U. S. Grant - 2
Erwin Rommel - 2
Thermistocles - 1
My picks:
Themistocles - 2 votes
Sherman - 2 votes
Rommel - 1 vote.
Laying off Zhukov for now, so a few new nominees (on my part, anyway):
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson – 2
Belisarius – 2
And one holdover:
Subutai – 1
First, votes, so I don’t forget:
Ulysses S. Grant - 2. His time has come and gone.
Erwin Rommel - 2. Good tactician, but often reckless.
William Tecumseh Sherman - 1. Ahead of Grant, but by this point not that far ahead.
Later tonight or tomorrow, I’ll try to argue for and rank those filthy horse archers* ;)…
*Subedei before Grant or Sherman? Subedei?!?! Heresy!
2 - Sherman
2 - Rommel
1 - Tamerlane
Wow, we’re in the big leagues now. I keep reading about one or another of these guys and it’s always impressive – hard to choose.
Rommel gets dinged for over-reaching his supply lines, and also there are complaints he led from the front so often he was absent from HQ at critical times. This despite his history of beating larger forces on a shoestring, and later espousing the only correct approach to defending France. If we were awarding points for morality, though, he stands out among this list for his chivalry and peripheral involvement in the plot to kill Hitler.
I thought Scipio Africanus was mostly known for the Battle of Zama, but it seems he was widely held to be a genius from his first campaign in Spain. Gustavus Adolphus and Frederick the Great were both much admired by Napoleon. I am inclined to regard Adolphus’ development of combined-arms tactics as more important that Frederick’s scrambling from side-to-side to stave off invaders (his long efforts to fend them off only delayed the inevitable, when suddenly the Russian empress died and the alliance against him collapsed). Frederick was called the Great for many other achievements besides warfare.
I’m too impressed by Themistocles to vote him off yet. Belisarius appears to have been defeated (narrowly) by the Persians early in his career, then had to make some compromises later on. It’s cool that one group surrendered to him just because of his reputation, though; that’s a gold star on anyone’s record. 
As noted previously, also perhaps guilty of overextension.
The filthy horse archers: Genghis Khan seems likely to make the final rounds on rep alone…no argument. We already bumped the original steppe badass, Attila, who might be the guy who first figured out that mobile archery beats almost everything, but that’s the breaks. Reading about Subotai (the spelling seems fairly flexible) and Timur gives me the impression that Subotai’s accomplishments as a general were more impressive. Timur is definitely a great warrior, but as the last of the filthy horse archers, benefited from the reputation of his predecessors to some degree, and the Timurid empire was smaller than some of the other steppe expansions.
With considerable reservations about the accuracy of my decisions…
Belisarius - 2
Erwin Rommel - 1
Frederick the Great -1
Timur the Lame - 1
Frederick and Timur are symbolic votes; I know they won’t accumulate enough points to go this round.
Yeah, the game’s getting tense. Soon the really hard decisions will have to be made!
The votes in our 18th round:
Erwin Rommel - 16
Belisarius - 6
U.S. Grant - 6
William T. Sherman - 5
Stonewall Jackson, Themistocles - 4 each
Timur-e-Lang - 3
Subutai - 2
Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, Gustavus Adolphus, Lord Nelson - 1 each
The boldfaced leaders above are now gone. That leaves:
Alexander the Great: Conquered the known world
Napoleon Bonaparte: Conquered most of Europe
Frederick the Great: Prussian king and battlefield genius
Genghis Khan: Built the perfect war machine
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
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
Duke of Wellington: Successes in India; thrashed Napoleon
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
Yi-Sun Shin
George Washington
Oda Nobunaga
Erwin Rommel
Belisarius
U.S. Grant
The next round will conclude at noon EST on Fri. Oct. 1. Same rules as before.
2 votes for Napoleon. He over-stretched his supply lines marching into Russia in winter - classic, readily avoidable error. More to the point, he lost, completely. For the man who Wellington trounced to continue in the running with Wellington this late in the game just seems strange to me.
2 votes for Timur-e-Lang. Successful, but not an innovator - just another dirty horse archer. 
If one of those unwashed louts has to win, it certainly shouldn’t be this one.
1 vote for Stonewall Jackson - a traitor that lost, what’s more to be said? 
2 for Tamerlane - least of the big three dirty horse archer-lords.
2 for Hannibal - tactical genius, but in the end, a strategic failure.
1 for Zhukov - a great general, but a bludgeoner - time for him to bow out.
One thing you can say about Belisarius in the negative - he definitely deserves the lion share of the responsibility for wrecking Italy. Justinian’s agreement to divide Italy at the Po with the Ostrogoths was actually an excellent compromise. Constantinople would have not only gained most of the ( at that point still somewhat wealthy ) peninsula, but the Ostrogoths in the north would have at least temporarily acted as a protective shield against other raiders like the Lombards. Belisarius’ arrogant and vaguely treasonous decision to not sign off on that deal scuttled it and led to the long term ruination of most of Italy. And in the end, though I philosophically am more appreciative of Belisarius’ methodical approach to warfare, it took Narses’ risky, but direct and rather Napoleonic mindset to win that war.
Now as to the Mongols and their successors…
Genghis Khan - Genghis to me is a top 3 figure and I wouldn’t blink hard if he took the number one slot ( he is at least a reasonable choice to make it that far ). It’s not that he was that tactically innovative - arrow storms, caracoles, the feigned retreat, the double envelopment, - all were well-established nomad tactics ( though he showed great flexibility in adapting to new tactical systems such as siege warfare, not usually a nomad strength and in his extensive use of military intelligence/espionage ). Nor was the decimal system of military organization new to the region and it was always more theoretical than actual anyway - tumet ( s. tumen, units of 10,000 ) generally operated at around 60% of paper strength. It was the other facets of his reorganization and his ability that made him revolutionary.
First off he was an exceptional general in his own right, not ( like arguably Akbar ) dependent on the talent of others to fight and win battles. At Chakirma’ut he outmaneuvered and thoroughly crushed a larger “Mongol” ( actually Naiman ) army, using the terrain and deception to eventually trap the enemy on a mountain top. In the reverse of normal tactics he forced them onto an isolated patch of high ground from which they hade limited ability to bring their numbers to bear and were effectively hemmed in and besieged by a smaller army. He was responsible, as far as we can tell, with a good deal of the strategy behind the Khwarzmian and Jin campaigns, both wildly successful. As a commander he seems at least as good as any of his superb officer corps.
Said officer corps shows his outstanding eye for military talent. Subedei is the best known to the west, but he actually developed an embarrassing wealth of excellent commanders. For example Jebe who launched the remarkable long range coup de main that brought the entire Qara-Khitai state into the Mongol empire and who led the earlier stage of the great expedition across the Caucasus and Russian steppes. Or Muqali who was given responsibility for key elements of the operations against the Jin, including complete command of that entire front while the bulk of the army was away in the west fighting Jalal al-Din - despite being left with essentially a skeleton army he continued to successfully press on and win.
The list could go on and one very important feature of it was merit. Though the nobility had a leg up, Genghis most unusually regularly promoted commoners to high rank for ability and treated them the same as any of his other officers. Moreover rank was no protection against simple military discipline. Toquchar, a general that had served Genghis for nearly twenty years, had been given command of the western borders of the Mongol state and had formed part of the vanguard with Jebe and Subedei in the invasion of Khwarizm, was busted down to a common soldier for doing a little unauthorized plundering. He died a year or two later fighting as a trooper in Afghanistan.
Which brings up the key to Mongol success - discipline. Absolutely iron discipline, instilled both through esprit de corps ( even a lowly commoner soldier could rise on ability to become officers ) and, as with the 18th century European armies, through draconian regulation and enforcement thereof. He actually broke apart traditional tribes and clans and reconstituted them in new mixed formations. He suppressed individualism in favor of parade ground precision, subordinated birth rank to military rank. His achievement in this area was really nothing short of revolutionary. It is doubtful that any other nomadic society ever achieved anywhere near the level of discipline that Genghis instilled. And ultimately it would partially break down in time as new elites developed. But at its peak the Mongol imperial army was terrifyingly efficient.
Genghis wholly created and led this engine, using it to create the largest contiguous land empire ever seen. That certainly ranks him in my mind with the very best of the best.
Subedei - As noted his reputation comes down a bit to being the best known Mongol general to the west, due both to his spectacular successes in Europe and also simple longevity - he fought in a large number of campaigns over many decades. He should probably be qualified slightly.
He often gets much of the credit for the spectacular and never equaled long-range looping reconnaissance mission wherein a small, usually heavily outnumbered Mongol army repeatedly defeated all comers in impressive fashion, most memorably the combined Russian princes and Cumans at the battle of the Khalka River. However during much of that expedition he was the number 2 to Jebe, who is usually mentioned in passing but who was actually senior to Subedei. Subedei did assume sole command after Jebe’s death on the final leg of the expedition.
However in addition to his considerable record fighting in China, Central Asia and the Middle East, he is best known for the invasion of Europe, where he was in fact the senior commander ( the Jochid prince Batu was the paper commander , but the strategy and actual command was Subedei’s ). Nobody has ever campaigned in the Russian winter with such success - Subedei actually used frozen rivers as cavalry highways through the sparsely populated boreal forests to reach population centers. It was a complete blitzkrieg and in a couple of years Subedei accomplished what Hitler never could, reducing all of Russia to vassalage.
His invasion further west was equally as impressive. He sprung out two tumet wide to the north to sweep through Poland and Bohemia to disorder the region so the Polish dukes would be distracted and unable to hinder the main army to the south, while he launched a carefully coordinated multi-pronged penetration of the Carpathians/Balkans. The battle of Mohi/Sajo River, where the Mongol armies of Batu, Shayban and Subedei converged to shatter the powerful medieval Hungarian army was a classic victory and showed off the mobility and tactical acumen perfectly ( all while the northern wing under Baidar and Kadan had joined to destroy a larger Bohemian/Silesian army at Liegnitz and a southern wing under the future great khan Guyuk was smashing a Transyvanian army at Hermannstadt - this all happened in the space of two days ).
I don’t really buy into the notion that Europe as a whole was only saved by the sudden retreat of the Mongol forces to deal with Ogedei’s death. But it is likely that at least a much more prolonged occupation of the Carpathian/Danube Basin may have been in the offing. At any rate although much of the tactical credit must go to Genghis’ superb army and his very capable sub-commanders, Subedei’s European adventures alone rank him as one of the great strategists in history. He essentially conquered one of the great quarters of the Mongol empire ( the future Golden Horde, which would peak 100 years later and last into the 16th century ).
Timur - Malthus has a point. As a state-builder, Timur wasn’t fit to carry Genghis’ jock. He didn’t re-order a society, promulgate a code of laws or establish an obedient state army like GK did. His was, in every way, a warlord whose political authority was completely invested in his own person. He co-opted existing political structures ( many tribal ) by tieing them to him by his success, charisma, patent ability and sheer ruthlessness. In the end it is not too surprising that his only really successful ( and only partially successful at that ) successor was his youngest son Shah Rukh, who in contrast to his brothers and nephews was allowed to remain as a governor in one spot ( Khurasan ) for years and thus build his own independent power base. Timur was an appropriately paranoid cuss, even with his spawn. For all that India’s great Mughal dynasty stems from him, it almost did so through the backdoor. Also, you know, all that wanton butchery ;). He was an interesting, intellectually perceptive man who was an highly effective ruler. But in the annals of world political leaders he wouldn’t rank all that high, if only because what he built started collapsing almost at once when he died.
That said, he was a superb military leader. Unlike the Mongols, Timur integrated true heavy cavalry with light steppe archers, as well as Indian elephants, and like the Mongols made liberal use of gunpowder weapons like rocketry to create a rather more flexible and composite army. And not only did he conquer and build an impressively large empire, he consistently outfought very powerful states under very able leadership. The Sultanate of Delhi was past its prime, but he defeated his one-time protege Tokhtamish, wrecking the power of the revitalized Golden Horde. More, he broke the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I “the Thunderbolt”, who also had a superb composite army and was fresh off annihilating the last true crusader army at Nicopolis - at Angora he deftly outmaneuvered him to force an about face march under harsh conditions and then cut his army off from a water supply, forceing him to fight at a severe disadvantage. Even the famed Chinese ‘Treasure Fleets’ seem to have been initiated primarily out of fear of Timur ( well-founded, he was heading in that direction when he died ). His posterity may be mixed, but his generalship was tremendous.
My thinking is similar to Mr. Excellent’s.
Napoleon - 2
Stonewall Jackson - 2
Timur-e-Lang - 1
He lost fighting essentially all of Europe. That’s a might big qualifier :p.
Napoleon to me is another potential number one. I’ll ignore the full list of his battlefield accomplishments ( that far outshines Wellington’s IMHO ) and offer two directed rebuttals:
1.) After the Russian disaster, the Battle of Dresden - substantially outnumbered, inflicts nearly 4:1 casualties.
2.) After Leipzig, desperate and with the noose closing in - The Six Days Campaign, outnumbered more than 4:1, wins a series of four running battles, inflicting casualties that totaled more than half the size of his little army. Simply astonishing.
Napoleon’s weaknesses were ego and overreaching. As a grand strategist he was a bit wanting. But he was better as a theatre strategist and always a superb tactician.
It’s getting late in the game, so I won’t argue against a vote for Zhukov at this point. But as has been pointed out, while he bludgeoned at the Seelow Heights, he was far more deft at Khalkin-Gol. Like Grant I think it is fair to criticize him for sometimes taking the brute force route, but like Grant it is fair to say he was more multi-faceted than that overall.
Honestly, I’ve thought since the beginning of this game that Genghis Khan as #1 was a foregone conclusion and it was #s 2 through 10 and how they shook out that would be the most interesting, and nothing I’ve seen since then from the more knowledgeable posters has changed my mind.
Votes:
William Tecumseh Sherman - 2. Out of his weight class at this point.
Stonewall Jackson -2. Him too. Best combination of strategic and tactical skills in the war and only a traitor if you’re some dirty Yankee ( which I am, but never mind ). Kinda coincidental they go together, but there you go.
I’m going to reserve my last vote for this round for a bit.
Thermistocles 2
William Tecumseh Sherman 2
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson 1
Tamerlane, could you recommend some good histories of the Dirty Horse Archers?
Also, um - please don’t sack Arlington. (How would horse archers do in Arlington, anyway? Not exactly the Asian steppe).
Not big enough. I’ll freely admit the man was a fine general - and although I’m putting him in the running for elimination now, I wouldn’t bat an eye if he made it to the top ten. I’d wince at top-five, but I could live with it.
However, here’s the thing: Napolean was a poor grand strategist, and he had to be a very good one to win at the game he was playing. And he chose the game - unlike Belisaurius (who I gave two votes for in the last round) there was no one above him in the French state, even in theory. He chose to wage war on all of Europe - the fact he had some remarkable victories speaks well of his genuine skills as a military leader, but doesn’t make up for his utterly appalling lack of judgment in starting the war in the first place.
This might seem a bit unfair - if Napolean had just been a general in a French state under someone else’s leadership, after all, I wouldn’t blame him as much for fighting the war he was given to fight. But a military leader with the power to pick his fights, and botches the call - that’s a leader with a real black mark. There’s no way this guy deserves the top spot.
I’d see Gustavus Adolphus or Freddy the Great go before Napoleon.
Themistocles - 2
Lord Nelson - 1
Duke of Marlborough - 1: I’m giving him a vote so someone can step up and tell me why he’s on this list.
Stonewall Jackson - 1: I don’t believe either Jackson nor Sherman will last into the top 10, which is fine. It’s a tough call deciding which to eliminate first, not least of which is because the Valley Campaign was so damned awesome. But it’s fundamentally a contest between a great tactician versus a very good strategist with an impressive logistics achievement. Since we still have arguably the finest tactician in Hannibal still on the board, and because I’m Yank, I’m going with Jackson.
Still pushing for the removal of:
Themistocles - 2 votes and
Sherman - 2 votes.
Adding
Stonewall Jackson - 1 vote
Many thanks to Tamerlane for summarising the careers of the horse archers…