The Gonzo said:
What did Alexander the Great do that was so amazing? I could have conquered the Persian Empire myself with the army that Alexander had when King Phillip died. How does winning a couple of battles against an inferior Persian army top Napoleon's genius in defeating all of continental europe continuously for a decade, or Hannibal masterfully beating the Romans time and time again in Italy itself?
The fact that:
a) Alexandre did not lose a battle (while Nappy and Hanny did)
b) In most of his battles, Alexandre was outnumbered by the Persians, yet still won.
c) He had been fighting battles since he was 17 and did not taste defeat
d) At Gaugamela (sometimes called Arbela), when General Parmenio was introuble, Alexandre chose to save Parmenio and his men, instead of pursue and kill Darius III
e) Alexandre always led his men from the the front (don't know about Hanny, and I don't think Nappy did)
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Personally, I think that King David should be higher on that list. Some of his battles were pretty amazing.
Also, I can't see how George Washington didn't make the list. He was partly responsible for American independence (He obviously helped alot, why else did the American people want him to be King George I of America at one point?).
One candidate that I cannot believe is not on here (well, okay I can, but only because too few people know anything about him) is Konstantinos XI Palaiologos (Konstantinos Dragases, also called Drakos). When you consider that he spent most of his life fighting the enemies of the Eastern Roman Empire, reconquered several islands, and even parts of mainland Greece, despite having almost no empire to draw manpower from, and then the final stand at Constantinople where he chose to die with his people rather than escape and survive, I think he should be somewhere on that list.
Plus, I think Oda Nobunaga should be a little higher. He was the first "Great Unifier" after all. And when you look at how his career got started, with the ambush of (I think) Lord Imagawa, and the defeat of said Daimyo's army, this man definately deserves to be a little higher, IMHO.
And how the heck did Pyrrhus even make it on this list? The only positive PR I've ever heard for him comes from Hannibal (who, for reasons I'll never understand rated Pyrrhus as the best general of all time). Pyrrhus gave us the term "Pyrrhic Victory", and lost his invasion of Rome, not because Rome beat him, but because in his victories, he lost too many men and had to retreat. Pretty much everything he did ended up in complete failure. I say he should be removed from this list in favor of more worthy persons (such as either George Washington or Konstantinos XI).
Another question. I didn't see Richard Coeur d'Leon on this list. Why? The dude had some really epic battles. Acre... Arsuf... Plus, I think I read somewhere that later on, he had to lift this one siege (I think it was at Acre, again) and he only took about 100 men with him and drove the Saracens out of the city. That deserves some recognition.
Leonidas should also be on this list. For one, at more than 60 years of age, he shouldn't have even been fighting, but he was one of the most feared warriors at Thermopylae. And how many other generals could hold a pass like Thermopylae with only 5000 men for three days (in fact, he almost won. He only lost because Ephialtes betrayed the Hellenes by selling the secret of a goat trail to Xerxes) against an army of 1,700,000 men. That's 340 to 1 odds (and on day three, there were only about 300-400 battle ready Lakedaimonians and Thespians left, which makes about 4,250 - 1 odds, but the Persians needed odds that good and a goat pass that enabled them to surround Leonidas in order to beat him)!