10 greatest military commanders of all time

freerepulic ^ | August 31, 2002 | zapiks44

[kalee]

Sorry didn’t check the date of the thread. Blush

[j_tull]

"I'm going to throw in my vote for George Washington."

Seconded.

[Stonewall Jackson]

Talk about the thread that will not die. ;-)

One of my personal favorites is Arminius, the Germanic warlord who crushed the Roman forces under Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

Trained by the Romans, Arminius turned against them and led ten to fifteen thousand Germanic tribesmen against a force of twenty to twenty-five thousand Romans (three legions, three alae, and six auxiliary cohorts). Only two to three thousand Roman troops escaped the slaughter, with nearly every senior officer either being killed in action or committing suicide to restore their honor. The three legions, the 17th, 18th, and 19th, were never restored, a rare occurrence in the Roman Army.