I was looking up books about Alexander the Great on my library's site and came across The Giant Book of Military Leaders: The 100 Most Influential Leaders of All Time by Lt-Col. Michael Lanning, so I picked it up today. Note the "influential" in the title, and that it doesn't specify generals, only military leaders. Lanning ranks as follows:

"This book identifies those military leaders who have dominated their times and exerted profound influence on the future. It ranks these leaders in order from one through one hundred, judging each by his immediate and lasting impact, both positively and negatively, on world history-- the lives of people affected and the direction of military and civil development that followed. Simple fame or even proven efficiency in battle does not necessarily earn a military leader a place in the 'top 100.' Rather, positions on the list result from enduring influence."

I was surprised to see George Washington at number one, but Lanning makes a good argument in Washington's favor. Other top choices-- Alexander, Ghengis, Nappy-- were no surprises.

The highest rated 20th century military leader was Hitler at 14.

Following is a list of the other 20th c. leaders chosen by Lanning:

Marshall 16, Ike 18, MacArthur 20, Fuller 36, Giap 40, Pershing 41, Alanbrooke 44, Bradley 46, Zedong 48, Schwarzkopf 49, Konev 54, Nimitz 61, Montgomery 63, Mannerheim 64, "Hap" Arnold 65, Kemal 66, John Arbuthnot Fisher 67, Togo 68, Dayan 69, Zhukov 70, Foch 71, Douhet 74, Guderian 75, Lin Pao 76, Yamamoto 77, Harold Alexander 78, Rommel 79, Hussein 81, Castro 82, Kitchener 83, Tito 84, Doenitz 85, Kim Il Sung 86, Kai-shek 89, Kurt Student 94, Patton 95, Allenby 100.

Obviously, some of those overlap into the 19th or 21st centuries.

Thanks for this information. I note that Lanning uses a broader concept than that of "great generals". I'm intrigued at the logic and/or arithmetic that somehow just manages to squeeze in Monty one place ahead of Mannerheim, for example.

It's just as he said in the introduction, it's all about scope. An influential theoretician will be ranked higher than a successful combat officer, barring other achievements. If it's a choice between two mass killers, say, Hitler vs. Tamerlane, the one with the most victims "wins".

Thanks for bringing this book to our attention ironikinit. I eventually found the complete list on the Web. It is an interesting read. It would seem from the passage you have abstracted from the book that the definition of “Influential” is a little flexible, even so I was surprised. I suspect what we have in the end is a list of Lanning’s favourite military leaders. I would very much love to hear Lanning’s defence of George Washington as the most influential military leader of all time as I find it really hard to swallow. However that may well just be bias on my part, Washington should unquestionably be in the list and probably the top half.

My real problem with this list is the inconsistencies. Consider Napoleon at No. 2, Wellington who defeated him and his Marshals fairly regularly only gets No. 22?

Pizarro and Cortés are in at Nos. 7 and 9 respectively and they are undeniably influential, however what of Clive who captured much of India for the British? He shed a lot less blood and subdued a much more politically and technologically sophisticated culture, where is he? He does not even make the list!

Nelson, unquestionably the most successful Fleet Admiral of all time in terms of victories at No. 35 is harsh, Togo at No. 68 is very harsh especially when Isoroku Yamamoto the man who lost his country WWII on day one gets the No. 77 slot. Thomas Cochrane comes in below Yamamoto! In terms of influence how is this possible? Where is Don John of Austria who defeated the Turks at Lepanto, where is Howard of the English Navy and neither Themistocles or Eurybiades from Salamis? Were they all less influential than Yamamoto? The marine side is also where Lanning’s parochial viewpoint is most noticeable Farragut appears at No. 87 and Dewey at No. 92 fine brave seamen indeed but hardly influential from the perspective of all history.

If the admirals do badly by Lanning the airforces do worse. The top air commanders that I recognise are not unreasonable choices although Arnold at No. 65 is again suspiciously parochial, followed by Douhet at No.74., not an unreasonable choice and Kurt Student at No. 94, who would be on my list also. However where are Dowding, Harris, Mitchell, Goering and Trenchard? If it is influence we are really after what about Whittle and Groves?

Well, we're going off-topic. I hope no-one minds too much. I'd also like to make clear that I am not personally invested in the following, merely repeating what Lanning has to say, although I will include some commentary.

"Although other military leaders such as Napoleon I, Alexander the Great, and Genghis Khan, directly accomplished more on the battlefield, none left a legacy of influence equaling that of George Washington. Without Washington there would have been no Continental army; without the Continental army there would have been no United States. The American colonies would have remained a part of the British Empire and faced a powerless fate similar to that of other colonies. Washington established the standard for an America that is today the world's longest-surviving democracy and its single most influential and powerful nation. George Washington more than earned the honored title "Father of His Country."

Earlier, Lanning acknowledges that Washington's current reputation rests more on his role as president than as a general.

I'd say that Lanning's case for Washington is adequate, although subject to a couple obvious problems: First, there's the unproven assumption that without Washington the American Revolution was doomed to failure; Second, since Washington's influence relies on the existence of the United States that later leaders who saved the Union, such as possibly Grant or Lincoln are deserving of comparable status.

Wellington vs. Napoleon:

Lanning makes much of the Napoleonic Code, for one thing. He also credits Napoleon as the cause of the unification of German and Italian states more or less into their current forms. While he considers neither Napoleon nor Wellington to be innovative leaders, he finds Napoleon to be the more influential on military thinking as he was the inspiration for Clausewitz and Jomini. Napoleon is also credited with developing the staff system and bringing "liberties to conquered territories not heretofore experienced."

It seems to me that naval men often fare poorly on these lists and that given Lanning's criteria (and perhaps bias unconscious or otherwise as he was an army officer) the army will be favoured over more specialised branches of the military.

Hitler's inclusion is problematic from my point of view. US Presidents are considered military leaders, and some like FDR and Lincoln were very influential. Stalin was just as much in direct command of his forces as Hitler and does not make the list. Stalin's purges alone greatly influenced events during World War II.

Obviously there is a lot to argue about on this list. Lanning makes a decent case to defend his choices and now that I've had time to get used to it, I admire his bold pick for number one. It helps that his likely bias is in favour of the world's most powerful nation, as his choices can be rationalised that his picks are the people who made it so. And, in looking for evidence of the bias, it is not as if he made up his list in a completely uneven way with Washington, Eisenhower, and Marshall as the top three.

Seems like the subject of this thread (the greatest generals of century twenty) has been exhausted. Anyone want to start a thread on the nineteenth century?