re: Greatest Military leader of all time?

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Truman. Didn't mess around with sending troops to Japan. Should be the US stance on pretty much any threatening

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Truman should have taken care of Russia in May 1945 when he had the chance. We had th Army over there. The Russians were exhausted. We should have rolled them back to Moscow and liberated Eastern Europe. Instead we got 50 years of a Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, etc. Truman could have spared us a lot of future problems by biting the bullet there.

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Greatest Military leader of all time?

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This is too broad.

Ancient world: Pericles.

Modern: Guderian or R. E. Lee. Maybe Patton as well. Rommel wasn't even the Germans' best general.

They were a reluctant ally. Not a true partner.

Churchill proposed Operation Unthinkable, the invasion of Russia. It was only Truman who vetoed it. And he did so because Wall Street told him we were basically broke and they were afraid we couldn't afford another year of war.

It was a tough call, but it was the wrong one. We could have avoided a lot of trouble.

And the Cold War was not a Pissing Match. Conflicts such as Vietnam, which nearly tore this country apart, were a direct outcome of the Cold War. All of that could have been avoided.

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Churchill proposed Operation Unthinkable

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Of course he did. "In the report of 22 May 1945, an offensive operation was deemed "hazardous"."

Truman was already beginning to catch flak for the way he ended WWII, he sure wasn't about to engage in a second one against Russia.

One gigantic point in Genghis Khan's favor is how well he used the feigned retreat, which is damned difficult to do and requires an insane amount of discipline to avoid becoming an actual rout.

When fighting in Russia, Subodai faked a retreat for an entire week ending in destroying a vastly numerically superior European force.

Charlemagne

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Strategic? Dwight D. Eisenhower-the persons and problems with which he had to deal in order to manage the combined forces and defeat Germany ere nearly insurmountable.

Tactical? Georgy Zhukov-he almost single-handedly turned the tide of the war in the East during WWII.

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Zhukov was definitely a great general, but when your communist dictator tells you to win at all cost and doesn't care how many people die, it puts an asterisk on his military prowess.

Stalin didn't give a shite about anyone but himself and sent millions of soldiers into certain death just to wear the Germans down. At Stalingrad his generals (under his orders) sent several hundred thousand troops into relentless fire with no gun or just a few rounds of ammo.

Zhukov did what was required and did it well, but I wouldn't consider him a top 5 military leader. He was just the hammer behind a several million man army (knowing that failure would cost him and his family their lives).

Actually George Washington wasn't that great of a general, just incredibly lucky.

The revolution would have died in the cradle of the Hessian commander had just taken the time to read the missive that he was crossing the Delaware.

Also during the retreat from New York he got thick fog to cover it.

Nathaniel Greene and Benedict Arnold (before turning traitor) were much better generals.

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The american revolution involved a lot of luck. If we face a general worth half a shite we would still be British. If we had to fight the French or Spanish we would have lost. The English have always been vastly overrated as a military power and Cornwallis was dogshit

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I wouldn't go that far.

The American Revolution was not-so-much about our side having good luck as it was fortunate timing.

We suffered plenty of "bad luck" issues during the course of that war.

We did, however, have the good sense to hire a (French) general that could train our troops. And Washington implemented the necessary discipline. We had knowledge of our homeland on our side, we had numbers, we had the spies and we had a cause. It was also not a very popular war back in Britain at the time.

I'd like to amend my original answer and say these guys:

1. Carl Gustaf Mannerheim



He expertly guided Finland both militarily and diplomatically through World War Two. By 1945 Finland had fought at some point in time the Western Allies, the Soviets and the Nazis. Despite Finland's tiny size and being at war with all the conflict's major belligerents Mannerheim was able to retain his nation's sovereignty.

2. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck



From August 1914 to November 1918 Lettow led Imperial German forces in the East African Theater (Tanzania) of World War One. Vorbeck's force, at its peak, was made up of less than 20,000 men most of whom were colonial troops or Askaris. Those 20,000 men held off, in total, over 250,000 Allied troops over the course of the war in what has been called "The greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."

Lettow returned to Germany following the war's end having never been defeated. Hitler tried to incorporate him into the Nazi regime in the 1930's, Lettow's nephew provided this account of that exchange to historian Charles Miller:

Miller: I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go frick himself?

Nephew: That's right, except that I don't think he put it that politely.

3. Heinz Guderian



Pioneer of combined-arms warfare and the blitzkrieg that took France and Russia by storm. Pretty much the father of many modern approaches to war.

4. Helmuth von Molke the elder



Engineer of the German wars of Unification in which Prussia defeated Denmark, France and Austria decisively and in rapid succesion. Early advocate and perhaps the first vocal practitioner of what might be called "Mission-Command", another enduring feature of successful modern militaries.

5. Gustavus Adolphus



Called "the Father of Modern Warfare". Led Sweden in a number of wars against the Polish, Danes, Russians and most notably the Holy Roman Empire in the Thirty Years' War in which he tore the Catholic League a new a-hole. His actions to defend Protestantism profoundly shaped Europe and Warfare for centuries to come.