Vietnam is an example.

Answer the question

And every defeat of Napoleon was Pyrrhic.

Someone forgetting about the obvious? I'd be hard pressed to call Waterloo a Pyrrhic victory for Wellesley.

Not only did Napoleon have his failings in Russia, he also had his tactical failings in his unwillingness to stray from the column infantry formation. It worked against lesser trained opposing infantry but against true professionals (the British) it got slaughtered since it couldn't bring enough firepower to bear. At best 50% of their muskets could be used compared to 100% of British muskets/rifles.

Again, bringing in my subjective side...

Józef Piłsudski. He won the Polish-Bolshevik war (1919-1921), despite being outnumbered, having worse equipment and the enemy was strong, had renowned generals and never was defeated yet.

Everyone expected him to fail, but he actually succeeded and won against the Bolsheviks, forcing them to retreat and accept peace with Poland.

Perhaps it would be easier to say "who is the best general from this certain time, or this certain civilization."

Alexander the Great took more land than Rome had ever owned is the span of his short life. Rommel dominated as well as he could have.

I propose a new frain:

Where and how did guerrilla warfare start to come to existence and was adopted (replacing "Oh, let's just stand in a row and shoot each other.")

Regarding guerilla tactics, I am sure someone more informed on the matter will correct me on this but the earliest instance I am aware of was in the American Revolutionary war. Such tactics were definitely used in the opening days of the war as the Minutemen were constantly sniping at and harassing the British column returning to Boston from Lexington/Concord.

The tactic was further perfected by the Spanish and Portuguese in the Peninsular war as partisan fighting was major problem for the unwanted French.

Well i said statistics does not tell the story in military.

Technological superiority and morale doesn't make a general great, and i just said that the US generals weren't anything to write home about.

In Vietnam, the story is still not statistics. It's in their strategies / doctrine.

Napoleon's failing in Russia is excusable. He was fighting General Winter, and only the Mongols can fight Winter.

I won't argue with you about British and French in battle. Mostly because that's fact and not argument. I will say that Napoleon's defeats would often drain the enemy forces to a point where the victory was Pyrrhic, but roughly 85% of the time. Is it better now that i said mostly instead of all?

Grrr i was talking in context of the US Mexican War!

Washington is great, but not for military reasons.
Patton was pretty good, but very arrogant. He kind of copy-pasted from Germany though.
Lee is as good as it'll ever get.
Eisenhower and Halsey weren't bad, but they are in domains separate from the type of command Patton would do.

Washington is a great leader, and a lot of Americans tend to translate that as 'great general.'

Robert E. Lee may have led the Confederacy to victory had Gettysburg been won by him, so he's freaking amazing.

Sherman was also notable (in the American Civil War, at least) for his Total War tactic straight down the coast.

The point is not how few defeats they had, it's how Pyyrhic those defeats were to the enemy. And every defeat of Napoleon was Pyrrhic. Except maybe for parts of Moscow. But as i said, General Winter.

What is your meaning of Moscow? Heh, not that huge. Anyhow, Bérézine does not mean phyrric victory in French, it means disaster, catastrophe. Berezina battle can be argued to be phyrric (French successfully crossed Berezina, while Russians gave disastrous casualties and got half as much), ok. Look for example, at Leipzig battle, explain how that's phyrric.

And why doesn't "General Winter" affect Russian troops? General Winter in English words and Russian words means two different things; in English words, was one of the ways to discredit Russian military when Europe invaded it, while in Russian, General Winter just means Soviet soldiers, tough and harsh, like winter.

Who is the best MILITARY leader in history? From a purely military standpoint.

Well, there are 2 scenarii: a, this is an awful frain since it involves opinion/unresolved truth, or b: there is one way to numerically undeniably calculate it: loss:win ratii, along with allies:foes ratio when you get a list of all loss:win ratii equal to 0.

And attacking and burning a 70 mile wide undefended area isn't very impressive.

Can you do it?

Edited 9/24/2015 21:31:29

Burning the land wasnt just pure stroke of maddnesss. Chances are the land grew food, had houses and other things required to help maintain an army. There is more than one way to win a war.

What Sherman did made sense from a purely tactical, military stand point. However, Irony is quite correct that what Sherman did would be considered a war crime by today's definition.

Scorched Earth is effective. But the age old question comes into consideration: Does the outcome justify the means?

Maybe? If one were to pull it off ideally. What Sherman did? Nah. But that's not the case in point. Genghis Khan raped his way throughout Eurasia. He had to be doing something right.

Pretty sure Genghis wasn't exactly innocent, himself.

I think you're leveling a bit too much hate at Sherman. His actions were extreme but considering the circumstances of the time there's a lot of generals who would of done the same thing.

Edited 9/25/2015 02:08:49

:( why you gotta be so rude

Guis Julius Cesar. Nuff said. Too bad he was betrayed ;-;

"You can grow my wheat for me after you're beaten."

- Julius Caesar

"Get out of my sight before I do something extremely undiplomatic."

- Iulius Caesar.

No one General can be viewed as the best, as best is relative based upon criteria and era to a certain degree. That being said here are my favorites. listed Chronologically. Please note that I am an American and have mostly studied generals from 1700 onward, and even then only the big name ones.
Hannibal
Alexander
Julius Caesar
Genghis Khan
Napoleon
Shaka Zulu
US Civil war: Grant, Sherman or Lee
ww1: Pershing
ww2: Rommel or Patton