke which prevented Mongolian persecutions of the rebels (in the case of Novgorod, Alexander handled persecutions himself). Of course, the fact that he was a founder of the dynasty of the Muscovite rulers had absolutely nothing to do with anything. ;)
 
Across both polls, the current ranks are;

1- Belisarius, with 9 votes
2- Temujin/Genghis Khan, with 8 votes
3- Khalid ibn al-Walid, with 4 votes
 
Belisarius and Genghis are tied for first;
Khalid is in second

And a funny thing is that Genghis Khan was not really a great commander in the same sense as Belusarius and practically everybody else on the list. He was a great organizer, probably the greatest commander-in-chief and superb strategist, definitely the best HR person ever (look at a number of the great generals/military geniuses he managed to find and deploy without the rivalry or backstabbing among them, not to mention an absolute loyalty to him) but as a commander in a narrow meaning of the term he was not too impressive: on the early stages of his career he lost more then once and later most of the battles had been fought by his generals. So probably the greatest military genius would be a more precise definition.
 
Khalid or Subotai, voted for the former.

A major assumption is being made that it was Khalid ibn Walid who won these battles; even these were in fact mutual efforts. Khalid Ibn Walid was assisted by a number of commanders and leaders and cannot receive these titles. Khalid ibn Walid was according to some thinkers, a tyrant, disloyal and ambitious in all the incorrect ways.
 
Of the five times they clashed Baldwin IV beat him three times. Richard I beat him all three times they met in battle. How can Saladin be the best of the entire medieval period when there were contemporaries who demonstrably matched or surpassed him?

Personally, Saint Jean holds the honor in my opinion, Saladin got attention though, as we can see.
 
May I present Li Jing of Tang Dynasty China, who was undefeated in his career.He was responsible for the conquest of southern China, Tuyuhun and most importantly ,the Mongolian steppes(with only 3,000 cavalrymen) during the Tang-Gokturk War. He was equally skilled in commanding naval vessels,infantrymen and cavalry.His esteem is so great that he's actually worshiped as a War God in Chinese religion.He’s got his own art of war,but because the Tang government saw that his ideas were too dangerous to fall into the hands of disloyal generals,the government prohibited it from becoming published.The original was stored in the Tang palace and only a few selected generals were given access to it. Due to the fact that the Tang government prohibited its’ circulation,it was lost when the Tang palace was destroyed.Nonetheless,what appears to be his correspondence with the emperor(also a military genius) was compiled and published as a military treatise.
 
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That was true for pretty much every commander ever.

Some more than others... Simply remember that Khalid ibn Walid led forces into the field, but it was his superior who dictated stratagems. It was not as if he was given autonomy and travelled across the world, like Subotai and conquered several regions or as with Belisarius.
 
Some more than others... Simply remember that Khalid ibn Walid led forces into the field, but it was his superior who dictated stratagems. It was not as if he was given autonomy and travelled across the world, like Subotai and conquered several regions or as with Belisarius.

During conquest of Rus and Western Campaign Subotai was not officially in charge: a nominal leader in both cases was Batu and Subotai was responsible strictly for the military aspect of the operations (*). During the earlier raid of 1222 - 1223 he was a co-commander with Jebe and all his other “travels” were done by Khan’s orders. AFAIK, the only Mongolian general of that period who was given a true autonomy was Mukhali: Genghis put him in charge of all operations in the Northern China with an authority of a hereditary viceroy and a complete freedom of both military and administrative actions. Subotai, while highly respected, never got anything like that and was just a military leader assigned to conduct a specific campaign.

(*) Of course, his authority in the military issues was high enough to (respectfully) contradict Batu in public. When after Mochi Batu was reprimanding him for slowness of his operations which caused losses of Batu’s troops, Subotai “explained” that Batu started crossing too early, not taking into an account the time Subotai needed for his part of an operation and Batu agreed that he was wrong: formally, Subotai was his subordinate but subordinate respected enough to be permitted to argue in public with a Ghengizid in charge and Genghizid to be able to agree with his objections without loss of a face.
 
Some more than others... Simply remember that Khalid ibn Walid led forces into the field, but it was his superior who dictated stratagems. It was not as if he was given autonomy and travelled across the world, like Subotai and conquered several regions or as with Belisarius.
It's funny that you mention Belisarius, he hardly did anything as impressive as Khalid or Subotai for the matter, he wasn't nightly undefeated as the former or adapted for several situations as the latter, for every Dara he had a Callinincum and against actual organized enemies (Totila and Khosrow I) he was far less stellar, Heraclius managed far more than him despite being in a much direr situation (got to the outskirts of Ctesiphon despite having half of his territory occupied while Belisarius couldn't get past Nisibis), at the same time you demerit Khalid for having help/subordinate command, Belisarius also had Mundus, Germanus, John Troglita and Narses (the guy who actually won the war in Italy, despite Belisarius getting all/most of the credit).
Belisarius was surely a good commander, his victory in Africa got him a triumph which means it was considered a great thing to his contemporaries, but I would but him into the "medium-high" rank alongside figures like Oda Nobunaga and Weillington, but not in the same as Subotai and Khalid, let alone to the likes of Alexander and Napoleon he is often compared to.
 
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