Voting’s getting more difficult by the round…
Let’s see :
Erich von Manstein 2 points
**Philip II of Macedon **2 points
**Yi Sun Shin **- 1 point
ETA : also, can someone provide more details on Gustavius Adolphus ? I know absolutely nothing about him, didn’t even know his name until this thread…
George S. Patton - 2
Gaius Marius - 1
Akbar the Great - 1
Arthur Currie - 1
Too bad Patton couldn’t have gone out locked in head-to-head competition with Monty. 
Currie I have mixed feelings about, as trench warfare seems to sharply curtail much of the exercise of generalship (certainly it eliminates maneuver entirely). But overall he doesn’t seem to have been in the big leagues with the world conquerors and nation-builders to whom we are narrowing down.
I’m jumping on the Akbar the Great bandwagon here. Not only was his first “conquest” fairly embarrassing, to cite Wikipedia:
Here we have a situation where he advances on one neighbor, who simply withdraws and lures him farther afield, whereupon another neighboring state seizes his capital. He promptly retraces his steps and has a subordinate retake the capital by a lucky shot felling the enemy leader (again, not leading in person, as Tamerlane mentioned).
It appears he reorganized the Mughal army by dividing the officers into 33 classes, a system which seems overcomplicated.
I have a hard time believing Manstein deserves removal from the list yet – Keegan considers him the best German general of WWII, and there’s some stiff competition there.
Props for the iconoclastic opening shot at TJ Jackson, Elendil’s Heir. Jackson may be a case where the man’s occasional imperfections – particularly his slowness in the Seven Days’ campaign – are outweighed by the dazzling perfection of his other campaigns. The military guys I have talked to get all starry-eyed about the Valley campaign.
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George S. Patton - 2
Philip II of Macedon - 2
Ulysses S. Grant - 1
It should be noted that at the time Akbar was a few days shy of his 14th birthday and under a regency run by Bairam Khan - he was not yet in full executive power and wouldn’t be for a few years. Also that wikipedia account is confusing. Hemu was in fact leading the Suri armies or rather one faction of them - he was the “advisor” to Muhammed Adil Shah Suri and had been busy stomping out other contenders in the dynasty which had split into four parts after 1554. Hemu was virtually the uncrowned king of Adil’s state and he was the one advancing, taking advantage of the death of Akbar’s father. He was de facto usurping power from the Sur dynasty he had served for years and eliminating the Mughals all in one fell swoop. He came very close to succeeding.
Sorry for the delay in tallying.
The votes in our 15th round:
Erich von Manstein - 9
George S. Patton - 9
Philip II of Macedon - 6
Gaius Marius - 6
Yi-Sun Shin - 5
Akbar the Great - 4
Arthur Currie, William T. Sherman - 2 each
U.S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson - 1 each
The four boldfaced leaders above are now gone. That leaves:
Akbar the Great: Conquered much of India
Alexander the Great: Conquered the known world
Belisarius: Justinian’s hammer
Napoleon Bonaparte: Conquered most of Europe
Arthur Currie: Vimy Ridge; only sane WW1 leader?
Frederick the Great: Prussian king and battlefield genius
Genghis Khan: Built the perfect war machine
Ulysses S. Grant: Won final victory for Union
Gustavus Adolphus: Made Sweden a great power
Hannibal: Greatest tactical genius?
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson: Embodiment of maneuver and offense
Julius Caesar: Rome’s most brilliant commander
Khalid ibn al-Walid: Architect of the Arab conquests
Duke of Marlborough: Master of early modern war
Lord Nelson: Royal Navy admiral; Trafalgar victor
Oda Nobunaga: First great unifier of Japan
Erwin Rommel: Germany’s Desert Fox
Scipio Africanus: Stopped Carthage and Hannibal
William Tecumseh Sherman: Logistics, maneuver as strategic warfare
Subutai: Genghis Khan’s top general
Themistocles: Victor of Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis
Timur-e-Lang: The scourge of Western Asia
George Washington: Determined general; won American independence
Duke of Wellington: Successes in India; thrashed Napoleon
Yi-Sun Shin: Noteworthy Korean admiral
Georgy Zhukov: Led from Moscow to Berlin
Eliminated so far:
George B. McClellan
Charles the Bold
Hernan Cortez
Douglas MacArthur
Pompey Magnus
Carl von Clausewitz
Robert E. Lee
Josip Broz Tito
Zachary Taylor
John S. McCain Sr.
Titokowaru
Albert Kesselring
Curtis Le May
Sun Tzu
Gabriel Dumont
Charles Upham
Richard H. O’Kane
Charles de Gaulle
Paul von Hindenburg
Marc Mitscher
Flavius Aetius
Mehmet the Conqueror
Pyrrhus
Orde Wingate
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck
Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban
Tsao Tsao (also Cao Cao)
Hugh Dowding
Yamamoto Isoroku
Sir Isaac Brock
Moshe Dayan
Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter
Phil Sheridan
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Kong Ming/Zhuge Liang
Henry V
John Paul Jones
Vo Nguyen Giap
Attila the Hun
Togo Heihachiro
Bernard Montgomery
Erich von Manstein
George S. Patton
Philip II of Macedon
Gaius Marius
The next round will conclude at noon EST on Weds. Sept. 22. Same rules as before.
1 - Hannibal. Has a good press, but got thrashed in the end.
1 - Rommel. Thrashed by Monty.
1 - Arthur Currie. Not in the same league as the others
2 - Sherman.
Akbar the Great, for the reasons earlier stated - 2
Arthur Currie, ditto - 2
Stonewall Jackson, ditto - 1
Akbar the Great - 2. A brilliant ruler, not necessarily a brilliant general.
Ulysses S. Grant - 2. Grant was a good general - the Vicksburg campaign is abundant proof of that. But though I’ve been excoriated before for my overwhelming ignorance on the subject, I can’t help but feel that Grant’s Overland Campaign was a horrendous and possibly unnecessary waste of men.
Yi Sun-Shin - Probably time.
Not too many votes this cycle.
**Akbar the Great - 2
Arthur Currie - 2
Julius Caesar - 1**
Starting to think we should perhaps have separated naval campaigns into another topic. How am I supposed to compare Nelson and Yi Sun-Shin to Belisarius or Jackson? It feels like the achievements are so different.
Speaking of the above…I was going to join the chorus against Yi Sun-Shin at this point, partly because what I see on Wikipedia seems sparse enough to make me wonder how much is really known about him and how much is mythologized (seems to be a recurring problem with historical figures)…but I also think that could just be a byproduct of Eurocentricism among English-language Wikians. Yi Sun-Shin’s career compares favorably to Nelson’s if what I did manage to find is true; 23 victories in several campaigns, including a surprise descent on a complacent enemy fleet in port very reminiscent of Nelson’s Battle of the Nile. He’s also credited with winning several engagements decisively as a numerical underdog, seizing the initiative and pressing his advantage during periods of enemy passivity, and showing patience in allowing an allied land campaign to do some of the dirty work for him. That adds up to a stellar career if the Korean histories are relatively trustworthy, so I’ll withhold my strike against him.
Instead, I’ll be iconoclastic and throw my vote against Caesar. His conquests appear to be mainly Gaul…he staged a “demonstration” in Germanica, and his major invasion of Britain came to nothing. Gaul needed a lot of re-pacification.
More to the point, the “reporting” problem is different here – we have detailed reports of his campaigns, they just happen to be from him, a famous manipulator and politician par excellence. Even taking his self-description at face value, the campaigns don’t seem to be as awesome as I had remembered them; his masterpiece, the Gallic wars, was conducted against divided foes (and the History Channel recently suggested Caesar’s main motivation was the discovery of gold in several places in Gaul at that time) using fairly conventional tactics, relying mainly on the awesome instrument of the Roman Legion. And when the enemies finally united, they gave him trouble until the great battle at Alesia, the decisive moment of which was a massed night assault on his defensive spikes and entanglement obstacles…by largely naked Celtic warriors who had tied themselves together with ropes. In some areas of the circumvallation, the Romans merely heard the attack go wrong; it never even reached them. I’m going to regard that as another case of a substandard opponent diluting one’s legacy.
Akbar - 2
Yi Sun Shin - 2
Arthur Currie - 1
He also “conquered” the Roman Republic ;).
You’re forgetting the very far-ranging civil war he won against very considerable opposition, winning from one end of the Mediterranean to the other and most points in between. At many battles he was outnumbered, sometimes decisively so - check out Pharsalus, as pretty and as impressive a victory as anything ever achieved by Hannibal.
Throughout the civil war it was largely Roman army against Roman army and I can’t imagine a tougher opponent than that. But not just Romans and Gauls - the famous “Vini, Vidi, Vici” came as a result of Zela. And less you think Pompey ( earlier eliminated from this list ) was a pushover, remember that one of the most important generals opposing Caesar was Caesar’s very own lieutenant from the Gallic Wars, the exceptionally able Titus Labienus.
No, if anyone saw equal opposition it was Julius Caesar ( well, also Hannibal and some others ). The man appears to have been just a ferociously talented general.
It’s starting to get a little more difficult now…
My three:
Akbar the Great - 2 votes
Yi Sun Shin - 2 votes
Arthur Currie - 1 vote
Not only that, but the book he wrote about his wars in Gaul is still one of the go-to manuals for would-be generals and strategists, on par with Sun Tsu’s Art of War. Which, in my opinion, places him one notch above many of the others in the list : not only did he lead his men to victories, but in a way his ghost still does ! 
Sorry for another delay in tallying. Been a helluva busy week.
The votes in our 16th round:
Akbar the Great - 10
Arthur Currie - 8
Yi-Sun Shin - 4
U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman - 2 each
Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Stonewall Jackson, Erwin Rommel - 1 each
The two boldfaced leaders above are now gone. That leaves:
Alexander the Great: Conquered the known world
Belisarius: Justinian’s hammer
Napoleon Bonaparte: Conquered most of Europe
Frederick the Great: Prussian king and battlefield genius
Genghis Khan: Built the perfect war machine
Ulysses S. Grant: Won final victory for Union
Gustavus Adolphus: Made Sweden a great power
Hannibal: Greatest tactical genius?
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson: Embodiment of maneuver and offense
Julius Caesar: Rome’s most brilliant commander
Khalid ibn al-Walid: Architect of the Arab conquests
Duke of Marlborough: Master of early modern war
Lord Nelson: Royal Navy admiral; Trafalgar victor
Oda Nobunaga: First great unifier of Japan
Erwin Rommel: Germany’s Desert Fox
Scipio Africanus: Stopped Carthage and Hannibal
William Tecumseh Sherman: Logistics, maneuver as strategic warfare
Subutai: Genghis Khan’s top general
Themistocles: Victor of Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis
Timur-e-Lang: The scourge of Western Asia
George Washington: Determined general; won American independence
Duke of Wellington: Successes in India; thrashed Napoleon
Yi-Sun Shin: Noteworthy Korean admiral
Georgy Zhukov: Led from Moscow to Berlin
Eliminated so far:
George B. McClellan
Charles the Bold
Hernan Cortez
Douglas MacArthur
Pompey Magnus
Carl von Clausewitz
Robert E. Lee
Josip Broz Tito
Zachary Taylor
John S. McCain Sr.
Titokowaru
Albert Kesselring
Curtis Le May
Sun Tzu
Gabriel Dumont
Charles Upham
Richard H. O’Kane
Charles de Gaulle
Paul von Hindenburg
Marc Mitscher
Flavius Aetius
Mehmet the Conqueror
Pyrrhus
Orde Wingate
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck
Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban
Tsao Tsao (also Cao Cao)
Hugh Dowding
Yamamoto Isoroku
Sir Isaac Brock
Moshe Dayan
Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter
Phil Sheridan
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Kong Ming/Zhuge Liang
Henry V
John Paul Jones
Vo Nguyen Giap
Attila the Hun
Togo Heihachiro
Bernard Montgomery
Erich von Manstein
George S. Patton
Philip II of Macedon
Gaius Marius
Akbar the Great
Arthur Currie
The next round will conclude at noon EST on Mon. Sept. 27 (I’m going to be out of town, with iffy Internet access). Same rules as before.
Didn’t get a chance to vote in that truncated last round, but looks like I’m first out of the gate this time:
Yi-Sun Shin – 2 (finally his farewell?)
Since none of them are going to (barring a major upset) emerge triumphant anyway:
Oda Nobunaga – 1
Subutai – 1
Georgy Zhukov – 1
You’re probably right, which is a shame. I don’t know much about Zhukov or Subutai, but Nobunaga was a great general (though to be honest, I would have included his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in this game instead). The Battle of Nagashino and the Battle of Okehazama make a pretty good case for Nobunaga.
Zhukov and Rommel seem to be the only generals left representing WWII. Which, in case you forgot, was the biggest war in human history. Seeing as how Zhukov was arguably the best general in the whole conflict, I think he should survive for awhile longer.
On Gustavus Adolphus, the Intermediate Impact section of this Wikipedia article on the Battle of Breitenfeld goes into pretty good detail on his tactical innovations: he successfully improved on the deployment of gunpowder weapons, both by increasing the mix of muskets in his infantry lines (at the expense of pikemen) and by deploying lighter, more maneuverable field artillery than had been used before.
This wikipedia article seems somewhat hagiographic, but touches on another point: Adolphus managed to squeeze a much larger and more professional army of conscripts out of Sweden than one would have expected from such a relatively sparsely populated country.
Also, unlike some of the potentates who have been eliminated, Adolphus led his troops in the field, which led to his death at an early age in battle.
1 - Hannibal. Has a good press, but got thrashed in the end.
1 - Rommel. Thrashed by Monty.
1 - Yi-Sun Shin. Not a patch on Nelson.
2 - Sherman.
Oh come on. All he did was:
[ul]
[li]Defeat the Japanese so decisively before the war really got started that they never messed with Russia again, even while being in a state of war (Khalkin-Gol)[/li]
[li]Plan the defense for the greatest siege of the war (Leningrad) during a period when his country was being routed and defeated everywhere else[/li]
[li]Stop the Nazi advance just outside Moscow, saving the capital, and threw them onto the defensive for the first time[/li]
[li]Supervise the greatest defensive stand in the war at Stalingrad, and organize the annihilating encirclement counterattack that turned it into Germany’s first great defeat [/li]
[li]Coordinate two armies and a fleet to open a supply line to the besieged city (Operation Iskra, Leningrad)[/li]
[li]Share some credit for winning the greatest tank battle of all time (Kursk) – particularly the counteroffensive, as opposed to the fixed-position defensive part[/li]
[li]Lift the siege of Leningrad at last[/li]
[li]Destroy the center of the German front in a decisive set-piece battle (Operation Bagration)[/li]
[li]Lead the great war-winning advance from central Russia into Germany, including smashing the German stand in Poland[/li]
[li]Take Berlin, ending the European war[/ul][/li]
That’s not only a laundry list of the battles of the Eastern Front, the most titanic land campaign of all time; that’s also a siege, the worst city battle ever (maybe the worst two if you count Berlin – and one time Zhukov played defense, the other time, offense, winning both decisively) , a set-piece offensive, rapid exploitation, the lifting of a siege, coordination with naval forces, several counterstrokes, and several encirclements. He repeatedly annihilated large enemy forces with terrific fighting reputations. One of his signature strengths was the ability to husband reserves carefully in times of enormous pressure so well that he usually had the ability to go over to the offensive the moment he judged the enemy was sufficiently exhausted or entangled.
His very first significant battle is instructive. The first-rate Japanese Kwantung Army tested Soviet readiness and resolve at Khalkin-Gol. After a build-up and a period of stalemate, Zhukov’s response featured a boring frontal attack that distracted the Japanese from a surprise late double envelopment by armored columns, and the first significant use of Soviet tactical airpower.
Buoyed by the memory of triumphs over Russia in 1905, the highly-regarded Japanese troops fought unrelentingly, but had their supply lines cut, were killed en masse and rolled up and cleared away in 11 days. They never again dared attack the Soviets, even though they were prepared to fight on against the Americans after two nuclear bombs.
This Japanese passivity enabled the Soviets to confidently shift large numbers of troops westward just in time for the defense of Moscow. One of those men happened to be named Zhukov.