"Generals of the blood - who is the best?" Topic

Something said on another thread, got me wondering, who is considered some the best generals who were born of Royal Blood? Some rules to make the conversation more interesting:

1) Let's not count the two most obvious choices: Alexander of Macedon & Gustavus Adolphus
2) Self made Royalty doesn't count (so no Napoleons)
3) Have to have been considered part of Royal Family at time (so no Robert the Bruces)

Fred the Great springs to mind.

Richard the Lionheart

Edwards One and Three. And the Black Prince.

Henry V, Edward IV, Prince Rupert, William of Orange.

The Duke of Berwick, James FitzJames, Marshal of France, natural son of James II, nephew of Marlborough.

Prince Eugene of Savoy.

Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

1) Prince Eugene of Savoy

2) Maurice de Saxe, though admittedly, he was "born on the wrong side of the blanket", as they said in the day. Nevertheless, Maurice's father recognized him.

Karl XII would be one of my pics

To counter Karl XII, I'll put up Peter the Great, who built his army from scratch (after the Karl destroyed the original), as well as a modern navy, and reformed his country's society, and also did the diplomatic work to build up an alliance against Sweden, and (the real kicker) won the war!

Shaka Zulu

Suleiman the Magnificent

Basil II, the Bulgar Slayer.

Grelber

I'll throw a monkey wrench into the works here. How about Archduke Charles, 1809 version? He was the only commander to defeat Napoleon, without relying on assistance from allies or the elements.

OK give me a minute or two to slip on my Kevlar underpants before you all open fire!

Actually von S, I was hoping someone would mention him

Well, Robert was crowned King well before Bannockburn. and he (or his father) was a candidate well before that. But I'm not sure I'd put him up with the greats.

I'm not overly fond of the third criterion. The first two sum up to "Inherited command of their military force." These two lead to a nature/nurture understanding of command.

F'r'ex, AoM was genetically related to Phillip II, so there are aspects of his ability to command related to that. Ge also grew up, nearly every day, observing then later assisting in the strategic military operations of his father. This can be contrasted with someone who had the genetics, but not the experience or the other way around (such as (royal lineage through marriage relations). You could even compare to self=made royalty.

The third criterion is an arbitrary political designation and often a function of post-hoc designation (e.g., the usurper to the throne is the one who didn't end up winning). This doesn't really lead to any interesting discussion of command that isn't already inherent in the other two.

To the OP ¡­

áá°×ºÓÌì»Ê – Go-Shirakawa-tenn¨­

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Jan III Sobieski of Poland

My first thought was also Archduke Charles, but then I know little about Napoleonics.
Why duck and cover?

Thutmose III, built Egypt into a major power.

Frederick the Great, Crown Prince Albert of Saxony (1866 and 1870-71), Crown Prince Frederick-William of Prussia (1866 and 1870-71), Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia (1866 and 1870-71).

Well Winston a goodly number of the lads out there are subjects of the Queen and many are quite fond of The Duke of Wellington and think that he was the only one who ever defeated Napoleon. I was just shaking the bushes out there to see if I could flush any stout Anglophiles

I think you are fairly safe there, von Schwartz.

Welly was not 'of the blood', and is therefore not eligible for this thread….

Oh… yeah…right, good point he was royalty though, I mean a Duke is royalty, right?

Bloody colonials…no idea….

Well, after all we DID fight a war to rid ourselves of that sort of thing…right?

Things get a bit foggy with the passage of time.