While I personally wouldn't rate him in the top 5 of all time I can understand why he gets the ratings he does.

For a start he did lead the French army from Egypt to Moscow and defeated anything and everything in his path against for the most part numerically superior enemies and in the end he was really only defeated by the Russian winter.

I also think he is one of the "romanticised" leaders much like Rommel, Custer etc. where their press lasted longer than their deeds.

Read up on this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustav_Fleischer

Napoleons Army got stuffed at Acre, and as Napoleon retreated back to Egypt he had all the wounded soldiers poisoned to stop them falling into enemy hands. The French Army was routed in Egypt by the British, yet he still claims it as a victory. The French still lost in Spain and Portugal, and in Moscow and at Waterloo, so how does that make him a great General. I think both Montgomery and Patton could have taken lessons from him on how to use the press.

I think you are being somewhat deceptive here as his army wasn't defeated in Egypt it was cut off by the Royal Navy and starved into submission and in Russia he defeated everything the Russians threw at him except the winter.

I would also not draw too much attention to Waterloo because had the Prussian's not shown up when they did he more than likely would have won that as well.

There is no doubt that Napoleon lost but I would happily put him in the same class as Wellington or Nelson and unlike the British Empire, French conquests were primarily against those with guns rather than sharpened sticks.

And for the record both Montgomery and Patton are examples of average Generals being made "great" by their own press.

Hi Monty

Now what about Napoleon getting defeated at Acre. When he attacked the fort there he got taken apart. Also there where a couple of large battles with the British in Egypt. this is where the Middlesex Regiment got nicknamed the die hards as over 600 men from that regiment who died there all suffered wounds th their front and not one was found with a wound in his back. Also I suppose that Spain and Portugal never happened

Originally Posted by LeEnfield

Hi Monty

Now what about Napoleon getting defeated at Acre. When he attacked the fort there he got taken apart. Also there where a couple of large battles with the British in Egypt. this is where the Middlesex Regiment got nicknamed the die hards as over 600 men from that regiment who died there all suffered wounds th their front and not one was found with a wound in his back. Also I suppose that Spain and Portugal never happened

I am not quite sure what the problem is here, France ruled Egypt from 1798 to 1801, its armies captured Moscow under Napoleon I am pretty sure he didn't lose every battle on the way there so like it or not he was a successful military commander.

Eventually he lost to the combined weight of the Allies but none of them alone managed to beat him (it would have been interesting to see how Waterloo would have gone without the Prussians) to a large degree he rates on a par with Adolf Hitler in that respect.

I think people need to remove emotion from the equation and accept that you can be a despotic madman and still have success on a battlefield.

Cyrus the Great

His empire spanned across three continents. Unlike many others, his empire endured long after his demise due to the political infrastructure he created.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I think you are being somewhat deceptive here as his army wasn't defeated in Egypt it was cut off by the Royal Navy and starved into submission and in Russia he defeated everything the Russians threw at him except the winter.

Oh, on behalf of all Cossacks I beg to differ. Our cavalry did much damage to the Frenchies.

Maybe so but he still made it to Moscow, the argument is not whether he won or lost battles, it is not whether he took casualties it is about whether he achieved his goals and what it took to defeat him and I think like it or not he was for the most part successful.

There are certainly contemporary commanders that were equally as good, Wellington and Nelson are examples of this but their success does not diminish his.

Originally Posted by MontyB

.

There is no doubt that Napoleon lost but I would happily put him in the same class as Wellington or Nelson and unlike the British Empire, French conquests were primarily against those with guns rather than sharpened sticks.

And for the record both Montgomery and Patton are examples of average Generals being made "great" by their own press.

Wot?? sharpened sticks?

France, Prussia, Spain and Europe generally?. America had mobile guns and sharpened horses, like the red coats; China had tricky stuff and big loud fireworks, Arabia and Africa had sticks sharpened at both ends and Omar Khyam and a lot of big slaves; Israel had Napoleon as a sponsor for a Jewish state and a good looking pretend atom bomb and too many scientists to shake a sharpened stick at. India had Ghandi, who refused to put his fists up, and Gunga Din, who couldn't be laid hands on because he was a better man than I am.
Iran, Iraq, and all lands from the Suez canal to the North-west frontier had very fast kites, very blunt knives for publically cutting off heads, and baggy trousers to make people laugh; Japan had fast kites also, and extremely long curved 'best in the world' blades with wonderful carved ivory or bone handles, intended to scare off the natives and anyone else you can mention. Borneo had extremely large pots simmering away at all times , in order to trap all wolves who chanced to threaten them and slide down their chimneys, and foreign politicians bent on making a big name for themselves by waging war whenever they thought Japan was all out of sharpened sticks, with which they were surprisingly adept.

No, no - What Britain had was a strong line in Churchill's, always waiting in the wings of glory with their walking sticks sharpened to a point; so whenever there was a point to be made.......get it? As Hitler reputedly never actually said - ' I never knew where it was coming from - but I sure as hell always knew where it was going'.


And of course, Britain had Wellington, for whom a strong case as 'most successful' can well be argued; sans hype, sans greasy pole climbing, sans sharpened stick.