Oh, I forgot my comment on Sun Tzu. Since nobody knows if he even existed or was a composite, perhaps like Homer of the Iliad and Odyssey fame, it is hard to evaluate his ability as a commander ;).
But from a historical standpoint, obviously the Art of War is a very major work.
Just to note that yesterday was the 190th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
“By God it was a near-run thing!”
merde. I glanced at Fuller’s book to get the number, but I guess I glanced at a passage about the previous Charles. My bad.
As long as I’m back though, I’ll put in a plug for Eisenhower. Perhaps not for “The greatest,” but he certainly deserves some props for his keen understanding of Logistics, Politics, and Grand Strategy. His management of the Alliance and handling of such tempermental egos as Patton and Montgomery was brilliant. My favorite–possibly apocryphal–Ike quote was when he was asked what the most valuable weapons of WW2 were. His reply, IIRC: “The four most valuable weapons were the Liberty ship, the C-47 transport plane, the Jeep, and the two-and-a-half ton truck.”
This is a key difference between Ike and Hitler. (Aside from the obvious differences of sanity and basic moral decency.) Hitler seemed to have no grasp of logistics at all. He thought it practicable to supply Stalingrad by plane. As one of his exasperated subordinates supposedly said, “If only he had made it to Sergeant!”
By the way, is it logical to compare people who were political leaders (Alexander, Washington, Napoleon) and people who were merely military commanders? Building an empire isn’t the same as winning battles, and doesn’t require the same talents.