# Would military geniuses of the past do well today? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689 "2011-10-14T23:43:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/41 "2011-10-17T19:38:29Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > How would Sun Tzu weigh in on modern terrorism? Guerrilla insurrection? Nuclear arms? Civilian casualties limiting military involvement of Democracies? Power projection of the worlds only Super Power versus soft power? Sanctions? “Reply hazy, try again”. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/42 "2011-10-17T22:15:17Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > The telegraph and the rifled musket. The telegraph meant the speed of information was no longer limited to the speed of a man on horseback. The rifled musket meant Napoleon couldn’t observe and direct the fighting as close to the front in 1860 as he did in 1800 without putting his life in extreme risk. I have no doubt that he could have adapted to it, but it was technology forcing a change in the manner of leadership at high command. During the Civil War lower ranking generals and officers directly leading their men at the brigade and regimental level suffered proportionately higher casualties than the rank and file. I had forgotten about telegraph. However, it was seldom if ever a battle-in-progress tool, was it? I think it would have been likely to have been an advance much like RRs which Napoleon could easily have adapted to, even without post-1815 technical training. I had also forgot rifling, which _was_ a battlefield tool. I would be like to know how much more range USCW-era rifles had, and how close Napoleon actually got to coming within rifle range in the battles he commanded. I believe he personally carried the colors and exposed himself to heavy fire during an action in his 1st Italian campaign, but I doubt he got anywhere near that close often after becoming a general. I know of the story of a British markman seeing him within range at Waterloo but being refused permission to shoot by Wellington himself. That is not the same as deliberatly risking front-line fire, though. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/43 "2011-10-17T22:30:14Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Grant of the Petersburg tench-warfare siege and frontal assaults despite heavy losses? I think he’d have fit in fine in WWI. The usual lament runs the other way – why didn’t the WWI generals learn from Grant? I see your point about the smililarity in tactics, although didn’t Grant finally break the impasse by flanking the depleted Rebels south of Richmond? What I meant was that Grant never had more than a few 100k under his command, whereas the WW1 theater commanders had millions. Then there were the enormous improvements in firepower during the era 1865-1914, both small arm and artillery, much greater than the improvements say 1815-1860. It occurs to me that several of the senior commnaders 1914-18 had their own prior experiences as young officers within five years of the end of the USCW. If they were able to adapt then Grant might also have been able to. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/44 "2011-10-17T23:06:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > As a longtime wargamer, I know what you mean. I tell myself they’re games not historical simulations. > > I’m sure Julius Caesar would be impressed if he sat down to play _Conquest of Gaul_ and he found out both sides get to [see](http://boardgamegeek.com/image/402347/caesar-conquest-of-gaul) where all the forces are and are even given [numerical ratings](http://boardgamegeek.com/image/604311/caesar-conquest-of-gaul) for how strong they are. The holy grail of wargaming I think, create the _atmosphere_ a specific commander had to deal with at a specific moment in time. To general and it’s a board game, to specific and it’s just a movie. I think Napoleon would be pleased with the compromise of abstraction and limited information [Napoleon’s Triumph](http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/270388/napoleons-triumph) offers. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/45 "2011-10-18T00:35:02Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > I had forgotten about telegraph. However, it was seldom if ever a battle-in-progress tool, was it? Not on the battlefield, no, but it made a huge change at the strategic level. It’s worth remembering that the speed of information was so slow beforehand that the last battle in the American contribution in the Napoleonic-era wars, the Battle of New Orleans, was fought two weeks after peace had been made with the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814. News of the peace didn’t even arrive until February. Granted the information had to cross the Atlantic adding to the delay, but it took well over a month for the news to travel from Belgium to Louisiana. Again I’ve no doubt Napoleon could have adapted to it. After getting past the culture shock Genghis Kahn or Hannibal probably could as well, that level of military genius is probably timeless. With apologies to _Fallout_: War… war never changes. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/46 "2011-10-18T11:09:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So nowadays the primary job of a military leader is to make sure the overwhelming amount of force at his command arrives at the proper place. And how does that differ from “watching the battle and sending your reinforcements where they are needed”? Same shit, different weaponry. Like **appleciders** , I think that popping someone who’s never seen an electric lightbulb into a bunker in front of a radio wouldn’t work - but an Alexander or Genghis which happened to be born nowadays and end up going into the military… could an Ike or Patton make. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/47 "2011-10-18T15:34:18Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > How would Sun Tzu weigh in on modern terrorism? Guerrilla insurrection? Nuclear arms? Civilian casualties limiting military involvement of Democracies? Power projection of the worlds only Super Power versus soft power? Sanctions? Sun Tzu would (did) say that strategy without tactics is the slowest road to victory and that tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. I noticed that many people here are talking about specific tactics, not strategy. Tactics change over time and can be learned. Strategy - such as attacking when you are strong and defending/running away when weak, deception, taking the high ground, utilizing bottlenecks, forcing your enemy where to fight where you want to, and dividing and conquering your opponents army - hasn’t really changed over time. It’s not like Hitler did a better job than Napolean in conquering Russia just because he had tanks. > [@appleciders](#): > > I don’t think that you could plop Alexander or Attila the Hun or any of Genghis Khan’s brilliant generals down in front of a modern combined arms force and expect anything but a clusterfuck. Really, because Alexander pretty much invented the concept of “combined arms”. And modern armored warfare traces it’s roots directly to the cavalry tactics of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. “Here, use these. It’s the same as one of your mounted archers, but travels 40mph over any terrain, is mostly invulnurable to anything and shoots an “arrow” the size of your arm that will punch through a school a mile away.” Where they might fall down on is the concept of “logistics”. Tanks can’t forage off the land like horses can. Also, I suspect they wouldn’t be as hamstrung by political considerations. Ghengis Khan didn’t have to deal with CNN 24-7. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/48 "2011-10-18T16:38:15Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > Why not? A quick study like Napoleon should not have been flummoxed by railroads, which as far as I know > were the only radical advance available in 1860 not available 60 years earlier. You have forgotten the telegraph and also the minie ball with rifled muskets made frontal attacks far less likely to succeed. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/49 "2011-10-18T17:30:04Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And how does that differ from “watching the battle and sending your reinforcements where they are needed”? Same shit, different weaponry. It’s the difference between being a coach on the sideline and a quarterback out in the field. An ancient general like Alexander was a part of the battle he was directing in a way a modern general like Patton was not. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/50 "2011-10-18T18:42:51Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > You have forgotten the telegraph and also the minie ball with rifled muskets made frontal attacks far less likely to succeed. I’m not sure if he would have been able to deal with the increased range of the rifle, but Napoleon used frontal attacks because they were the most effective at that time and with that army, not because he was wedded to it. He grew up in the artillery, after all, and would likely have been able to make use of modern Civil War artillery just as good as the old style. That is, if he could keep them out of range of the riflemen. Plus with regards to telegraph, Napoleon had a semaphore telegraph that could send signals via sight from one end of Europe to the other in around a day. I’m not sure what an actual electrical telegraph could have bought him militarily. After the war it was almost completely dismantled not because it was obsolete but because it was too expensive. If there were a trans-continental European war before the electric telegraph I’m sure the signal telegraph would have been useful for war, which would justify its enormous expense and be almost as good at relaying far-flung information quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/51 "2011-10-18T19:18:34Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I’m not sure if he would have been able to deal with the increased range of the rifle, but Napoleon used frontal attacks because they were the most effective at that time and with that army, not because he was wedded to it. He grew up in the artillery, after all, and would likely have been able to make use of modern Civil War artillery just as good as the old style. That is, if he could keep them out of range of the riflemen. Napoleon would have had no problems figuring out Civil War era artillery. It was virtually the same equipment he was used to. The big change had been in infantry weapons. Infantry had mostly switched from muskets to rifles in the fifty year period between Napoleon and the American Civil War. Rifles had a much longer range than muskets. And this affected artillery - cannons could no longer set up and fire from outside of the range of effective infantry counterfire. Artillery was now vulnerable to infantry and this reduced the role of artillery in battles. Artillery would eventually regain its influence when indirect fire control was developed and ranges were extended to the point that artillery was off the battle field. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/52 "2011-10-18T23:33:09Z")
doesn’t the OP answer its own question? WW1 soldiers became good generals in WW2, and even threw in a few more good digs in later fights like korea, indochina, middle east. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/53 "2011-10-19T00:26:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s the difference between being a coach on the sideline and a quarterback out in the field. An ancient general like Alexander was a part of the battle he was directing in a way a modern general like Patton was not. But Alexander directed rather grand campaigns, too, and was damned good at it. I’m going to say yes, albeit with the caveat that our time-travelling general have some time to learn the language and train up. Nixon theorizes that successful (and unsuccessful) generalship is a product of specific personality traits, and that such traits will tend to always result in success or failure as the case may be. That isn’t to say they’re all the same kind of person - Shaka was a very different person than Ulysses S. Grant - but that certain traits will be found, or absent, in almost all great generals. It’s a convincing argument; if you read his descriptions of great generals and bad ones in “On The Psychology of Military Incompetence” it’s quickly apparent that the great leaders are remarkably similar in a lot of ways. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/54 "2011-10-19T01:07:03Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I’m going to say yes, albeit with the caveat that our time-travelling general have some time to learn the language and train up. Nixon theorizes that successful (and unsuccessful) generalship is a product of specific personality traits, and that such traits will tend to always result in success or failure as the case may be. That isn’t to say they’re all the same kind of person - Shaka was a very different person than Ulysses S. Grant - but that certain traits will be found, or absent, in almost all great generals. It’s a convincing argument; if you read his descriptions of great generals and bad ones in “On The Psychology of Military Incompetence” it’s quickly apparent that the great leaders are remarkably similar in a lot of ways. I agree there are certain constants of temperament. But I feel temperament alone isn’t enough to make a great commander. A great commander needs to know instinctively what his forces and the enemy forces are capable of doing and that can only be gained through experience. A general has to know how far arrows will fly in this type of weather and how many horses will shy off at the last second of a cavalry charge. He has to know how close a near miss from an artillery shell will disable to tank and whether an infantry battalion can conceal itself from a helicopter flying overhead. He needs to know a thousand little things like these and he needs to know them at a subconscious level so he can look at a complex shifting situation and decide in seconds whether or not something will work. And I don’t feel you can readily transfer that kind of knowledge across the centuries. If Hannibal and Rommel had swapped places it would have taken each of them years to catch up to where they other had been. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/55 "2011-10-19T02:17:02Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Napoleon would have had no problems figuring out Civil War era artillery. It was virtually the same equipment he was used to. > > The big change had been in infantry weapons. Infantry had mostly switched from muskets to rifles in the fifty year period between Napoleon and the American Civil War. Rifles had a much longer range than muskets. And this affected artillery - cannons could no longer set up and fire from outside of the range of effective infantry counterfire. Artillery was now vulnerable to infantry and this reduced the role of artillery in battles. > > Artillery would eventually regain its influence when indirect fire control was developed and ranges were extended to the point that artillery was off the battle field. But unlike generals from previous wars, our time traveling general would not have to “figure out” how to use new weapons and tactics the way the generals at the time of their invention would have to. They could read up on the history of the use of those weapons. I suppose much of it would have to do with how much training and preparation we want to let them have. Hannible might have some trouble though briefing his troops using Powerpoint. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/56 "2011-10-19T04:25:53Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I agree there are certain constants of temperament. But I feel temperament alone isn’t enough to make a great commander. A great commander needs to know instinctively what his forces and the enemy forces are capable of doing and that can only be gained through experience. Agreed. A great commander not only needs the temperament but he needs to understand what his adversary doesn’t. No matter how much you bring Shaka or Napoleon up to speed they won’t ever have an advantage over the faculties of an average modern commander. For instance a 16 year old Black Ops playing kid would be able to utilize drones better than Shaka. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/57 "2011-10-19T05:06:08Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > But unlike generals from previous wars, our time traveling general would not have to “figure out” how to use new weapons and tactics the way the generals at the time of their invention would have to. They could read up on the history of the use of those weapons. > > I suppose much of it would have to do with how much training and preparation we want to let them have. > Hannible might have some trouble though briefing his troops using Powerpoint. Interesting bit to notice is that Patton claimed to be a time traveler thanks to reincarnation. 🙂 Regardless of what he believed, he not only consulted the past for ideas, but did read the books of his contemporary opponents, I do think that Patton would do ok military as he prepared by checking how his contemporary enemies planned for war. Politically? His mouth would had cut his career short nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/58 "2011-10-19T05:30:09Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > According to Gwynn Dyer, in his book (and tv series) “War,” things changed utterly about the time of Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years War. > > Prior to that (according to Dyer, and I agree with this) pretty much any general could have led pretty much any army. Caesar and Alexander could have switched places. (Language issues aside.) > > But with the advent of modern, complex armies, and their specialized tactical (and logistical) requirements, a new kind of specialization arose. Put Caesar or Alexander in charge of, say, Cromwell’s army, or Napoleon’s, or Kitchener’s…and they wouldn’t be able to operate. > > I think, ever since that era – since 1650, say – there is a fairly narrow window of cross-expertise. U.S. Grant could probably have done okay with the Prussian or French armies of the Franco Prussian War, but he would have foundered in the Boer War or WWI. Napoleon, for his part, wouldn’t have been able to do anything with R.E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, but might have managed with the French army in the Crimean War. > > Is the window narrowing? Would a U.S. aircraft carrier admiral from 1980 be comfortable with aircraft carrier operations today? I’m guessing he’d catch up fairly quickly. Chester Nimitz wouldn’t. > > Trinopus (the previous opinions are not necessarily based on observations via the WABAC machine) I’m assuming we give the “military genius” use of his new army’s language and some time to study the new era, say a month. I am also assuming a battle, rather than a whole war. Modern warfare with all its diplomacy can be quite tricky. So to come to the conclusion I desire, it’s just battle. My first pick of generals of all time is Alexander. Second is Napoleon. Third is Julius Caesar. The point of genius is that it is highly adaptable. Any of these three had troops that would do anything for them, including making a suicidal charge, or digging entrenchments for 48 hours straight. They knew how to inspire, they knew how and when to apply force like knocking a roomful of dominoes over. I don’t see that with Gen. Petreaus. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/59 "2011-10-19T07:11:33Z")
i can’t provide a cite but a poll among several people of like mind came up with one person who got the most number of top-1 votes among the greatest commanders in history: Belisarius. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689/60 "2011-10-19T12:40:12Z")
I wonder how any general, even one from the WWII would fare today? I remember watching the D-Day Landings in **Saving Private Ryan** and I kept thinking that if a modern general sent troops into machine gun fire like that, he would be court mar tailed so fast his head would spin. There is little use for cannon-fodder in a modern western army. It is a rather different style of warfare today, where battles are conducted with drones and IEDs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-military-geniuses-of-the-past-do-well-today/599689.md?page=4)