A vastly entertaining read for the Mongol invasion of Europe is The Devil’s Horsemen: The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe: Chambers, James: 9780785815679: Amazon.com: Books
How accurate it is, I’ll leave to the real experts like Tamerlane to address. I liked it because it was well written, a fun read.
A decent place to start would be The Mongol Art of War, by Timothy May. It’s short and very readable, with up to date research. It’s not an exhaustive account, but a good starting point. For the European campaigns of Batu and Subedei, though the research ( such as it is ) is dated and some of the facts and speculations within have thus been challenged, James Chambers’ The Devil’s Horsemen has a good narrative account. I would however suggest it only be used as a narrative for the reasons above.
That’s a reasonable criticism.
What I object to more I think is the suggestion that, say, Wellington is a better general than Napoleon because he won at Waterloo. Or that Scipio Africanus is a better general than Hannibal because he won at Zama. One has to look at a whole career and judge overall performance. If we went by the criterion above, we’d have to conclude that Leopold Joseph von Daun was a better general than Frederick the Great and he wasn’t. Daun was just a very good general ( but fatally flawed ) that had Frederick’s number and was ideally suited in ability and temperment to put a hurting on Freddy, which he repeatedly did.
[quote]
Agreed. Freddy’s time is coming soon I hope - I have some bones to pick with him, particularly in terms of the quality of opposition.
While Marlborough maybe didn’t revolutionize 18th century warfare as much as is sometimes claimed ( he still fought far more sieges than pitched battles ), he was the first in his age to really make an attempt to seek out battles and use them to try to force decisive conclusions.
This was outside the box for the time. A splendid general like Louid XIV’s underappreciated Henri de Montmorency, Duc de Luxembourg, repeatedly smashed his opponents on the field - to virtually no decisive effect. At Fleurus, he won with great audacity and acumen a “Napoleonic victory without a Napoleonic result.” The problem was that everything in that age revolved around sieges, defensive works and the empty occupying of enemy ( or neutral ) territory to finance the military ( state revenues were still too underfinanced to really support a modern army ). Marlborough partially turned that on its head and paved the way for commanders like the aforementioned Frederick the Great and Napoleon.
He’s not above criticism. Tactically he could be ( like Frederick ) a bit predictable. At Malplaquet, his very able opposite number correctly predicted Marlborough’s usual pattern of assaulting the wings to draw off reserves and weaken the center, before making a massive final push to shatter the center. Consequently Marlborough technically won, but took a horrible mauling, almost 2:1 casualties. Nonetheless in an era noted for its high degree of professionalism and numerous fine generals he was probably the best, which is definitely saying something. A very good book on this period ( albeit Franco-centric ) is John Lynn’s Wars of Louis XIV.
By the way, just as an aside I’d nominate Maplaquet as the single battle featuring the most distinguished and able combination of commanders. On the Allied side Marlborough and his frequent partner Eugene of Savoy. And on the French side the excellent Villars ( a very Marlborough and Eugene-like commander - he was actually good friends with Eugene ) and the quite good and surprisingly self-effacing ( for the French military of the time ) Boufflers.
ETA: Ah, I see Malthus beat me to the The Devil’s Horsemen :).
Oh and my final vote goes to:
Themistocles - 1.
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Thanks for the reading recommendations, Tamerlane and Malthus. And, Tamerlane, your point regarding the need to assess the careers of these commanders in their entirety is well-taken. I withdraw my (fairly snarky) implication that Wellington was the better general solely because he trounced Napoleon at Waterloo. I stand, however, by my position that Napoleon loses a lot of points for his wretched judgment at the level of grand strategy.
I am inclined to believe that Britain’s iron determination to prevent any one power from dominating the continent, and skill at coalition-building, is not entirely Napoleon’s fault. It’s been a long time since I read about the Byzantine politics of the period, but I would be surprised if Bonaparte had openly declared war on everybody; I think he tried to pick them off in detail but the British (barely) held enough nations together to grind him down.
Your point about him being a poor grand strategist has some merit, IMHO – the invasion of Russia, the failure to properly leverage his numerical advantage in fleet strength, and the failure to cross the Channel are all glaring holes in his otherwise excellent strategic record. But he was fantastic on what the Soviets call an “operational” level – marching and countermarching huge armies across vast regions like a fencer parrying blows and delivering ripostes.
John Keegan points out that Napoleon actually won the final campaign that ended in Waterloo – he attacked the coalition forces in detail before they could join up, culminating in defeating the Prussians and driving them off away from junction with their allies. All that remained was cleanup – to deliver a tactical defeat to the British army – which was both slightly smaller and exhausted from forced marches – something he’d always been very good at before. And he almost did that – Wellington himself called the battle a very near thing.
As to whether he had “some remarkable victories,” I will have to get back to you on that after compiling a list.
Zhukov certainly was ahead-down fighter like Grant, who’s also been accused of bludgeoning. And perhaps they did too much of it. But I submit two caveats: firstly, that sometimes there’s a time for bludgeoning. You can’t always maneuver your enemy into defeat; sometimes there’s no room, or you’re tied down protecting something, or the enemy won’t come out and won’t budge. Operation Bagration was a set-piece bludgeoning, but it’s not like Zhukov could outflank Asia, and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving foe.
And secondly, at some point maneuver without the ability to put the hammer down becomes like Muhammad Ali without punching; it’s just fancy footwork and bragging. Zhukov may be too far from that line, but that line exists.
I smell a bludgeoner! 
As for the I guess inevitable Wellington-vs-Napoleon showdown - I’d still pull for Wellington over Nappy, based on their careers as a whole and not merely because Welly beat Nappy at Waterloo.
Both were of course superlative battlefield generals, so it is hard to award points one over the other on that score - of course, Nappy had the greater opportunities to shine, having sole control over more troops and for longer.
Nappy simply made too many big mistakes, and hung too many of his armies out to dry. While an excellent battlefield general, he repeatedly suffered from overstreatch - Egypt, Haiti, and of course Russia. Make a mistake like that once can be understandable, but repeatedly and it begins to look like a pattern.
In contrast, Welly showed an intuitive grasp of his relative capability versis his opponents, plus adopting a wide range of innovative techniques for dealing with them - the lines of Torra Vedres (sp?) was a combination of statigic defences and stratigic surprise that has, I think, never been equalled [has any other army, closing in for the kill, ever found a complete set of strategic defences blocking them - that they didn’t expect? a sort of anti-Maginot Line)].
Moreover, Welly had to work with much greater restrictions than Nappy. Nappy was warlord and dictator, he could do whatever he wanted, more or less. Welly had to deal with jealous, fractious superiors and politicos out for his blood, and with jealous and fractious allies who hated his nation (the Spanish Junta). He was able to master all of these difficulties and deliver a heaping can of whup-ass.
Welly was not without his weaknesses - his impatience with sieges for example lead to huge casualties - but his mistakes were never fatal. Nappy’s were, and to more than one army.
I’m roughly in agreement - I don’t think Zhukov was a bad general, and he certainly was the best to survive Stalin’s purges. Indeed, I think he was a great general, and it is pefectly acceptable that he’s survived thus far. I just think that showing solid competence with flashes of brilliance (in contrast with the general incompetence of the majority of Stalin’s generals early in the war) isn’t enough to beat the big-league competition he’s facing now.
Both Zhukov and Wellington have their admirers in Starfleet, it seems:
But there’s no starship Napoleon. 
I’ve already cast my vote, so this is sort of academic - but could someone tell me why Scipio Africanus is still hanging out on this list? (I honestly just forgot to vote him off). Is he really considered to be in this league of heavy-hitters?
Voting again for them to depart the field of battle:
Stonewall Jackson – 2
Subutai – 1
Entering the ranks of my “army”:
Timur-e-Lang – 2
Well, he seems to have been a tricky one. Here’s his record:
As a youth serving in a legion, Scipio survived the battles of Ticinus, Trebia, and (notably) the massacre at Cannae. All three were Roman losses to Hannibal. Was recognized for bravery in saving his surrounded father at Ticinus. He also drew Roman admiration for storming into the Senate with sword drawn and insisting that no surrender or accommodation take place.
When sent to Hispania (Spain) as a very young commander, Scipio captured the capital, New Carthage, almost immediately, and showed unusual mercy for a Roman, which impressed the locals. He then faced three armies led by more experienced commanders. Wikipedia sums it up:
Later, facing two other large armies (one Punic [Carthaginian] and the other their Celtiberian allies) he sent a detachment to raid the Celtiberian camp before the two forces could combine. Their leader was captured and the Celtiberians dispersed; the Carthaginians withdrew into a series of strongholds. Next campaign season, they brought strong reinforcements and came out for battle at Ilipa:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Pre-Battle Maneuver
The next spring the Carthaginians launched their last great effort to recover their Iberian holdings. Mago was joined at Ilipa by Hasdrubal Gisco, creating a force estimated at 54,000 to 70,000, considerably larger than Scipio’s army of 43,000 men, which was composed of a large number of Iberian allies who were not as seasoned as Roman legionaries.
Upon the arrival of the Romans, Mago unleashed a daring attack on the Roman camp with most of his cavalry, under his Numidian ally Masinissa. However this was foreseen by Scipio, who had concealed his own cavalry behind a hill, which charged into the Carthaginian flank, and threw back the enemy with heavy losses on Mago’s side.
The two opponents spent the next few days observing and testing each other, with Scipio always waiting to lead out his troops only after the Carthaginians had advanced from their camp first. The Roman formation always presented the legions in the center and Iberians on the wings, thus leading Hasdrubal and Mago to believe that this would be the Roman arrangement on the day of battle. This would be a fatal assumption.
Battle
Believing his deception had taken firm hold of the Carthaginian commanders, Scipio made his move. First he ordered the army to be fed and armed before daylight. He then promptly sent his cavalry and light troops (velites) against the Carthaginian outposts at daybreak while advancing with his main force behind, all the way to the front of the Carthaginian position. This day his legions stood at the wings and the Iberians in the centre.
Surprised by the sudden attacks by the Romans, the Carthaginians rushed to arm themselves and sallied forth without breakfast. Still believing that Scipio would arrange his force in the earlier fashion, Hasdrubal deployed his elite Africans in the centre and Iberian mercenaries on his wings and was not able to change formation after he discovered the new Roman arrangement because the opposing army was too close (Scipio had ordered his troops to form for battle closer to the Carthaginian camp).
For the next few hours Scipio held back his infantry behind the skirmishing light troops and thus amplified the effect of the missed breakfast on his enemy. When he finally decided to attack, the light troops were called back through the space between the maniples to position themselves behind the legions on the wings, then the main advance began. With his wings advancing at a faster pace than the Iberians in his center Scipio formed a concave, or Reversed Cannae, battle line. Furthermore, the Roman general expanded his wings by ordering the light troops to the flanks of the legionaries, and the cavalry to the flank of the light troops, thus enveloping the whole Carthaginian line on both sides.
Still refusing his center, Scipio’s legions, light troops, and cavalry attacked the half-trained Iberians on the Carthaginian wings from front, flank, and rear respectively. The Carthaginian center was helpless to reinforce its wings with the threat of the Iberian force that was looming large in close distance but not yet attacking.
With the inevitable destruction of its wings, the Carthaginian center was further demoralized and confused by the trampling of their own maddened elephants which were being driven towards the center by the Roman cavalry attacking the flanks. Combined with hunger and fatigue, the Carthaginians started to withdraw, at first in good order. But as Scipio now pressed his advantage by ordering his Iberian center into battle, the Carthaginians crumbled, and a massacre which may have rivaled the one in Cannae was only averted by a sudden downpour, which brought a hold to all actions on the field, and enabled the remaining Carthaginians to seek refuge in their camp.
After-Battle Maneuvers
Although temporarily safe in their camp, the Carthaginians were not able to rest. Facing the inevitable Roman attack the next morning, they were obliged to strengthen their defenses. But, as more and more Iberian mercenaries deserted the Carthaginians as night drew forward, Hasdrubal tried to slip away with his Africans in darkness.
Scipio immediately ordered a pursuit. Led by the cavalry, the whole Roman army was hot on Hasdrubal’s tail. When the Romans finally caught up with the Carthaginian host the butchery began. Hasdrubal was left with only 6,000 men, who then fled onto a mountain top without any water supply. This remnant of the Carthaginian army surrendered a short time later, but not before Hasdrubal and Mago had made good their escape.
[/QUOTE]
He later shifted the theater of operations from Italy to Africa, despite strong opposition from many in the Senate, by using an army and fleet he had raised largely on his own. When a larger combined army of Carthaginians and Numidian cavalry advanced and camped nearby, Scipio controversially set fire to the camp at night, putting them to flight, and then fell upon the fleeing troops and killed or captured most of them.
The war finally came to a head when Hannibal was recalled from Italy to Carthage and the two commanders fought at Zama. Scipio’s force was substantially smaller, but there’s some question whether Hannibal’s troops had declined in quality. Hannibal’s battle plan was atypically straightforward, which may be a sign he was overconfident or it may imply he recognized his troops were not capable of dazzling maneuver.
Scipio employed two unusual formations here: the famous “gaps in the lines” formation to allow Hannibal’s elephants to pass harmlessly between units, and a lesser-known deployment from three lines of infantry into one long line to match the Carthaginian front. He enveloped the wings and eventually won a lengthy and bitter infantry struggle.
Again, Scipio was lenient in victory, allowing Carthage to remain prosperous and even Hannibal to remain free (no doubt offending some bloody-minded Senators). It would be a later Roman force that would destroy Carthage and salt the earth.
Considering Hannibal’s reputation, Scipio faced first-rate enemies for at least some of this career, and appears to have been an imaginative and forward-thinking strategist. (Perhaps too much so for the Romans; he faced conservative and traditionalist political enemies and even made the Roman public suspicious with his adoption of elements of Greek culture and religion.) He mostly struck first, repeatedly smashed numerically larger forces, and found his way around political opposition to sustain the war and to make a large-scale strategic leap.
My votes for this round:
Timur-e-lang - 2
Frederick the Great - 2
Gustavus Adolphus - 1
One more attempt to defend my American Civil War homies for a moment longer:
I don’t have any doubt that Stonewall Jackson could have ridden with Genghis Khan and been perfectly at home with Khan’s iron discipline, religious fervor, and devotion to mobility and surprise.
And Sherman may seem to some of you to be out of his league here, but IMHO he adapted rapidly as the war grew from a romantic scrap between neighbors into the modern total war it became, and showed a depth of strategic understanding in altering his approach to war itself (setting out with specific orders to capture the Army of Tennessee, and eventually abandoning entirely it to prosecute strategic war). Other than his initial overconfidence before Shiloh, he showed a consistently shrewd ability to estimate what his enemy was capable of, correctly judging who would be a problem (“There will never be peace in middle Tennessee until Forrest is dead”) and who would not (Hood’s march north, Johnston in the Carolinas) and his logistical operations remain amazing, advancing a large modern army rapidly through swamps and multiple flooded rivers, under fire, during an unusually rainy period, without any railroad support at all.
He may not get much farther, but he is not out of place among the farsighted, far-campaigning, aggressive, and wildly successful commanders here. And (perhaps reminiscent of Scipio) despite his tough talk, he was as humane as any of them, repeatedly sparing both his own soldiers and the enemy whenever he could.
2 - Sherman
2 - Hannibal
1 - Tamerlane
Napoleon’s on my hit list too. He was far too much of an adventurer, wasting his forces on attacking Egypt and Russia. His crucial error was that he didn’t know when to stop.
Further, the “French” Picard speaks with an English accent. I know other fans have other explanations, but I remain convinced that something very, very bad happened to France between the 20th and 24th centuries. 
Thank you, Sailboat, for the info on Scipio Africanus; I agree completely with your defense of Sherman. And Mr. Excellent, I like the cut of your jib. You may very well be right about France’s future fate.
The votes in our 19th round:
Timur-e-Lang - 10
Stonewall Jackson - 10
William T. Sherman - 8
Themistocles - 7
Napoleon Bonaparte, Hannibal - 4 each
Frederick the Great - 2
Gustavus Adolphus, Duke of Marlborough, Lord Nelson, Subutai, Georgy Zhukov - 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?
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
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
Timur-e-Lang
Stonewall Jackson
The next round will conclude at noon EST on Mon. Oct. 4. Same rules as before.
(Note: composed before the noon vote tally)
Going too far is a disease common to this list.
Alexander the Great: died planning new campaigns (including the invasion of Arabia)
Napoleon Bonaparte: died in exile after defeat
Frederick the Great: died in an armchair in his study
Genghis Khan: died on campaign, in bed
Gustavus Adolphus: killed in battle
Hannibal: died in exile (took poison to avoid capture by the Romans)
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson: killed in battle
Julius Caesar: assassinated for “going too far” from the Roman Republic
Khalid ibn al-Walid: died in bed, reportedly disappointed not to have died in battle
Duke of Marlborough: died in bed
Lord Nelson: killed in battle
Scipio Africanus: died in self-imposed exile
William Tecumseh Sherman: died of old age
Subutai: died in Mongolia in old age?
Themistocles: died in exile
Timur-e-Lang: died on campaign, in bed
Duke of Wellington: died of old age
Georgy Zhukov: died of old age?
Of all of these, the individuals who intentionally stopped making war after achieving a goal (not just because of being replaced by others who continued the expansion, or growing old):
Julius Caesar (but was killed soon after, and does anyone doubt he would have kept expanding Rome?)
Scipio Africanus
William Tecumseh Sherman
Duke of Wellington
Georgy Zhukov
Frederick the Great being saved at the last moment by the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg doesn’t count.
Of those 5, perhaps Zhukov may be the one who resisted the greatest temptation to start a new war (against the Western Allies). It’s true that most of these men, like Wellington, Scipio, and Zhukov, were not heads of state and could not declare war by themselves, but they could certainly have provoked a casus belli from the front lines by taking a poke at, say, the Prussians, Numidia, or the Americans, respectively.
.
One additional point regarding Sherman’s quote:
I submit that the accuracy of this statement transcended the war itself, since Nathan Bedford Forrest’s influential involvement in the Ku Klux Klan contributed to decades of flat-out terrorism bordering on insurrection, and a hundred years of fear and repression, in Tennessee and beyond.
Okay, let’s see:
William Tecumseh Sherman - 2.
Themistocles - 2.
Frederick the Great - 1.
Frederick the Great was a energetic whirlwind - a fast-moving, extremely aggressive, offensive general of considerable ability and verve. He certainly would make the top 100 all time list. But not the top 10 IMHO. So let’s look at his failings…
One fairly minor issue was that he was an abusive screamer of a senior commander. Not only did he often saddle unreasonable expectations and orders on his subordinates, but he also quite frequently unfairly scapegoated them for his own failings.
Slightly more of a problem was that Freddy was also seemingly manic-depressive. He was usually incredibly cheerful, arrogant and overconfident at the start of a battle. But prone to dark depression, despair and drama-queen suicidal ideation when things weren’t going his way. And though sometimes this meant he fought with near suicidal bravery ( as it his disastrous defeat at Kunersdorf, where he personally tried to stem the tide of retreating Prussians ), this also could make him foolishly reckless and put him in the position of retreating from battlefields prematurely when he incorrectly surmised all was lost and depression descended. He did this at Mollwitz, supposedly on the advice of Schwerin ( who actually won the battle thereafter ) and swore he’d never do it again. But he did do it again at Lobositz ( where Keith turned a looming straight-up defeat into merely a tactical check and strategic defeat ) and at Torgau ( after he lost the first stage of the fighting to Daun, in this case Zieten rescued the situation to give Fred a bare victory from a near defeat ).
Frederick was also an egomaniac and enormous self-promoter ( like Julius Caesar ). He claimed for himself victories at Mollwitz ( really won by Schwerin ), Lobositz ( really a de facto defeat ), Zorndorf ( a bloody draw at best and only that because Seydlitz disobeyed Fred’s direct orders and husbanded his cavalry until the right moment to save the day ) and Torgau ( a politically important if horribly costly victory, but the battle was functionally won by Zieten and lost by Lacy - earlier in the battle Daun took Frederick apart ).
But IMO the most important in assessing Frederick the Great is the quality of his opposition and how he fared against them.
His favorite punching bag by far is perhaps the worst general to hold a long-term command. Across the three Silesian Wars ( subsumed under the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War ), Charles Alexander of Lorraine clung to command because he was very popular at court with the folks who counted most. No doubt he talked a good line and sounded like a proper general, but more importantly he was the Emperor’s younger brother and the double-brother-in-law to Maria Theresa ( not only Francis Stephen’s brother, but also married and devoted to her younger sister ). He apparently was an able and well-liked administrator, but he was a crap general. Frederick won two of his three most celebrated victories ( Hohenfriedburg and Leuthen ) against Charles. He also beat him at the Battles of Chotusitz, Soor and Hennersdorf. At the Battle of Prague, the skilled Ulysses Brown was winning against Fred when he was badly wounded and removed from the field - Charles then froze in panic in ‘near catatonia’, complained of chest pains, and was himself removed, thus turning a close victory into a close defeat. At Kesselsdorf, the decisive battle of the Second Silesian War, he sat on his ass with his corps and didn’t march to aid his Saxon ally, even though he could actually hear the cannon fire.
In all of the above battles, Charles Alexander repeatedly showed considerable incompetence. He even had the dubious pleasure of getting thrashed by the other great general of that age, Maurice de Saxe, at the Battle of Rocoux. It’s not like he was even average - he was woeful. His sole claims to fame was a brilliant campaign to oust Frederick from Bohemia that he claimed credit for, but was largely conceived and executed by his nominal subordinate, Traun. That and the fairly meaningless Battle of Breslau in the Third Silesian War, where he managed to pull off a field victory with an 84,000 to 28,000 advantage :D.
Fred’s other really celebrated victory is the really quite impressive Battle of Rossbach. But here again he was up agaist weak opposition. The small French army was of mediocre quality and led by the firmly sub-competent Soubise. The Austrian general Hildburghausen was competent if a bit long in the tooth, but his heterogenous “Imperial Army” ( gathered disparate contingents from the minor principalities of the HRE ) was of even worse quality than the French. In the end it was Soubise who really screwed the pooch.
Against tougher compeitition Fred didn’t fare as well. The ‘Wild Goose’ Ulysses Brown functionally beat him at Lobositz and was beating him at Prague until badly wounded. Fred did manage to beat the talented Laudon at Liegnitz, but even he admitted it was dumb luck in an encounter battle and Laudon doesn’t deserve much opprobrium for losing. He wasn’t trying to beat Fred, just occupy him fully assuming Lacy and Daun were converging on the battle and would soon smash Fred between millstones ( they didn’t, but should have, which rightfully infuriated Laudon ). Laudon had earlier participated in the Battle of Kunersdorf were he and the Russian general Saltykov uttely crushed Frederick ( and where Fred made some fairly bad decisions ).
His biggest bugbear was Leopold Joseph von Daun. Daun wasn’t perfect - he was exceptionally cautious and conservative, as well as a bit lacking in the diplomacy department when it came to coordinating with foreign commanders. He on more than one occasion failed to show sufficient aggression and threw away a couple of clear chances to crush Frederick for good. But he was a superb defensive field commander, with an excellent eye for the battlefield - custom made to take apart a reckless, offensively obsessed general like Frederick who desperately needed battlefield victories. He took two out of three field battles from him ( beating him at Kolin and Hochkirch ) and was beating him badly at Torgau until his knee was smashed and he surrendered command over to the even more cautious Lacy - it is generally accepted that Daun probably wouldn’t have fallen for the same ruse that Lacy did, as he actually warned him against falling for just such a maneouver.
But more than that Daun repeatedly outmaneuvered Fred. Again and again Fred would advance eager to give battle, only to find Daun had positioned himself so well it would be suicide to attack. This happened at Zittau. And Olmutz. And Koniggisgraf. And Scweidnitz. And Stolpen - at Stolpen he wrote that short of being insane he could find no way to attack ‘Maximus’ ( always colorful he liked to refer contemptuously to Daun as Austria’s Fabius Maximus ).
So Fred was good, but I believe quality of opponents inflated his tally a bit. And in the end probably only a true stroke of luck saved him from final defeat in the Seven Years War ( death of Elizabeth of Russia ). At any rate, Prussia’s offensive power ruined, he ended up unable to influence international politics as aggressively for the rest of his reign.
An interesting dissection of FtG, but I don’t think it’s quite time to give him the boot.
Napoleon Bonaparte - 2
Gustavus Adolphus - 2
Subutai - 1
1 - Subotai - not the leader at the time.
1 - Bonaparte - too much of an adventurer
1 - Hannibal
1 - Frederick the Great
1 - Sherman