"Alexander Overrated?" Topic

As a tourist he was first rate.

I don't know how you can get much better than to fight outnumbered and still win all your battles

Was he really outnumbered?

He won an awful lot of battles under all sorts of conditions and marched a very long way across much of the Near East and kept his army intact and unbeaten for a long time, so it's hard for me to accuse him of being "overrated."

Not overrated by anyone who faced him on the field, I would guess.

Who else has a comparable record among pre-gunpowder generals? Tamerlane, Genghis Khan maybe?

I'd argue that it was Phillip that created his success and gave and showed him all the tools necessary for conquest. Plus he peaked at the right time and was lucky.

It was his army that won the battles. His strategy and tactics don't appear to anything out of the ordinary but he had a great professional army.

that's like saying I made the gun that made you a crack shot, Philip created the army, Alexander tweaked it and learned how to use it and conquered the known world, he fought all types of enemies in diverse terrain and won, remember the ancients the guys who fought him and lived in his empire and the cities he founded called him great, you cant get closer to the truth than that all the second guessing and rewriting history which is a pastime these days to justify our current thoughts and aspirations wont change the fact he was a great general and if he hadn't had his life cut short who knows where and what he would have done, perhaps our capital might have been not London but Alexandria and New York – New Alexandria

1ngram,your wrong it was his tactics, his valour and the discipline of his army that won, but most of all his tactics

Phillip innovated the tactics and built the army. His system also trained Alexander and his companions to be it's officer corps in all respects from tactics to logistics. Alexander showed an incredible ability to motivate his men and to keep the war machine moving and fighting across vast distances. Strategically he kept his opponents off balance and frequently surprised them. He also had a good head for determining the key point in the battle and to make the key decision that would lead to victory.

I'm not sure what would have happened if he hadn't died. He had not shown any great ability to govern and I'm not sure he could have held his empire together in the long run. The mere fact that he did not have a succession plan and that the empire descended into war and chaos amongst his generals shows that the empire itself was not as much of a priority for him as his personal glory.

The Ancients universally agreed he was indeed "Great." That's good enough for me, and I'll take that over armchair second-guesses from two millennia later any time.

But even setting that aside, the OP's premise is simply incorrect. The Achaeminids were not merely a "first rate" power---they were the greatest empire in the world at the time.

And this idea that they "didn't want to fight on his absolute terms" is revisionist nonsense. They tried desperately to stop him, repeatedly raising huge armies that Alexander skillfully annihilated. They only surrendered when it was hopeless, and Darius had been murdered.

The fact that Porus maintained his independence in the face of vastly more powerful neighbors to the East speaks to his skill, and in no way detracts from Alexander's accomplishments.

Those accomplishments include winning every battle, despite being badly outnumbered every time. He twice succeeded in winning even when the enemy was holding a river against him…something that would be notable on its own, and is absolutely amazing considering that he was outnumbered, and facing determined opponents who were defending their homes.

Yes, he was great.

Not overrated.

Fun to see people ignoring Alexander marched his army right to India and back winning battles against everybody, sometimes badly outnumbered. They'll say all those huge numbers were low moral levies and that. Surely the sight of such a huge crowd was not imposing by itself, as these armchair experts seem to think. Surely it was much easy to maneuver your cavalry to charge at the right spot against a line much bigger. Surely it was no show of bravery to be at the front and (allegedly) put his life to risk while chasing the enemy CinC.

Surely these armchair experts would have done much a better work themselves. As long as their troops and their enemies are correctly based, of course.

I think Ivan has summed up my opinion pretty well. It's one thing training and fighting mainly in Greece. It's an entirely different thing taking that army and holding it together in battles all the way to India, never losing one battle.

If you are going to blame the general for the defeat, then you must praise the general for success.

My best guess is that we underestimate is "greatness".

Mike B

I like that he decided to take on the Persian Navy. Since he didn't have one himself, he took all the bases, including an island city.

He was great at Irish ascents.

all great men like napoleon are famous for more than destruction, I think it wasn't only elite who thought him great he was worshipped for centuries after his death, also there is ore and more evidence through graffiti, curses left at temples etc.to say a larger part of the Ancient world, at least in the civilised bit where literate, obviously us Brits where outside the civilised world, and looking at certain political leaders some still are

A truly great general but not a great project manager (as someone tried to portray him in a business meeting). As I told the presenter after the meeting a good project manager means the project will continue even if he is not there.

When he died, his Empire fell apart – two things there: he didn't build something permanent – but then time was against him – but also he was also able to control a load of generals who themselves later became Emperors – but none of them were up to the job of holding on to his empire.

His range of achievements has to be respected – no navy but defeated a naval power in a novel way; Philip didn't show him that one. Easy to say his tactics and army were put together by others; yes, but he was the one that knew how to use them to great effect. Lots of generals have lost good armies in the past…

The story I always liked was how he dealt with some mountain tribes. In a difficult position, he simply put on a show – he had hisarmy do a load of intricate drills in view of the tribes and then charged them…

'He therefore decided upon a singular method of attack. He drew up some of his infantry and cavalry in front of the settlement of Pelium itself to defend this maneuver from being attacked by a sortie from Cleitus.[4] He then drew up his phalanx, one hundred and twenty men deep[4] and started to drill his soldiers in the plain below the heights. Alexander marched them towards the heights where King Glaukus troops were stationed, who were watching his troops drill below them with surprise. Suddenly, Alexander drilled his phalanx into a wedge and charged them up the heights, forcing the shocked Illyrian troops to retreat.[4] During this engagement, not a single Macedonian armored soldier was killed.[5] However, deaths among light troops were usually not reported, and it is unknown whether any were killed in this instance.'

link

Read the article – shows quite a few examples of Alexander being an exceptional and innovative general.

If Alexander was not the greatest General of them all, then Ceasar, Pyrrus, Hannibal, were halfwits, Belisarius and Narses, also rans, Conde and Turenne over hyped nobodies, Marlborough a footnote, Maurice and Frederich dullards, Napoleon and Wellington useless and Patton, Guderian, Hoth, Montgomery and Slim not even worth mentioning.

Genghis khan was the only general to come close to his number of victories on the field.

Alexander was able to beat larger, faster armies with whatever he had on hand, which by the time he reached india, wasn't a lot.

I think the clue might be in his name. He wasn't called "Alexander the strategically ok" or "Alexander the mediocre" or even just "Alexander"

As a tourist he was first rate.

Oh, c'mon. He left his garbage everywhere! Some of it is still there!

Who else has a comparable record among pre-gunpowder generals? Tamerlane, Genghis Khan maybe?

And Hannibal.

The Ancients universally agreed he was indeed "Great."

I really doubt that. I mentioned Alexander the Great to a modern Persian once and was very pointedly told that they don't use the word "great" to describe him. I bet their ancestors didn't either. :-)

I wouldn't be the least surprised if the Phoenicians had other descriptions for him as well. Hard to tell since their writings didn't survive to the present day.

- Ix

Surely theres so much information lost , the recentish Yesterday channel documentaries about looking for the lost cities of Alexandria ( Alexandria on Oxxus etc ) in Bactria just illustrate the sheer amount of Lost knowledge . Of course we may one day find his tomb or a final resting place .

I really doubt that. I mentioned Alexander the Great to a modern Persian once and was very pointedly told that they don't use the word "great" to describe him. I bet their ancestors didn't either. :-)

That might well be true, but a modern Persian's opinion tells us nothing about what people thought over 2000 years ago. Find one ancient author who said Alexander was overrated…..

And Alexander was very clearly a successful ruler too. Yes, his empire broke up when he died without a viable heir. That's a common result in any pre-modern state, especially a far-flung empire assembled from disparate peoples.

Look at what he did achieve: even though he was off campaigning to the ends of the earth for years, Macedonia remained loyal and stable the entire time. More impressively, the Greeks behaved themselves as well.

Even as he was campaigning non-stop, Alexander was building for the future. The numerous Alexandria's weren't just an ego trip, they were strongholds to maintain his Empire. He made a sustained effort to integrate Persians into his army and political structure… so much so that it became a point of unrest among the Macedonians. This effort was obviously intended to ensure his empire did not rest on Macedonian foundations alone.

This is why he married a local, and made his officers do so too.

And Alexander's efforts in this regard did bear fruit: Seleukos remained married to his Persian wife, and established a dynasty that ruled the core of Alexander's empire for generations.

It has been awhile but I remember reading that his uncle (also named Alexander)had made the comment about The Great fighting women while he had to fight men. Uncle Alexander was facing off against Romans.

I echo Ivan DBA. Alexander was a builder as well as a destroyer. He also dealt successfully with all types of warfare; formal, naval, and, tellingly, guerrilla. No one deserves the title "Great' more than he.

"The mere fact that he did not have a succession plan…"

Well, he DID have a son. That's a plan.

Alexander the Great won battle after battle -- even when outnumbered, even in unfamiliar territory, deftly adapting to foes and weapons he had never encountered before. He maintained the cohesion of his army as it marched from Greece to India, through deserts and over mountains. Was he lucky? You can be lucky and brilliant. Should we exclude from greatness every leader who caught a lucky break, who came along at just the right time to shine?

And how about an ethos argument? Do you think Hannibal understood generalship? How about Julius Caesar? Because they both went on record saying that AtG was the greatest of all time.

Overrated compared to what or to whom?

Maybe he never faced a first-rate opponent, but he could only fight the enemies available at the time, and he beat all of them.

It's easy to assume the fall of Persia was inevitable because we know that it fell. But we don't know what its destiny was had Alexander not conquered it. It was perhaps past its peak but its characterisation as crumbling and ripe for conquest is arguably unfair.

Whether he could have held his empire together is likewise speculative. It is noteworthy though how little of his time he spent putting down revolts, as opposed to conquering new territory. As a conqueror he was undoubtedly first-rate. I think the common criticism of him as a poor governor is overplayed; he didn't show any exceptional competence, but nor did he show any major deficiency. His empire fell apart because he died without a clear successor – and that was something which at his age and in the absence of capable siblings he couldn't easily control, so it's hard to blame on him. Indeed, if he did name Perdiccas as regent, then the fault for the breakup of the empire surely largely lies with the diadochi and Perdiccas himself, rather than with Alexander. Perhaps the most apposite criticism is that he failed to put systems of government in place to compensate for the loss of his personal authority. But that's not a failure of generalship, and moreover could be levied at the majority of ancient emperors. Augustus was an exception, not the rule.

He undoubtedly wasn't a *perfect* leader, and he can't take sole credit for his accomplishments (Philip created the army he deployed) but he doesn't have to be perfect to be the greatest of all time.

Was he actually the GOAT? I think he's certainly in the front rank. The list of significant generals who never suffered defeat is pretty thin, and absent many great names. Cyrus, Hannibal, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Attila, Napoleon, none of them make the list. When set against the scale of Alexander's conquests, that looks even more impressive. Scipio was a great general, but his theatre was small. Who can compare on both measures? Sargon of Akkad, maybe, but we know so little about him it's hard to judge. Subotai is the other big figure, but being fair and levelling the same criticisms at him we do against Alexander – he didn't create his army, he arguably never faced a first-rate opponent, and, unlike Alexander, he wasn't the commander-in-chief. Chandragupta, maybe, but I must admit I don't know much about him, nor Shaka Zulu.

The only other name I'd throw in is Gustavus Adolphus, who can at least be credited with creating his own army. But the scale of his accomplishments, impressive as they were in context, pale in comparison to Alexander, and his empire faced similar problems following his unexpected death.

Even so, and putting those last couple through on the nod, that still puts Alexander in the top five to ten leaders in history. Hard to call anyone who lands in that class "overrated".

12 Jul 2016 3:24 p.m. PST

If Alexander was not the greatest General of them all, then Ceasar, Pyrrus, Hannibal, were halfwits, Belisarius and Narses, also rans, Conde and Turenne over hyped nobodies, Marlborough a footnote, Maurice and Frederich dullards, Napoleon and Wellington useless and Patton, Guderian, Hoth, Montgomery and Slim not even worth mentioning.

It is hard to argue with this assessment.

That might well be true, but a modern Persian's opinion tells us nothing about what people thought over 2000 years ago.

Maybe not, but I still don't buy the assertion that "the Ancients" UNIVERSALLY considered Alexander a great man. Since most of the history we've inherited is in Greek and Latin, it's unlikely we'll ever know what the locals of each conquered region thought of him at the time or in retrospect. Contemporary Persians most likely considered him an absolute disaster, not a great man, since he was a foreign military adventurer who unseated them from their rightful places of power and replaced them with squabbling Greeks.

Find one ancient author who said Alexander was overrated…

I would be surprised if any contemporary Middle Easterner thought Alexander wasn't the most competent general of his age.

- Ix

You want context of his reach and importance. The Afghan hill tribes are still awaiting the return of Iskander.

Now name me one other general who has beaten them?

At the time of his death he was coming west, Italy was probably next on his list. Now that is a great WHAT IF.

Oh that ones easy, Genghis Khan. But other rulers (and dynasties) have controlled Afghanistan for periods of hundreds of years.

I weep for there are no points left to make in this thread.

I'm not sure that an unbeaten record, sans context, is a reliable determinator of greatness. A boxer who wins a series of bouts against a long list of subpar opponents is a champion only by some legalistic metric. Had Alexander prevailed against, say, Hannibal, Chandragupta Maurya and Pachacuti Inca* seriatim he might have some claim to universal greatness. As it stands he's little more than a clever monomaniac riding a wave of his father's making across a shore littered with tiny kings.

An unbeaten record may not be enough to establish greatness firmly – which is also why I excluded some other unbeaten generals like Edward IV of England from my analysis.

However if we're searching for the greatest of all time, being undefeated is surely the sine qua non of qualification. Only in truly exceptional circumstances could defeat be excused, and of the great-but-defeated list, I'd only consider Hannibal eligible for such an exception. Thus the list we're looking at for comparisons with Alexander is already pretty short.

Whenever there is a figure widely recognised as great, people will line up to tear them down. Nobody's perfect, and that includes Alexander. But it's important to retain a sense of proportion and perspective. Alexander was a great general, undisputedly one of the greatest in recorded history. Everything else is quibbling.

The 'he didn't have high quality opponents' is rather irrevelvant in this discussion I feel. After all, very few of the great generals of history DID have great opponents to match wits with, and if they did live at the same time, they rarely got to blows with each other.

Hannible has been noted a few times here as one of the top generals of history, yet no mention has been made of his nemesis Scipio (one battle, Scipio wins). Julius Ceasar and Pompey were collegues, (Pompey is the one called 'the Great') and again, Ceasar wins.

The problem I'm having here, is that so few of the exceptional generals of history come up against 'great/genius/whatever you want to call it' generals, and therefore to try to deny Alexander on this ground seems silly.

I do not really study ancients (as may be obvious from the above) but the reason that Freddy of Prussia became 'the Great' (note: another warlike son who inherited a very good army from his father but then had to refine it to his own purposes) was the fact that he survived (with a little help from places like Hannover and Britain) against the combined might of Austria, Russia and France.

The 'beating/surviving' the hordes theory of greatness really shouldn't be dismissed so lightly as it seem to be….

Hannible has been noted a few times here as one of the top generals of history, yet no mention has been made of his nemesis Scipio (one battle, Scipio wins). Julius Ceasar and Pompey were collegues, (Pompey is the one called 'the Great') and again, Ceasar wins.

I did mention Scipio briefly above. But I agree in general.

The two 17th-century Frenchies who Rapier Miniatures mentioned above would probably have assembled considerably better records had they not spent much of their careers fighting each other, for instance. Again, in that instance, Turenne was marginally more successful overall in head-to-heads, but it's Condé who's "the great". Funny how that goes.

That 'flimgumbit' is because you are making the evidence fit your thesis, not allowing the thesis to be guided by the evidence. Tamerlane did not build an army, he used one already honed in existence very well (oooh shades of Alexander here), he reconquered a region already with ties for the previous several hundred years, being the second or third Steppes conqueror of the same region hardly makes you unique, and it all came apart on his death.

Yes he was one of the great generals of history, better or worse, that is a purely subjective decision. Different would be a better answer. Who would have won between them, my money is Alexander, why, because he beat a steppes based nomadic horse archer people.

So Alexander is for me the greatest. The next nine spots for the top 10, now that is a discussion.

Mine are:

Hannibal
Subedai
Ceaser
Marlborough
Turenne
Napoleon
De Saxe
Slim
Frederick

Which is precisely how Alexander (and Hannibal for that matter) won all their battles.

If it rests on the actions of a single battle rather than all of their campaigns, Marlborough for Ramilles, Napoleon at Austerlitz, Joffre at the Marne, Frederick at Leuthen, I could go on.

You are attempting to make a case by belittling the opposition rather than gathering facts in support of your personal (and I emphasise personal) choice.

Of course, we haven't decided/agreed on a definition of 'greatness', and this will vary from person to person.

Alexander certainly gets a lot of attention in the West, and undoubtedly excellent generals like Ghengis, Timur or Nobununga are frequently little known (to the point where I hope I spelt Nobunungas name right and he is the Japanese guy… like I said, this isn't my field).

Every education system is going to have bias in it, and at the moment, Alexander is the beneficiary of that bias in Europe, the US, and Oz.

That said, from the comments above, I think there are a number of things can look at: 1. He needs to have been mostly (preferrably always) the victor in his battles. 2. He is probably a conquorer. 3. He doesn't have to be, but it sure seems to help if he is also the head of state, or at least given unreserved support by the head of state.

On reflection, I suspect those 3 issues alone would be enough to bog any discussion of what is 'great' down in argument that we wouldn't get very far with whether Alexander is overrated or not…

For me, it is enough that the Harpers Encyclopedia of Military History (my go to book on things military that I don't know about) rates Alexander as number one.

@ Deuce, you're spot on with commenting on Conde and Turenne!

@ Rapier, love your inclusion of Slim in your top 10!

Thank you, Slim gets more interesting the more you learn. Not least the ability to handle the almost insanely polyglot nature of 14th Army, and its fighting record under him.

I am not disagreeing that Timur was one of the truly great generals, just that I personally think Alexander was better.

Alexander the great. Think he was the best if he had moved west doubt if Rome would have defeated him and who knows what history we would have had today.

I don't think he was overrated, but he did seem to be out of control towards the end?

Apart from the fact that the Persians brushed aside by Alexander were the world power of the time, hindsight may not be kind to them but they were the USA of their day.

He also (in harness with his father) conquered (united) Greece, something never done before, or arguably since.

Timurs achievements were great, but all those were powers in their decline, or just rising in the case of the Ottomans, hardly any of them at their peak.

You wish to extoll the virtues of Timur, do so without rubbishing the alternates as your methodology.

One may constantly debate the quality of Alexander's personality, and possibly his psychology…. but as for military accomplishments, few in history have done more in such a short time frame.

Alexander certainly had the best army of his time. Not only did Macedonians defeat Persians with large contingents of Greeks, but they also defeated Sparta. One can brush aside the numbers of Thebans that rose up against him, but not their fighting prowess-- they were defeated, and they had also been the hegemons.

A careful reading of the narrative does reveal that the Persians made some really bad mistakes, and generally squandered the usefulness of their Greek allies and mercenaries--- in almost every case.

For example there are a few what if's that often get overlooked by gamers … what if Darius had listened to his Greek mercenary commanders and send just the Greeks to defend the Jonah pass south of Issus. Have the fleet come up and bottle Alexander to the south.. and have Alexander have to cut through hoplites in the pass supported by armored cavalry along the plain-- if the Macedonians were able to push back the hoplites…. a plan that if gamed does not favor Alexander and the terrible strategic situation he got himself stuck in…. this could have been his demise…. so definitely in hindsight we can say the Persians really dropped the ball here.

But the taking of Tyre is a stand alone achievement which would be heralded as one of the great generalship moments-- if it wasn't so tucked in among so many achievements.

Alexander's defeat of Porus was probably the only battle that he actually outnumbered his opposition .. when you combine Craterus and his Indian allies into the mix.

Alexander's staff and subordinate generals were second to none, and proved that when on their own-- and when later on they fought each other. Napoleon was Napoleon-- but when he sent Ney on a simple mission to cover Berlin-- Ney would get the army beaten… Hannibal could not rely on his brothers and the other armies of Carthage were defeated piecemeal……

Having such a wealth of subordinates was very helpful to Alexander… and he had a hungry army-- they wanted to follow him… they would do things that Greeks hated-- like take up javelins and actually assault towns and cities, take the wounds and lose limbs and eyes…..till he marched them into the ground…

So it is very easy to a simple dismissal of his foes… who did Alexander and his army beat?? Well the answer is simple-- they beat everybody they encountered, even the Skythians…. the unbeatable ones…

Alexander's staff and subordinate generals were second to none, and proved that when on their own-- and when later on they fought each other. Napoleon was Napoleon-- but when he sent Ney on a simple mission to cover Berlin-- Ney would get the army beaten… Hannibal could not rely on his brothers and the other armies of Carthage were defeated piecemeal……

This is unfair to Napoleon's junior commanders in general. Some of them undoubtedly made mistakes, but some were very capable. At Jena, Davout saw off the main Prussian army with a single corps, a feat so unlikely Napoleon himself didn't believe it when first reported. Murat, Soult and Jourdan were no slouches; Lannes was a first-rate general and it's been said that Massena would be widely recognised as an all-time great if his career hadn't coincided with Napoleon's.

Rarely does a great commander command alone. Caesar had Antony, Hirtius and Labienus; Genghis Khan had his sons and the Four Dogs; most likely the only reason it appears Hannibal fought alone in Italy is paucity of surviving information.

Hannibal had tactical and, more arguably, operational flair. Strategically he was all at sea, and never in any position to actually defeat the Romans.

Overrated? By whom? It is difficult to overrate one of the best generals in Western history. He wasn't perfect, of course. His choice of the Gedrosian Desert to go back to Persia was a blunder. It could have meant to Alexander what Russia meant to Napoleon.

He also faced good generals. Not all his opponents were third rate, as some have argued. Porus or Memnom were more than a match for the Macedonian, and even so he managed to defeat them.

I agree that Alexander was overrated. Pretty crappy film if you ask me…

Alexander the Great was NOT over-rated. If the Persians were such poor fighters, why weren't they conquered by any of the Greek armies who campaigned in Anatolia over the 100 years or so before Alexander? Xenophon, a competent fellow, thought the Persians formidable.

Alexander was Great because he did something everyone else believed to be impossible, and did it almost flawlessly. The fact that the guy was a bloodthirsty bastard is another topic.